Blending animations for more character movements

Question

I am making a hack n slash 3rd person game, and I want the character movements to be more dynamic not like fighting games where you have a moves list.

I want to animate tons of different animations and have them "Tween" between each other.

I do not want the to use the mouse for controls, I want it to be all keyboard, that way you have up to 10 inputs (All your fingers) to blend and morph animations to create more fluid movements. In the end this will almost be similar to characters typing a phrase or string of keys rather than move forward mouse look click to melee.

My questions are:

• Has anyone done this before?
• How would someone go about trying to tween?

lets say one for key on the keyboard excluding Tab, Caps, R+Shift, L+Shift, Enter, R+Ctrl, L+Ctrl, L+Alt, R+Alt, Windows Key, and Menu.

So thats all the numbers, letters and punctuation keys. Thats 46 keys gives me a combination of 46P1 = 5502622159812088949850305428800254892961651752960000000000L (used Python), and with a minimum entry value of 2 keypresses shortening to half. This is not humanly possible to create so many inique animations in one lifetime. But I'm guessing there is a reason this hasn't been done already.

Or if I just used 10 basic keys. Maybe ASDF SPACE (RIGHT HAND) 456+0 (LEFT HAND KEYPAD) it would give me 3,628,800 posible unique animations.

Answer 1

That type of control scheme is totally useless as you will overload the players with information and at least the reaction time will suffer considerably,that is why mouse is preferable since a lot of variation can be made

If you want variety in animation you don't need convoluted controls schemes, you can use either procedural animations and/or blend multiple animations togheter

Answer 2

Well... the reason there's a moves list is because each "attack" has to do SOMETHING. Limiting the options does limit the gameplay but it also limits players from being overwhelmed and it limits the chances of something obscenely overpowered sneaking in.

If the "something" for the attack is, for example, a slash attack but one varies one degree from another then you're likely better off with a different interface, maybe like an aiming icon that's mouse based but changes the angle of attack and one or two buttons for the slash. That gives you simplicity but also variety.

Anywho, as far as the animations go then I would suggest having a discreet set of starting points or stances for the animations. Each animation that you want to form for the attack would then only have to start from those discreet start points, and to tween between animations then you would just, at worst, have to tween between the start points. It's not quite the same pie-in-the-sky type of animation that you sound like you're describing, but it's vastly more feasible to do.

Answer 3

The closest thing I can think of to what you are talking about is Die by the Sword. It was a hack'n'slash that didn't have any fixed moves. Instead you used either the numberpad or the mouse to directly control the weapon arm. The end result was frankly a bit difficult to control, but did have the occasional moments of brilliance particularly in multiplayer.

The biggest problem here is in getting players to make the mental translation between input and what's occurring on screen. Things like the WiiMote, Move, and Kinect can shorten that mental gap between what the player and avatar are doing. Although any block attacks will continue to create a disconnect.

In the more experimental spaces, other games that play with direct control of limbs as opposed to pre-recorded movements include QWOP and Toribash