If CLANG stood for something ridiculous then I'd be in.
Clean licked armor. 'N gore.
Neal Stephenson wants to revolutionize sword fighting video games
31–40 of 188 posts
Re: Neal Stephenson wants to revolutionize sword fighting video games
#32I don't mind putting a bit of cash towards projects where those involved really don't have the resources to pull it off otherwise, but does Neal Stephenson really not have enough cash to bootstrap this himself?
Kickstarter is being used a lot for preorders rather than fundraising. There are a lot of obvious reasons someone might want to do this despite technically not needing financing.
Re: Neal Stephenson wants to revolutionize sword fighting video games
#33Biggest problem with these games (I've found, anyway) is that your sword controller cannot magically stop in mid air when your virtual sword hits another sword or a wall or whatever. It really ruins the immersion.
Yep, that and the controller has no weight. To make a realistic game you would then need to make the character have a max swing agility (slow than the player) and also give the character a stamina bar. Anyway that's not to say you can't have fun sword fighting motion games. It just means you can't approximate reality 1:1 in all dimensions. But you can still approximate reality if you just accept the control dimension…
Swords are a lot lighter than people think, even the heaviest armor in use (completely different from the ceremonial stuff) was much less restrictive than usually believed, and the average video gamer is significantly less fit than the average medieval soldier. I suspect that if you used a wiimote or a kinect-tracked stick things would all balance out. It would still require some abstraction, true, but not quite that much.
[1] European longswords weigh 1.5 kg on average: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longsword
[2] Guy doing gymnastics in armor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm11yAXeegg
Re: Neal Stephenson wants to revolutionize sword fighting video games
#34Biggest problem with these games (I've found, anyway) is that your sword controller cannot magically stop in mid air when your virtual sword hits another sword or a wall or whatever. It really ruins the immersion.
It will also have to drastically downplay the importance of footwork. In a real swordfight, where to put your feet is nearly as important as where to put the sword.
Or you can use Kinect or Wii controllers on each limb like this guys do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erMi8kxYFIE
Re: Neal Stephenson wants to revolutionize sword fighting video games
#35Biggest problem with these games (I've found, anyway) is that your sword controller cannot magically stop in mid air when your virtual sword hits another sword or a wall or whatever. It really ruins the immersion.
I wonder if it is possible in some way with gyroscopes. Not going all the time, but spun up quickly, to provide counter resistance for a specific direction of rotation. You could spin up two, in opposite directions, to counter the torque from acceleration. Difficult to spin them up fast enough, but perhaps just the sensation of some resistance would be enough feedback.
Re: Neal Stephenson wants to revolutionize sword fighting video games
#36Biggest problem with these games (I've found, anyway) is that your sword controller cannot magically stop in mid air when your virtual sword hits another sword or a wall or whatever. It really ruins the immersion.
Non-physics geek here. Would it be possible to embed some gyroscopes on servos or something so that the game engine can deflect the controller? It wouldn't be ideal but it could provide some directional feedback.
Re: Neal Stephenson wants to revolutionize sword fighting video games
#37Biggest problem with these games (I've found, anyway) is that your sword controller cannot magically stop in mid air when your virtual sword hits another sword or a wall or whatever. It really ruins the immersion.
It will also have to drastically downplay the importance of footwork. In a real swordfight, where to put your feet is nearly as important as where to put the sword.
This.
I took a not-for-credit intramural fencing and kendo classes back in college, and 3/4's of both classes was about learning footwork and movement.
Sword fighting also generally comes down to a few seconds of motion and whoever judged their opponents movements better. Neither of these would be present in a game that wasn't full motion capture.
Re: Neal Stephenson wants to revolutionize sword fighting video games
#38Biggest problem with these games (I've found, anyway) is that your sword controller cannot magically stop in mid air when your virtual sword hits another sword or a wall or whatever. It really ruins the immersion.
I wonder if it is possible in some way with gyroscopes. Not going all the time, but spun up quickly, to provide counter resistance for a specific direction of rotation. You could spin up two, in opposite directions, to counter the torque from acceleration. Difficult to spin them up fast enough, but perhaps just the sensation of some resistance would be enough feedback.
This only helps with angular momentum, not with linear momentum.
Re: Neal Stephenson wants to revolutionize sword fighting video games
#39Real swordfighting is not about the sword, it's about the footwork. Just physically do not be where the opponent's sword is heading. See: relatively little blade contact in extremely high level fencing.
Fencing raises another good point: realistic swordfighting is actually pretty boring compared to movie swordfighting. (If it weren't, then movie swordfighting wouldn't need to be so unrealistic). If I'm gonna play a swordfighting video game I wanna be Errol Flynn, not Benjamin Kleibrink. [Who? 2008 Olympic foil champion. Yes, I had to look that up, that's the point.]
Boring? I think you mean "not visually appealing". Sword fighting is not boring. There wouldn't be so many people doing it a hobby otherwise.
Re: Neal Stephenson wants to revolutionize sword fighting video games
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, that and the controller has no weight. To make a realistic game you would then need to make the character have a max swing agility (slow than the player) and also give the character a stamina bar. Anyway that's not to say you can't have fun sword fighting motion games. It just means you can't approximate reality 1:1 in all dimensions. But you can still approximate reality if you just accept the control dimension…
Swords are a lot lighter than people think, even the heaviest armor in use (completely different from the ceremonial stuff) was much less restrictive than usually believed, and the average video gamer is significantly less fit than the average medieval soldier. I suspect that if you used a wiimote or a kinect-tracked stick things would all balance out. It would still require some abstraction, true, but not quite that…
> the average video gamer is significantly less fit than the average medieval soldier.
I am curious if this is just speculation or if you have evidence for this statement? At first it seems reasonable but I am not so confident after you factor in modern medicine and advances in nutrition/diet and discount for stereotyping.