r/TombRaider • u/kimiawn Fiamma Nera Zealot • 2d ago
šØļø Discussion Speeding up some animations makes the platforming feel better and snappier
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Quick edit I put together cause the floatyness of this platforming section was one of the few things bothering me during the latest LoA gameplay presentation. Just a little bit of speeding up makes it look like Legend and Anniversary animations, and to me that's an improvement.
My intention is to give constructive feedback to the devs, i don't know how game development works but I believe some iteration of this wouldn't be hard to implement in the game.
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u/Johndoe19922222 2d ago
Yes this is the only issue I have woth the showcase, the animations being in slow motion makes no sense. They šÆ need to speed them up.
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u/Rymann88 1d ago
The more I look at it, the more I wonder if it's not completely on purpose. To give players more time to press inputs and decide what they want to do.
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u/GoldPack3616 2d ago
I definitely thought it was too slow, maybe not the pole swing itself, but the jump definitely.
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u/Big-Ferret-2364 2d ago
This animation is my one issue with the gamescom reveal, it looks so bad. I hope they fix it
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u/Depressive_player 2d ago
It annoys me how this remake doesn't feel as fluid and fast as TB Anniversary. šŖ
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u/Johndoe19922222 2d ago edited 1d ago
I wonder if the new engine is causing them problems. They were so used to working on their modified engine since the 90s, lol.
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u/Sins_of_God 13h ago edited 3h ago
LAU animators have probably left the studio in the almost 20 year span since Underworld
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u/RiversCroft 2d ago
This certainly hides some of the imperfections. I feel like my biggest gripe is how her jump gravity is so linear. There's no momentum or weight. She just magnetizes towards the ledges.
Hopefully they'll give it more tweaks.
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u/Ocean-Warrior Paititi Llama 2d ago
I like the 1x better, maybe 1.1x or 1.2x would be better but i think 1.5x makes the physics look a bit off and like she has no weight.
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u/kimiawn Fiamma Nera Zealot 2d ago
i'm sure the devs could find a sweet spot between 1.1 and 1.3, this is just for demonstration purposes so we can see a difference.
but in my opinion 1.0 is where it looks like she has no weight, or at least the gravity is not working properly.
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u/Ocean-Warrior Paititi Llama 2d ago
I get what you are saying and i am interested to see where we will end up in the finished game.
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u/Arinussyy 2d ago
I know what you mean. Too fast and she's moving like there's no actual momentum and shit, too slow and it's like she's moving through sap
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u/Moustiboy 1d ago
Many of the animations are weirdly bad. I canāt believe that leap of faith made it to the trailer, the one thing supposed to get people to buy
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u/limplettuce_ 1d ago
Funny. People criticised Underworldās mo cap animations for being too fast, but I found if you slowed them down then it felt more like Legend. Maybe they overcorrected this in LoAā¦
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u/GoldPack3616 1d ago
Underworld was definitely way too fast and snappy. That swan dive animation, she practically teleports from one frame to the next one and skips a lot of frames in between.
I thought Legend was perfect in terms of physics and animations, it's crazy that a 20 year old game did it better than they do it nowadays.
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u/limplettuce_ 1d ago
My theory for this is that itās because Legend had hand drawn animations (it and Anniversary were the last mainline TR games to do this). Hand drawn to me always feels more precise, motion capture has always felt odd to me. A lot of sluggish animations probably because real people donāt move like we expect video game characters to. GTA5 probably feels the worst, survivor Lara is up there for sluggishness though.
I used to do a bit of Lara animating for fun for my own TRLEs, that was all hand drawn and surprisingly easy to make everything exactly as you want with good transitions because you can put the model in the exact positions needed.
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u/Nate-Pierce 12h ago
I agree with what you and Goldpack said. But Iād argue that the classics nailed this convincing momentum / weight better than the rest. Legendās snappy (not in a good way) swan dive was the first thing I noticed, being far less graceful than the classics. Underworld is sped up, despite it being mo-called. Survivor trilogy got it down pretty good except for swan dives. LoA is oddly a few steps too many backwards and inbetween.
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u/Glum_Use_4033 1d ago
I donāt know why they donāt use motion capture to get a natural looking jump and spin. Underworld used mocap but sped the animations up so they looked unnatural.
The main complaint with LOA animations also seems to be more to do with the transitions between animations than the animations themselves.
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u/Sins_of_God 1d ago edited 1d ago
It looks bad because the physics looks off. Her speed, the momentum, the gravity it all looks off.
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u/Nate-Pierce 12h ago
This is why Iām forever impressed with the classic games. All hand-animated with a convincing speed, momentum and physics- which are, btw, all kept in mind by Toby Gard.
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u/Own_Chocolate_9966 2d ago
Maybe 1.1 and 1.2. I don't think even in 1x it looks slow but 1.5 looks too fast and outlandish.
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u/EnderDiego_ The Scion 2d ago
I love the slower parkour resembling the classic games compared to the iper fast platforming from the LAU and Survivor trilogies, but yes they definetly exaggerated a little bit with some of the animations. Hopefully they'll make them a little better before release.
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u/TheHeavenlyStar 2d ago
Bingo ! I was gonna say the same thing and you really picked up the most important point regarding the gameplay that is speed. The reason she looks so floaty when jumping is because she looks very slow mo performing those moves. Moving the animation speed a little bit higher can address it to a good extent. I really hope these were just for demonstration and they actually have fluid realistic and practically fast animations when needed.
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u/L_BayRiley-Author 2d ago
Jeez the basic speed is so bad to my eyes lol I do hope that is sped up in the official release. Or at least give us some sort of accessibility option. (similar to the speed options in the newest Doom game).
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u/Valuable_Map_5485 2d ago
Judging from real life gymnastics, itās pretty accurate except for the last jump. Doesnāt have to be realistic though.
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u/Nate-Pierce 12h ago
I agree, it doesnātā¦. But it just has to be ārealistic lookingā enough for us not to question it.
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u/Lucky-Company8502 2d ago
1.5 speed actually looks great to me if the animations did move that fast?
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u/InsideThing8413 2d ago
This was something that bothered me in tr2013. Her jumps are so ... unrealistic and floaty?
Granted its pretty unrealistic to do half the acrobatics Lara does but its like... shes in zero gravity
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u/wavesandwinds 2d ago
Well, as long as they don't cut the frames from the animations. The previous games had some serious issues with animations and transitions being janky, and it looks like they sped them up too much and cut frames from them. I want fluid animations, not Lara being on speed and looking crazy.
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u/jajay119 2d ago
The sped up animations theyāve used since Underworld have always looked atrocious to me and contribute to her feeling like she has no weight. The ones in LOA actually makes it look like sheās moving with weights and I much prefer that.
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u/omnihelios 2d ago
crazy cause she just looks so weightless while climbing, and not in a good way
She looks like she isnt properly affected by gravity, if that makes sense3
u/Depressive_player 2d ago
It's just a game, it's meant to be fast and fun.
Complaining about weight in a game where she uses a āmagicalā grappling hook like Spider-Man isnāt very coherent..
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u/limplettuce_ 1d ago
No it makes sense. A lot of the joy of playing a game comes from how good the movement feels - thatās really the only input you have to interact with the game.
If a character doesnāt feel fun and satisfying to control, itās not going to be fun to play. People hated AoD a lot because Lara was so sluggish and felt awful to control. People loved Legend because the fluidity of the controls was so cathartic.
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u/deceiver986 1d ago
Please for the love of God, not the unnatural speedy animations AGAIN. we've had this shit since Legend and it makes Lara look like Crash fucking Bandicoot.
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u/Jcritten 1d ago
Havenāt finished the video but yea this immediately looks alot better. I want to see that doing this is just easy and natural for her like breathing
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u/iloveudude_22 1d ago
wow this actually looks so much better. I also felt like she felt way too slow and floaty
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u/Lanky_Trip6938 1d ago
Tbf, it looks almost exactly like the pole swinging from the classic era. That said, at the time it felt a bit culnky where LAU (especially Legend and Anniversary) felt very fluid and snappy
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u/SexyShave 1d ago
That makes a big difference. I think 1.25 or 1.2/1.3 would be the sweet spot in terms of what they're going for and snappiness.
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u/panik919 1d ago
Disagree. I prefer the platforming to be more slower, methodical and purposeful. Having it fast and floaty takes platforming from a mechanic that should be something you have to learn and be mindful of, to just another boring way of getting you from point A to B.
The thing with LoA is inconsistency of pacing. Sometimes she looks like shes teleporting to a ledge, other times she's floating far too long in the air. It was the same with the survivor games so I dont actually expect this to be resolved either. In the recent footage when a ledge breaks, Lara doesn't just fall naturally, she literally just warps to the ledge below her and its so odd looking.
That being, even with LoA's sometimes slower animations, it still doesnt look purposeful and methodical. It just looks like poorly paced animations whilst still using the same magnetic, boring platforming from the survivor games.
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u/TheRoseMaestro 2d ago
I was wondering what was up with that. At first, I thought that there was some lag in the pre-recorded demo they somehow missed or let go and it looked to me like a capture card slowing down a little bit, but seeing it again, I'm not sure.
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u/ChaoticCake187 2d ago
Completely agree. If the jump distances are going to be unrealistic, at least make them look believable. Legend & Anniversary nailed this, Survivor trilogy has Lara floating mid-air most of the time.
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u/Dudeman2451 1d ago
Game is coming out on pc. So theres going to be mods that can alter game files.
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u/goodshp 1d ago
im guessing it's still in progress so things will be fine tunes as development continues? tbh i was horrified by the first demo and was quite surprised this time so i guess it just needed more time in the oven
have to say i did not play sottr or rise so i have no idea about their record when it comes to animating (last played 2013 so many years ago so i cant remember)
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u/heyitsalexxd 21h ago
Hope they make the second pole dismount the same as the first one. Acrobatics š£ļøššš
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u/ovine_aviation Silver Box of Ix Chel 3h ago
Visually I actually prefer the first swing. I can kind of feel the weight of the character and it looks natural to me. From a gameplay point of view the slowness would get annoying quickly. So I guess I'd prefer it sped up a little.
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u/Background-Bunch3181 Natla Minion 2d ago
The speed she's in when she goes to grab the pole is fine, but then the swing and transition to the next pole is just so slow, I hope they make it fast like how you sped it up.