Live Forum Q&A - Animation!

[Krux1]

will there be animations related to the concepts you guys have shown? (like the security guard chasing a vandalizing kid, or the reactions to mascots and mascots taking photos with the guests) or other animations similar to make the park feel more alive and less static?

also this might be for you guys....are you planning to add a controllable first person guest/owner that allows us to walk around the park (or others parks) ourselves? (i feel dropping you down as the owner would make sense as you could walk past all the people in the queue lines)

not sure if this is for you....will clipping eventually happen with the guests and scenery? or invisible clip boxes? (so if scenery is placed on paths, the guests dont walk through it)

final question, and its a sketchy one.....will there be deaths? or animated disasters?

 

[Stream]

Have you guys thought about the ability to put fences along the path? Like an option to toggle fences on or off on the side of your whole path as opposed to dropping one piece down at a time. Alternatively having the ability to click and drag out a fence that automatically snaps to the edge of your path. I think that would be very useful!

What about an ability to hold a key and make your path follow along to wherever your mouse cursor is (the way roads behave in Cities: Skyline for instance)? I'm only talking about having it as an option by holding down the CTRL key for instance.

I think you guys briefly mentioned that you're looking into plazas in the stream, but maybe talk a bit more about how you plan on integrating it?

And lastly, will everything you show in these stream be included in alpha 2? The stairs, the z-angle-snapping, the natural paths, guest reactions, etc?

Thanks for another great stream!

 

[EndDays]

My question is: Could you talk about how animation affects game performance and what compromises or considerations are involved in your process related to animation. How much does each animation add to CPU or memory requirements? Does your team feel limited in what can be done just based on game performance budgets?

 

[EndDays]

Currently, guests are always in motion. I'm sure benches will come for guests to stop and take a rest, but what about animations of guests just standing around? Maybe they're waiting for someone from their group, maybe they're trying to decide what to do next (or get out a park map to decide), maybe they just want to stop and admire the park?

Sorry to the poster who really wants cash registers at the end of the queue. I don't think this is realistic at any modern park and would really slow down the ride queue to have to actually take money right before entering the ride. However, I do notice that there is a soft sound every time a guests goes through the ticket booth at the beginning of the queue. Perhaps we can get an animation of the guests scanning a "Magic Band" they wear (like at Disney) that could be used in place of tickets if a park charges per ride?

Also, any chance we will get animations of kids just playing and goofing off? Would love to see water "splash zone" play areas where the kids run through the water that squirts up out of the ground!

 

[pakos3]

Can we see:

1 Guest make a photos?
2 stands and watches attractions?
3 Guest create a video blog /or snapchat?
4 interaction witch elements of the park and decoration?

 

[Aaronroberts12567]

Will we get realistic stations? Not like in RCT3 where there was 1 gate with people entering but more like those :

http://media.nu.nl/m/m1ezqqhaal46.jpg

In one of the images (again in that link I showed you before ;0) it shows coaster stations with gates




My Question:
The animations for the people dancing looked great when going past the band (though I did notice on one shot the band wasn't moving)
Will we also get grumpy teens going past it looking angry or annoyed at it?

Also loving the fact that guests are reacting to rides, but I think a simple animation of them pointing at the ride/s would be cool, or them standing with their hands on their cheeks, slightly bouncing up and down with excitement ;0

 

[Minnion]

Any other themes you are going to reveal to us?

 

[Aaronroberts12567]

@Vampiro I was incorrect, it was actually in their 2nd Dev Blog.

 

[widlanquebec]

First, I would like to say that the animations really bring park to life and are incredible...

Now, about some questions I've:

- Will there be seasons in the game and related animation (for example guests running to hide under roof when it's raining)?

- How will you improve guests animations when they entering and leaving rides?

- The peeps are often in bunch and very close to each other, do you improve it in alpha2?

- Will we see animation of guests with mascotts, with employees (for example, guests asking for a specific location to an employee, etc.)?

- Is some people will try to pass in front of other guest in waiting lines?

- Will you add some events and funny stuff like people taking photos, like the security guard running after people like the video you showed us before?

- Will we see children crying, running away from parents, etc.?

Thanks for the feedback. [up]

 

[jrose323]

Love the animations so far. I certainly agree it significantly brings the park to life.

Some questions Im looking for (Some are repeats from others)

-Boarding and Unloading of rides/coasters (No teleporting). Under the boarding piece, will riders board a ferris wheel car by car as it spins instead of teleporting to the other cars as well.

-Coaster Station animations: Will row gates be implemented and will riders be guided to each row to wait for the coaster train with those row gates opening and closing. In addition, Will a ride attendant be placed at the main turn style to guide riders to the appropriate row to wait at

-In the paths live video, stairs were shown. While the video was short, the peeps going up and down the stairs did not seem realistic or fluent. They were skipping stairs, not appearing to step up and down, nor did I notice any railing holding. Will this be improved on?

 

[marc73]

I have asked this multiple times... Has any thought been given to having games for the guests to play? Games like ring toss, basketball shoot, the squirt gun games, pop the balloon.
Games that guest can play and win a stuffed animal or something. You set the prices, you adjust the frequency of wins per number of guests played. (i.e. 1 out of 5 guests wins) As someone who loves amusement parks, this is always a fun thing to do at the parks I attend. Please give this some consideration. It helps complete an already awesome gaming experience. [yesnod]

 

[Zombie Man]

We see that some animations are triggered by proximity, e.g., guests dancing when near music.

Will we be able to create those triggers ourselves? For example, if we build our own stage and dance party, can we designate that zone as a dancing zone? Or if we create a scary effect, can we designate that zone as a 'fear reaction' with guests being startled, shaking, or trying to get away?

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

What is the possibility of adding our own animated 2D videos, like a GIF file?

We could use that to populate the walls of a dark ride, or make that the 'screen' of a stage show, or put it over building walls for a nighttime projection show.

 

[Evolution]

Nice stream! Very excited at what I've seen so far with pathing and animations/Interactions of the peeps. Especially me hearing of a possible appearance of Gulpee Rex ingame for Alpha 2! [squeeeeee][up]

 

[Brett C]

What has been the most difficult animation to create thus far in the game? [squeeeeee]

 

[Periocus]

First of all thank you for giving an insight in demographic behaviour of the guests and that you are looking and thinking about the balance between those extremes.
Actually i love watching the guests and what they are doing, where they are going. Because in order to get the most amusement to them (or the most money out of them) i have to look how to create my park, place my shops etc.

And with "shops" i have another question. Will we see shops in Alpha 2 or is there a plan when to open this tab?

 

[Periocus]

As there is the animation team tonight i would like to ad another question, but i am not sure if it is more a design thing.
The sunrise and the sundown.
How did this idea develop to make it like it is?

 

[Flupperz]

I wanted to preference by saying I really enjoy the mixture of cartoony animations with life like animations currently in the game. There were a few things that I wanted to ask about that some others had previously mentioned and I had a few questions of my own.

What others asked already

• The ability for guests to be able to stop:

To expand on this slightly. I was curious as to if the guests would be able to stop for instance to look at the passing coaster near the edge of the path. This kinda ties into the varied levels of excitement from guests seeing rides. I know more often than not, when I'm at a park I'll stop and watch a ride go by for awhile to see if I actually like it.​

• Varied levels of the excitement from seeing coasters:

As I mentioned previously, having different levels of excitement from guests viewing a coaster would add that extra level of immersion to the game. I understand that the animations showed today were somewhat recent and there is more work planned for them. It would be nice to see people just turn their heads as it goes by to watch it or see it and talk to their friends about it.​

• Interactable items throughout the park:

I don't know if the animation team is the right team for this but I saw it mentioned a few times in this thread so I wanted to expand on it slightly. Having interactive boardwalk games/arcades or just some of those water guns by water rides would be nice to see in the game.​

• Ride entrance and exit animations:

As someone else already mentioned, the entrance and exit animations of the people leaving the queue to the ride and leaving the ride back to the normal path feel slightly out of place. It feels as if they go from the organic water like simulation to a get to this point the fastest as possible and then back again. It also goes with the Ferris Wheel and other rides that have elevated cars the people just teleport up to them.​

Questions I might have missed but are some of my own

• Guests staying with groups on rides:

With the ride animations, are there plans to simulate the actual people staying with their group when they board the ride. In the current state, say a group of four gets on a ride, they all just run to random locations and don't try to stick together. They eventually meet back up after the ride, but during the ride they're by completely random people.​

• Timed animations:

Are there any plans currently to have animations be timed off a timer or if something was to pass over a given location. Take for instance having the Kraken pop-up as the coaster drives over a certain point or be able to control the timing of it's cycle.​

• Park events:

I'm not sure whether this falls under the animation team as well but are there any plans to have park events such as parades, firework shows or laser shows. I know in RCT3 we had the ability to have some firework and laser shows and was interested to see if that'd be returning, with the possibility to get parades.​

 

[Palaber1984]

Hello there! i have questions to little Details!

1. I know that you don't integrate full realism physic animation to the guest in the rides, but would it be possible look for a way that still looks more natural? Guest animation on rides are to Wooden or in situations were its unusual Guests just throw ups hands in the air.

2. I realized in real parks that the Drop Tower generates a high pressure of air at the the bottom, when it falls down an starts breaking! If you are standing around it looking at the ride, sometimes your Hat or trash liying on the ground or trees, bushes, or umbrellas will be blown away. Is it an opportunity for you to build in these details? same goes for air pressure on water that were generated by passing coaster!

Thx for now and hopefully you answer one of my questions!

 

[gregorburns]

Not specifically an animation question, but related:

Will there be guests in wheelchairs?

 

[Empo]

1. Will there be a grid?

2. Will guests be able to use the gap under the carpet ride?

I might edit this post later if I have more questions popping up in my head.