Live Forum Q&A - Animation!

[Nodgers]

Is it possible that guest animations could be done in a procedural way? For instance, each time a guest animates to sit down, the animation varies just a bit, perhaps in the speed that the person sits down, the arm movement, Etc. This way, you will not constantly see the same animations over and over, but instead, see brand new animations formed from certain variations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_animation

Great question, procedural systems have some great uses and while it can add some nice variation to the in-game animation they're not appropriate for all games. These systems are computationally very expensive and wouldn't run nicely across thousands of agents in the crowd. We also need to maintain an element of accuracy and control over all of our guests so that we can rely on guests lining up precise points, like the handles on seats, without causing intersection.
Don't worry about the game lacking in variation though, we've already got 40 minutes worth of crowd animations authored and we're still going strong!

 

[Wobbly]

Hey

Will it be possible to build signs and other items on coaster supports?

 

[JonnyB]

Hi guys,

Will there be more mascots in the future Alphas and where is the Dino mascot which we saw in the first trailer? Love the work you guys are doing to this game, keep it up!

Hey, thanks very much!

Absolutely we will have more mascots for you in the future and we are having a blast bringing them to life! Gulpee will be appearing in the next alpha and he's looking great. We can't wait for you to see what we have in store, it's going to be udderly cosmic!

 

[NiceGuyAndy]

What is your favorite unreleased mascot that you have animated? [big grin]

 

[bloodykimbel]

we have Chief beef as masoct for the burger stalls.does this mean cosmic cow might also get his/her unique mascot to go with?

 

[Helena]

Thanks for answering our questions! #CosmicCowWow!

 

[Candy_78]

Who handles the part of the Park Management?

 

[Sean1]

I think you should share some studio videos of the team animating out the scene! [hehe]

 

[ODPaterson]

Hey, thanks very much!

Absolutely we will have more mascots for you in the future and we are having a blast bringing them to life! Gulpee will be appearing in the next alpha and he's looking great. We can't wait for you to see what we have in store, it's going to be udderly cosmic!

#UdderlyCosmic [woah]

 

[coasterlover]

#ChiefBeefBelief

Can we have animations of split que lines?

So one main que that splits off into fast track/single rider/standard and then has a merge point at the station, would offer #deepersimulation when selling tickets and managing guests and finances


#ChiefBeefBelief

 

[SymphonyX]

Hey, thanks very much!

Absolutely we will have more mascots for you in the future and we are having a blast bringing them to life! Gulpee will be appearing in the next alpha and he's looking great. We can't wait for you to see what we have in store, it's going to be udderly cosmic!

Cosmic Cow Mascot confirmed!!! [squeeeeee][squeeeeee][squeeeeee] Thanks JohnnyB and the rest of the dev team!

 

[thelude007]

Will there be more animated signs? Say a spinning cosmic cow sign or a animated chief beef sign? Thanks.

 

[maverick34jjv]

Hey PC Devs,
Will water be in Alpha 2?
Will we be able to save coasters in Alpha 2?
Will flat rides and coasters have some sort of management menus in Alpha 2, like color changing, music, name?

Lastly I had an idea for guest going to their seats: they walk up to their seat and 'hop' in. For most rides the guest align in front of the seats when boarding, so having them stand in front of the seat and hopping backwards into the seat would seem to cover a lot of rides.

 

[Askawara]

Greetings Frontier team!

is it possible to change the power of the brakes on the coaster and the speed of the chain lift.

Thank you in advance and sorry for the ugly english (google translation )

 

[Kombiice]

This is more an advice:

If you ever make a Top Spin ride, don't forget that the seats are rotating freely, without a motor! They are just held and released by a holding brake sometimes. [yesnod]

 

[thelude007]

Can we get more flags in the game? Cosmic cow and Chief Beef flags. How bout some animated flags? Really be nice to see them flap in the breeze.

 

[JonnyB]

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?

Hey

Currently our guests are always on the move but we absolutely plan to have them stop and stand around. We want them to have the same level of variety and detail when they do. We've talked about how we see the crowd as a living UI and we want you as the player to see the guests reacting to your choices.

 

[Arie Boon]

Hi Frontier

Will there be weather change later on? and so yes will the people react to different weather types?

 

[bloodykimbel]

will we be able to use our own music on rides?
if yes could it be possible that the lights patterns change along with the song played?

 

[Nodgers]

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?

Oooh nice techy question Planet Coaster presented some new challenges when we first started talking about the crowd, typically we would only have to consider a few characters animating on screen at any one time but in this game we're having to support thousands of guests!

We definitely didn't want to compromise on the quality of our animation so we worked closely with our amazing programmers to develop a whole new animation system that could support a huge amount of animations playing simultaneously. In addition to this we've been very careful to author our animations in a way that allow for a a tonne of variety without taking up tonnes of graphics memory so the game will stay performant even when it's rammed with guests.