Ok I just played Batman AA and I have to say what an amazing game.

BUT this thread is about Skyrim. How you might ask!!???

well riddle me this riddle me that...

hehe just kidding

I noticed something in Batman AA and that was, the CAPE, yes the cape... OMG that thing was a master piece, it flowed so beautifully so heroically it was simply awesome.

what I would LOVE to see in Skyrim are awesome capes and cloaks and robes that flow like that, no need for it to follow the wind or be over the top, if they just make it as awesome as the one in batman AA I would die from happiness

plz developers pretty plz with a cherry on top :batman:

allready been a thread about flowing capes/ cloaks... mahooooooooosive arguments.... :S

It would be awsome, but I think differnt engines handle it in differnt ways...

Yes, cloth physics would be quite nice, but I fear the overhead from doing it on many people could overwhelm the poor consoles.

It depends on the game and the engine, as om nom nom said. They specifically included it in whatever engine they used for AA, and they may or may not in Skyrim. I know cloth physics can be a bit of a drain on processing and whatnot. AA could easily handle it though with the lack of some things we take for granted in TES like really good AI routines being processed and all the objects with physics (Batman AA only had a few objects in the whole game that hat real physics on them.

Game engines aren't born fully functional and immutable. Part of developing an engine is, well, developing it. "The engine doesn't support it" is a nonsensical argument when talking about building a new game - before anything was added to the engine, it didn't support anything. It wasn't anything. Does that mean the game engine doesn't support the game? No, it means they hadn't written it yet - if they want cloth physics in, they'll write it. "The engine doesn't support it" only makes sense after release, when the engine isn't in constant development.

well batman AA was for consoles me thinks :confused:

but never owned nor seem one so I could be wrong (unlikely)

and my thread is awesome

It is, but doing one cape is very different to doing potentially dozens.

I'm not a brainiac when it comes to computers and stuff like that but they can copy paste and then change cape textures, its actually easy

Batman is a great game but its pretty linear compared to TES. Like said it has a bunch of other things to worry about, like radiant AI, and pathing, while Batman focused on doing one thing right. Being Batman.

Its like trying to multi-task, consoles probably couldn't handle all that physics.

I don't want to be batman in ES I want a cape that rocks like the one in batman AA (not the bat cape, but ES capes and robes that move like the batman cape)

shish :banghead:

I think you missed the point of that post. I meant console would probably not be able to handle all that processing with the physics and AI at the same time.

I know that lol. My main point was that this game's engine is being developed with a different purpose than what the engine for AA was made for. They could go back and add it in at almost any time before release if they wanted to. But AA's engine was made with only a few things in mind. Free form combos, cinematic boss battles (like when you have to do things at a certain time, such as being in the sewer with killer croc. If you didn't Batarang him as he ran at you, you lose no matter what), and that stuff. Skyrim is being built with the intention of having a lot of other systems in place and running at the same time like Havok physics, complex AI, that kind of thing that you don't really see in AA.


mumatil is right, and is basically making the point I attempted to make. We know you don't want to be batman you want cool capes (from now on you could just say cloth physics, that's what they are). what mumatil meant was that AA and Skyrim were developed with completely different goals, so they have different systems in place.

[citation needed]

Cloth physics is nothing compared to other proccessing demands such as the highly realistic water and rapids we have seen, or the flowing hair.

Trolol.

But really, if they are programming such things as dynamic snow the system can definitely handle this. The question then is: would the space and processing required for it be a good trade?

My answer: Yes. It is comparitively little, and would allow for awesome cloaks and capes, as well as benefitting other clothing as well. Not to mention the coding would probably help the hair that we've seen.

Only if all the capes/cloaks/robes are doing the same movements at once (i.e., one set of physics calculations for all of them), could you just do the "copy it" thing.

Six different guys in cloaks walking down a path, with each one waving and flowing in their own way, is six sets of calculations to do.


(not saying it's impossible, just pointing out that multiple =/= one. )

I don't know the specifics or tech just guessing here, it seem like it would be difficult to. I don't know about the flowing hair though.

What does trolol mean? Some kind of troll laugh?

I too have recently finished AA, and I must say, I have a major hard on for flowing capes now. There are few things more impressive than a good travel worn cape flowing in the wind. That, and it keeps your warm... lets you hide your weapons and look like a crazy bat.

Well, I remember seeing a mod that added animated hair in the form of wigs not too long ago. Can't remember what it was called though. But still, animated hair is possible, and do-able, So I think animated capes/robes are too far of a stretch.

Trolling and lolling at the same time, IE talking about highly realistic water and hair whenever those are highly compained against.
So yes, essentially what you said.

But think about it. Dynamic snow... if it turns out to be what the devs say it is, what is cloth physics to that?

ur telling me, its just more epic to run with a cape that's why a lot of heroes have them

Animated hair is actually much harder than animated cloth, hair you have to simulate dozens of seperate areas to get it looking right, a cape is simply one larger area. Both are difficult, but it's not a case of "bigger = harder" - hair is just more complex.

WOW! I just got Arkham aslyum yesterday and noticed that while playing, and i came on to the forums to post excatly this!

Spawn's cape animation or GTFO

LMAO we need a bigger map for that

They're pretty far into the development. I wouldn't be surprised if they already had the engine locked down, and the only changes being made were those to correct bugs. I guess it all has to do with how much spare time they have for frivolous things like animated capes. That's not to say it isn't doable, because it certainly is, it's just that adding things later in the development of a game can cause other things that worked flawlessly before, to break. And speaking of things that worked flawlessly before, there is the issue of going back and changing pre-existing capes and blah blah blah. That being said, 8 months is, in fact, 8 months, and it all depends on the amount of time they have.

tl;dr: It's a small feature that is probably too trivial to be added in, because it's too late in the development phase to implement a potentially bug inducing feature that would require the modification of the current engine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNUbPRj9TGM

I kid, capes could be cool. But I love that video.