So the hub update today revealed something amazing.
Skyrim will be using HAVOK behavior.
a tool that can give each npc/enemy a unique animation and seamlessly blend it with another. also reaction animations for ground impact on a skeletal structure, and hit reactions.
see the link below for havok and their products.
the best part is that it does this rather easily, with little cost to the development time.
http://www.havok.com/
if you watch some of the videos on havok you can see some small demonstrations of the tool and its complexity, ease of use. it seems to be more effective than euphoria.

when i read the article in the hub i thought "WOW NO MORE RANDOM RAG-DOLL MADNESS!"
and then i also thought "oh...is this how they are getting the unique/combined weapon animations?"

so, is this how skyrim is going to handle "fluid combat"?
because if so :celebration:

this looks like an amazing way to make not just combat, but even novel aspects of the game feel genuine and unique.
and there seem to be ENDLESS possibility's with this.

so a few questions:
What kinds of weapons/magic would you mix?
and what kinds of activities other than combat would you like to see HAVOK'd?
Blacksmithing? FISHING?

I definitely want to see how this changes archery in general

Cloth physics. Browse down to 'Havok cloth' and check the demo video. This could give us some really nice cloaks, capes and dresses in the game.

http://www.havok.com/index.php?page=showcase

EDIT: 'Roy Preview' demos cloaks.

brought it up in another thread but operation flashpoint used this system and it worked very well.

I've been a fan of euphoria for awhile but seeing as this is a brand spanking new "version" of Havok hopefully it will be as good as described and not just a list of points that look good on paper but bad in motion(pun intended). Cheers to it.

And for graphics, while graphically I'm still unsure if it'll make the same splash in the console world as Oblivion did at the start of this gen of consoles, I'm sure it'll look mostly competetively good and even better on PC(And with a tailored UI I hope for PC gamers, me not being one of them)

And while I'm there, man I can't wait for Deus Ex: Human Revolution soon. RPGs are really contending fiercely this year.

Havok cloth is something entirely separate from behavior We don't know if BGS is using it.

Ah, you're right. I missed the part of behavior in Havok behavior, just thought they name dropped Havok in general. Serves me right for just skimming through that part.

This is third person game play from op dragon rising running havok behavior. Its hard to find good video since you have to scope in for 90% of the combat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjw8QfKV4uM

watch how he moves the way he switches weapons and transitions from standing to prone

nice

flashpoint also had gore build in and allowed multiple models for gore. not sure if havok behavior was involved but they would react to having a arm blown off so idk.

Hmm, gone are the nightmares of navmesh? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzE-BMtdH6I&feature=related