How Project Orion Should Handle Third Person Perspective

[GrimReaper801]

Yes, it would be a lot of work. Whether it's worth it or not I don't know, just an option they could pursue that would satisfy different issues in addition to showing off their use of RT tech similar to current 2077 and PL. Orion is anywhere from 5-8ish years away and with the amount of people that will have upgraded to RT capable cards plus other advancements in DLSS it may not be such a terrible prospect.

Well you joined together two bits that are not really related. When I was speaking of RT and reflections, I wasn't talking about the future. I was only addressing your argument FPP is the reason for the lack of reflections and the weird shadow in this game. It's not. You can be FPP and have all of this.

I think CDPR is less concerned with modders getting credit and more concerned with sales which an approach like this could potentially increase. I don't know how expensive it would be to implement this approach vs how much potential additional revenue they could make by doing it.

I don't think they are concerned with modders getting credit per se. But I can assure you they are concerned about the perception this would elicit. You would have tons of people clamoring that CDPR fudged up and modders came to the rescue. Modders made it happen. Modders saved the game. Most modders would clearly indicate that most of the work was CDPR's but I know how people don't bother to read mod descriptions. These people are also very often the very first to go ballistic because something doesn't work. It's a lot of fun.

Anyway, it's a lot of work and incredibly expensive. It's not just just creating all the TPP stuff, it's making sure it works.

Just look at what Capcom said - Third-Person Resident Evil Village Was as Much Effort as ‘Creating a New Game,’ - and that game is far more restricted in scope than CP2077 is. All of these models have to be created and then thoroughly tested. The same goes for animations - thoroughly tested in various settings to make sure they work. Then there is the camera. A TPP camera is a lot of work, it has to feel good under every circumstances (wide open spaces, tight spaces, running and walking, driving, hip firing, ADS aiming, etc). It's a lot of work.

If they put in the work, they might as well finish it and take the credit for themselves.

But again, and this is my main concern, it would inevitably lead to splitting resources between the two perspectives and lead to neither being as amazing as it should be. Starfield (and every other Bethesda game) is an obvious example of that. Neither perspective is quite right.

They've done an amazing job with FPP in CP2077 and I believe most people are fine with FPP and I'd rather they stick to it and do it even better with the sequel than trying to please everyone under the sun.

As a side note, I don't know if you didn't notice or if you didn't know how to separate quotes into parts but your post is just one big quote from me and it made it overly complicated to answer you. If it's because you didn't know, just press "enter" where you want to separate the quote and it'll separate things neatly for you.

 

[northwold]

I would love to see reflections. Indeed, I think that would have been all the third person I needed in the game for perfect immersion (apart from obviously for driving, which is too difficult in first). We see ourselves in reflections in real life. We don't see ourselves in third person in any other way apart from via videos and photos.

But the elephant in the room is performance. The third and first person models are necessarily different, and for reflections to be rendered live they would both need to be rendered (and fully lit, etc) in effect continuously.

If they can do that in a sequel without making people's machines catch fire, great. More than great; absolutely fantastic. But on the evidence of 2077's mirrors and the frame rate and resolution drop needed to make them work, they couldn't with 2077 itself (although I'm far from clear in the existing mirrors that the game is rendering two models, rather than some other bespoke arrangement specific to mirrors; the fact they added a fair few more working mirrors in patch 2.0 suggests the former, but I don't know -- they may simply have put a lot of effort into those additions using a bespoke mechanic, and the fixed viewing position could suggest the latter. Strange things start to happen if you look down into the sink in the nomad opening mirror, for instance.).

For what it's worth, i really like that they didn't switch to third person cutscenes and went first person all the way through (with the appropriate exception which I won't spoil). When games switch viewpoint for cut scenes -- or indeed, when games have true cut scenes where you completely lose control for long periods of what's happening to watch predetermined visuals -- far from drawing me into the experience, it usually makes me think "oh, this is the bit they couldn't be bothered to make part of the game itself". It can feel like gaming is a medium that lacks the confidence to present things as *a game*, rather than a movie. There is a sequence in Witcher 3 that I think is something like 12 minutes long where the player has no participation at all, which is ludicrous. Cyberpunk, I think, did much better on that front.

 

[ShinAkira00]

I don't see a reason to include TPP as an option. Why spend time making two camera perspectives (and everything required for them to work properly) for the entirety of a game when that same time would be better spent on developing the game itself? The former would only benefit at most 50% of future players, whereas the latter would benefit at least 90% of future players.

So many people are so very impatient today that the shorter development time that would result from not including TPP would be a win-win.


I always find FPP more immersive, and therefore the best option for RPGs.

If the game is going to have a customizable player character, then I absolutely don't see why there should be TPP. I don't play games to stare at characters or parts of them, and it has never bothered me that I can't see my V all the time.

I don't see myself in real life except in the mirror and photographs, so why should I see a character I've created to play as? No reason.

Agreed. If ppl want to see themselves I think photomode is sufficient, although I do think the devs should add some more features to enhance photomode. e.g. sitting down and more poses and so on. That way the ppl who are obsessed with looking at themselves can have more options.

 

[LadyMiseryAli]

So wanting to see a character you built from the ground up is 'being obsessed with them" now? Jeez...If I make a character and make them pretty, I do wanna look at them in places other than photomode. I wanna see them react to situations, people. That's not being obsessed. That's wanting to be immersed, which is just as valid as those who think FPP is immersive.

 

[DerHoss]

Well, here are my 2 ct:

First of all, I'm very happy with the FPP implementation in CP and I personaly see no need to change it.
I especially like how you stay 'in character' the whole time and dont switch to TPP for 'cut scenes' (which are therefore esentialy not even cut scense)

But there are a few wiered misconceptions going around in this thread. In CP the player has a full body model... but no head (just look down, you can see your body). Thats the standard way to do this. You have no head because the camera is where your head should be, it would obstruct your view otherwise. Also your arms are too long, thats again the standard way to do it. It looks better from FPP.
And yes RT could be used to create reflections of that body, and no it wouldn't require immense processing power. How do I know that? Because you can enable that, one line in a config file ([RayTracing] HideFPPAvatar = "false") and you have ray-traced reflextions (without a head), just like anyone else in game has ray-traced reflextion (but with a head... normaly).

So why doesn't the game offer that to the player? Cause the animations look like crap.
Why do the anmiation look like crap? Because the devs are incable of making proper animation for the player? Because they were to lazy?
Dont be redicioulus. Every NPC has proper animations (and reflection) and TW3 was completly TPP with proper anmiation. And this leads us to the problem.

TW3 was a pure TPP game with proper, very well done animations. Many people complain that Geralds movement is too slow, too heavy, and I think these people are crazy. The reason Geralds movements look so natural is because he has proper run-up animations. A human can't just walk in one direction, our center of gravity is somewhere in the middle of our body. Before we can make a step, we need to shift our balance, otherwise we would just tip over. And we actually need to make proper steps. Thats what makes good TPP animations. CDPR knows how to do these better then anyone else.
(BTW, I'm pretty sure most companie would have put it in game anyway even though it looks bad. But here we have certaun standars for what counts as good enough. Most TPP games dont have proper animations, and the movement always looks rediciouls. Wrong. You see immnediatly that no human could move that way.)

But for FPP games you cant have these, you'll get motion sick immediatly. For FPP you need direct, smooth controls. Its actually more like driving then walking. Just look down, at your feet while walking in CP. You are actually sliding over the ground while your legs perform a pretty wiered looking dance.

For FPP the head needs to move smooth, in TPP the head needs to move with every step (in reality our brain compensates for the movement of our head while walking).

And thats why the game hides your reflection from you.
You can either have a game that looks good, and plays good in FPP or in TPP. You cant have both.

 

[northwold]

Well, here are my 2 ct:

First of all, I'm very happy with the FPP implementation in CP and I personaly see no need to change it.
I especially like how you stay 'in character' the whole time and dont switch to TPP for 'cut scenes' (which are therefore esentialy not even cut scense)

But there are a few wiered misconceptions going around in this thread. In CP the player has a full body model... but no head (just look down, you can see your body). Thats the standard way to do this. You have no head because the camera is where your head should be, it would obstruct your view otherwise. Also your arms are too long, thats again the standard way to do it. It looks better from FPP.
And yes RT could be used to create reflections of that body, and no it wouldn't require immense processing power. How do I know that? Because you can enable that, one line in a config file ([RayTracing] HideFPPAvatar = "false") and you have ray-traced reflextions (without a head), just like anyone else in game has ray-traced reflextion (but with a head... normaly).

So why doesn't the game offer that to the player? Cause the animations look like crap.
Why do the anmiation look like crap? Because the devs are incable of making proper animation for the player? Because they were to lazy?
Dont be redicioulus. Every NPC has proper animations (and reflection) and TW3 was completly TPP with proper anmiation. And this leads us to the problem.

TW3 was a pure TPP game with proper, very well done animations. Many people complain that Geralds movement is too slow, too heavy, and I think these people are crazy. The reason Geralds movements look so natural is because he has proper run-up animations. A human can't just walk in one direction, our center of gravity is somewhere in the middle of our body. Before we can make a step, we need to shift our balance, otherwise we would just tip over. And we actually need to make proper steps. Thats what makes good TPP animations. CDPR knows how to do these better then anyone else.
(BTW, I'm pretty sure most companie would have put it in game anyway even though it looks bad. But here we have certaun standars for what counts as good enough. Most TPP games dont have proper animations, and the movement always looks rediciouls. Wrong. You see immnediatly that no human could move that way.)

But for FPP games you cant have these, you'll get motion sick immediatly. For FPP you need direct, smooth controls. Its actually more like driving then walking. Just look down, at your feet while walking in CP. You are actually sliding over the ground while your legs perform a pretty wiered looking dance.

For FPP the head needs to move smooth, in TPP the head needs to move with every step (in reality our brain compensates for the movement of our head while walking).

And thats why the game hides your reflection from you.
You can either have a game that looks good, and plays good in FPP or in TPP. You cant have both.

I sort of agree and don't. You can actually have both for the purpose of reflections. But the way you have both, for the purpose of reflections, is to render both a first person model and a third person model simultaneously, the latter to allow for continuous reflections. And if your player model for reflection purposes (the "third person" model) is in any way decent that really does have an effect on performance, even more so if they were to go the old fashioned route for no-RT configurations of rendering the entire scene in reverse with the third person model thrown in. Perhaps this will be possible at some point in the future. It seems more than likely it was not achievable within the game's performance budget for 2077.