Multiplayer FPS movement and animations character

Questions & Answers
1

Hi,

I’m currently working on a FPS game, and would like to try out the multiplayer aspect. But there is one big question I have about this. How do you properly animate the FPS characters, do you need a full rigged character model and a weapon + hands model?

To make it somewhat more organized, I’m doing this in the Q&A style.

  1. Do you need a full rigged character model (with the weapons animated seperately) and also a weapon + hands model? So “other” players would use the full character model with the correct weapon animation. And THE player, would only use the hands + weapon model.

This also means that you have to animate everything twice (I guess). One for the full rigged character, and one for the hands+weapon model.

  1. If you do it like nr. 1, How would you be able to show correct player shadows?

Am I thinking right, or do I need a whole different approach? I would be very thankful for some help on this :slight_smile:

Best wishes,

Steffen Brem

2

I haven’t got far in this aspect myself, but consider this "How do you want players to view eachother? Do you want them to see what you see in regards to aiming, direction their facing, etc? I’ve played first person shooters that use different animations for the first-person perspective and third-person perspective and there is a high chance they don’t line up correctly at all. You, playing, could be looking dead straight at your target, but a spectator sees you aiming at something different.

From videos I’ve seen, they suggested using a full body animations but use the arms from the first person animations. Using a avatar mask and syncing the layers would probably be the best way of doing, however, I’m not creditable at all so this is just something to think about