Realtime Melee combat

[awakeningfromobliv]

I have question
Is it possible for UE3 scripting to do real time Melee combat i.e swords and such. I found some info but since I'm new to scripting, I didn't understand any of it. and the info looks pretty old.

http://chimeric.beyondunreal.com/tutorials/tut17.html

I ask this because I'm very interested in doing a single player action rpg mod, and with the PS3 supporting UT3 Mod. I think it would have a better chance of being played on the PS3 than PC
Thanks

[Blaaguuu]

Afaik, it is very much possible - however the issue comes with replication (net code). By default, Unreal Tournament servers do not bother with animations. Animations are simply visual queues that are completely client side. I believe you can force the servers to do animations, but that makes it use more memory, and end up using more bandwidth replicating said animations. So it is possible, and i believe has been done before in UT2004... But to make it feel realistic you would probably have to work in some physics stuff, to get proper reactions, etc, which may get pretty rough on the server.

Also, there is it might suffer from not dealing well with medium/high ping... With such precision required in the game, and so much network overhead, it might be hard to play online.

[ION3]

chaos has melee

[Xero]

Yes it is and it has been done unfortunately it wasn't very good.That includes chaos' melee combat.
I'm currently working a melee combat system for a mod I'm planning for UT3. Which happens to be an action RGP as well. Right now I'm mainly focusing on single player so I don't have to worry about replication for servers right now. I hope UT3 has some better solutions to handling melee combat on the multiplayer side of things.

[Doc Shock]

Too bad that changes made to the engine by 3rd party devs don't flow back to Epic. Judging from the footage to date, the guys working on Elveon seem to have implemented what could be called the ultimate melee fighting system for UE3.

But there's rudimentary melee code in GoW (chainsaw etc), so if any attempt creating a melee system for UT3 fails, build your mod based on GoW instead of UT3. Of course this means ditching any plans of bringing the mod to the PS3...

[Blaaguuu]

The way the chainsaw works is so different than what you would generally refer to as 'melee', that the UT3 impact hammer would probably be a better starting point... The Chainsaw basically seems to just check if there is a player right infront of you, and if so stop both players in their tracks, and kill the receiving player... the rest is jsut animation, and there really is nothing like what awakeningfromobliv likely wants to accomplish.

[Chicken_Pot_Pie]

Yes it is and it has been done unfortunately it wasn't very good.That includes chaos' melee combat.
I'm currently working a melee combat system for a mod I'm planning for UT3. Which happens to be an action RGP as well. Right now I'm mainly focusing on single player so I don't have to worry about replication for servers right now. I hope UT3 has some better solutions to handling melee combat on the multiplayer side of things.

Glad to see that I am not the only one working on this. The mod I am working on will be 3rd person also. I want to get this melee combat really structured as most of the combat will be melee based. The other concepts are working out solutions to player grabing animations..ect...like the player sneaks up and grabs you and does "x" move on you. This is all single player concepts though.

[R.Flagg]

Yes it is and it has been done unfortunately it wasn't very good.That includes chaos' melee combat. I'm currently working a melee combat system for a mod I'm planning for UT3. Which happens to be an action RGP as well. Right now I'm mainly focusing on single player so I don't have to worry about replication for servers right now.

Yes, well, everyone is entitled to an opinion, nothing wrong with that. But ours at least did make it past the idea stage, and was released publicly, and of course it does work online.

It involved at least a couple of years of work, and it took more talent than just the Chaos team. But sure, we've always known ours wasn't perfect.

By the way, here's a brief overview of the approach we took at Chaos, in Melee 101:
http://chaotic.beyondunreal.com/docs...101_ut2004.php

(it's a bit more involved than just the IH/Shield gun type of hack somebody mentioned. though we did use that approach way back in UT99 and Q2)

Chaos is not starting with melee in UT3, if we do melee at all. So I look forward to seeing your version. Kick some arse and show us how it's done.

Good luck! I'll check back.

[Hedge-o-Matic]

Yes, well, everyone is entitled to an opinion, nothing wrong with that. But ours at least did make it past the idea stage, and was released publicly, and of course it does work online.

It involved at least a couple of years of work, and it took more talent than just the Chaos team. But sure, we've always known ours wasn't perfect.

By the way, here's a brief overview of the approach we took at Chaos, in Melee 101:
http://chaotic.beyondunreal.com/docs...101_ut2004.php

(it's a bit more involved than just the IH/Shield gun type of hack somebody mentioned. though we did use that approach way back in UT99 and Q2)

Chaos is not starting with melee in UT3, if we do melee at all. So I look forward to seeing your version. Kick some arse and show us how it's done.

Good luck! I'll check back.

I, too, have to pitch in my vote of confidence in Chaos UT, and the melee combat they set up. While it may not have been perfect, it was extremely well done and was tons of fun. Really, seeing what was done in 2k4, I'd really be interested to see what they can do in UT3.

[Xero]

Yes, well, everyone is entitled to an opinion, nothing wrong with that. But ours at least did make it past the idea stage, and was released publicly, and of course it does work online.

It involved at least a couple of years of work, and it took more talent than just the Chaos team. But sure, we've always known ours wasn't perfect.

By the way, here's a brief overview of the approach we took at Chaos, in Melee 101:
http://chaotic.beyondunreal.com/docs...101_ut2004.php

(it's a bit more involved than just the IH/Shield gun type of hack somebody mentioned. though we did use that approach way back in UT99 and Q2)

Chaos is not starting with melee in UT3, if we do melee at all. So I look forward to seeing your version. Kick some arse and show us how it's done.

Good luck! I'll check back.

I guess I should have explained myself a little better. What I should have said was while it did work for Chaos, it wasn't very good for my mod needs. The approach I tried was actually based of the work you guys did on Chaos. So credit goes to you guys for that. I'm not much of a coder myself but I done a lot of work on the design aspect of things but implementing its always going to the hard part. Hopeful I can come up with something that does kick a$$.

Glad to see that I am not the only one working on this. The mod I am working on will be 3rd person also. I want to get this melee combat really structured as most of the combat will be melee based. The other concepts are working out solutions to player grabing animations..ect...like the player sneaks up and grabs you and does "x" move on you. This is all single player concepts though.

It looks like we're on the same page. I want to create a system that is robust enough to handle different kinds of melee combat like hand to hand, with weapons equipped and as you said grabs and trows but without becoming too complex that it take forever to code. I would imagine that it will have to tie into with UT3's animation system somewhere. I'll be glad to share my findings with anyone who is looking to tackle a similar problem.

[Cold_Killer]

I loved the "melee" weapons from Unreal Championship" for the XBox. You could always fall back on your sword, spear, staff, ect. if you ran out of ammo. Since UT3 doesn't have character specific melee weapons, what about a mod that allowed one to choose a melee weapon at the start of the game? This wouldn't be as fun without a third person view.

I don't know anything about moding...

[r1esG0]

hold on everyone, because r1esG0 is going to type:

melee combat for unreal engine.
Its a hard one to do. It can be done? Of course it can. A graphic engine is a graphic engine. Everithing can be put there.
What do you need? You must be a guru.
Also known as a scripting genius. It is needed to knows the code you are handling perfectly because you must be touching things that currently are not done.

See what has said the guy who created it for Chaos UT. It took them 2 years of hard work.
Im not trying to make you upset, but be realist, you must know unrealscript, that thing you say youre newie at, perfectly. So go learn it!!!

Until that day to come, you can see what others have done with melee combat in unreal engines.

Gears of war- Customized animations for the chainsaw, also regular animations for hit something with the other weapons. For example, pick the shotgun and then make a melee attack. The animations and collision code is there.

Chaos Unreal- Yes it was not perfect, but it was fantastic. Funny as hell, solid and stable. Still need to be polished but the gameplay worked very well on the arenas. Try that mod for ut2k4. No matter is not what you want to do. It is a good point to start.

Muralis- Another melee combat specific. This mod is all about melee combat and combos. Very polished. Right now it seems the main poryect web is offline. I dont know if the mod is dead, but they did nice things with the unreal engine for melee combat.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/2559/mural.../23815/muralis

A good place to start with unreal script is to go to the editor-> go to the option -> exports all scripts. Then you go a directory with all the unreal script. Then should you print the object class, actor class and pawn class. Then study them. Do that with Unreal Tournamen 3 and with Gears of Wars, so you will be able to see the code of the melee combat.

Of course you will not understand anything of those documents if you dont know programming languajes. So maybe should you try to learn Java or C++ first.

And now, go my son, and conquer all the world.

[leaknoil]

Could you give a little clearer explanation of how to view the scripts ? I don't see a 'export all scripts' menu option anywhere.

[L0rdGunn3r]

The game "Fury" does a good job of this. I don't know if they had to tweak the actual unreal engine code but my thoughts are it can all be scripted. I could be wrong though.

[r1esG0]

Could you give a little clearer explanation of how to view the scripts ? I don't see a 'export all scripts' menu option anywhere.

Now listen!
r1esG0 is going to answer:

Open unreal tournament 3 editor, gently
Now go to the upper menu 'view'
Now go to 'browser windows'>'actor classes'. A new windows opens.
In the new window open menu 'file'
Then 'export all scripts'
A new operation will be done, and all the unreal script from the game will be written on files inside the game directory <- still not tested but it worked so in previuos unreals.

[Tonester]

Our TC has 3 classes which are fully melee-based, but our game uses "targets" like traditionaly RPG games like Guild Wars and WoW.

Once a player has a target, melee is kind of easy:
1) Do a Line of Sight check from instigator to target
2) Do a Range Check to ensure they are within "melee range"

It doesn't seem that difficult at all unless you are still thinking of using crosshairs to do melee..... good luck with that.

[Pfhoenix]

Tonester : the general thinking is that that method is too simplistic. They're looking for actual swordplay, not just a FPS weapon with a short range and a sword animation.

[Tonester]

Ah - after posting, I kind of got that impression. Well - good luck with that, then.

[leaknoil]

Now listen!
r1esG0 is going to answer:

Open unreal tournament 3 editor, gently
Now go to the upper menu 'view'
Now go to 'browser windows'>'actor classes'. A new windows opens.
In the new window open menu 'file'
Then 'export all scripts'
A new operation will be done, and all the unreal script from the game will be written on files inside the game directory <- still not tested but it worked so in previuos unreals.

Thanks. I think it helped that I gently opened it. I may have been too rough before. I really didn't mean too. I just get all excited.

[r1esG0]

Thanks. I think it helped that I gently opened it. I may have been too rough before. I really didn't mean too. I just get all excited.

I have performed the operations myself finally today, and i can assure that the script files are located on the following place:

my documents>documents>my games>unreal tournament 3>utgame>exported scripts,

al the uc.files must be opened with notepad or other documents opener...


Do not worry for the "gently", i am reproducing the way a british lord´s would talk, as well as talk about myself on third person.

This is what free time does to me.

Do not forget to have an eye on actor.uc , pawn.uc and object.uc
Those are the main ones.

r1esG0 has spoken!