I'd think segmented limbs would also give the spriters an easier job, on top of all of their code benefits. For instance, having to only make four sprites, for upper and lower leg, top and bottom, would be far less of a pain in the ass than spriting the full leg and it's entire bending cycle. More of a "dynamic" end result as well, as for limb actions the engine has more action-images available than only what the spriter sprited. Also it would probably look better as the arm/leg wouldn't end up drifting off somewhat when the sprite doesn't quite line up right with what the game wants.

Really though, considering the decreased effort and the increased coding potential, I don't really see the benefits of the current system over any alternative. Perhaps having half-a-limb attached was a concern? When Data first implemented the stuff, did he just go for the simplest engine solution?

I can imagine that perhaps an artist might enjoy more exact control over how the limb looks at all times during the bend, but especially since the rise of attachments and Lua the technical limitations of the system somewhat overwhelm the artistic benefits.

It's a lot easier to make multi-jointed limbs, that's for sure. And walkpaths. Though I suppose what would be best would be a hybrid system where if you only define one joint the limb acts as it does now, and with multiple it tries to rotate the joints to path points similar to walkpaths.

I think this is a good idea, but one has to keep in mind that the current system isn't simply taking two pieces and pasting them together. I would definitely want an option to use old style. For one, the joint of thigh to shin wouldn't look as good as when a spriter does it manually. Another is that in the current system the thigh and shin the separate pieces- even when conjoined- look different from frame to frame. And as well as those, control of rotation appearance greatly enhances the look of a sprite. Everyone can see that those in-between angles of rotation look kinda ugly for sprites.

tl;dr: People spriters > Robot spriters.

There are many games out there using the completely-segmented-limbs-system(-thingy?), and frankly not many of them look good. However, it can be compensated by good animation.

If this system is used in CC then modders should be allowed to modify the animation frame by frame. That might be a tedious process of an other kind though. Segmented limbs would make spriting more convenient, but not necessarily the whole modding process.

I disagree. The issue isn't about the ease of spriting. The issue is that, with current limbs, some things that should be possible simply aren't.
Including but not limited to:
-Arm attachables: Possible to add, but rotate with the head, i.e. ugly for anything beyond a shoulder pad.
-Arm or Leg animations: This is impossible because arms and legs are animated already as frames of extension. Animated attachables on the leg work decently, but on the arm they rotate with the head, see above.
-Realistic rotations and ragdolls: Impossible because the arms/legs are simply one piece limbs. Any rotations are done more as sprite work than physics. In CC I would've expected complete ragdolls from the start.
-Realistic gibbing: Would be much cooler to have shins/feet or arms/hands blown off separately and have actors with stumps walking around vs a complete gib of the arm/leg.

Sprite-wise I don't find that a segmented system would look any worse, especially for standard sized actors. If the system was setup to draw the thigh+knee over the shin, I don't think it would look bad at all. Ideally there would be a knee joint attachable that would rotate based on leg extension, but even without one you could sprite it with the thigh just as well.



Segmenting limbs in my opinion wouldn't make spriting any different than it is now. At least, when I do arm/leg extensions, I sprite separate thighs/shins and then manually paste them together for each frame, then touch-up.

While we're complaining about the way actors are coded, my other huge problem is the inability to do a single thing to hands. You either have one or you don't. You can't animate them, you can't swap their sprites, you can't dynamically change them in just about any way.

Also, draw order is awful to work with. Great things would be possible if we could manually define what layers parts of an actor are drawn in.

Unfortunately, these problems are 1) Low priority (probably lower than water), and 2) Looked-over because on standard actors the problems aren't as big.

I wholly agree with you on the points of gibbing, ragdoll-ing, and draw order.

And I suppose that segmented limbs would work perfectly fine for say, your Dummy Behemoth, with it's structure of a frame covered by armour plates; but I maintain that individual limb bits benefit greatly with the ability to change with rotations.

Look at Vanilla. Remake the Coalitions' legs by taking two pieces and rotating. It would not look nearly as good.

Would your sprites look as good without your "touch-ups?"

Actually, the Coalition legs (both sets) would do fine segmented. You could sprite the thigh+knee and then the shin attached behind it. It wouldn't look much different. The knee joint specifically barely changes through the 5 frames.

The knee itself changes a little (still a notable amount, but it's a kneepad so those tend to work better), but the shin and thigh change considerably. It stretches, changes the length and shading. Even the direction of light changes a little in the outline.

This is due to how arms are handled, not the spriting/coding method. It is Dan's fault, but Leg attachables work pretty well at the moment. It would be nice if we could still sprite it this way, but then define joints and such and attach thing to them. Would make ragdolls nicer I suppose.
I don't think segmented limbs would be that good in the CC universe though.

--Time to cut in with another suggestion--

Hands need to rotate in relation to the aim angle if the actor is holding a weapon, or have a default rotation when specified, as in:

Is there anyway I can get Torque Script to work with CC, because then I might be able to do it.

Not without cracking open CC. There's already Lua scripting, and that'll probably be the only scripting language.

Edit: That doesn't mean you should try to crack open CC.

I'll get the hammer