I know there have been a few topics about this before, but I'd really like to see who's serious about developing this. When you look down in Skyrim, you don't see anything, which makes it seem like you're a floating camera. It's not as important in FPS's (though some do attempt this effect to some degree: Halo, Crysis, Battlefield 3...), but in Skyrim, where many people like to feel immersed in the game world, this can add a great deal. A popular name for it is "full body awareness."

In Oblivion, a number of mods were developed to enhance first person mode. None were perfect, but all of them were awesome. The most notable, in my opinion, are:

http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20891 - Didn't allow you to see your legs when looking down in first-person, but added a lot of similar effects that fall under the same category of full-body awareness (swimming animations, head-bobbing, etc.) - ~15,000 downloads
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18617 - Actually allowed you to see your entire body in first person, but the effect was REALLY glitchy and pretty unusable because of this. - ~50,000 downloads
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36635 - A pretty good compromise, taking the route of seeing only your legs (which is better than nothing). Still glitchy, but more usable. ~3,000 downloads

There's definitely a good amount of interest in this, and I'd love to see a mod that followed through in a great implementation. Now that Skyrim's on an essentially new engine, with infinitely better animations, this should hopefully be a much easier (though still very difficult) task.

Mirror's Edge is a great example of a game that does something like this. However, even its implementation isn't perfect. In the concept art, you could see from the neck-down. In the full game, only waist-down. This would be a cool feature in Skyrim too, as you'd be able to see what you're wearing just by looking down, rather than by unrealistically traveling to a a 3rd person camera.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_EzCUJUU2Kts/SwxK0CGzpbI/AAAAAAAAABY/L-UJsy4Dgbo/s1600/586528-mirrors_edge_artwork4.jpg, what Mirror's Edge was supposed to look like (this is concept art, remember), and what I'd like to strive for for Skyrim.

I don't have a ton of experience modding (I've done some mesh editing and a decent amount of CS work), so I'd like to see what more experienced modders think about this, and what tools would be necessary to make this possible, even to the minimum possible extent.

Wow that was long-winded.

Honestly, I think Skyrim is good without something like this....

on the flip side

if a mod were to come out that did this and did it well, I would almost certainly use it.

If it's possible to change the Third Person Camera I think that you could just put it a little (VERY little) in front of your character model. The only issues would (maybe) be clipping.

I honestly don't think it's any easier to do this kind of mod for Skyrim. The engine isn't exactly new....

I've always had interest in this mod but I never figured it would work 100%.




Oh and here's a picture of Mirror's Edge in the actual game for comparison: http://screenshot.xfire.com/screenshot/natural/4321ae4c07dc03088c03004ec5fb8b291b392987.png

This almost certainly wouldn't work just by itself. Similar things were tried for Oblivion... the third person skeleton moves around too much for a stationary camera to work. It would clip through the face constantly, and the lower body would often seem detached from your viewpoint.


Thank you, I meant to get a picture for comparison.

Any more thoughts?

What if you tried swapping out (or in this case, adding) the character model with a torso-less one when in first person mode, to avoid clipping issues? So when you look down you see legs/feet.

I'd love to see this done. I started working on a mod for Oblivion with the same goal but interest was lost and the team fell apart. I'd also like to suggest for this mod thaall the kill/finish moves default to first person. They look so much better when you get them in first person.

+1 sir!

Hmm... still seems like a little too simple of a solution. Sometimes when you look down, as your feet move, you may see the top of them (i.e. the part where the torso was removed). I think something along these lines is how some of the Oblivion mods work though. Not sure. And if possible, a full body mod would be best.


I agree completely with the first person finishers. It would be a ton of work, but think of how awesome it would be doing a first person dragon finisher.

/Doublepost!

You'd need to figure some method of hooking the camera viewpoint to the model's eyes. If you could do that, then something like this would be possible. If you can't, I don't see how you're ever going to get a decent implementation.

Yeah but your character's head sways around a lot. Just doing that wouldn't work.

I think it would need a completely new set of animations. I remember seeing a video at one point that showed the first-person animations from Mirror's Edge in third person, and it looked... really odd. It's because your screen has an unnatural FOV, the camera placement is not going to give an accurate representation of what the eyes would see, and the head-bobbing is completely off, so the animations need to be modified to make it "look correct".

Why? It just means the viewpoint would sway around a lot, which is realistic and might feel a bit better than the completely static viewpoint we've got currently.

And yes, the animations would likely need to be altered. That's secondary, though - you need to be able to hook the viewpoint to follow the eyes in order to get this to work properly at all.

So does anyone with experience in this sort of thing know what tools and what sort of modding would be required to achieve this?

No one?

I don't mind the no legs/body thing so much, although it would be nice. The thing that bothers me is no character shadow in first person mode...

Well the reason why there isn't a shadow is because there isn't a first person body. The first person view is essentially a pair of floating arms so enabling shadows would make it look ridiculous. Though a character shadow without having a first person body would probably be likely with modding.

Assuming it works like OB etc. the reason first person's a pair of floating arms is because only the arm parts of most armours are set to show in 1st person in the nif, and the 1st person skeleton (in OB) isn't positioned the same as the 3rd person one so you wouldn't be able to see your legs even if they were set to show. Flag everything as showing in 1st person, tweak the 1st person skeleton to line up properly with the 3rd person one and merge the 3rd person leg/head anims into the 1st person anims and bingo.

Problems: You'd need something like the Oblivion Animation Warper to create the hybrid animations, and you'd generally be looking at a lot of boring work merging things and renaming every block in every armour nif.

There is already a fade/clipping effect that hides the horse when the camera is pushed close to the horse by scenery. If this could be exploited, then it's probable that the camera could be attached to the 1st person head. Of course this is purely hypothetical until we get the CK. As for animations, that isn't necessary to get a proof of concept working, just a possible requirement for a full, quality, release.

I'd love this sooo much. It's a serious thing for me if I can't see my own body.
I figure it might work like this

replace 1st person skeleton, meshes, etc with 3rd person, correct the camera position (to somewhere directly in front of the nose?) and additionally restrict the movement of the skeleton where necessary.
It probably needs more work than that. I wouldn't mind head bobbing.

As someone already said, the animations might need to be reworked, though. Mirrors edge and Dead island look very wonky in forced 3rd person.

Also, probably not everybody's cup of tea, but I'd love to be able to see my helmet from 1st person as well. Obstructing the view I mean.

This was fudged* in FO/FONV by applying a texture over the screen - no reason something similar couldn't be done.

*this is no way implies a shoddy job

I was surprised that Bethesda didn't implement a feature like this also, but I thought about it for a bit and I think they didn't do it because you are given control over the first person camera before you can create your character in the tutorial. If someone made this mod and you looked down in the cart or when waiting to be called forward by Hadvar, what would you see?

A minor problem that last a few minutes should not impede a feature that could be implemented for hundreds of hours of gameplay. It doesn't matter that much, there could be many solutions. Default to Nord until character creation, don't show the body on the opening sequence, cover any racially distinguishing features with clothing, etc.

I really want to see my body. It's never bugged my until lately.