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submitted 10 months ago by simple@lemm.ee to c/games@lemmy.world
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[-] echo64@lemmy.world 124 points 10 months ago

And in no other games! Patents aee truely wonderful aren't they.

[-] GreenMario@lemm.ee 46 points 10 months ago

We will get like two games out of this before the patent expires cuz Rockstar takes 3 console gens to make 2 games.

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 15 points 10 months ago

They made GTA V then GTA V again then GTA V again then GTA V for VR, that's loads of games.

Rockstar have just innovated by releasing exactly the same game every single generation.

[-] WhiteHawk@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

Bethesda will sue them for copyright infringement any day now

[-] c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Releasing the same thing is our thing, man!

[-] BaroqueInMind@kbin.social 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Or those gigantic multi million dollar game dev corporations could afford to, you know, pay to license that shit for their own games.

If they can afford to pay the CEOs millions of dollars for their golden parachute as well as their yearly salary, then they can afford that license.

If you think a game that doesn't have that is a failure, then both your expectations as well as that game both deserve to fail.

[-] echo64@lemmy.world 30 points 10 months ago

Why license endless patents if you can save money by just not doing that

Greedy ceos is a bad justification for software patents

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[-] GreenMario@lemm.ee 89 points 10 months ago

I hate this. Same with WB patenting the Nemesis system then not even bothering to milk it.

[-] Grass@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago

Time to get to work writing the alternative cola recurring enemy system I guess...

[-] MooseBoys@lemmy.world 60 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

They've built a library of small building blocks for character movements. These blocks can be combined in various ways to create a wide range of animations. … Instead of designing separate animations for each of these situations, they use these building blocks to put together the character's movements naturally.

This sounds like shape keys, which is a technique already widely used in games and animation today. When you get shot in Battlefield, your character model plays a “getting shot” animation. When your character runs, it plays a “running” animation. When your character gets shot while running, these two animations are combined - it’s not a separate “shot while running” animation.

Would love to know if there’s actually some novel aspect to this “invention” but it seems more likely that this is yet another bullshit patent approved by a clueless clerk who did zero searches for prior art.

Edit: Read the patent. Not only does it describe nothing novel, it doesn’t even document what they did. All it says is basically “we created animation blocks and combine them”. The details are just a bunch of bullshit jargon spew:

attributes can include conditions, properties, events, flags, graphs, values, references, and variants

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 24 points 10 months ago

Their novel discovery: They figured out nobody had patented this yet

[-] PrefersAwkward@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I think this would make it tough to enforce the patent if it's actually commonly used. If I were somehow granted a patent on tap dancing, its common usage by others before me would probably cause my patent to be invalidated if I then tried to sue a tap dancer.

Not a patent lawyer, but IIRC, US patent law had some protections for things (including non-patented) that are already common practice.

EDIT: Clarity

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Software patents get away with stupid shit like this all the time. Patent trolls claim they invented a software pattern and then sue everyone who uses it.

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[-] c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago

It sounds more like they're using more fundamental movements than what you're describing, not running animation+shot animation but more like:

Both reloading a particular weapon and mantling over a walk require you to lift your arms, so the root movement of lifting your arm to reload an LMG is the same one used to grab a ledge overhead, etc.

Basically they're just categorizing movements based on use case and direction so they can string those individual movements into different and unique patterns for individual actions.

Pressing an elevator button uses the same arm movement as opening a door, which uses the same wrist rotation movement as turning the key in a car, etc. So they just break down individual movements in the same way an LLM breaks down a voice into phonetics to string new words together.

[-] MooseBoys@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

It’s definitely possible they’re doing something novel internally, but the details that would support that interpretation are missing from the filing. One of the requirements for patents is that it “sufficient disclosure of the invention so that it can be reproduced by others”. I would say I qualify as an expert in the domain covered, and I have no idea what they’re actually doing based on the patent alone.

[-] ouch@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago

Software patents need to die.

[-] DumbAceDragon@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago

Not shape keys, but something more akin to Unity's animation layers. This kinda stuff has been in games for a decade or so.

[-] ArmokGoB@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

This has been done for decades. Anyone that respects this patent is an idiot.

[-] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 41 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Meanwhile at Bethesda:
Hey look, I figured out how to animate them to look at you! What? Walk naturally? No I don't have time for that.

[-] superduperenigma@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

The modders will figure that part out.

[-] Cosmicomical@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

Did they just patent procedural animation?

[-] lloram239@feddit.de 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Anybody remember Euphoria? Also seen in that canceled Indiana Jones game.

[-] adrian783@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

ues, euphoria was used in gta4 and Jedi unleashed

[-] Tronn4@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

We need a video game "taco bell" to take on this stupid "taco John patented taco Tuesday slogan"

[-] Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 10 months ago

As long as GTA 6 has male strip clubs I'll be happy.

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this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
198 points (91.2% liked)

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