Install the following MOD to remove the jank your speaking of. This link should be posted on the main page. This tweak to the .ini file is terrible without the above linked Mod installed.
For the benefit of the mod author I'll go ahead and post a detailed explanation of what this does.
In Skyrim and Oblivion and the early fallout games, Bethesda used the basic havok engine systems for animations. They had pre-rendered animations which had pre-rendered blending. This resulted in "snapping," but better responsiveness. They were really only broken down into two halves - upper and lower body. In Fallout 4, they switched to using animation graphs. An animation graph is used to break animations down into a bunch of pieces so you can put them together dynamically. The graph has animation "nodes," each one is an entirely separate graph of animations.
Generally you have a main graph, which contains a node for each "high-level" action a character can perform, meaning things like jumping, running, crouching, and so on. Then you have subgraphs of nodes for different animations, each one having its own entirely independent graph, which determines which animation to play based on the current state of the character and any inputs it's receiving. Most modern game engines are designed so that animation nodes blend together perfectly.
The best example I can give is that "move diagonally forward and to the left" is an entirely separate animation from "move forward," but with animation subgraphs, it "blends" the two animations together dynamically so that when you change directions the character naturally changes orientation instead of "snapping" to a different direction. It's a big part of why modern games "feel" the way they do. In older games this was "faked" using the pre-rendered blending animations I mentioned whenever you changed inputs. It's why they often feel more responsive, but seem to have less physicality, inertia and so on.
The problem is that gamebryo, and CE which was built off of it, isn't designed for this. The animation nodes get repeated with repeated inputs for example instead of behaving naturally. If you hit reload, then move forward, then move diagonally to the left, the reload animation restarts, because there isn't a way for the engine to properly detect the fact that the reload animation was already in progress - instead it just blends the last two animations that were input (move forward and move diagonally forward+left). The game uses animation graphs, but still has pre-rendered blending animations for things like reloading because it can't use them for everything due to engine limitations.
What this mod does is disable the animation graph system so that the game plays the havok animations straight-up at all times.
Whether or not that's something you want depends on personal preference. I am willing to deal with the jank introduced by the subgraph animation system because I think it looks so much better most of the time. YMMV.
Good to know. That explains a lot as to what a lot of the game's behavior files are doing, though it's still hilarious to me that Bethesda manages to screw up the literal basics of how to move your character in their games. Doesn't give me a lot of hope for Starfield...
I've tried to run with this setting. I've also tried using mods to disable the weapons lowered state unless by direct keypress. Outside of an engine level change then, it seems the fix is to limit the number of actions the game tries to blend at once. Replacing aim-animation files with just the generic weaponready animations helps a bit too sometimes, but it seems the engine still bugs when too many blends are occuring, even if the files it's blending are the exact same.
It would be interesting to see if in the future someone could implement something like True Directional Movement from Skyrim into Fallout. That probably still avoiding the problem, since outside of combat lock, TDM works mainly by using forward movement and rotating the character to simulate turning, then quickly turning to face the aimpoint when you use an attack. I guess it'd be weird in an FPS to be locked in place when you try to shoot, though it could be somewhat realistic if you tie the lock to ADS...
this is one of the rare times the mod author was pretty clear about what the mod does, how are you confused? Basically, you've more than likely run into this issue on keyboard and mouse if you've been doing multiple different actions while weapon is ready and then you get stuck moving in that direction, usually in one of the diagonal directions. This fixes that while also disabling some of fo4's movement "improvements."
It happens A LOT when you're trying to move in W/S direction but it stucks around A/D direction even you push W/S button in keyboard. Trust me I always have this problem in the game (and probably you too) and it's really fking annoying. Glad we found the (initial) fix.
15 comments
It feels a lot more responsive when unholstered. But when your weapon is holstered, it creates a lot of jank when making small movements.
Install the following MOD to remove the jank your speaking of. This link should be posted on the main page. This tweak to the .ini file is terrible without the above linked Mod installed.
In Skyrim and Oblivion and the early fallout games, Bethesda used the basic havok engine systems for animations. They had pre-rendered animations which had pre-rendered blending. This resulted in "snapping," but better responsiveness. They were really only broken down into two halves - upper and lower body. In Fallout 4, they switched to using animation graphs. An animation graph is used to break animations down into a bunch of pieces so you can put them together dynamically. The graph has animation "nodes," each one is an entirely separate graph of animations.
Generally you have a main graph, which contains a node for each "high-level" action a character can perform, meaning things like jumping, running, crouching, and so on. Then you have subgraphs of nodes for different animations, each one having its own entirely independent graph, which determines which animation to play based on the current state of the character and any inputs it's receiving. Most modern game engines are designed so that animation nodes blend together perfectly.
The best example I can give is that "move diagonally forward and to the left" is an entirely separate animation from "move forward," but with animation subgraphs, it "blends" the two animations together dynamically so that when you change directions the character naturally changes orientation instead of "snapping" to a different direction. It's a big part of why modern games "feel" the way they do. In older games this was "faked" using the pre-rendered blending animations I mentioned whenever you changed inputs. It's why they often feel more responsive, but seem to have less physicality, inertia and so on.
The problem is that gamebryo, and CE which was built off of it, isn't designed for this. The animation nodes get repeated with repeated inputs for example instead of behaving naturally. If you hit reload, then move forward, then move diagonally to the left, the reload animation restarts, because there isn't a way for the engine to properly detect the fact that the reload animation was already in progress - instead it just blends the last two animations that were input (move forward and move diagonally forward+left). The game uses animation graphs, but still has pre-rendered blending animations for things like reloading because it can't use them for everything due to engine limitations.
What this mod does is disable the animation graph system so that the game plays the havok animations straight-up at all times.
Whether or not that's something you want depends on personal preference. I am willing to deal with the jank introduced by the subgraph animation system because I think it looks so much better most of the time. YMMV.
That explains a lot as to what a lot of the game's behavior files are doing, though it's still hilarious to me that Bethesda manages to screw up the literal basics of how to move your character in their games. Doesn't give me a lot of hope for Starfield...
I've tried to run with this setting. I've also tried using mods to disable the weapons lowered state unless by direct keypress. Outside of an engine level change then, it seems the fix is to limit the number of actions the game tries to blend at once. Replacing aim-animation files with just the generic weaponready animations helps a bit too sometimes, but it seems the engine still bugs when too many blends are occuring, even if the files it's blending are the exact same.
It would be interesting to see if in the future someone could implement something like True Directional Movement from Skyrim into Fallout. That probably still avoiding the problem, since outside of combat lock, TDM works mainly by using forward movement and rotating the character to simulate turning, then quickly turning to face the aimpoint when you use an attack. I guess it'd be weird in an FPS to be locked in place when you try to shoot, though it could be somewhat realistic if you tie the lock to ADS...
Basically, you've more than likely run into this issue on keyboard and mouse if you've been doing multiple different actions while weapon is ready and then you get stuck moving in that direction, usually in one of the diagonal directions. This fixes that while also disabling some of fo4's movement "improvements."
Thank you for this one!
edit: ok, I see the gifs