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Math breakdown: Anime homing missiles
- cainxinth 4y agoReminds me of playing Panzer Dragoon Orta on the original Xbox.
- Arrath 4y agoThe end result does look very cool
- rilindo 4y agoThe term for this is Itano Circus, made famous in Macross https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgwORRFIiuE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgwORRFIiuE
- nvader 4y agoI've also heard it called Roboteching, from the samish reference: Warning info hazard tvtropes :p https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Roboteching https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Roboteching
- creamyhorror 4y agoIt seems like "roboteching" refers more to the sudden synchronised turning of the missiles towards the target, and "Itano Circus" / "Macross Missile Massacre" is the general term for near-simultaneous missile spam. Definitely very aesthetically pleasing. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacrossMissileMassacre https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacrossMissileMa...
- uranusjr 4y agoItano Circus is about the entire choreography of the entire fighting sequence, more than the missiles but combined with unrealistically agile robot actions and dynamic camera placing/movement.
- grimgrin 4y agoAnd here's 20 minutes of Itano Circus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzXfVgYCxWI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzXfVgYCxWI
- jvanderbot 4y agoTo be fair, some of the "circus" aspect could be explained by noise in the tracker, rather than noise in the launch direction or trajectory tracking (as TFA proposes). Mostly I say this because the directions tend to diverge more as they get closer to a highly dynamic target.
- YeGoblynQueenne 4y agoCheers. Now I have to think of a way to model that kind of thing shooting out of a Stormsurge: https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/KV128_Stormsurge?file=KV128_Stormsurge.png https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/KV128_Stormsurge?file=K...
- 082349872349872 4y agoThese are sometimes worth frame advancing for easter eggs. DYRL in particular had a sequence where mid-circus (IIRC) a Kirin beer can goes one way, and a Budweiser can goes in the opposite direction. [Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wckZcVFLU24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wckZcVFLU24 4:54 anime girl as missile nose art 5:40 not kirin, but "ハタイコ" (hataiko?) 5:41 defo budweiser (also from the Valkyrie?) I was wrong, but not badly mistaken. There may be more; I'm stopping here.]
- jvanderbot 4y agoI think I should be watching more Macross
- SigmundA 4y agoI have to believe Itano Circus was inspired by Saturn rocket fireworks, at least that what I though as a kid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS_7nY19kXw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS_7nY19kXw
- kitsunesoba 4y agoA well-animated Circus is always a treat.
- Kukumber 4y agothat's not the "term", that's "as seen in X anime" bastardizing technical "terms" irritates me
- howenterprisey 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itano_Circus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itano_Circus
- numpad0 4y agoItano circus is not an in-universe term, it’s named after an artist Ichiro Itano who is associated with it.
- Kukumber 4y agoYou don't say: a painting using cubism style is a "Picasso" The author that popularized it doesn't get attribution de-facto for every paintings that uses cubism Slightly rotating your missile propulsion system with an auto-targeting system doesn't make it "Itano" You don't say "Mr Smith's way of braking" because you saw him drift There is something about the weeb culture that's very corrosive about culture in general That's very concerning for this generation of technicians https://llvm.moe/ https://llvm.moe/
- somethingreen 4y agoThese terms come from Sakuga scene where artist attribution and appreciation are a big part of it. See also "Yutapon Cubes", for example. Also we absolutely do identify art styles after their creators if the style is distinct enough, but doesn't necessarily establish a new branch, e.g. Escher, Warhol, Wes Anderson.
- JohnBooty 4y agoThere is something about the weeb culture that's very corrosive about culture in general That's very concerning for this generation of technicians I'd love to hear more of these thoughts.
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- bee_rider 4y agoIt definitely looks neat. I don’t really see the point of doing this for one target per missile (other than aesthetics which is a perfectly valid reason!) But, if multiple were heading at a single target, I guess they’d be harder to dodge? Multiple trajectories and all that.
- Armisael16 4y agoThe real-life reason for this wild spiraling behavior would be that the launch tube isn’t pointed directly at the target and the missile overcorrects. That’s actually how the sidewinder missile got its name. This kind of mid-flight course change is a characteristic of real missiles in other cases , though: * almost anytime a submarine or ship launches, the missile goes straight up for a little bit to clear the ship before sharply turning * if you shoot a guided missile straight up unguided to clear terrain (eg a hill) before turning on guidance you’ll see this * cruise missiles in the gulf wars famously did this by following the street grid - even turning at street light * if you launch a torpedo in a random direction then activate guidance later it can disguise where you are, since the torpedo is coming from a different direction
- magila 4y agoI always assumed the Sidewinder missile was named based on the snake's ability to sense prey by thermal radiation.
- Armisael16 4y agoIt was a bit of both, really (and the snaking path was only present in early versions of the missile). Sorry to mislead!
- sdmike1 4y ago> cruise missiles in the gulf wars famously did this by following the street grid - even turning at street light That's fascinating! Do you have more info on this?
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
- PaulHoule 4y agoThere is a whole area called ‘pursuit theory’ about how to guide a missile to a target that produces very interesting curves.
- mLuby 4y agoIt's going to be even more wild in space when missiles can glide. Children of a Dead Earth allowed some simulations around this concept.
- ranger207 4y agoMissiles already glide. Most air-to-air missiles fire for only a little bit right after they're fired, then spend the rest of the flight coasting. Long range missiles propel themselves on a lofted trajectory to preserve energy, falling on their targets from above. In general, missiles can burn energy very quickly by making high-G turns, but can't recover energy, while aircraft are the opposite, being unable to maneuver as quickly as missiles but being able to constantly add energy. Some missile evasion tactics exploit this asymmetry. But of course, for every countertactic there is a counter-countertactic. The new innovation in missiles is dual pulse missiles, which have two rocket motors so that after firing, coasting, and approaching the target, the second pulse can fire and give the missile more energy to defeat countermaneuvering. The MBDA Meteor is an example of a missile with a dual pulse motor, except that instead of having two motors, it just has one which can be turned on and off.
- iamwil 4y agoMy first job out of college was working for a lab that did stuff for Air Defense. We did stuff like missiles that shot down other missiles for the Navy. Anyway, in my naivety, I asked the more senior engineers why we don't shoot missile plumes. Lots of cheap missiles in the hopes that one hits. (I didn't mention the idea was from watching anime.) They told me that the backfire from the exhaust of one missile might ignite the one behind it if we did stuff like that. That said, I've seen videos of ships firing missiles in relatively quick succession. Just not like the Itano Circus, however.
- brmgb 4y ago> That said, I've seen videos of ships firing missiles in relatively quick succession. Just not like the Itano Circus, however. Saturation attack is indeed a tactic used. The idea is to time your attack for missiles to arrive on your target at the same time independantly of when they are launched and of their trajectories. Also, a missile hit for anti-missile defense probably doesn't look like what you expect. There is no need to reach the incoming missile spot on. The goal is to explode in its vicinity preferably slightly in front of it. Incoming missiles are fast enough that impacting either debris or the explosion shockwave will disable them if they are close in a radius which is not that small.
- auxfil 4y agoThank you for calling it by it’s proper name and not “Anime Homing Missiles”
- bhhaskin 4y agoIt makes far more sense to do something like that in space instead of in the atmosphere. You could spread the missiles out a little before ignition. But you would also need some kind of swarm logic and tracking to make sure they don't bump into each other.
- XorNot 4y agoOstensibly the Generation 2 Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb munitions will do something like this - i.e. they're capable of independently acquiring targets, and then de-conflict the target acquisitions to ensure they don't all track on the same one. Basically the idea being that you fire a whole lot of them at the enemy trench somewhere over there, and on terminal approach they independently assign themselves to specific interesting looking targets.
- allenu 4y agoReally cool! I always wanted to see a shooter that made use of the Itano Circus style. I always imagined it would be fun and stylish to fly around dodging missiles like that. Is there a shooter out there that does that?
- prova_modena 4y agoOlder games, but "Omega Boost" and "Zone of the Enders" 1 and 2 are great examples of trying to realize this style.
- stevenwoo 4y agoNier Automata has schmup sections but they are scattered around mainly 2D/3D fighting action game with a very long version at the end of the game. The player shoots more missiles like that versus the computer using them, it's more effective for the player to bat the missiles away with the mech sword versus avoiding the enemy missiles.
- MrLeap 4y agoI like using PID controllers for this kind of thing. They make it easy to get "authentic" looking behavior. By tuning the params you can adjust to behave anywhere from smooth like silk to wild overcorrections. They look really lively, I'll post a video on twitter or something. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller
- fho 4y agoI just read [this](http://brettbeauregard.com/blog/2011/04/improving-the-beginners-pid-introduction/ http://brettbeauregard.com/blog/2011/04/improving-the-beginn...) yesterday. It details the effort that went into making the Arduino PID library more robust compared to the "beginners PID".
- themeiguoren 4y agoAs a controls engineer, this is still the best one-stop shop I’ve found for making PIDs a lot more usable & robust. There’s a few things I’d add but this covers the major bases.
- fho 4y agoSo ... what would you add? :-)
- TheRealPomax 4y agoYeah but now you made tuning the PID parameters your day job =(
- HelloNurse 4y agoIf you like machine learning, you can simulate the game in suitable test scenarios and evolve high-performance missile controllers. Like in real life at the firing range, without engineers. Of course, bad controllers that can be exploited by the player to make missiles miss are usually fun, as are slight variations of PID parameters in the same missile salvo, to disperse them organically.
- Pxtl 4y agoThis video should probably have an epilepsy warning based on those strobe-light explosions. I adore the strobe-lights and they make me nostalgic as hell for early-'90s 3D games like SNES Starfox and Lightspeed/Hyperspeed, but the technique was retired for good reasons. As for the effect itself, I wonder if it would make sense to try this with a boid algorithm so they move as a "flock". Most attempts at anime=missiles I've seen either just look too chaotic or the missiles while initially launched at wide angles gradually consolidate into a tightly-packed blob.
- vlovich123 4y agoI’m curious what plotting tool the author used to create those slick illustrations.
- Voltage 4y agoGreat article! I didn't know about Rotation Minimizing Frames or the double reflection method. I've run up against the issue of unexpected twisting of splines at work more than once.
- TheRealPomax 4y agoThey're also known as Frenet frames, or Bishop frames, if you're going to dig into them in the future.
- Jasper_ 4y agoFrenet frames are simply any orthonormal frame. A rotation-minimizing frame is a frame that has minimal twist from some previous frame.
- TheRealPomax 4y agoWhat they are, and what people call things, are two different things though. Ran into lots of folks calling them Frenet frames while looking this up myself several years ago.
- Voltage 4y agoThanks for the tip. I thought I recognized your handle! You wrote the "A Primer on Bézier Curves" article. Thanks for providing that amazing resource, it's been invaluable during my learning process.
- TheRealPomax 4y agoI did indeed, always nice to hear folks enjoyed it!
- crispisulcans 4y agoCool design! I would love for some folks who are into this stuff to try their hands at this missile defence programming game https://openprocessing.org/sketch/745415 https://openprocessing.org/sketch/745415 (click the </> button at the top)
- mcnichol 4y agoCan I just say, only being a portion of the way through the article, you are a natural teacher/communicator. You have a very kind, knowledgeable, and effective way of explaining. I'd like to point out how much I appreciate how you introduce technical specifics and elaborate concisely enough that those who know and those who don't can share an article without feeling talked past or down to. One persons opinion. With your communication style a high bar I've been pursuing for some time, I just want to share a sincere appreciation for it!
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- BoppreH 4y agoI love these gamedev articles on specific solutions for making gameplay feel good. It has a freedom and artistic drive that I miss in other technical writing. And if the article left you with an itch for a space mecha game with missile barrages, here's a suggestion: Strike Suit Zero[1], or its arcade version, Strike Suit Infinity[2]. It's cheap, short, with memorable gameplay and a lovely soundtrack[3]. [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/209540/Strike_Suit_Zero/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/209540/Strike_Suit_Zero/ [2] https://store.steampowered.com/app/234160/Strike_Suit_Infinity/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/234160/Strike_Suit_Infini... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eDWgwucK5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eDWgwucK5w
- rustypotato 4y agoWhat kind of glitches would you experience in this context without rotation minimizing frames? If the missiles are a non-symmetrical shape, I would guess that you could see some "snapping" in its rotation, but if the missile is something like a centered sphere, my intuition is that the snapping wouldn't be perceptible.
- munificent 4y agoWhat a fun article! If it were, I would probably have tried two simpler tweaks: 1. Instead of bothering to compute tangent frame sweeping along the path, just use a fixed frame that's tangent to a line drawn from the start to the end point. (And then pick a random fixed rotation angle.) 2. Just use value noise instead of simplex noise. Or, hell, just stack a couple of sine waves with randomly chosen phase and frequency.
- anyfoo 4y ago> Many people are intimidated by math, but keep in mind that you don’t need to understand everything to use it. This is key. And then if you're like me, you might after all become interested in actually understanding, and something new opens up.
- somat 4y agoProbably why I am not a game dev but when the author mentioned and discarded the iterative solution in favor of the closed form solution. I immediately thought how cool it would would be to have some sort of deep involved simulation that would in the end create the same effect. One reason a missile might spiral like that is in order to have a simplified seeker head and control assembly, you only seed to seek and control on one axis and you spin the whole missile to scan over two dimensions. the missile will always overshoot a little but correct once it rotates around the other way. while this makes for a far simpler seeker and control setup it wastes a lot of energy so you need a bigger engine for the equivalent range if you had a two dimensional seeker/control missile. Another reason is to make the anti-missile solution much harder. It still wastes a lot of energy.
- mLuby 4y agoDeep involved simulation you say? Check out Nebulous: Fleet Command https://youtu.be/Oe-71-3khyA https://youtu.be/Oe-71-3khyA specifically 1min in they show off the missile seeker customization and sprint phase programming. The game is like if you combined The Expanse with Homeworld. In general I've found the devlogs interesting—same YouTube channel I linked above.
- SinParadise 4y agohonestly everything Microprose and Hooded Horse is instabuy for me. well, almost instabuy.
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- somat 4y agoIn the same vein is the game "From the Depths". It is just this side of unplayable due to it's systems and simulations. several times now I have started a campaign, enthusiastically go through the tutorials and immediately go combat ineffective when I forget how to assemble a functioning internal combustion engine power train. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhTNESwAzs4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhTNESwAzs4 Note that that trailer absolutely fails to convey the mysteries found in trying to design a functioning missile system.
- causality0 4y agoVery interesting read. Regarding the example animation, is that lifted directly from chapter 1 mission 4 of Robotech Battlecry or is an astonishingly good recreation?
- Justsignedup 4y agoDear Mechwarrior developers: Pay this man all the moneys and put it into the game!
- speed_spread 4y agoAgreed, Itano Circus SRM-6 should be standard. So I'm a mechslut. Today I bought Mechwarrior 5, installed it played for an hour and uninstalled it out of boredom and disgust. When inspired, Mech games can be SO COOL but I think it's just too easy to go with the cheap arcade mode and plain physics.
- SinParadise 4y agoMechwarrior 5 is kind of meh without mods. I played with the following: VonBiome for more battlefields, YetAnotherMechLab, YetAnotherMechlabMechs, YetAnotherWeapon and YetAnotherWeaponClan for mechlab and additional weapons. XenoAI MissionYAML and CoyotesMission to improve mission variety and difficulty.
- Justsignedup 4y agoThe problem with MW games is the following: 1) They were not built for simulation. The TT rules are good for just that. 2) The companies coding then haven't been great at it. 3) Pirhana games has terrible leadership and coding skills. Honestly MW5 had a ton of potential, but eclipsed by terrible coding. Like the spawn effects are bad, and they had to do spawns because they couldn't figure out how to disable scripts for inactive units, or how to make things efficient, or whatever. Basically yeah. Also I'm thinking LRM-20s with that effect. Cheff's kiss.
- tlhunter 4y agoI always wanted a modern Omega Boost
- kilgnad 4y agoI've been a fan of macross for a long time but the mecha games always suck. The main problem is that the movement isn't as fluid as the anime. I've only seen one good game capture the essence of the animes while being a fair and good game. It's an old game called virtual on. It's a fast paced mecha game with rocket boosted dashing along lines of commitment. That line of commitment means that when you dash with your mecha it forces the mecha into a single permanent dash in a single direction for about 3 seconds. This restriction actually makes you feel like you're pulling off incredible dodges of anime homing missiles. The graphics are old but it's the only game I've ever seen pull off the same feeling as an anime. See video: https://youtu.be/SoUGqhPQFI0?t=279 https://youtu.be/SoUGqhPQFI0?t=279 It's old, but for it's time it was incredible. Also the controls involve dual joysticks at the arcade to really get the feeling that you're controlling a vehicle.
- psychphysic 4y agoBetter off using the integration method and if they miss they miss. Or maybe you're not. But impossible to doge homing missiles doesn't feel very game like or realistic and works only against static targets.