I just want to point out that after playing .85-.87, the current firing animations for the pistols are not very realistic. First I want to commend Chuc for his exceptional efforts for PR. Chuc, even though I know you are doing a better job than I can ever do, I believe that you are referencing too heavily on COD animations for the weapons. I don't blame you if you may or may not have ever fired a pistol before in real life, but it certainly is not like COD or PR, where you can actually see the slide fly back in slow motion a la Matrix style, because in RL, the action goes through so fast that you do not see it and it actually is a blur. (Any military adviser or amateur shooter will probably verify this).
From a animation point of view, I would simply say that the keyframes themselves are probably fine, but the animations do need to be sped up a little and maybe have the screen shake a little more to recreate the "snappy" feel of recoil when firing a pistol.
To illustrate I will link the following videos:
The most realistic pistol animations I've seen in a game so far is from the Rainbow Six 3 series. Their firing animations, although the game is old, are the most accurate regarding recoil, muzzle flash, and smoke when comparing to modern shooters that prefer stylistic presentation over realism (nothing wrong with that though).
Here is the pistol in COD, which is what I believe Chuc based PR's animations on. As you can see, the slide goes back very slowly and the casing cycles out slowly as well. For a "cinematic" game such as COD, it is fine because it looks cool, but for PR it is a little out of place.
USP firing in RL. You can see the difference. The cycling of the round happens very quickly almost as if the slide did not move. You may blame it on the FPS limitation of the camera or something, but anyone who has ever fired a real pistol can confirm what I say to be true. Or youtube any pistol shoot.
My final thoughts are that even referencing COD for reloading animations is fine because they are very cool looking and most importantly very NATURAL looking. I've done some animation myself in Maya and 3ds and I understand that a good animation is a "natural" looking one. Sometimes I just feel that PR is purposely "slowed down" too much in terms of animations (ex. Scoping, reload, firing, preparing weapon, etc.) and feels very "unnatural" thus breaking my sense of immersion, but THAT deserves a whole different thread.
Thx for reading. Chuc hopefully this will help you animate for the next version of PR.
