TABS Cinematic Overhaul

TABS Cinematic Overhaul

by SeriousMango21

Turns Totally Accurate Battle Simulator into a war film. Hits throw bodies around like Euphoria and Max Payne. Units at zero health aren't dead yet: they stagger, clutch their wounds, grab walls and slide down them. They collapse, crawl for cover and die slowly while their friends kneel beside them begging them to hold on. There's dark, directional blood, wounds that stay on the body, broken bones, dismemberment and synthesized gore sounds. The AI fights smarter, uses cover and talks, soldiers trip, fumble, cower and get shell-shocked, and an automatic cinematic camera finds the best moments.

Everything is procedural, with no asset bundles. Nearly every feature can be tuned or switched off in the config.

Hotkeys

| Key | What it does |

|---|---|

| F9 | Director camera on/off: an automatic cinematic camera that follows the action. Also lets friends run to the wounded (see below). |

| F10 | Director camera: cut to a new shot |

| F8 | Film look on/off (vignette, contrast, grain, chromatic aberration) |

| F7 | Letterbox bars on/off |

| F6 | Clear all blood |

| F5 | Tactical AI on/off (to compare with vanilla) |

All keys can be changed in the config, under 5. Hotkeys.

Features

Ragdolls and hit reactions

• Euphoria-style reactions: the struck limb jolts, the body twists away from the blow, and the head whips. The arms fly out and wheel against the hit before the hands go to the wound.
• Real stagger steps: a hit takes the strength out of a unit for a moment. Its own legs step it along the blow: back from a hit in front, forward from one behind, sideways from one on the side.
• Knockdowns: heavy hits and explosions put units on the ground. Cannonballs and blasts throw bodies, scaled by how heavy the unit is.
• Heavy, grounded bodies: corpses are loose and heavy (LimpCorpses, BodyWeight), with no floating mannequins.
• Fall bracing: falling units throw their hands out to catch themselves.

Drama Overdrive (new in 3.0.0)

• Death throws: the killing blow throws the body like an action film. Units get blown backwards off their feet with their legs swept up, spun round by a shoulder hit with arms flung out, or dropped on the spot like a puppet with its strings cut (head hits). Shot from behind, they go stiff and fall flat on their face like a felled tree. A blade twists them half round and onto one knee before they fold. Cannonballs and blasts cartwheel them through the air.
• Blown off their feet: sometimes the hit that starts a dying act knocks the unit clean onto its back. Then it plays out its downed act on the ground: writhing, crawling and reaching.
• Air flailing: bodies flying through the air windmill their arms and kick their legs.
• Ground slams: bodies that hit the ground or a wall hard land with a heavy thud. They bounce and tumble with limbs splaying, spatter blood and can break bones.
• Camera shake: explosions, cannonball hits and bodies slamming down shake the camera nearby. The shake only touches what you see, never the game's own camera.
• Final kill cam: the kill that wipes out the last of a team plays in deep slow motion. If the Director camera is on, it cuts to the kill and orbits it.
• Dramatic slow-mo: spectacular on-screen deaths can trigger slow motion.
• Turn all of it up or down with 8. Drama Overdrive → Intensity (0.5 = war film, 1 = action movie, 2 = completely unhinged).

Eyes (new in 3.5.0)

• Units look where they walk. Several times a second, each moving unit checks a fan of 11 directions around where it wants to go, at hip height and at knee height. It sees how far each way is clear of walls, rocks, fences, buildings and invisible map blockers.
• It takes the clearest way that still heads towards its goal, picks a side to go round obstacles and sticks with it, so it doesn't dither. It tells a stair or kerb from a wall, so stairs are fine.
• If the way ahead stays blocked for about a second, it plans a proper route around.
• This covers everything: chasing, taking