I was wondering if they actually used female models for the motion capture of female characters in ME2. The movement seems very masculine for characters such as miranda in the cut-scenes. Also the choice of a female shephard seems to have been a bit of an afterthought and it seems highly plausible that during development they just reskinned a generic motion capture model.
Motion Capture models?
Débuté par
Elfergos
, août 07 2012 06:40
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#2
Posté 09 août 2012 - 07:23
PsiFive
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Was it mo-capped at all rather than traditionally animated? Seems unlikely given what some of the characters get up to in cutscenes, Kasumi and Samara being the most notable examples that spring to mind, and of course we know that Yvonne Strahovski was the model for Miranda as well as the voice actor. I suspected the animators, er, enhanced her a bit in the T&A departments, no idea why as she's got a perfectly good bod to begin with, so I googled a bit and found that she said there was no motion capture involved for her.
"Was there any kind of motion capture that you did, or did they film you in order to help animate your character?
I didn't do any motion capture, but I had to go through a process when they scanned my face into it. I had to sit on a rotating chair that rotated a certain angle every however-many seconds, and then they took all these photos of my face with different patterns, and somehow they scanned it all into a computer, and lo and behold, there was my face. And then they built it up – they built the body, and added brown hair, and the end result is what you see now."
So that makes it seem like any scenes with unfeminine body language from Miranda and other female characters is probably down to animators rather than motion capturing males. And to be fair animators probably spend more time animating male characters than female ones. Also Miranda recently bugged on me during Zaeed's loyalty mission and for a short while moved in a way that was certainly not motion captured unless poor Yvonne was tortured during the process. I don't have Fraps or anything like that to record it (and don't know how to replicate it even if I did) and it's very hard to describe, but trust me: human arms and necks do not move like I saw Miranda's arms and neck move. It was really..... unnatural.
Femshep, though.... I don't know if she was an afterthought as such but she certainly looks to have all or very nearly all of the Blokeshep animations. Very noticable when Femshep gets drunk with Dr Chakwas and when she talks to Morinth in Morinth's apartment. Men and women tend to cross their legs differently, I guess because of slightly different pelvises and very differently shaped underwear contents. Sometimes women do just put one lower leg on their other knee and sometimes men do the one knee on top of the other leg cross so it's not absolute, but Femshep always crosses her legs like a bloke and it looks a little wrong because she tends to sit with her knees apart like a bloke as well. And not just any bloke but Blokeshep himself, which I'd guess means they reduced the work and cost by simply repeating all or most of the Blokeshep animations with the Femshep model. If so that's a pity. It's not so much an unladylike like look, though from some angles and in some scenes you could argue that it is, but it's just a little weird. It looks like a woman doing a rather uncanny impersonation of a man.... she probably leaves her socks on the floor by the bed as well.
"Was there any kind of motion capture that you did, or did they film you in order to help animate your character?
I didn't do any motion capture, but I had to go through a process when they scanned my face into it. I had to sit on a rotating chair that rotated a certain angle every however-many seconds, and then they took all these photos of my face with different patterns, and somehow they scanned it all into a computer, and lo and behold, there was my face. And then they built it up – they built the body, and added brown hair, and the end result is what you see now."
So that makes it seem like any scenes with unfeminine body language from Miranda and other female characters is probably down to animators rather than motion capturing males. And to be fair animators probably spend more time animating male characters than female ones. Also Miranda recently bugged on me during Zaeed's loyalty mission and for a short while moved in a way that was certainly not motion captured unless poor Yvonne was tortured during the process. I don't have Fraps or anything like that to record it (and don't know how to replicate it even if I did) and it's very hard to describe, but trust me: human arms and necks do not move like I saw Miranda's arms and neck move. It was really..... unnatural.
Femshep, though.... I don't know if she was an afterthought as such but she certainly looks to have all or very nearly all of the Blokeshep animations. Very noticable when Femshep gets drunk with Dr Chakwas and when she talks to Morinth in Morinth's apartment. Men and women tend to cross their legs differently, I guess because of slightly different pelvises and very differently shaped underwear contents. Sometimes women do just put one lower leg on their other knee and sometimes men do the one knee on top of the other leg cross so it's not absolute, but Femshep always crosses her legs like a bloke and it looks a little wrong because she tends to sit with her knees apart like a bloke as well. And not just any bloke but Blokeshep himself, which I'd guess means they reduced the work and cost by simply repeating all or most of the Blokeshep animations with the Femshep model. If so that's a pity. It's not so much an unladylike like look, though from some angles and in some scenes you could argue that it is, but it's just a little weird. It looks like a woman doing a rather uncanny impersonation of a man.... she probably leaves her socks on the floor by the bed as well.
#3
Posté 09 août 2012 - 10:09
Elfergos
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I was running the intro sequence of ME3 with femshep and dudeshep side by side and as far as I can tell they are completely synchronous. You could be right and the animations aside from the facial stuff are just traditionally animated, for such a high budget game though I figured they would use actual motion capture. Back in the old baldur's gate days some of the developers used to use the forums, no idea if that still happens but I'm sure they could shed some light on it.
Either way it seems to me that the cut-scenes, even those using the in-game engine use a generic model which is reskinned depending on which party member you take along, its one of those little details that grinds on me, as is the equipment thing - I hate it in games when a cut-scene has continuity issues, in ME2 shepherd is often seen equipped with a rifle, even when my character was a vanguard and didn't possess such a weapon, this isn't the only game that does it either, red dead is the same, in the odd cut-scene john was carrying a revolver I didn't have equipped.
Either way it seems to me that the cut-scenes, even those using the in-game engine use a generic model which is reskinned depending on which party member you take along, its one of those little details that grinds on me, as is the equipment thing - I hate it in games when a cut-scene has continuity issues, in ME2 shepherd is often seen equipped with a rifle, even when my character was a vanguard and didn't possess such a weapon, this isn't the only game that does it either, red dead is the same, in the odd cut-scene john was carrying a revolver I didn't have equipped.
Modifié par Elfergos, 09 août 2012 - 10:14 .
#4
Posté 10 août 2012 - 01:24
Spanishcat
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So the movement of an adult who can probably bench press a fat krogans weight - and who's spent almost all their adult life in the military - is a bit 'masculine'? Who'd a thunk it!
That's a facetious response, but it's also fairly reasonable. Shepard's movements - regardless of gender - generally suggest strength and confidence. So it's not masculine or feminine, it's just the body language of someone who can send the front of your skull through the back of your head with the butt of a rifle...
The switches between consistency are there, sure, but they're tiny and unimportant details across a whole trilogy. Mass Effect has to present a male and female PC, and so emphasising masculine and feminine traits for a badass Alliance marine would've been far more jarring (I reckon).
That's a facetious response, but it's also fairly reasonable. Shepard's movements - regardless of gender - generally suggest strength and confidence. So it's not masculine or feminine, it's just the body language of someone who can send the front of your skull through the back of your head with the butt of a rifle...
The switches between consistency are there, sure, but they're tiny and unimportant details across a whole trilogy. Mass Effect has to present a male and female PC, and so emphasising masculine and feminine traits for a badass Alliance marine would've been far more jarring (I reckon).
Modifié par Spanishcat, 10 août 2012 - 01:25 .
#5
Posté 10 août 2012 - 07:23
PsiFive
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Dunno. Wouldn't have said it was emphasising feminine traits so much as just making it look as if Femshep wasn't hung like Ron Jeremy. I've met female soldiers - they don't lack for confidence but they don't sit like Femshep does either. However, I agree it's not an important detail, though if you're going to the effort of putting a female character in a game why not spend a little money on altering the animations slightly.
#6
Posté 10 août 2012 - 10:19
Spanishcat
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Shepard as an idea is, essentially, gender neutral - so I wouldn't really want to see any overt inflections of masculinity or femininity at all. (men and women cross their legs in both ways for starters, so that previous detail can be discounted)
I remember people pointing the same thing out with Dragon Age II and Hawke, and all it did was reflect social conditioning re gender identity as opposed to anything about game design. (I'm not accusing you of that, PsiFive)
The only moderately jarring moment in Mass Effect 2 is when FemShep's in the black dress, sitting with one leg laterally across the other. She's either impressively shameless, or she forgot she was wearing a dress...
And I wouldn't have expected BioWare to swap animations just for when the player picks that outfit, so I could easily accept it.
I remember people pointing the same thing out with Dragon Age II and Hawke, and all it did was reflect social conditioning re gender identity as opposed to anything about game design. (I'm not accusing you of that, PsiFive)
The only moderately jarring moment in Mass Effect 2 is when FemShep's in the black dress, sitting with one leg laterally across the other. She's either impressively shameless, or she forgot she was wearing a dress...
And I wouldn't have expected BioWare to swap animations just for when the player picks that outfit, so I could easily accept it.
Modifié par Spanishcat, 10 août 2012 - 10:19 .
#7
Posté 10 août 2012 - 11:50
Elfergos
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The physicality of the character models also doesn't bear this out, the fact is the femininity of the characters are displayed, there is no reason for instance that Miranda should move like Zaeed... She's wearing heels for a start!
If you start going in to physical attributes you would also make a case for different body shapes for character classes, why would a biotic adept be built like a soldier? They could even go as far as fable did and enhance the appearance of your character as you level up specific attributes, increase the weight allowance for instance would mean a greater muscle mass etc
If you start going in to physical attributes you would also make a case for different body shapes for character classes, why would a biotic adept be built like a soldier? They could even go as far as fable did and enhance the appearance of your character as you level up specific attributes, increase the weight allowance for instance would mean a greater muscle mass etc
#8
Posté 10 août 2012 - 02:12
PsiFive
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Yes, and I did point that out and discuss it. Both genders do both but there's a strong tendency for women to do one and men the other.Spanishcat wrote...
(men and women cross their legs in both ways for starters, so that previous detail can be discounted)
Yes, perfect example. But the thing is that she can wear the LBD in more than just that one situation and cross one leg laterally over the other. Yes, it would have been asking a lot for BioWare to have outfit specific animations, but since most women I know will walk, sit, etc in much the same way in pants as in skirts would variant animations for Femshep have been out of the question? It can certainly be done - it *was* done for Chakwas and Morinth. Perhaps easier still would have been truly neutral animations and/or virtual camera angles in those scenes. It is a game design thing when it's easy to think of ways they could have avoided the issue, though as I said before it's a pretty minor one for me.Spanishcat wrote...
The only moderately jarring moment in Mass Effect 2 is when FemShep's in the black dress, sitting with one leg laterally across the other. She's either impressively shameless, or she forgot she was wearing a dress...
And I wouldn't have expected BioWare to swap animations just for when the player picks that outfit, so I could easily accept it.
