39 réponses à ce sujet

[Linkenski]

And I'm once again refering to DA:I. Well, all Bioware games in the cinematic era has that animatronic facial gesture system rather than face capture or something which is understandable when there's so much dialogue and animation work to be done, but god I was frustrated with DA:I's dialogue animations. Is it just me or are they sort of delayed to the voice? The lips look heavy and move really slowmo like and that face Inquisitor makes when he's surprised looks so ewww. Also, that game had problems with non-verbal awkwardness. Sometimes you'd be angry but your face would be smiling and **** like that.

 

Bioware did a much better job animating faces for ME1 especially. We don't often talk about that (granted, it's a minor thing) but I actually think ME1 had the smoothest and most humanlike facial movement. In ME2 this says it all:

 

 

...and in ME3 I felt like the characters had this monkey-lip look whenever they were talking where their mouths are facing downwards and outwards and it looked edgy.

 

I just hope ME:A will have a great facial animation system and above the low standard we've gotten used to with Bioware.

 

Also, another recurring problem: Your mocap actors and direction SUCKS.

[KingTony]

I just hope that the "facial" animations are good.

[ZipZap2000]

Played alien isolation?

Like playing an atmospheric, horror game about puppets, hiding from a Xenomorph.

[Almostfaceman]

And I'm once again refering to DA:I. Well, all Bioware games in the cinematic era has that animatronic facial gesture system rather than face capture or something which is understandable when there's so much dialogue and animation work to be done, but god I was frustrated with DA:I's dialogue animations. Is it just me or are they sort of delayed to the voice? The lips look heavy and move really slowmo like and that face Inquisitor makes when he's surprised looks so ewww. Also, that game had problems with non-verbal awkwardness. Sometimes you'd be angry but your face would be smiling and **** like that.

 

Bioware did a much better job animating faces for ME1 especially. We don't often talk about that (granted, it's a minor thing) but I actually think ME1 had the smoothest and most humanlike facial movement. In ME2 this says it all:

 

...and in ME3 I felt like the characters had this monkey-lip look whenever they were talking where their mouths are facing downwards and outwards and it looked edgy.

 

I just hope ME:A will have a great facial animation system and above the low standard we've gotten used to with Bioware.

 

Also, another recurring problem: Your mocap actors and direction SUCKS.

 

I don't feel the same way. The ME1 mocap basically summed up, stand in one place and then walk off at the end of the discussion. Same thing over and over. They added more facials and body movements each successive game - though the gangster-sidling-up-to-the-bar in ME2 I thought was odd. 

 

Protip - if you want to provide feedback, being rude (saying something sucks) is a sure way to make sure people ignore that feedback. 

[Bowlcuts]

Some of the animations were too re-used and just became hilarious to look at. I noticed many of them were then used in Dragon Age: Origins.

The one animation in ME1 where they would pound their fist on their palm...so hilarious.

[Linkenski]

I don't feel the same way. The ME1 mocap basically summed up, stand in one place and then walk off at the end of the discussion. Same thing over and over. They added more facials and body movements each successive game - though the gangster-sidling-up-to-the-bar in ME2 I thought was odd. 

 

Protip - if you want to provide feedback, being rude (saying something sucks) is a sure way to make sure people ignore that feedback. 

See, you're talking about the total acting performance -- I'm only talking about the facial animation tech which looks much smoother in ME1. ME2 and ME3 were both clear improvements with how much more dynamic dialogues were.

[ruggly]

 

Maybe some day.

[aoibhealfae]

 

If I were to rank each game, ME3 have more superior facial animations than ME1 and ME2. Custom FemShep is far more expressive than either default or custom BroShep but even so, FemShep suffered from Resting ****** Face in the first two game while Default BroShep suffered from Blue Steel syndrome in all trilogy.

[KaiserShep]

I'm not sure why DAI is the focus of this topic, as older games in the series have much worse examples of odd facial animation, particularly ME1 and 2. 

[ArabianIGoggles]

No matter how many times I see that pic it never fails to make me laugh.

[Fade9wayz]

Facial animation is always tricky and never quite satisfactory, if it isn't fine-tuned, which is costly (very fine mocap is actually extremely expensive, and have a lesss costly one with actual animators fine-tuning it is expensive too). It will always be better for set characters. The problem with video-games like mass effect, is that you apply the same blend-shapes to different modelings. The result will fatally be so-so. Then, if all your NPCs have fabulous facial animation because they are set characters, but your main doesn't, it will be even more jarring. So we get stuck with a not so happy middle ground that non-the-less allows you to customize your main character, but prevents you from having good facial animation.

[legbamel]

As long as they can avoid the eyeball-clipping problem SWTOR can't seem to avoid, I'll be happy.  Nothing breaks immersion like your character's expression causing his or her eyelids to enter one or both eyes.  [shudder]  I love that game but some face models simply don't work during cut scenes.

[LinksOcarina]

I love how everyone is praising Star Citizen...

 

But remember, L.A Noire did it first...and it was both brilliant and to its detriment because of the nature of the game in the end. Not to mention so damn expensive it was one of the factors that shut down Team Bondi, along with negligence of the upper management and Rockstar not making a lot of money in the end.

 

 

Although when games are using more mokap for in-game motion and animation versus canned animation...I guess people wonder why budgets are high. 

[ruggly]

I love how everyone is praising Star Citizen...

 

 

All four of us?

 

TBH, I had forgotten about LA Noire.

[ArcadiaGrey]

Some of the animations were too re-used and just became hilarious to look at. I noticed many of them were then used in Dragon Age: Origins.
The one animation in ME1 where they would pound their fist on their palm...so hilarious.

And the female characters little head shake while they're talking, get super sick of seeing that one in ME1 +2.

[ArcadiaGrey]

I didn't get that impression from Inquisition, but there are a couple of bad moments in ME that I hope they fix. Eyes clipping with custom Shep in ME3, Miranda’s eyelashes having a mind of their own, custom Shep looking fine until he/she smiles then it's a horror show etc...

I'd rather not have too many actor's faces, it breaks immersion (for me at least). I spent most of LA Noire recognising folk from US TV shows.

[Andrew Lucas]

Mocap.

That's something Bioware should get to know better.

[Linkenski]

I'm not sure why DAI is the focus of this topic, as older games in the series have much worse examples of odd facial animation, particularly ME1 and 2. 

I completely disagree. DA:I looks great at first but it was full of animation mistakes where characters would not express the tone of their voice in their face, looking happy while yelling with anger and etc.

 

I love how everyone is praising Star Citizen...

 

But remember, L.A Noire did it first...and it was both brilliant and to its detriment because of the nature of the game in the end. Not to mention so damn expensive it was one of the factors that shut down Team Bondi, along with negligence of the upper management and Rockstar not making a lot of money in the end.

 

 

Although when games are using more mokap for in-game motion and animation versus canned animation...I guess people wonder why budgets are high. 

I'm one of the few who never found LA noire's tech "impressive". I mean, yeah the tech is something, but c'mon, it looks artificial and stupid as ****. The faces the actors make in that game is ridiculous and you see how it's just an image planted over their faces much more than normal models that don't use facial capture. But yeah, it would also be too expensive for Bioware. I think Naughty Dog and Rockstar have way more impressive facial animations than this though.

[Andrew Lucas]

Mocap is always used, just for long and new cutscenes, while the normal conversations are the same gestures from almost ten years old games.

[Linkenski]

Mocap is always used, just for long and new cutscenes, while the normal conversations are the same gestures from almost ten years old games.

And their mocap always has awkward choreography save for the ending of ME3 which actually had some great animations when Shepard is fainting.

 

They just have a lot of really awkward cheoreography for all the big setpieces or when people are walking through a crowd and trying to avoid bumping into people. Anderson and Shepard's shaky-cam walk at the beginning of 3 comes to mind, as does Brooks's entrance in Citadel DLC. It's like "wtf is she even doing?" It looks worse than the really japanese gestures of games like Metal Gear Solid 3 or 4... heck, it's almost worse than this:

 

[LinksOcarina]

 

I completely disagree. DA:I looks great at first but it was full of animation mistakes where characters would not express the tone of their voice in their face, looking happy while yelling with anger and etc.

 

I'm one of the few who never found LA noire's tech "impressive". I mean, yeah the tech is something, but c'mon, it looks artificial and stupid as ****. The faces the actors make in that game is ridiculous and you see how it's just an image planted over their faces much more than normal models that don't use facial capture. But yeah, it would also be too expensive for Bioware. I think Naughty Dog and Rockstar have way more impressive facial animations than this though.

 

 

Keep in mind the game they were making. The facial animations were designed to be a bit bombastic, a bit more dramatic or over-the-top because they have to overcompensate and "overact" to make subtle clues and body language. 

 

A detective-style game is hard to do when the focus is cross-examining a witnesses and looking for visual cues. I agree that the faces made in-game are ridiculous.

 

The thing is the detail that we see due to motion capture and performance capture, and the tech employed by L.A Noire to add more detail to facial animations, is expensive. I don't know about you, but Rockstar makes a ton of money due to one game (billions by last estimate) while BioWare is more niche by hitting a cap of maybe $200 million, tops.

 

The question is cost. I don't think BioWare can afford using a lot of performance capture, so they cut the corners on body and facial animations into standard keyframe animation and canned animation that has been carried over since the first Mass Effect game. Id love to see it, but it would require higher budgets that rest on uncomfortable territory that I doubt EA would be happy with. 

 

 

All four of us?

 

TBH, I had forgotten about LA Noire.

 

A lot of people do. Shame really it was a good game, that was mishandled by marketing. 

[slimgrin]

All the next gen games I've played have upped the quality in this regard. Tomb Raider's are amazing. 

 

 

 

I'm sure Bioware will follow suit.

[Linkenski]

LA Noire was for an aquired taste. It has a lot of downtime in it where there's no immediate action and that usually turns away some customers. I thought it was great too. The plot was kind of eh and personally I thought it got less interesting after the homicide part where the cases were actually linked together.

[Linkenski]

All the next gen games I've played have upped the quality in this regard. Tomb Raider's are amazing. 

 

ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N3UMmTD8os

 

I'm sure Bioware will follow suit.

Don't count on it. Bioware has been behind the curve ever since Uncharted because their games are bigger in sheer content and amount of cutscenes than any linear action game like Uncharted or Tomb Raider, so they simply can't get that high quality if they want to make it consistent. Witcher 3 was a decent attempt and kind of better than what I've seen with Bioware but to be honest I prefer Mass Effect's admittedly more goofy but more well-rounded animations. There was a lot of weak lip-syncing and some really awkward mocap animations in The Witcher 3 as well and I did not like how pixar-esque the character expressions were some of the time. I felt like half the characters made puppy eyes all the time.

[Pee Jae]

I thought L.A. Noire went south when Cole um did that thing that seemed completely out of character for him and then you had to play as another character for quite a bit. Kind of took me out of the story. But, that has nothing to do with facial animations or how good I think the game is sooo...

 

I hope MEA looks at least as good as The Last of Us. I mean older Joel, who looks like someone I have seen irl, just can't remember who.