Making Faces - A Bioware Story
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
I love the environments in DAI, but I don't like the character models. They're too photorealistic, they fall right into the uncanny valley. Their hair look plastic, and I really don't need to see the veins running through Solas' bald head. I much preferred the more stylized character designs from DA2. It made the things Yahtzee criticizes in this column easier to ignore.
Personally I think Bioware has evolved their face technology to the point that I don't notice it on NPCs anymore, player characters can still get some wonky results thanks to user input during creation, some of them can be quite... special, like this smashing specimen [http://i.imgur.com/IWV21qo.png]
Character design seems better this time around as well, the NPCs, especially the women look far better than before, the design of Cassandra and Sera being far superior to the doll faces of Miranda and Ashley
Character design seems better this time around as well, the NPCs, especially the women look far better than before, the design of Cassandra and Sera being far superior to the doll faces of Miranda and Ashley
It has never bothered me to tell you the truth, possibly that is because i always used tali and garus in mass effect who have 1. Hidden 2. Alien face. but in dragon age it never bothered me and my character ( usually elf) has a human face.
I can totally see why it may bother some but for me it was never an issue , sorry. Personally i think its worse in games like oblivion and fallout where it zooms right in on the face.
EDIT
RE : Dragon age 3
Its a good game and i enjoy it , the environments are stunning but it just does not feel like a Dragon age to me.
3 things i don't like
shiny lips, all the eyebrow options are terrible and the tactical view is unusable ( it works just fine in 1 and 2 so how can you mess something up you have done just fine 2 times before !)
I can totally see why it may bother some but for me it was never an issue , sorry. Personally i think its worse in games like oblivion and fallout where it zooms right in on the face.
EDIT
RE : Dragon age 3
Its a good game and i enjoy it , the environments are stunning but it just does not feel like a Dragon age to me.
3 things i don't like
shiny lips, all the eyebrow options are terrible and the tactical view is unusable ( it works just fine in 1 and 2 so how can you mess something up you have done just fine 2 times before !)
Apparently this is something you turn off in character creation, but most people don't notice until after they're done, and for some reason they didn't keep the ability from Dragon Age 2 to alter your character mid game, at least it wasn't too bad on my female inquisitor, but it was noticeable that my character seems to be the only one who coats her mouth in lip glossalj said:
i did that its one mark off the bottom as i wanted a little shine, but it looks like they have been buffed to a mirror shine like someone who spends all say polishing the chrome on his car.SNCommand said:
it does not bother me as much as the eyebrows thats ether none , monobrow or bushy man brow
I actually think that, beyond being low-hanging fruit, it's not entire fair or accurate.
Especially since games like Skyrim and Fallout have a far more serious case of "Bethesda-face" than Bioware games.
(yes, just stand ramrod stiff and stare right through my soul)
Bioware's approach isn't perfect, but between more varied animations and dynamic camera angles, along with including multiple characters in the dialogue, I actually felt it was such an improvement compared to the competition, I couldn't go back to the static, blank-face, single-camera conversations of other games.
To Bioware's credit, they have a habit of creating dialogue in dynamic ways. Sure, not everyone will get an interesting conversation with animation, but I was learning about Vega in Mass Effect 3 while having a fist-fight with him. I was finding out about Tallis in Dragon Age 2 while she ran around covered in animal blood and doing "got your nose" gags on me. I could be talking to Thane in Mass Effect 2 and he'd get random memory flashbacks suddenly and alarmingly.
The games are staggering in size and scale, and for the most part many of the best character moments are told in dynamic settings with dynamic actions and dialogue to go with them. Whether it's Hawke doing his best drama queen impression at a party of nobles, Grunt being interrogated by Citadel police about his wild night of the town, or having a stand-off with the Illusive Man for the fate of the universe, the conversations are so far removed from what others were doing, they remain leaps and bounds more engaging and interesting, even if there is clear room for improvement.
Especially since games like Skyrim and Fallout have a far more serious case of "Bethesda-face" than Bioware games.
(yes, just stand ramrod stiff and stare right through my soul)
Bioware's approach isn't perfect, but between more varied animations and dynamic camera angles, along with including multiple characters in the dialogue, I actually felt it was such an improvement compared to the competition, I couldn't go back to the static, blank-face, single-camera conversations of other games.
To Bioware's credit, they have a habit of creating dialogue in dynamic ways. Sure, not everyone will get an interesting conversation with animation, but I was learning about Vega in Mass Effect 3 while having a fist-fight with him. I was finding out about Tallis in Dragon Age 2 while she ran around covered in animal blood and doing "got your nose" gags on me. I could be talking to Thane in Mass Effect 2 and he'd get random memory flashbacks suddenly and alarmingly.
The games are staggering in size and scale, and for the most part many of the best character moments are told in dynamic settings with dynamic actions and dialogue to go with them. Whether it's Hawke doing his best drama queen impression at a party of nobles, Grunt being interrogated by Citadel police about his wild night of the town, or having a stand-off with the Illusive Man for the fate of the universe, the conversations are so far removed from what others were doing, they remain leaps and bounds more engaging and interesting, even if there is clear room for improvement.
Definitely, especially in the case of Miranda, she always looked like a plastic sex doll to me. While I haven't played inquisition yet, I must admit the character models look a lot better this time around (kinda miss DA 2's art style though).SNCommand said:
Also I'm saving that Nigel Thornberry Inquisitor image.
But why is every character's hair wrapped in cling-film? You did not address this distressing issue, Yahtzee.
Personally, wonky animations and rape-face conversations i can cope with as long as the voice acting is decent enough. I tend to be in state of half daydream most of the time anyway...so believable audio is priority.
Didnt Mass Effect 3 have better convo animation, or is it just me?
Personally, wonky animations and rape-face conversations i can cope with as long as the voice acting is decent enough. I tend to be in state of half daydream most of the time anyway...so believable audio is priority.
Didnt Mass Effect 3 have better convo animation, or is it just me?
It's a reasonable point to make, but there's not a lot that can be done that Bioware isn't already working on. Unless they work on a mo-cap library of a thousand different variations, and use those as a basis for their designs, we're going to have to do it the slow and painful route.
I have to say, I really didn't have particular issues with the character expressions and motions in DA:I, yes there is some amount of awkwardness due to all the reasons listed in the article, but I guess that for me they get filtered out bu suspension of disbelief.
A game where dialogues were IMO painfully awkward was Deus Ex Human Revolution, those were animations which shattered my SoD with a big hammer.
A game where dialogues were IMO painfully awkward was Deus Ex Human Revolution, those were animations which shattered my SoD with a big hammer.
Eventually we're going to reach the point where instead of mocapping faces, cleaning up the keyframes, and tossing it into games, we use mocap merely as a base from which to automatically generate entirely new animation on-the-fly. We've got this in a fairly simple form, blending from walking animations to running animations, or from a left run to a right run, but it's sure be something if (when) we can use an in-game scripting engine to say "animate this guy's face as yelling, with angry and sad emotions, using these phonemes and this timing". It might take another several decades, but I'm sure this is where we're heading, programmable visual delivery to match a voice actor, and this won't be a problem anymore.
P.S. Thanks
P.S. Thanks
Yeah, I agree with you.Trishbot said:I actually think that, beyond being low-hanging fruit, it's not entire fair or accurate.
Especially since games like Skyrim and Fallout have a far more serious case of "Bethesda-face" than Bioware games.
(yes, just stand ramrod stiff and stare right through my soul)
Bioware's approach isn't perfect, but between more varied animations and dynamic camera angles, along with including multiple characters in the dialogue, I actually felt it was such an improvement compared to the competition, I couldn't go back to the static, blank-face, single-camera conversations of other games.
The moment Yahtzee brought up the "Bioware face", my reaction was: at least it is not the Bethesda face, or the Amalur face"
I think this is mostly the result of having player customization options. After all, it is hard to count on face mocap when the face can vary greatly from person to person, from having different sexes to different number of horns.
I've been there. I played the first Mass Effect right after finishing Skyrim. Thanks to my familiarity with Bethesda face, the characters in Mass Effect looked pretty lively.Trishbot said:I actually think that, beyond being low-hanging fruit, it's not entire fair or accurate.
Especially since games like Skyrim and Fallout have a far more serious case of "Bethesda-face" than Bioware games.
(yes, just stand ramrod stiff and stare right through my soul)
Bioware's approach isn't perfect, but between more varied animations and dynamic camera angles, along with including multiple characters in the dialogue, I actually felt it was such an improvement compared to the competition, I couldn't go back to the static, blank-face, single-camera conversations of other games.
To Bioware's credit, they have a habit of creating dialogue in dynamic ways. Sure, not everyone will get an interesting conversation with animation, but I was learning about Vega in Mass Effect 3 while having a fist-fight with him. I was finding out about Tallis in Dragon Age 2 while she ran around covered in animal blood and doing "got your nose" gags on me. I could be talking to Thane in Mass Effect 2 and he'd get random memory flashbacks suddenly and alarmingly.
The games are staggering in size and scale, and for the most part many of the best character moments are told in dynamic settings with dynamic actions and dialogue to go with them. Whether it's Hawke doing his best drama queen impression at a party of nobles, Grunt being interrogated by Citadel police about his wild night of the town, or having a stand-off with the Illusive Man for the fate of the universe, the conversations are so far removed from what others were doing, they remain leaps and bounds more engaging and interesting, even if there is clear room for improvement.
I don't mind it in RPGs like that. It's not just Bioware. It's Bethesda, Obsidian, CD Projekt RED etc. In every RPG with conversations that occurs. I really don't care.
I personally don't have a problem with the way Bioware does cutscenes to be honest, they are flexible and all are within engine so they do a great job even with their shortcomings. Sure other developers have great cutscenes but I will always take what Bioware does over the stuff that Blizzard and Ubisoft do which is clearly pre-rendered and offers no room for variation. I think what Bioware needs to do with DA:I at this point (for PC at least) is to make the cutscenes 60fps instead of stuck at 30 and that would go a long way to help making the cutscenes far less problematic.
I do agree that they really should look into taking that technology further though (im sure they feel the same) because its a solid foundation it just needs to take that next step to make it less mechanical looking.
I do agree that they really should look into taking that technology further though (im sure they feel the same) because its a solid foundation it just needs to take that next step to make it less mechanical looking.
