Given most consider Heavy Rain to be a fantastic game at least and even a masterpiece, perhaps you could moderate your insulting and condescending tone? WTF have you done recently? Watched a few Jim Sterling videos and had your mind made for you most probably. When was the last time you pushed the boundary's of an emerging art? Fucking never. Till then, how bout a bit of respect?
The best praise I've heard for the atomic bomb of ass that is Heavy Rain is that it has an "okay story for a video game", and that was from a film buff I occasionally tolerate at Subway. It hardly even deserves that much, though, considering the whole plot falls apart if you think like an actual human being. To say nothing of the piss-poor voice acting, or the hamtastic dialogue out of everyone but the Origami Killer, and sometimes him too! The bizarre control scheme, the awkward and unsettling romance, the sexist rapey undertones surrounding the female lead that genuinely make me fear allowing David Cage around the female sex! Or how about Normin JAYdin the completely out of place Doctor Who character?
I've never heard Heavy Rain called a masterpiece before, so thank you! I had a new experience thanks to you. Even if that experience is objectively wrong, my life is richer for having had it.
Oh, and just so we're clear, it's irrelevant if I've pushed the boundaries of art, because David Cage hasn't either. =)
Wrong. With the marble sculpture, if you want your sculpture to have clothes you have to sculpt it with the clothes on, like it were a single big object. But that's not the case with many next gen games like these.
It's not my fault you chose a bad medium for your own analogy.
The sculptor is generally his own boss but as the game artist, you don't know what the director is going to want to show or not show, it's not up to you.
And that never set off any alarm bells that maybe this guy was a creepy old man who harbored some explicit fantasies that could potentially show up in his game, especially when it's made extremely clear that the character is basically Ellen Page?
Wrong. With the marble sculpture, if you want your sculpture to have clothes you have to sculpt it with the clothes on, like it were a single big object. But that's not the case with many next gen games like these.
It's not my fault you chose a bad medium for your own analogy.
The sculptor is generally his own boss but as the game artist, you don't know what the director is going to want to show or not show, it's not up to you.
Yes, if only there was. It's too bad directors have been known to be undecided or change their minds at the last minute about things like this, and as a result want to keep their options open. It's too bad that sometimes when making games (or movies), the only way to tell if something actually works is by seeing it in action. It's too bad they don't know exactly what their next project is going to be about, and want to future-proof their assets so they don't have to do the work twice. It's too bad the director doesn't always have the time to micromanage each individual artist, of which there may be dozens or hundreds across multiple companies.
Hell, like -Axle- mentioned not long after my first post, even the cave troll from Lord of the Rings has genitals, even though its never shown.
And I didn't choose a bad medium for my analogy, it holds up in both posts. In your example, you're talking about sculpting the character as one big object, clothes and all (which, again, is often not how next gen games like this do it). In my examples, I was talking about sculpting individual objects (in my first post there is one object, in my second post there are multiple objects, but the only difference is the number of objects). Note that in my first post, I made no mention of clothes or other accessories, I only mentioned an anatomically correct human model. Next gen games like this often take this approach partly because it allows them more flexibility in the long run.
Seriously? They put her head on a nude character model that was er..."Anatomically Correct" for a shower scene that didn't show any jiggly bits? WHY?! Why not make it like a doll if those "parts" weren't needed for the game? It takes someone going full retard to put that into a game's files and not expect someone to find it.
iirc, there was 3d modeled vajayjay in one of the Metro Games. On a character model that was locked behind a door with a frosted glass window, sitting in a bathtub.
I guess game devs just... go for authenticity?
or are just freaky sex perverts. probably the latter - everyone kind of is.
Ellen Page Triggers Aggressive Responses in Me.....
But you don't see me taking legal action!
Note to Sony, don't put something in a game that you don't want people to share... you put an atomically correct nude in a game, people are gonna share it.
She mocapped it, so we can assume she was aware the scene existed. What she probably wasn't aware of though was that someone would unlock dev tools that weren't supposed to be accessible to players and included full camera control and proceed to use said full camera control in a scene in which the character's nudity is mostly concealed by the choice of camera angle.
SweetWarmIce said:
Wait they actually bothered to create nipples and a vagina on the model? I'd have thought it'd be like the Sims where if you get past the obstruction it's a Barbie doll.
I imagine the nipples are probably actually useful when hanging clothing on the model, as far as gauging where things go and how they are supposed to fit. Rather like a navel in that regard -- a useful anatomical landmark. The vagina makes less sense from that perspective but I guess if you're going to go that far, you might as well go the rest of the way. Does the model have a vagina? I've only seen a couple of pics on reddit from this and it wasn't exactly visible on them.
Wait they actually bothered to create nipples and a vagina on the model? I'd have thought it'd be like the Sims where if you get past the obstruction it's a Barbie doll.
I imagine the nipples are probably actually useful when hanging clothing on the model, as far as gauging where things go and how they are supposed to fit. Rather like a navel in that regard -- a useful anatomical landmark. The vagina makes less sense from that perspective but I guess if you're going to go that far, you might as well go the rest of the way. Does the model have a vagina? I've only seen a couple of pics on reddit from this and it wasn't exactly visible on them.[/quote]
When it comes to game art, this is partially right. I do know the occasional artist who insists on sculpting junk on all his monster demons before wrapping clothes on them, and it's common for artists to block in breasts when sculpting or drawing a figure to help establish the form. Nipples aren't visible through most clothes, but it's important to at least know where they go and I could see them occasionally being worth modeling. For a fully clothed character, probably not though. Most character artists also have a collection of stock base models to start out with, some of which are just blocked out forms, and others are highly detailed nude models.
The weird part to me is any of that getting past the low poly stage, much less in game, if it wasn't intended for use at any point. The reason why first person weapons and buildings often have deleted faces on the sides that they will never be seen: optimization.
Because this is a video game. Nudity in video games is evil. Violence in video games is evil. Everything that exists is evil if it's in video games. Because video games are evil.
The sculptor is generally his own boss but as the game artist, you don't know what the director is going to want to show or not show, it's not up to you.
Because nothing ever changes from when the scene was first drafted to when the game is released. It's not possible the scene originally showed more than was released but due to a myriad of potential reasons got re-written.
Because this is a video game. Nudity in video games is evil. Violence in video games is evil. Everything that exists is evil if it's in video games. Because video games are evil.
Quick background, I work as an actor and writer. So yeah, I actually know what I'm talking about.
So why is Ellen Page pissed about there being nude models of her in the game?
Because production companies are required to tell the actor if there is nudity for the character in the breakdown.
A typical day at the office has me reading about half a dozen breakdowns of upcoming projects that my agent thinks I would be a good fit for. A typical breakdown looks like this:
Indie Hipster Movie 500
Written by: Wes Anderson
Directed by: Robert Rodriguez
Production Company: The Weinstein Brothers
Synopsis
A coming of age tale about a group of young people navigating life, relationships, love, and secretly being Super Sayans.
NOTE: There is nudity in this project.
Ron
(Male - 18-22)
A quiet, shy loner who is new to the group. Actor selected, Michael Cera
Emily
(Female - 18-22)
A quirky, fun girl who becomes the love interest of Ron.
(Full-frontal nudity)
You have to know from the very start what your walking into. That's not just a contract thing, that's SAG thing, put in place to protect actors from being exploited. A film can't randomly add nudity, either. It's either there from the start, or it isn't there at all.
I don't expect people in the Escapist to know this, because it's not common knowledge outside of the industry, and to be quite frank, it's not as common knowledge as it should be inside the industry. But the justifications and even hostility I've seen on this thread towards Page on this thread... I am disappoint.
Because this is a video game. Nudity in video games is evil. Violence in video games is evil. Everything that exists is evil if it's in video games. Because video games are evil.
Quick background, I work as an actor and writer. So yeah, I actually know what I'm talking about.
So why is Ellen Page pissed about there being nude models of her in the game?
Because production companies are required to tell the actor if there is nudity for the character in the breakdown.
A typical day at the office has me reading about half a dozen breakdowns of upcoming projects that my agent thinks I would be a good fit for. A typical breakdown looks like this:
Indie Hipster Movie 500
Written by: Wes Anderson
Directed by: Robert Rodriguez
Production Company: The Weinstein Brothers
Synopsis
A coming of age tale about a group of young people navigating life, relationships, love, and secretly being Super Sayans.
NOTE: There is nudity in this project.
Ron
(Male - 18-22)
A quiet, shy loner who is new to the group. Actor selected, Michael Cera
Emily
(Female - 18-22)
A quirky, fun girl who becomes the love interest of Ron.
(Full-frontal nudity)
You have to know from the very start what your walking into. That's not just a contract thing, that's SAG thing, put in place to protect actors from being exploited. A film can't randomly add nudity, either. It's either there from the start, or it isn't there at all.
I don't expect people in the Escapist to know this, because it's not common knowledge outside of the industry, and to be quite frank, it's not as common knowledge as it should be inside the industry. But the justifications and even hostility I've seen on this thread towards Page on this thread... I am disappoint.
I don't think the situation is quite as simple. The nudity in question wasn't intended to be in the game. The closest film equivalent I can think of is if a movie was released with letter box overlays which when removed shows nudity not declared to be in the movie.
Also does this include adding nude shots from a stunt double?
Yeah I believe the issue is contractual obligation, but as others have said this is a massive grey area because as an artist, drawing at least semi anatomically correct figures before clothing them helps a lot (you have no idea how unnatural some pants look on drawings of dudes until you give them junk space).
So it's really a question of did she realise she was posing for essentially a sculpture from the ground up and if not I can understand her being justifiably upset.
Also as a note on sexually charged Page characters, all I'll say is "It's so gushy." and hopefully the other 5 people who saw Super will get it.
I don't expect people in the Escapist to know this, because it's not common knowledge outside of the industry, and to be quite frank, it's not as common knowledge as it should be inside the industry. But the justifications and even hostility I've seen on this thread towards Page on this thread... I am disappoint.
Part of the hostility towards Ms. Page comes from the Escapist articles themselves, alluding once again that she's really angry about something that she really hasn't said much of anything about.
I remember she said it kind of bothered her that the character in "Last of Us" looked like her, The Escapist spun it like she was on the war path and the forums trashed her back then too.
The other part of it is the general opinion that breasts are only for male viewing pleasure. How dare a woman try to stop men from their rights to see boobies without a woman's consent! Even though it's been mostly Sony reacting and trying to hide the boobies, clearly Ellen Page is evil feminist out to destroy man's fun.
It may not really be her body, but it is still disturbing on many levels and is a very complex situation. I'm willing to bet video game companies are going to have a hell of a time trying to enlist famous women to model for games after this, including extra pages swearing up and down they won't have nudity in the game without consent. Fictional characters like Liara T'soni and Lara Croft, yeah people are total pervs for getting these characters naked in the games, but it doesn't have the same level of problems. When you have someone who is an existing, real life person, with an identity, who was modeling for a character and did not consent to the nudity, then the pervs find a way to bring it out, it starts to really push moral lines.
Honestly, I don't see how no one at that company didn't see this coming considering the history of video game hackers looking for hidden tits in game files. Did they really think that the "Beyond Two Souls" audience would be different?
I don't think the situation is quite as simple. The nudity in question wasn't intended to be in the game. The closest film equivalent I can think of is if a movie was released with letter box overlays which when removed shows nudity not declared to be in the movie.
Also does this include adding nude shots from a stunt double?
From a contract and legal standpoint, there is no difference here than if the director shot a sex scene using a body double without the main actor's knowledge or consent.
That also answers your question about the stunt double. The stunt double is doubling for the actor, so as far as the audience is concerned, they are one in the same, and everyone is bound by the same nudity rules.
Bloody heck people. Why is this getting so much publicity? Its nothing new as many people before me has said many people model the body naked and work from there. Not to mention god forbid someone be naked in a shower. If I learned anything from Ned Flanders is that I should always wear something to cover my bits even when taking a shower
This gives me serious chills. I'm not advocating the purge of all nudity from games (I'm an ARTIST for Christ's sake. I've drawn naked people!) but it's the weird, twisted situation playing out here. Something that may happen more often with the more common use of mo-cap and using real actor's faces and bodies to model from.
They took Ellen Page's likeness, gave the likeness a set of "virtual stunt parts" and, according to some considering I can't find any pictures of the offending details, put them in (or left them on a base model) without her consent.
Now, readers not knowing what the problem here was:
Imagine yourself being a reference for a life-drawing class. You're clothed and you expect to be painted clothed or maybe in a classical style with a drape over your crotch.
You don't wanna be sitting there on a hard stool, naked and cold with everybody staring at your pasty, flabby arse. That's why you didn't choose to be a reference for a NUDE life-drawing class.
But after the session is over, you take a look at the work the artists have been doing...
Most of them are fine except for one. In this picture you're naked and being attacked by a tentacle rape monster.
Take note that these pictures are going to be put on display for everybody to see.
Your friends could see it, your boss or future boss could see it, your FAMILY could see it. And while you know you weren't naked and that's not what you look like naked (you've got moles and scars and crap like that and ain't that under/over-endowed) the people that don't know what you look like under clothes are going to think that's what you look like. People that know you are gonna talk behind your back about it like you knew what was going on and you consented. But you didn't. The worst thing you thought could happen was that somebody could paint a really shitty picture of you. Not this. And you didn't sign up for that.
Now everybody knows you as "the tentacle rape painting" guy/girl. You get mad, they deride you for either "not knowing what you were getting into", "being a crybaby", "being an idiot" or "not appreciating art". They weren't there when you applied/volunteered to stand up in front of the artists so how would they know what went down? They don't. But there's nothing else you can do but get mad at the person that decided to paint a picture of you being threatened with tentacles and the people that allowed it to be put up on the walls despite it not being in your contract.
I'm not claiming to know how Ellen Page feels, but this is just my way of trying to explain that she and Sony are totally in the right in freaking out over it and that there's a chance it's not a publicity stunt.
Quantic Dream made the game and maybe a couple of things were outsourced to smaller firms. Not Sony.
They've found out about something that slipped past the radar and don't want their reputation with any future celebrities in their published games to be tarnished or even with their consumers that take offense to what's going on. Doesn't mean they ARE going to do what they say but it shows that they certainly don't approve of what's happened.
Anyway, nipples needing to be kept on models to model clothing over? Dafuq? The only times that would work was if they were either cold or aroused and the women weren't wearing thick enough bras. That's an even more redundant use of unnecessary details! And what's the point of using them for clothes modeling if there's not going to be any clothing at all?
Sure you need breast and testicle physics but those could easily be created without modelling everything underneath. In a shower scene with a woman you could use barbie boobs no problem!
I like David Cage's games. They're not fantastic, artistic experiences but they're still pretty good and can have some damn amazing parts in them that put them above mediocre. I usually find myself yelling about the inconsistencies at the screen for all of the ones I've played so far and avoided most of the nudity in Heavy Rain considering it was only put in places where the player could see it if they wanted it.
I've only watched someone play a demo of B:TS (it looks like it has the same highs and lows that the last two games did. The one thing they all seem to get spot on is dramatic pacing and minimal dialogue scenes) so I have no idea if the shower scene is avoidable. Hope it is otherwise it's a reduced-price purchase for me as a music student with a limited budget sharing a TV with four other people.
Just because Cage seems like a creeper (the uncool kind that doesn't blow up) doesn't mean I shouldn't line his wallet even if I really don't want to right now. I still listen to Front Line Assembly, Nine Inch Nails and Combichrist but they wouldn't like me playing the erhu or shamisen(traditionally made with python skin, tortoiseshell and dog/cat skin respectively even though both mine will be synthetic. Still doesn't make my sister happy that I'm paying people that use the real stuff, too and I'd imagine PETA supporters to have a field day with it).
Good music be good music, good games be good games. Sometimes the process doesn't matter but I take exception to this weird scenario.
Sorry about the long post. This just ain't something I can hold back my thoughts about.
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