I know it doesn't constitute laziness, but when you look at a game as massive as Fallout 3 or Oblivion, with all the thousands upon thousands of lines of dialogue, you must admit that doing mocaps for each and every one of them would lengthen development time significantly. It's also very likely that many of the mocaps would be poor quality and just as hard to believe as none at all, and only doing mocaps for essential characters at essential times would give the impression of inconsistency. Though I do agree they could have made the ragdolls move a bit more.
Silent Hill 2
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
My thought is that comparing the visual styles of two different games is like comparing the paintings of different artist. Silent Hill has a kind of 'tortured soul artist' feel to it, aka - outside the norm. Final Fantasy (I guess Gears of War... but I shudder to include them) have a different kind of style in that they try to just be pretty. And pretty, while some people think it is boring, is no less interesting or beautiful. I once went to a museum and saw a painting of a tiger. My fellow student saw it and said it was boring because the artist didn't experiment. He completely missed the fact that someone had taken colored goo and smeared it around onto a page in such a manner that it looked almost like a photograph of a tiger!
And yes, Pyramid Head is always a fanwank.
And yes, Pyramid Head is always a fanwank.
Recording motion capture and voicework at the same time would be nice, but in a game with the amount of dialog that Fallout 3 or Oblivion has, it isn't terribly practical. A better solution for them would be to stop bloody zooming directly into their upper torso and having them stare straight at you during every conversation - if they had mixed it up with different camera angles and given the NPCs other animations beyond "perfectly rigid" while talking, it wouldn't matter that the uncanny valley was in effect with the lip-synching and facial animations. It only stands out so much because they aim a giant magnifying glass and a couple big neon signs saying "Look at how unnatural they are!" currently.
Of course you are going to run into problems of this nature whenever you have a silent protagonist, since they can't go with the more cinematic style of cutscenes like Mass Effect's as you are playing a mute who talks only through selecting menu items, and they can't take the approach of Half-Life as the conversation tree dialog system wouldn't make any sense when the other characters move about and interact without waiting for input from you.
The way Bioware has handled cutscenes with mute protagonists and dialog trees in Jade Empire and Kotor I'm recalling as being much less 'uncanny valley-tastic', so Bethsada might want to consider doing something similar in the future.
Of course you are going to run into problems of this nature whenever you have a silent protagonist, since they can't go with the more cinematic style of cutscenes like Mass Effect's as you are playing a mute who talks only through selecting menu items, and they can't take the approach of Half-Life as the conversation tree dialog system wouldn't make any sense when the other characters move about and interact without waiting for input from you.
The way Bioware has handled cutscenes with mute protagonists and dialog trees in Jade Empire and Kotor I'm recalling as being much less 'uncanny valley-tastic', so Bethsada might want to consider doing something similar in the future.
I don't understand what people expect from Oblivion and Fallout 3. I mean seriously, its not like these dialogues are planned like cutscenes. Creating a world that big and haveing so many character limits some shit. They couldn't create a cutscene for everyone who talks. I guess they could for "boss characters" and maine characters but those were done a little bit better anyways. Martin didn't feel stiff? Neither did the emperor? Or borius his bodygaurd
It's not going to be possible very often at all.Raithnor said:
The only reason they could do it in Silent Hill is because the voices in Silent Hill are all done by whoever they could find on the streets in Japan who happened to speak English, which is why they're even more awful than usual, since they are recorded primarily for people who aren't going to understand them or care about the niceties of the acting. (It's an odd design decision, but Silent Hill games in Japan have always had English voice acting and subtitles for their cutscenes).
More often though, you'll simply find that the person who actually does the voice looks bugger all like the character they're voicing, and so is simply not appropriate to get the mocap data from.
You don't even know. In Ar Tonelico one of the possible love interests "grows up," but just ends up looking like she changed clothes and put on platform shoes even though she's supposed to have gone through puberty.Bediz said:
Ok, maybe I'm missing the point here. I mean, it's not like Yahtzee can't write. In fact, quite the opposite, his way with words leaves me in awe of him at times... But wasn't the whole point behind Zero Punctuation that the review was entirely contained within a video, for my ease and convenience. I love to read, but why the hell should I watch a ZP video, knowing that Yahtzee has had to hold back so he can also write another review, an extension if you will, just because (and here I'll admit I'm assuming... And we all know what that can do at times) The Escapist told him to. It just seems a little pointless to me.
I like the work within your limitations commandment.
I know the intention of this one but it gets me thinking that developers would be cautious of showing they can do more with less time and again for the simple reason that the pen-pushing accountant types that seem to silently rule the world,will insist that they do more with less every time in order to cut costs,save money for the big-bosses etc.
Money rules just about every decision made under the sun.If a developer gets the nod for a big budget its just a shame that these games more than often turn out somewhat muddled and mediocre.Like the creative spark gets dilluted by an army sized development team.
I know the intention of this one but it gets me thinking that developers would be cautious of showing they can do more with less time and again for the simple reason that the pen-pushing accountant types that seem to silently rule the world,will insist that they do more with less every time in order to cut costs,save money for the big-bosses etc.
Money rules just about every decision made under the sun.If a developer gets the nod for a big budget its just a shame that these games more than often turn out somewhat muddled and mediocre.Like the creative spark gets dilluted by an army sized development team.
Oh, you're on, Yahtzee. I'm be working on my game with ten rooms and three characters, set in 1930's Morocco.
Well it seems like it ought to be, at most, harmless to you. You're free not to read it. It's a column by Yahtzee, and so far it's on the same subject as the review of the week; it's not a homework assignment. Skip it if you don't like it. I also don't see any reason to believe that he's holding back pearls of wisdom for the column to the detriment of the video. Those are two completely different formats, I don't think there's going to be much crossover between them. (And even if there were, it's not like there's a shortage of words. I'm pretty sure Mr. Yahtzee can come up with enough to fill both a video and a text column, without having to scrimp.)RaiZ-R said:
I'm guessing that Yathzee must like "1408" movie, because it's basicly silent hill movie. Except the city is now a room, and monsters turned into bloodlusty wallpapers and hallucinations.
From what I remember from Psychonauts review the number of characters doesn't really matter as long as they're well characterised and likeable.
Linearity killed Siren Blood Curse, but wasn't bad for Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood because of good story.
I learn between ass jokes.
From what I remember from Psychonauts review the number of characters doesn't really matter as long as they're well characterised and likeable.
Linearity killed Siren Blood Curse, but wasn't bad for Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood because of good story.
I learn between ass jokes.