IMO good animations are far more important than nice models, textures, or backgrounds Pages 1 2 NEXT | |
I agree. I wish this was real :D If something moves realistically, then it's a lot easier to overlook graphical imperfections. Games like Monster Hunter and Dark Souls aren't the prettiest games around, but the characters move like I think they would in real life. ME3 is very nice looking game, until the characters start moving :D | |
Company of Heroes has some beautiful animations to back up it's lovely visuals, which is why it looks so good still. | |
I agree, there is something that's just amazing about seeing good animation. That's why Ghost Trick is like one giant good feeling from start to finish...well...y'know, well done fluid animation coupled with fun and interesting gameplay plus a fantastic story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5SJ5p79H8k ...I don't know how to embed videos here >_> | |
To embed a youtube vid, just delete everything up to 'youtube', then after that, delete everything up to the first '=' Like so. youtube=u5SJ5p79H8k Then put it in square brackets. | |
No need for "IMO" - this is basically an objective fact. I think it's one of Newton's laws. | |
Thank you. I appreciate that. | |
No need for thanks, citizen. Just doing my escapist duty. Daystar away! | |
Man, during the opening of ME3 there were two guys moving next to each other with the exact same animation in perfect sync with each other. Made me go *sigh* | |
I doesn't matter how shiny your game is if everyone moves like a constipated bag of potatoes. | |
Thanks for posting the video. It's a perfect example of what I was trying to get at. I couldn't care less that the graphics are circa 1998 because Gordon's animations are great. It's also important for NPCs to have excellent animations. I hate watching enemies flail around like wooden dolls. | |
Unfortunately game development doesn't usually allow for a lot of custom animations like in the HL video, they often draw from a library of canned stuff to ease animator time and such. Remember, back when HL was made, what sort of computer was common place? How much CPU power would be needed for the skeletal animation with that many bones? How much RAM would be needed to store it all so it is readily available for playback? And regarding things like using IK for feet on steps, it's fine if you have one character doing it. But IK can be expensive and using it in a crowd so ALL their feet match up with the ground's slope? Picking up objects is the same, the object could be anywhere, and the player's facing direction and state and size (Dwarf? Half-orc? Women also tend to be shorter than men) could also be anywhere. While it would be nice to have, the amount of work to enable IK for feet or hands can be huge, and time can be better spent elsewhere. On the same note, play Max Payne 3 - it's animations are great, Max moves realistically when changing directions and transitions into jumps, bumps into locked doors properly and all that. Just that ... gameplay took a back seat when they made this game - said realistic animations hampers the gameplay itself. See some enemies charging you, so you want to dodge into cover? Let's have a second of animation blending as you go from walking forward to strafing to the side, then another second of forced animation blending to transition into the dodge leap behind the wall. Oh look, while you were doing that, the enemy has several seconds of fire on you, so you've lost 50% hp already. How would you feel having to sit through a minute of animations each time Agent 47 changed outfits, watching him take his clothing off then putting the new one on? I don't know about you, but I'd get bored of that "feature" pretty quickly and would rather just skip it. | |
I have to agree. Perhaps not the end-all and be-all of gaming, but probably the primary visual cue. For example, Skyrim makes a pretty screenshot, but when it's living and breathing, it's downright ugly, compare that to something like Gears of War 3 or Assassin's Creed where all the animations are virtually flawless. | |
I honestly have to disagree. I'd much rather my games have an enriching, lively (or potentially morose and melancholy) atmosphere that incites some level of aesthetic involvement as opposed to an animation lunchbox of a game. Let me clarify: | |
Would have to be a very patient and well trained sack of potatoes to repeat the same two bloody expressions and gestures over and over again. And why is it that so many video-game animators never seem to forget that shoulders should actually be connected to the torso instead of just floating there beside the character's body? | |
A smart individual posting a thread on The Escapist? That's umpossible! Yes, smooth and flowing animation is the key to immersion. Stiffness (Oh Deus Ex...) breaks it.
>Video See, as great as it looked, I'm just hoping you realize with as auto-mated as that video is, it goes against what Valve was trying to accomplish with Freeman. | |
It's actually not as difficult as it sounds. The resources required for animations are very very small compared to textures. And the CPU load is unnoticable compared to say..physics calculations, unless you're doing all your animations as physics calculations (there is a game that does that) then the resources required for better animations is quite small, for a major gain in some cases. As for IK, not an issue, the IK handles can be placed at a specific point in space, so the animations may be scaled with the model, but you're going to have to deal with their feet stepping on the same place on the steps, since the handle will still be going to the same place, the scaling is so they bend properly. Not to mention you can copy/paste the animation keyframes onto different skeletons. And even elongate the animation to make it faster and slower. ...And now you may be thinking "NUH UH OP, IF IT WAS SO EASY THEY WOULD DO IT THAT WAY" ...Sadly it's easy to do, time consuming to program. Many engines cut out some specific tools for animations, sometimes in favor of just mocapping everything, sometimes just to make the lighting, texturing and sound better. Also I would gladly sit through a minute of animation to watch Agent 47 struggle to change outfits. I mean it's taking him 60 seconds? <.< jesus. ..But seriously I would be okay with him picking it up at least, cut to black, and fading back to him making final adjustments. Doesn't need to be the whole thing to be passable, but just walking up to it WABLAM different outfit, is kind of jarring. OT: ...Yeah, I agree completely, good animations give me serious gamer boners. ....Probably why I became an animator. | |
I don't agree with that, they aren't far more important but they are just as important. But ofcourse it's easy to go cheap with animations because they aren't that apparent or rather we are used to bad ones, which is why I maintain that games are still in that 1920s movie era where presentation just isn't taken seriously enough. | |
Damn right. One of the best things about Jak and Daxter is how they move and emote. It's brilliant. | |
I think one of the issues is with better looking graphics we expect more fluid animations. I can go back and play an N64 game or PS1 game and not be bothered by the character not opening his hand when he grabs and item because I know he can't. But now I we want better animations because a lot of the games are trying to look "real-life"ish. I can look over a lack of animation if I'm really draw into the story tho. | |
I think one of the issues is with better looking graphics we expect more fluid animations. I can go back and play an N64 game or PS1 game and not be bothered by the character not opening his hand when he grabs and item because I know he can't. But now I we want better animations because a lot of the games are trying to look "real-life"ish. I can look over a lack of animation if I'm really draw into the story tho. | |
oops, sorry for double post, computer derped out on me >_>; | |
If it looks likr a rock, but moves like a tiger, chances are it's a tiger. I imagine most people accept the importance of good animation so the stumbling block is probably cost, not will. | |
I can see that. Mario had some great animations in Mario 64. He'd press flat up against walls instead of just running at them, he'd use the doorknobs, he'd lean into corners when running... | |
It's quite funny, actually... remember Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, the derptastic glitchfest that nearly killed the series? In that game, she had proper stair animations, realistic door-opening skills, items had to be picked up, and no rag-dolls at all (static death animations were used). How is it that a game that was terrible in pretty much all departments could still get all those things right, but AAA games today can't? | |
Ah, yet another "Graphics dont matter" thread. Playing games for the graphics is like watching porn for the story. /thread was that so hard now? | |
Good job missing the point entirely. This thread is not about graphics vs. everything else, it's about animation being a neglected part of the graphics subset. You might also have noticed that the OP was wanting to see better graphics (via better animations), so your post is kind of irrelevant. | |
I agree. Awkward animations will pull me out of a game extremely quickly, even if the graphics look absolutely amazing. That is why I sorta wish Bethesda would learn how to animate it's damn characters for once. It sure would help my immersion in Skyrim. | |
Why not have both? :D | |
Agreed. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier has some silky smooth and awesome animations. It brings your squad to life. | |
Yeah, I agree. One of the reasons CoD looks weird. For example, in the miracle of sound video "I suck at call of duty" A grenade goes off infront of someone, and instead of being blown back, it looked like he had been shot, then fell forward. Everytime I see that it throws me off, it's so unnatural. | |
Body and facial animation! LA Noire has great facial animation, but the body animation doesn't feel in sync with the face, it is unnerving. This is why I like Naughty dog and Ninja Theory. Brilliant facial animation, very lively! | |
Good animations are AS paramount as graphics. It's useless to have good graphics with shit animations, the same as it's useless to have epic animations but bad graphics. But I must admit, the better animation and bad graphics has a much higher strain resistance. | |
dear lord ME2 and 3 had bad character animation. how something as simple as character animation could escape Q&A is beyond me | |
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I was watching the gameplay video for the new Hitman game and it bothered me that in 2012, we still see the following:
- Characters gliding/skating up and down steps (0:52 and 6:25 of the video for examples)
- Characters opening doors by basically face-planting into them (1:03)
- Ammo, guns, and disguises magically transporting to your body
- Terrible rag doll corpses that have no weight to them and end up in awkward poses (6:40)
Although Hitman Absolution is a pretty-looking game with a lot of attention to character models and the environment, I wish more emphasis had been placed on good, crisp animations. I like seeing my character and NPCs actually performing tasks and interacting with the world. In might seem minor, but I love how in GTA IV, Niko would actually push open doors with his hand, and how stairs were actually something you had to navigate and could fall down if you were moving too fast. Far Cry 2 is an excellent first-person example of good animations. Your character would actually stick his hand out and grab items that you picked up instead of them magically appearing in your inventory. Not to mention applying first aid and fixing cars actually had on-screen animations instead of just watching a bar fill up.