Effect recycle. I am only one who found it a little annoying?
I the whole season the same models, animation are used over and over in the different context.
Of course I all for re-usability of already prepared material, but I found it a little forced sometime.
Few examples, the cake. Old Stinky studied for all life culinary dark art, and the `special cake' (no spoiler for who haven't played 205) was his ultimate dish.
Sam does the same cake in few seconds...
`It burns when.....' just to use the same animation again and again... Not even funny.
What about using your precious work hours more on animation and models and less in annoying protection that stops pirates for maybe two days?
Of course I all for re-usability of already prepared material, but I found it a little forced sometime.
Few examples, the cake. Old Stinky studied for all life culinary dark art, and the `special cake' (no spoiler for who haven't played 205) was his ultimate dish.
Sam does the same cake in few seconds...
`It burns when.....' just to use the same animation again and again... Not even funny.
Demon forms, just the usual form with a different skin.
Anyone agrees?What about using your precious work hours more on animation and models and less in annoying protection that stops pirates for maybe two days?
Sign in to comment in this discussion.
Comments
I don't understand what this part has to do with recycling effects. Of course Sam does the cake in a few seconds. Once you know how to do something, you'll do it much faster the second time around. Think about if you ever replay Sam and Max. Even if you're going for all the Easter Eggs the second (or more) time around, it'll take a lot less time than the first time you play, simply because you know where everything is that you need to continue the game.
Well, I can't comment on the humor of it, since everybody's entitled to their own opinions, but this type of thing happens in every game you play. It cuts down big time on the size of the file if you repeat animation that'll happen over and over rather than creating new animation every time.
Although I kinda agree with you here, I think TTG wanted to make them look very similar to their original forms so that the players recognize them. Plus, the outfits were pretty outrageous (one of them, at least). It probably was almost as much work changing the clothes and stuff than creating entirely new models altogether. I remember somebody mentioning that trying to create a bald Brady Culture would have been time-consuming, and so they couldn't do it for one of the episodes.
So, yes, and no, having less recycled stuff would certainly be more entertaining, but not at the cost of the episodes coming out years apart and/or the files being monstrously big. I'm perfectly happy the way things are now.
I think that's supposed to be like that. There was even an ingame Joke about it.
..and the cake? i've heard several complaints about that and don't see what's so bad about it. it's just a cake. okay, it's somewhat evil, but why does every single evil cake have to look different?
and I agree it would ahve been nice to see them change into real demons similar ins hape to Satan or a gargoyle or something, but I agree it woudl have been mroe time consuming, and also as stated tehre WAS an in-game joke about it (and remember they WERE human even if tehy did gain hellish powers.
I don't think our effects artists and character animators have anything to do with the engineering of our download system
I highly doubt that they spend hours on every episode rewriting the entire copy protection code... that'd be a very very stupid thing to do. The only time I'd ever expect them to rewrite it was when it was absolutely necessary.
Now I don't want to sound mean here... but maybe you should stuff your complaints about them spending too much time working on something over something else... at least until you've actually worked on a programming project for a company, and know how the design process works.
The download system is not there for stop pirates (it does not) it is there to give work to the engineers who work on it. I do know.
About the cake I saw Sam read the recipe, and Stinky spoke about it. Yet it would be far too complex for a emergency situation just the one at the end of the game.
Just a normal cake with the 101 model played better the role imo.
About the demon forms, I read the inner joke, yet it sounded a cheap way to work less.
Anyway, I as I said in the title. I found it a *little* annoying, nothing grave. I loved the season and I think I spent well my money.
People need to stop complaining about the plausibility of things that happen in the Sam & Max games. They're an anthropomorphic dog and rabbity-thing (who happens to be the US president too) that fight crime and are befriended by the likes of rats, the head of a statue and the devil. They drove to the moon in a desoto (twice). They died at a zombie rave. They saved Christmas by exorcising a demon. They shot Sybil in the head with a rat fired from a small cannon. The games and events aren't meant to be plausible.
Well said!
Why the heck would that be too complex? It's just a base "what the eff do I have to work with" puzzle combined with the magic of tv cooking time. A regular cake would have been boring by comparison anyways. No 'red' frosting.
This acctually is a pet peeve of mine for TV/Comics/games... do you know ANYONE that has 100 of the exacty same shirt/pants/shoes/etc in their closite? anyone? I think it'd be nice to see sam wearing a different tie once in a while or featherly with a different sweater or Yergen wearing a jacket or stuff like that.
Ironically, the only characters who's attire changed were the Sodapoppers who were hates/gloves/scarves when tehy visited the north pole... and when
Not EVERY eppisode, but I've seen some characters acctualyl change clothes between a set of 4-8 outfits. Though usually they do have 1 outfit ot dozens of identical ones...
I do understand, but I also point out that S+M is not a kiddy game, adults can tell quite easily that the dog is sam, no matter what he's wearing... I do understand the horrible pain of making new outfits... in involes using a different texture file for skinning the wireframe........ (yes I've done 3D animation and I know it *Can* be dont this simply, though I dont know if TT is set up to do it that way or not...
Well, uh . . . I interpreted what I said . . . differently.
Plus, Sam only HAS that one tie.
Doug and Ernest influenced my fashion sense. My closet is literally filled with the same outfit.
The Weekenders did it, they change clothes every time it switches a day. lol
The cake is a lie.
Also was wondering why the characters had quite low polygon count when the game itself doesn’t require much gpu/cpu.
Hey guys if you need an extra character/prop modeller im whiling to help out ^^ (seriously)
Now on topic, the recycling of characters, props, animation etc, its all good, even more since its an episodic format.
The characters unless they are Sims shouldn’t change clothes on each episode, i do agree that they should have suits for certain areas like the North Pole and the snow, i didn’t feel the cold weather since both characters where naked, at least they should feel cold. (adventures shoudnt feel lifeless)
The over use of props in the office in season two was just too much in my opinion, in season 1 you got one item per episode like a case closed souvenir in the closet but then in season 2 it was crammed with left overs from the whole season 1.
Yeah, in episode 203, it was funny to return to W.A.R.P.
But I was getting annoyed to view a lot of others places in 204 (TTG used these places with intelligence because of the time machine elevator but...) and finally to return AGAIIIIIIN in a place from W.A.R.P in 205...
Well, it's not SO annoying, because Sam and Max are always very funny but... I'd like to see more new places in season 3 and an option to increase the polygon counts! Because the game engine is starting to look a bit old. And the trailer's graphics should work well on good computers!
To me, the polygons (or lack therof) is not that important, but I would love to see more use of lights and shadows in the game engine.
Me too, because I love these lights effects in the trailers! *Go rewtach the season 2 trailer* Wow!
I'm just thrilled with the story and humor. I still play ZORK I and enjoy it (kids, go look it up, anyone under about 25-30 wont know what the frik I'm talkinga bout lol) I personally wouldn't care if they'd used SCUMM to write the game, like HTR used, just as long as the storytelling was good and the puzzles were easily solvable (graphically speaking, that is, not difficulty-wise).
Off topic, but speaking of Zork, check out this "interview" with Tim Schafer:
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/03/07/return-to-quest-quiz-tim-schafer/
Lighting takes a lot of time to render, if I remember correctly, because it's a massive forumla the computer has to perform and so many different items in an area will increase the strain significantly (yes this is getting too far into 3D CGI for me, I'm hitting the edge of what I know, so this may not be 100% accurate...)