It was rigged on the wrong place, so let's say Max's finger points up, it would feel like the part before the knuckles skews in ways that is not possible.
I hope mo-cap is something Telltale put into their games one day once they have the tools to do it. It doesn't have to be anything flashy, but having more realistic body movements would really add something to their games and bring characters more to life. I actually really, really hope that if any game got motion capture treatment first, it'd be Season 3.
Even Telltale's character model's fingers look perfectly normal, and even a human finger doesn't do that(when reached at that certain angle) but there is certainly a rigging problem.
Their expression changes don't feel robotic imitations of that of the humans
In all honesty, expressions are one thing Telltale still does a lot better, at least in my opinion
There's not enough emotion in the faces of characters, and the expressions they do have feel very limited. Even when a character is putting on a sad expression, their face makes it look more like they're mildly inconvenienced by what's happening rather than distressed or sad. Some scenes in the game felt like a lot of the gravitas was lost because the characters weren't adequately emoting how they felt. Telltale's facial animations, despite being admittedly janky at times, are very good with getting emotions across.
As for general animation, I'm probably in the minority here, but I still prefer hand-done animation over mo-cap, even to this day. Now, that's not to say that I think Telltale's animation is absolutely stellar (it definitely isn't, and they could do with an animation pass; remake a lot of their current animations), but I feel there's a lot more elbow room for personality when it's being done by hand. Mo-cap is definitely good, and in certain scenarios it works much better than traditional animation, but at the same time, I feel there's just as much a limit to how much personality and character can be given in mo-cap, unless you have an actor that is very well-versed in body language. I know there's quite a bit of flak towards Telltale for having robotic animations, but in all honesty, I think it's blown out of proportion. Sure, they had stiff and sometimes downright bad animations, but I still feel like there's a fair amount of flair and personality to them. They've been getting progressively better at that as well. Go from TWD S1, to TWD S2, to TFTB. There's a definite evolution here in terms of production quality overall, especially in the animation department. I might even go as far to say that Tales has some of Telltale's best animation work to date.
Not to mention, that mo-cap in a stylized environment starts to go into the uncanny valley territory, at least from what I've seen in the past. Sure, as you said, there's a lot of subtleties in human movement to differentiate various animation cycles, like walking, but I'd say that it's one of those concepts that sounds good on paper, but not so much in execution. Art style and animation are often linked to one another, that is to say, most art direction/stylized designs are done with animation in mind. Life Is Strange may be stylized as well in terms of aesthetic, but it was also designed to work with motion capture in mind. Telltale doesn't design their games with mo-cap in mind, so adding mo-cap to something that isn't designed with it in mind will lead to some definite oddities. Also, the stylized environment lets TT get away with some of their janky animation at times, which is a blessing as much as it is a curse.
All in all, I like the way Telltale does things, and I feel it would be a lot better if they uh... ahem, updated their engine. From the little I've seen of their models and rigs and stuff, they don't look like the easiest things to animate. Like a lot of the limitations Telltale has, they most likely stem from the Telltale Tool.
Forgive me to posting this months old thread but I gotta mention something.
I think I have identified a major part why I put Life is Stra… morenge so much above anything Telltale Games has done in their recent history.
It's this, the motion capturing technique. In life is Strange the movement doesn't feel "unrealistic" if that's the right word to describe it. Their expression changes don't feel robotic imitations of that of the humans. It's really creepy if you start to pay too much attention to expression changes and how their head, hands, legs and everything else looks like compared to the real world. Add that when you see many characters walking together and nobody has their own style of movement. Real humans have these subtle changes of how we move around from a person to person. Motion captured stuff helps to differentiate it but yeah I know, it's more expensive than use some kind of robotic animations.
Their expression changes don't feel robotic imitations of that of the humans
In all honesty, expressions are one thing Telltale stil… morel does a lot better, at least in my opinion
There's not enough emotion in the faces of characters, and the expressions they do have feel very limited. Even when a character is putting on a sad expression, their face makes it look more like they're mildly inconvenienced by what's happening rather than distressed or sad. Some scenes in the game felt like a lot of the gravitas was lost because the characters weren't adequately emoting how they felt. Telltale's facial animations, despite being admittedly janky at times, are very good with getting emotions across.
As for general animation, I'm probably in the minority here, but I still prefer hand-done animation over mo-cap, even to this day. Now, that's not to say that I think Telltale's animation is absolutely stellar (it definitely isn't, and they cou… [view original content]
I know it's a modular engine that they consecutively update with each new release, but I'm leaning towards a more significant overhaul. Despite the updates, there's a lot of things that are just simply put, outdated and still don't work that efficiently. No matter how much they try to future-proof their design, there's going to be a point where it's not going to be enough, where the basic follies of the engine's code and inner workings just can't adequately support their games as well as it used to. I'd argue they're already damn near reaching that point. Their engine just doesn't seem properly equipped to create the current games they're making. Game of Thrones and Tales seem like they're pushing the poor thing to its limits at times. At it's core, it's still an engine that was originally created in 2004. Valve's Source engine is a modular engine that they've slowly updated for nearly a decade as well, and even they're in the process of making a new one.
Comments
Could be both the rigging and the character model itself, possibly the ammount of polys her model has? If that has anything to do with it.
The model is actually pretty good, just enough.
look at this:
Okay, yeah. That looks bad. Didn't realize it was this bad until now.
You mean to say that ability to dislocate the finger is not normal?
I hope mo-cap is something Telltale put into their games one day once they have the tools to do it. It doesn't have to be anything flashy, but having more realistic body movements would really add something to their games and bring characters more to life. I actually really, really hope that if any game got motion capture treatment first, it'd be Season 3.
I don't think they even read their lines together, let alone use mocap!!
Nopes, because mocaps means mo' problems.
"dislocate"?
Even Telltale's character model's fingers look perfectly normal, and even a human finger doesn't do that(when reached at that certain angle) but there is certainly a rigging problem.
In all honesty, expressions are one thing Telltale still does a lot better, at least in my opinion
There's not enough emotion in the faces of characters, and the expressions they do have feel very limited. Even when a character is putting on a sad expression, their face makes it look more like they're mildly inconvenienced by what's happening rather than distressed or sad. Some scenes in the game felt like a lot of the gravitas was lost because the characters weren't adequately emoting how they felt. Telltale's facial animations, despite being admittedly janky at times, are very good with getting emotions across.
As for general animation, I'm probably in the minority here, but I still prefer hand-done animation over mo-cap, even to this day. Now, that's not to say that I think Telltale's animation is absolutely stellar (it definitely isn't, and they could do with an animation pass; remake a lot of their current animations), but I feel there's a lot more elbow room for personality when it's being done by hand. Mo-cap is definitely good, and in certain scenarios it works much better than traditional animation, but at the same time, I feel there's just as much a limit to how much personality and character can be given in mo-cap, unless you have an actor that is very well-versed in body language. I know there's quite a bit of flak towards Telltale for having robotic animations, but in all honesty, I think it's blown out of proportion. Sure, they had stiff and sometimes downright bad animations, but I still feel like there's a fair amount of flair and personality to them. They've been getting progressively better at that as well. Go from TWD S1, to TWD S2, to TFTB. There's a definite evolution here in terms of production quality overall, especially in the animation department. I might even go as far to say that Tales has some of Telltale's best animation work to date.
Not to mention, that mo-cap in a stylized environment starts to go into the uncanny valley territory, at least from what I've seen in the past. Sure, as you said, there's a lot of subtleties in human movement to differentiate various animation cycles, like walking, but I'd say that it's one of those concepts that sounds good on paper, but not so much in execution. Art style and animation are often linked to one another, that is to say, most art direction/stylized designs are done with animation in mind. Life Is Strange may be stylized as well in terms of aesthetic, but it was also designed to work with motion capture in mind. Telltale doesn't design their games with mo-cap in mind, so adding mo-cap to something that isn't designed with it in mind will lead to some definite oddities. Also, the stylized environment lets TT get away with some of their janky animation at times, which is a blessing as much as it is a curse.
All in all, I like the way Telltale does things, and I feel it would be a lot better if they uh... ahem, updated their engine. From the little I've seen of their models and rigs and stuff, they don't look like the easiest things to animate. Like a lot of the limitations Telltale has, they most likely stem from the Telltale Tool.
Telltale actually updates their engine for each game released.
I know it's a modular engine that they consecutively update with each new release, but I'm leaning towards a more significant overhaul. Despite the updates, there's a lot of things that are just simply put, outdated and still don't work that efficiently. No matter how much they try to future-proof their design, there's going to be a point where it's not going to be enough, where the basic follies of the engine's code and inner workings just can't adequately support their games as well as it used to. I'd argue they're already damn near reaching that point. Their engine just doesn't seem properly equipped to create the current games they're making. Game of Thrones and Tales seem like they're pushing the poor thing to its limits at times. At it's core, it's still an engine that was originally created in 2004. Valve's Source engine is a modular engine that they've slowly updated for nearly a decade as well, and even they're in the process of making a new one.