[Gabe]

Best i know HL 2,VMTBL im disappointed with oblivion's engine about that
do you know any new games gets better about it?
(*face,body animations of feelings)

[bigjko]

First of all, what's VMTBL? Second, I think you mean something other than filtering..

Half-Life 2 obviously excels in this field but I'm really having a difficult time remembering any other game that really had good emotions through animation. Mass Effect looks like it's doing a pretty good job, jugding from the gameplay videos.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by bigjko

First of all, what's VMTBL?

Probably a misspelled acronym for Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.

From what I've seen, Half-Life 2 is still far ahead of everything else, even the Heavy Rain demonstration. And that's a bit depressing, considering its age.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Isn't the Heavy Rain system supposed to be real time, though? How much difference does this make in comparing it to HL2?

[insane_cobra]

What do I care? I'm only interested in the end result, not in how they got there.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

From what I've seen of Mass Effect, I may end up preferring it over HL2.

[insane_cobra]

The thing I love about Half-Life 2's facial animation system is all those subtle little movements, like Alyx raising an eyebrow just a little bit or almost unnoticeably quirking a corner of her mouth. It gives characters so much life. The eye movements are marvelously done as well.

And it's not only the moving faces, it's the whole subtle changes of posture. Like Alyx feeling a bit embarrassed after telling what she feels is a bad joke (the Zombines moment in Episode 1).

[Artik2]

That's right... the way they move as they speak and the voice tone follows those movements... its a greate improvement to the statics mouse-movements-only statues.

[bigjko]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Isn't the Heavy Rain system supposed to be real time, though? How much difference does this make in comparing it to HL2?

I'm not sure I understand your point. Even if developers had the money to make a bunch of these real-time Heavy Rain scenes, Half-Life 2 still looks better to me. It's more subtle, which in turn makes the whole thing more natural for me. Heavy Rain looks more like a game trying to be like a movie.

Of course, that's mostly because it's being presented to you non-interactively but I'm sure it's also because it's a whole lot less subtle than HL2.

Oh, and Vampires. My impressions were that they pretty much only succeeded in having boobies bouncing in real-time. Whoopie.

[insane_cobra]

Like Ben would surely say if he was still around (we miss you, chap!), purely motion capture based animation can never yield better results than skillful animators doing things by hand.

[samIamsad]

If it doesn't have to be as close to photo-realism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHmt7Yxh4E0

Hey, I played that last year and that scene really got me. Although the Japanese have always been kinda heavy on their characters, it's still astonishing what seemingly basic animations like these can convey... No, in fact not at all.

Originally Posted by bigjko

My impressions were that they pretty much only succeeded in having boobies bouncing in real-time. Whoopie.

Damn, I still need a copy. The boobies in Lula just aren't subtle enough.

[Gabe]

Just Heavy Rain,how about any other future releases,isnt that the same
mocap ,is that really so costly,why is using so rare or primitive level?

[Eye-Z]

Max Payne excells in this area, HL2 a close second

[bigjko]

Max Payne 2, you mean? The first one wasn't anything special in this specific category, if I remember correctly.

Which reminds me, Alex Wake might be worth checking out. That game really needs to have good animations, if the whole realistic enviroment thing isn't going to fail.

[Melanie68]

psst, I think it's Alan Wake.

[insane_cobra]

Mel is right. I didn't find facial animation in either Max Payne game that special, but to each his own.

[Eureka]

Of course it wasn't special...facial expressions in Max Panye didn't change...[I]ever.[I] They were just facemaps of real people.

I thought it was pretty good in Oblivion...

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by bigjko

Heavy Rain looks more like a game trying to be like a movie.

And is there anything wrong with that, especially if David Cage and his team are working on as good a quality as they can?

After all, with due respect to your preferences, not every game can, and more importantly should, try to be like HL2, particularly if the designer has a very strong vision he wants to convey.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by Eureka

Of course it wasn't special...facial expressions in Max Panye didn't change...[I]ever.[I] They were just facemaps of real people.

You're right about the first one, but not in Max Payne 2 they weren't, it had a proper facial animation system in place.

[Eureka]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

And is there anything wrong with that, especially if David Cage and his team are working on as good a quality as they can?

After all, with due respect to your preferences, not every game can, and more importantly should, try to be like HL2, particularly if the designer has a very strong vision he wants to convey.

Yes there is something wrong with that. Who the hell wants to pay $60 to watch a movie?

And I don't care about the director's "vision," I want to play a fun and interesting game. Every game should strive to be like HL2 because it was a fun game.