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As graphics improve, NaughtyDog level facial expressions/skin need to become the norm

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C

ChouGoku

Member
Resident Evil 7, Final Fantasy XV, Horizon: Zero Dawn. All games that I have bought and have been very impressed by the graphics. PS4 games are really looking like I thought they would more and more instead of mainly Sony games looking a cut above the rest. The one about these games though is that the human faces look great...........in stills, but in motion? They look like disturbing talking masks,both realistic and fake at the same time.
One game that I played recently and didn't have this problem was Uncharted 4. Naughty dogs facial animations are top notch, they are fucking amazing. I never got the feeling of seeing an alien in human skin trying to pretend to be a human while playing UC4. Graphics are getting very good on average now, but that uncanny valley is really jarring and breaks immersion. Uncharted 4 is 3 cuts above the competition and devs need to copy them if they are going the realistic graphics approach.

Edit: The last sentence kind of throws off what I mean, I guess I mean it needs to be better and this will be more apparent as graphics improve. It may be a tech problem as ND is a studio with money, so they have the budget to do it themselves. I mean more automated processes need to be researched/developed as uncanny valley will become more of a problem. Disney currently has real time facial mocap and I think improving on things like this should become more of a priority as graphics improve.
 
C

Chumley

Banned
It's never going to be the norm because it costs way too much money. Half Life 2 had amazing facial animations 13 years ago because they invested in mocap work. Most games just don't have the budget or involve too many characters for it to be feasible.
 
F

Forkball

Member
Easier said that done. It's going to take a long time for developers without the tools ND is using to come close.
 
Z

ZettaiSeigi

Member
That would be great, but this is very difficult to achieve if you consider the scope of some games. The Uncharted games are linear and it's kind of unfair to expect the same for the bigger, open-world ones. The Witcher 3 and Horizon Zero Dawn already did good in this regard. Not Uncharted-level but they're the closest any open-world games have come in this regard.
 
K

Kuro

Member
RPG's with a lot of NPCs can't have hand animated custom face animation like Naughty Dog it would cost too much money and take too much time. The best we're gonna get for a while is Witcher 3 level which I'm fine with.
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Do you have any idea the amount of time and effort is required to implemented the incredibly nuanced animated performance in Naughty Dog's titles? It's completely unreasonable to expect a game of far different scope, whether it be lesser in production costs or grander in NPC variety and recorded dialogue, to match what Naughty Dog is able to accomplish with their tier of production funding, and scope of linear, narrative based game design.
 
S

soultron

Banned
Not all developers have the same tools, budget, goals, or technical capabilities on behalf of its staff.

If you want realistic faces in every AAA game, prepare to be disappointed forever. Full-stop.
 
P

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
It is straight up unfeasible to expect games on a large scale to match or exceed the way ND does their faces. Those games are hyper linear for a reason.

It sucks but it's a reality of the situation.
 
K

KillLaCam

Banned
Horizon and FFXV are open world. The ps4 isn't powerful enough to run naughty dog level of texture quality in an open world. It's more of a technical issue.

I still think the Order 1886 is the best looking ps4 game all around.


Resident evil 7 does look off though. But I'm not sure why.
 
M

Marmaladefire

Member
You do know that photo realism isn't the only way to make a game look beautiful.

*UC4/ND graphics are now the standard for ALL Sony first party games!!"

Devs working on Parappa the Rapper: "well if you say so"
 
C

Cartman86

Banned
Chumley said:
It's never going to be the norm because it costs way too much money. Half Life 2 had amazing facial animations 13 years ago because they invested in mocap work. Most games just don't have the budget or involve too many characters for it to be feasible.
Click to expand...

HL2 uses phonems. It was an investment sure, but it's not mocap. They programmed it so when they entered in the text from the script the models could form the words using precanned animation keyframes. It works well but it is not perfect and most certainly required tweeking my hand.

I would not be shocked if MEA used this. Obviously the number and characters and lines however would require a ton more work to ensure all the lines look good. Plus the base code might just not be as good with the models. I really have no idea.
 
N

Neoleo2143

Member
It's not going to happen for most devs. Nintendo's Zelda games can get away with their phenomenal animation and body language in cinematics thanks to the stylization but most devs aren't afforded that ability and have art that demands more outright detail which is difficult and costly to animate.
 
brickarts295

brickarts295

Member
You gotta remember, ND does animations by hand...
3019698-4954534864-30195.gif

These guys are putting the work. I'm guessing they ain't cheap either.
 
G

Gamer @ Heart

Member
Good lord OP.

Do you know how much that shit costs?

I would rather developers spend more on making better games to play than just better looking ones

Not every studio can afford contracting out a hundred animators and modelers to spend a month crafting the unique dimples across a characters face or eye twitches in a cutscene. In fact, the number that can shrink every year.
 
TheRedSnifit

TheRedSnifit

Member
I don't think it matters in a game like Resident Evil 7, where 90% of the time you're looking at someone they're a mutated freak and supposed to look scary/uncanny.
 
S

Syder

Member
I'm surprised there hasn't been one game to copy Team Bondi's facial capping since L.A. Noire

rdDQaR8.gif


I0gMR.gif


source.gif


C2D2PN0.gif


It's not appropriate for every game but I haven't seen this 'style' used at all since this game came out.
 
C

ChouGoku

Member
soultron said:
Not all developers have the same tools, budget, goals, or technical capabilities on behalf of its staff.

If you want realistic faces in every AAA game, prepare to be disappointed forever. Full-stop.
Click to expand...

I bet a few years ago if you said "If you want open world graphics to match linear game graphics, prepare to be dissapointed forever. Full-stop." You would be right, then games like Arkham Knight, The Witcher, and Horizon came along. As graphics get better and better this problem is only going to get more apparent. It may be a tech problem in the end of the day rather than always requiring tons of talent and tons of money forever until videogames stop being made.
 
TheRedSnifit

TheRedSnifit

Member
Syder said:
I'm surprised there hasn't been one game to copy Team Bondi's facial capping since L.A. Noire

rdDQaR8.gif


I0gMR.gif


source.gif


C2D2PN0.gif


It's not appropriate for every game but I haven't seen this 'style' used at all since this game came out.
Click to expand...

LA Noire has the GOAT faces.

Though I'm told it was ludicrously expensive.
 
J

jxN3

Member
brickarts295 said:
You gotta remember, ND does animations by hand...

Does guys are putting the work.
Click to expand...
They used to do all facial animation by hand with video reference, but I believe the studio now has full facial mo-cop.

nolan_north_heat.png


Not to say they don't do any free-hand keying anymore, but I think it took the facial performances in Uncharted 4 to another level.


edit: beaten, rip
 
wapplew

wapplew

Member
Facial animation for Aloy and a couple of NPCs are quite good, good enough for Open world RPG.
It had some very bad faces, if they could bring all the NPC to that level, I'll be very happy.
 
M

Milijango

Member
As developers don't have unlimited time and money I'm okay with them prioritising other elements of their games. Naughty Dog's efforts in facial animations were obviously well worth it for a game like Uncharted, but for games made with a bigger scope on the same budget, hey, priorities.
 
S

SolidSnakex

Member
Syder said:
I'm surprised there hasn't been one game to copy Team Bondi's facial capping since L.A. Noire

rdDQaR8.gif


I0gMR.gif


source.gif


C2D2PN0.gif


It's not appropriate for every game but I haven't seen this 'style' used at all since this game came out.
Click to expand...

It's because it's not only expensive but also very restrictive. The second gif is one of the big problems with the tech. The tech forced you to have actors sit perfectly still with cameras circling their heads in order to capture the data. What this meant is that they had to capture the facial animation and body animation separately. That disconnect is something that some picked up on in LAN as they had to try to mocap the body to match what the faces were doing. On the other hand the tech that's becoming the norm in the industry is performance capture, and that allows you to capture the face and body at the same time.

Another big problem with LAN's tech is that the in-game characters have to look exactly like the actors they're portraying. Performance capture is again a thing that allows you to take the data for anything from humans to monsters.
 
neohwa

neohwa

Junior Member
I think Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls are better in terms of facial expressions/skin.

Even then these are probably not the priorities devs are working on though.

IQ, textures, and frame rate are more important at this moment.
 
C

Cartman86

Banned
SolidSnakex said:
It's because it's not only expensive but also very restrictive. The second gif is one of the big problems with the tech. The tech forced you to have actors sit perfectly still with cameras circling their heads in order to capture the data. What this meant is that they had to capture the facial animation and body animation separately. That disconnect is something that some picked up on in LAN as they had to try to mocap the body to match what the faces were doing. On the other hand the tech that's becoming the norm in the industry is performance capture, and that allows you to capture the face and body at the same time.

Another big problem with LAN's tech is that the in-game characters have to look exactly like the actors they're portraying. Performance capture is again a thing that allows you to take the data for anything from humans to monsters.
Click to expand...

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the faces are basically videos. They actually are "filming" the faces and applying them to a model.
 
PLASTICA-MAN

PLASTICA-MAN

Member
Renekton said:
Let ND do an open world game with character creator first
Click to expand...

If they gonna make a Jak And Daxter game again, they gonna rely on much hand animation since it's stylised and you can't capture real persons' faces on such characters, but after seeing the very advanced tech they used for TLOU2 at PSX, They are able to interpolate face movements of actors to characters that don't have the same face or structure of the performer which is sth revolutionary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP6apGM4G4U&t=10s

Their new tech even capts eye movements.
 
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