Has anyone else noticed that western dev teams can't do facial or character animations well? Fucking youtube "Silent Hill 3 cutscenes", all of the characters animate well, they look good, and this was released 13 YEARS AGO.
Why waste time, effort and money making facial animations when you can can put all of that into advertising, release the same game from 2 years ago and achieve the same return revenue?
>>335045376
Team Silent was pretty exceptional at detail to begin with, I dunno if I can think of a better-looking PS2 game than SH3.
Also >>335045795
>>335045795
>release the same game from 2 years ago
yeah japanese companies never rehash
>>335045376
vtmb, released 12 years ago
>>335046119
Nobody implied they didn't buddy. Take your "us vs. them" mentality somewhere else.
>>335045376
Pretty easy to focus on characters when the rest of the game is made up of 97% rust texture.
Ratchet n clanks facial animations are pretty darn good m80
>>335046720
>Nobody implied they didn't buddy
yes they did
>>335045376
yup. Some of the latest titles, like FO4, are just laughably bad compared to some fucking PS2 games from 15 years ago!
I still remember how Masahiro Ito, the main visual designer and animation director of Silent Hill games, told in the Making Of SH2 video, how there's dozens of these tiny muscles all around your face, that react or cause every motion and emotion you make. Team Silent's artists literally stared themselves when making expressions, just to recreate them accurately into the games, and it shows.
HL2 also did superb job with facial animations in 04, but for some weird reason these days we tend to get some late 90's tier jaw flapping, with some random eyebrow rising at best.
>>335046747
There's tons of all unique textures and assets in almost every major scene of the SH1-4, and with SH3 they also got those fancy, dynamically animated environment effects (burn, flesh...). The lighting in these games was also pretty impressive for PS2.
>>335045376
how does SH2 look like hot garbage but then SH3 ends up being one of the best looking games on ps2 only 1(/2?) year later
>>335045376
Oh look, it's another episode of "japan is better than us"
>>335046119
They rehash, but you would be nuts to think the shit you see in Fallout or Rockstar (especially RDR) looks more natural than the shit Japs have released. Compare RDR cutscene animations to MGR cutscene animations, MGR makes RDR look like a bad joke. I just wanna know why western devs are so shit at animating these things, considering they are the ones after the "cinematic experience".
>>335047000
>hot garbage
I think you need glasses.
Also it's natural progress; first-generation console games always look worse than the later generation titles. Devs learn to utilize the tech better, and new tools / formats / tricks are found and adapted as well.
SH2's development started right after 1 was finished in 99, before PS2 was even out. By the time 2 came out in 01, devs had had a good practice with the PS2's architecture and tools.
>>335046983
The problem with postings like this is it's mostly anecdotal and suspension of disbelief there has been alot of games released within the past few years by western devs that have stellar animations
yer just some cherrypicking shitter trying to stir up shit you baby back bitch
Posting something Team Silent did is never a fair comparison. They are literally wizards.
>>335047229
because RDR is an open world game with thousands and thousands of animations?
>>335047252
posting environments is good and all, but the character models in 2 were definitely weird
>>335047229
MGR cutscenes are pre rendered you mongoloid.
>>335047407
Which is strange because they were apparently a a hodgepodge group of employees that Konami considered to be incompatible with the rest of their teams
They were like Konami's junk drawer
>>335045795
We therefore must conclude that north american audiences are the biggest cucks on the planet, are extremely gullible and susceptible to marketing brainwashing.
>>335047637
And now most of them aren't even working on massive games anymore.
The fucking writer for Silent Hill 2 is working on waifu dating sims now.
>>335047282
it's not much of a "cherry picking" when some of the biggest AAA releases of the year with gigantic budgets fall to this pit.
>>335047476
I know what you mean, but it was still very impressive looking game for a 1st gen PS2 title. Besides titles like MGS2, most other PS2 games at that point looked barely better than HL1 with the Hi-def models or the original Unreal. Some even could've been PS1 games originally, just moved on PS2 with minimal polish.
>>335045376
>animations
You need to understand why this is. It's because rigger and animator is the SAME job in the Asian video game industry. What does this mean? It means that animator creates skeletons which he's going to use to create animations with and since it's a one-man operation he has much tighter control and vision over what he wants to do. I'm not saying there's only one of this position in the company, but because of duty allocation rigger/animator is always working with his own creations.
Fuck, someone post VTMB webms
>>335046983
>yup. Some of the latest titles, like FO4, are just laughably bad compared to some fucking PS2 games from 15 years ago!
To be fair that's literally just inept Bethesda and shitty animations are one of their embarrassing trademarks. So much so it's a running joke Todd needs to fire his college buddies working on animations.
>>335045376
It's also important to note Japanese devs jumped on motion capture way earlier than western devs, especially Kojima who's been doing it since MGS1.
>>335045376
That's just cherry picking to support a false premise. There are plenty of examples of great face work in western games and shitty work in Japanese ones.
>>335047853
This, though I'd also say that the Nips are some total detail-maniacs and workaholics, which really shows in their work.
especially these days, western devs tend to rely too much on pre-made engines, assets, and automated stock features in general.
>>335045376
Naught Dog and Blizzard with OW btfo any jap game. Fuck off dweeb.
>>335048181
such as...?inb4 L.A Noire, it looks like garbage too
>>335046983
Godamnit this always makes me laugh.
>>335045376
Half Life 2 has really good face animations and it was released 12 years ago, what's your fucking point OP?
>>335048398
Witcher 3
>>335046983
Reason why lip-sync looks horrible in Fallout 4 is because of fucked up algorithm Bethesda apparently considered an improvement from lip-sync in Oblivion and Fallout 3. If you want to see good, natural lip-sync look at Witcher 3. Then again that game has really good emoting as well.
>>335048193
>those teeth
>>335045376
Don't know for 3, but for Silent Hill 2 they didn't use motion capture, which wasn't that good for facial expression at that time. They basically made a 3d model of the heads that simulated the jawbone and facial muscles. That's why the animations looks so great (for a ps2 game).
Today devs are just lazy. Just look at the shitty animations bethesda uses. People buy their games anyway.
>>335045376
Cool story op. Now post some modern/relevant jap games with good animations.
>>335048398
Heavy Rain
TloU
Uncharted
Far Cry 3-4
Bioshock Infinite
Witcher 2-3
Tomb Raider
Arkham City/Asylum/Origins/Knight
>>335048463
not OP, but isn't it kinda sad that the truly great character animation kinda vanished over a decade ago?
It's even more ironic that a big-budget PC title released a year later only got around on par with a PS2 game.
>>335048547
>Don't know for 3, but for Silent Hill 2 they didn't use motion capture
They hand-animated every facial motion in 2-4. I think Enter The Matrix was one of the first games to properly use facial mo-cap.
Good hand made animations > good motion capture, though a mix of both is better if they fine tune the motion capture with good hand made animations. SH's animations are good because they're stylized enough but not too much over the stiff shit or uncanny valley crap you usually get with straight motion capture.
>>335048673
>>335048673
Bloodborne animations are sex
>>335048893
the mouths literally don't move
>>335048848
hl2 has better animations than sh3 though...
also hl2 is a console game too...
>>335048958
>playing DaS3
>mfw the blacksmiths mouth moves when he talks
>>335048398
Half-Life 2
>>335045376
Yeah, and they compensated for it with facial capture tech.
>>335049112
HL2 started as a pure PC exclusive, and was later ported to consoles. Just like what happened with D3 and FEAR, and nobody calls those "console games".
yes, HL2 has a tad better animations, but that is to be expected as well. The difference's not too major tho
