The Starry Expanse Community

Sorry to bump a long dead thread, but wondering about something. I've been watching some lets plays of Until Dawn recently, and overall, the character animation is very good in those games. Particularly given some of the shots that were required. Is this the kind of quality that you'd be hoping to achieve?

Hi Andross, Thanks for keeping the thread alive. I haven't played Until Dawn yet, but I've seen some videos of the game. I think if we manage to hit that level of quality with our characters we will be very happy indeed. Obviously, as with everything in this game, we want to hit the highest bar possible, while also eventually finishing the game. Characters are very expensive, very time consuming elements of any game, and we have to consider that most AAA games today look the way they do due to a number of variables, one of which is motion capture and animation. Our first task at this point is just the modeling, texturing and shading. If we can get a static character to look good in a still image in our engine that will be our first big milestone.

I can't say for sure, but I hope 2016 turns out to be a year where our loyal followers get to see some work in progress on that front. We've been very focused on 233 for the past few months, but who knows what the future holds.

Gehn is part of 233 though

Sure, I get what you're saying about mocap, it will be much harder without that being an option, but at least you have the original reference footage to work from. Honestly, I think the biggest problem in 3D game character animations is that they are criminally over acted; Myst V is a perfect example of this. Esher and Yeesha are constantly moving their head, looking around at you, making gesticulations and just generally moving constantly. I know Gehn paces around a lot, but he stops and stills as well, and especially when emphasizing a point or saying something important, stands perfectly still and makes eye contact which greatly lends to credibility.

Quite frankly .... i loved myst and riven,and tho i love the full motion actors,i actually prefer in most the character models in myat end of ages,i think this was in most part to do with how they were drawn and their animations were like real humans,i dont know how they got them to animate so well and their faces were wearhered and looked brilliant !! I truly belive that riven does not need actors as such,as long as there is attention to the finer details in their faces and rralistic animations along with the original voice audio,i really see no issue.

Now if this was myst we were talking about,i am unsure if close up faces would have worked but riven has much more character at a distance material and i think it will not only be suitable but it will improve most parts of riven due to the low quality and sparse interactions in the original riven.

I would recommend the team try and go for a very simular look to end of ages,i was astonished by the characters in there,much much better than the likes of exile with its blurry close up actor material that showed the glaring issues with close up actors.

You know, when I replayed Riven recently, I thought that Charles Dance would make a fantastic Gehn. He has the air of Tywin Lannister already! If we lived in a world where such things were possible, he would make a good stand in for John Keston either as live action or facial capture as someone mentioned on this thread already. Then again, there is precedent, Charles Dance did do voice work for the Witcher 3...

Honestly I'm convinced we should do a Kickstarter to hire Charles Dance.