New EQ2 run animations incomming

[Kaljin]

We were waiting for you...

[Laerazi]

Originally Posted by Utnayan

I disagree.

In EQ2 and VG you are dealing with motion capture. This is a lot easier than hand drawn animation systems. You also have movements to go by in real life, so there is less imagination, easier to make motions that an animator has seen make a million times whether in another movie, a game, etc.

I don't see how you concluded that realistic animations are easier to make from this. Motion capturing gathers human movements, yes, but that doesn't mean it's any easier to implement these animations in a believable manner onto your characters.

For example, all 100+ of EQ2's motion-captured emotes look like complete and utter shit. They were done by a real person, but it doesn't mean they look good.

With motion captured animations, you MUST make every part of them lifelike; if ANY part looks the slightest bit "fake" it's going to ruin the illusion.

With whimsical/exaggerated characters that aren't meant to look lifelike, they don't have to be as precise, to make it look "good". They need to look good in their own style, yes, but they aren't strictly following the realistic guidelines we see everyday in life, so they have much more leeway to go out of their boundaries. Realistic animations have to follow a strict guideline, or they don't look right.

This whole mindset applies to any realistc/stylized world; it's much easier to make a stylized world that looks acceptable, because it's not following realism strictly. Making a "realistic" game, however, takes much more effort, and usually falls short anyways. The same with animations.

Cartoon animations for fictional characters without a bases of movement for their skeletal frame is a lot harder and different at the same time. EQ2's animation system sucks because they used mo cap, then tried to cut corners, also had high system reqs, and animators who couldn't even animate a deer walking correctly. Not to mention artists that didn't even know how to make them proportionate. Their swings were terrible, as said the combat stances were ridiculous, and overall, it absolutely destroyed immersion - the number 1 reason why people play these games in the first place.

As I said above, I disagree that cartoon-like animations are harder, because they follow no preset rules, and have a larger variance in which they can look "right". Realistic animations only look good when they are perfect.

I'm in no way saying that WoW's animations are bad; I quite like them myself, but next time you play WoW, imagine you're playing some realistic looking character. Are the animations going to look good? No.

With higher detailed characters, and more intricate animations, you have to start making other parts of the body react realistically, or it still looks fake. For example, if your character executes a perfect looking, realistic animation, but their face was blank through the whole thing, with no facial expression, it's going to look terrible.

With WoW, you don't expect to see the character's giving different facial expressions or mouth movements; why? Because it's not at a level where you would notice that sort of thing as needing to be present in the first place. IMO, WoW is one MMO that has amazing consistency of quality throughout it's art. The characters, environments, animations, spell effects, etc. are all on the same quality level.

If you're going to have top notch/realistic character models, you're going to need top notch/realistic character animations to make them look good.

In any event, I don't deny that EQ2's animators suck complete asshole, and Vanguard's aren't far ahead. Having said that doing realistic animations is harder, I'm sure if Blizzard ever created a world using them, they would nail it.

[Asmadai]

Originally Posted by Laerazi

I don't see how you concluded that realistic animations are easier to make from this. Motion capturing gathers human movements, yes, but that doesn't mean it's any easier to implement these animations in a believable manner onto your characters.

For example, all 100+ of EQ2's motion-captured emotes look like complete and utter shit. They were done by a real person, but it doesn't mean they look good.

With motion captured animations, you MUST make every part of them lifelike; if ANY part looks the slightest bit "fake" it's going to ruin the illusion.

With whimsical/exaggerated characters that aren't meant to look lifelike, they don't have to be as precise, to make it look "good". They need to look good in their own style, yes, but they aren't strictly following the realistic guidelines we see everyday in life, so they have much more leeway to go out of their boundaries. Realistic animations have to follow a strict guideline, or they don't look right.

This whole mindset applies to any realistc/stylized world; it's much easier to make a stylized world that looks acceptable, because it's not following realism strictly. Making a "realistic" game, however, takes much more effort, and usually falls short anyways. The same with animations.



As I said above, I disagree that cartoon-like animations are harder, because they follow no preset rules, and have a larger variance in which they can look "right". Realistic animations only look good when they are perfect.

I'm in no way saying that WoW's animations are bad; I quite like them myself, but next time you play WoW, imagine you're playing some realistic looking character. Are the animations going to look good? No.

With higher detailed characters, and more intricate animations, you have to start making other parts of the body react realistically, or it still looks fake. For example, if your character executes a perfect looking, realistic animation, but their face was blank through the whole thing, with no facial expression, it's going to look terrible.

With WoW, you don't expect to see the character's giving different facial expressions or mouth movements; why? Because it's not at a level where you would notice that sort of thing as needing to be present in the first place. IMO, WoW is one MMO that has amazing consistency of quality throughout it's art. The characters, environments, animations, spell effects, etc. are all on the same quality level.

If you're going to have top notch/realistic character models, you're going to need top notch/realistic character animations to make them look good.

In any event, I don't deny that EQ2's animators suck complete asshole, and Vanguard's aren't far ahead. Having said that doing realistic animations is harder, I'm sure if Blizzard ever created a world using them, they would nail it.

I concur.

[Ravensign]

Originally Posted by Laerazi

Having said that doing realistic animations is harder, I'm sure if Blizzard ever created a world using them, they would nail it.

It's not like anyone is asking any of these companies to put a man on Mars, for crying out loud, just make decent animations a priority. I don't get why this keeps happening, and then they have to try to spin it away or bandaid the more awful ones post release.

We shouldn't have to be talking about this dragging down the otherwise interesting parts of these games, but Vanguard isn't even out yet, and here we go again.

With EQ2 and Vanguard, it just seems like they have been pretending its ok to go live with preposterously awful animations.

[xmod2]

Originally Posted by Laerazi

I don't see how you concluded that realistic animations are easier to make from this. Motion capturing gathers human movements, yes, but that doesn't mean it's any easier to implement these animations in a believable manner onto your characters.

This is where TALENT comes into play. SOE/Sigil might have MMORPG design experience, but Blizzard has a lot of solid GAME design experience and always hires incredible artists. I think Ut was saying that technically, mocap is much easier than manual animation. This is true. If you think otherwise, I'll get my animators on here to punch you in the sack.

The end result you're looking for with overall style is the artistic 'essence' which makes the scene more than just a collection of models, textures and animations. Cohesiveness and the suspension of disbelief, which can be done in realistic games as well as highly stylized games. Blizzard has always done well on this front and WoW is no exception.

On the technical side, mocap is easier to get a ton of source material from. If you then just attach that material to a skeleton and walk away you're not going to get "realistic" animations just because it came from your cousin Jack swinging a stick like a sword. The programmers, animators, texture artists, etc all have to live and breathe that same vision of how that game is going to live and breathe. When they don't you tend to get plastic, chaotic, incoherant style. While most people can't tell you WHY precisely. They definitely notice something is wrong.

[Asmadai]

What specific animations is it in EQ2 that most people hate? I'll admit, some of them do look atrocious, but for the most part i'd say the majority of the animations are well done. (Are SOGA animations better/worse/same as the regular model animations?) I've been using SOGA models for mostly ever race except Ogres, so I'm not sure if the older models are the reasons for most of the animation gripes or no.

[Angry Amadeus]

Originally Posted by Asmadai

What specific animations is it in EQ2 that most people hate? I'll admit, some of them do look atrocious, but for the most part i'd say the majority of the animations are well done. (Are SOGA animations better/worse/same as the regular model animations?) I've been using SOGA models for mostly ever race except Ogres, so I'm not sure if the older models are the reasons for most of the animation gripes or no.

/dance

[Malakie Torsade]

Originally Posted by Hardcore Cracka

Utnayan is 100% right.

Hardcore Cracka is right about Utnayan being right!

...


Couldn't resist.

[Hardcore Cracka]

Malakie Torsade has a 100% cool avatar, although I always had a thing for because he looks like he's going BOO!

[Vilgan]

Despite Ut constantly griping about the animation every single time he can, it really doesn't seem that big of a deal to me (as someone trying EQ2 again). Gameplay/itemization things are a much bigger problem. Oh well, animation can be improved.. and I'm glad it is. However, screaming omg this is why everyone is leaving your game seems to me to be an outsider opinion looking in and criticizing something that can be seen at first glance.

This game has improved a ton since I quit, and I'm enjoying playing the game again. If graphics/animation were the main factor in playing a game, AC2 would have been a bestseller (I loved the graphics, just everything else blew). People (imo) want to have fun (lotta improvements done here) and feel like their time means something (hi2u itemization team, 2 thumbs down). I cheer any graphics improvements, but I do think there are some much higher priority things that need to be addressed as well.

[Utnayan]

Originally Posted by Vilgan

This game has improved a ton since I quit, and I'm enjoying playing the game again. If graphics/animation were the main factor in playing a game, AC2 would have been a bestseller

Heaven forbid developers concentrate on everything for once. Graphics, animation, fun gameplay, good reward structure, itemization, fun content, and a good all around game. If systems break in the development process, let people know about it.

EQ2 has improved gameplay wise, but yet people keep trying it and keep leaving. So I could care less right now how much more the game is improving because, and I know it has improved, all those improvements still leave people leaving dodge after the first 30 day billing cycle.

You start to lose variables one by one. Launch? Check. People leaving? Check. Massive gameplay improvement? Check. Still people leaving? Check. Tons of content released? Check. Still people leaving? Check. Tons of server imrpovements and graphical frame rate improvements in conjunction with higher end systems becoming more mainstream to run the game? Check. Still people leaving? Check.

Right now this is what you've got left to improve:

1> World design
2> Animations
3> NPC models
4> Itemization

My theory is that if you fixed #1, 2, and 3 - above all else, people would still be loving this game even with the OLD mechanics.

[Kreugen]

I never once noticed anything horrible about any animation in eq2. Some of you people are just fucking weird. The only time I actually recall thinking a game had shitty animations was eq luclin. I guess it's one of those things that if you don't notice it, fine, but if you do, it'll stick out like a sore thumb to you.

[Cybsled]

I liked how monks with 2 handers looked like they were digging a ditch or something ;(

[Maxxius]

Originally Posted by Laerazi

. . . .In any event, I don't deny that EQ2's animators suck complete asshole, and Vanguard's aren't far ahead. Having said that doing realistic animations is harder, I'm sure if Blizzard ever created a world using them, they would nail it.

I don't think that is a fair statement. As much as I prefer the low polygon, cartoonish art style of WOW, Blizzard would have just as much of a hard time trying to design more realistic animations. In the end much of it has to do with the hardware customers use and the ultimate parameters that sets.

[Xaen]

With EQ2, the only time I ever noticed the animations in any respect was when you did the /dance. It just doesn't seem like any sort of aspect I noticed because i'm in 1st person the entire time killing stuff. It just doesn't seem like a priority.

That retarded looking deer thing, though. Good god the proportions are totally screwed on that thing. It was laughably bad looking, I agree.

The only real problem i'll ever have with it, were linked mobs. Well, and lack of time to play these games consistantly anymore.