Oh this will whip up a frenzy alright. In an interview with CVG, Heavy Rain Creator David Cage finally spilled his thoughts on the outstanding technology behind L.A. Noire. Gamers, since the launch of Heavy Rain, have felt that the animation, and in particular - the facial animation, was sub-par. Now with the introduction of L.A. Noire, Heavy Rain is suffering a swift and cold retrospective view from fans and in return, it seems that Cage aint too impressed with L.A. Noire:
“What to say about L.A Noire? I think it’s an interesting solution to a problem for now. But it’s also an interesting dead end. That’s exactly what I feel. Their technique is incredibly expensive and they will never be able to shoot body and face at the same time”
Cage did talk a little about his concerns and the problem with real-time lighting (when using the Rockstar approach): “…The other thing is that they can’t have real time lighting. Their technique means they can’t have lighting the way I think we should do it. Basically, they take pictures; they take scans several times per frame. They also have limitations on the shaders they use, they can’t re-target the eyes because they eyes are captured. When you have actors in real time you like to to re-target the eyes to make sure they look at each other [convincingly] etc. etc.”
So what do you think? Does the L.A. Noire tech have legs? Will it set a new benchmark for animation/motion capture? Is David Cage a sausage? Tell us what you think.
Thanks, CVG
While I think his argument about whole body MoCap being better has a lot of merit, I don’t think it’s true to say that the MotionScan technology is a “dead end” or will in any way be obsolete etc… There are quite a many games/situations where low-quality body MoCap and high-quality facial capture would be good. From the point of view of needing to cut as many graphical corners as possible, having NPCs in certain games with low-res body animations but high-res facial animation when interacting/speaking with the character etc… could be a good way to manage overhead.
Furthermore it’s quite possible that a lot can be done about non-captured facial animation (e.g. lip sync) to improve it based upon what’s learned by using the MotionScan tech. It’s distinctly possible that common translations for speech etc… could be mapped over onto other models in other games without the need for undergoing MoCap with MotionScan.
This has to be an April Fools. If not, Cage is a bigger prick than I initially thought. Maybe he’s just upset they didn’t hire people with French accents to portray Americans.
Funny. From playing Heavy Rain I got the impression that Cage is completely fixated on the idea of getting virtual characters to act with real emotion. Unless it’s done with ultra high polygon characters, amazing animators and a superb voice actor it’s not going to happen. Think of how many people a voice actors performance is filtered through. By the time it makes it into the game it’s pretty much a watered down and re-interpreted version of itself. However, with LA Noire the REAL actors performance has been captured and he complains? Yeah, I don’t want to see every game done like this but come on, David, you could only dream Heavy Rain looked liked this. Sure with most games it’s not technically or financially feasible but don’t shoot it down yet. Now get back to making Omikron 2, please.