An Observation on Character Animations
Today I was going back watching some of the Episode trailers (really awesome work on those - just plain fun to watch), when I came upon the "phone" trailer for Episode 1, announcing the duo's return.
What really struck me was the quality and variety of animation - it felt more "pre-rendered" than the in-engine cutscenes we get with each episode (which makes sense, considering that it was). The interaction as Sam is on the phone and Max is frantically grasping for it just looked really neat.
Now, I know that there are a handful of custom animations in each episode - Max's death scene, "playing cards" together, the War Room introduction, but a lot of the gameplay just feels like three characters (Sam, Max, and Someone Else) standing around using recycled and fairly generic speech animations.
Again, I have to qualify that statement - I know that the writing, the sardonic humor, the incisive wit is the raison d’etre of Sam and Max, and so far I've been more and more impressed with it as the season has progressed.
I also know that there are significant limitations imposed by a development cycle as ambitious as this one. Every line can't be synched up to a customized facial and gesture animation, and I understand that. (And every puzzle can't be a brain-twister.)
It's just something that stands out to me as I play.
I've certainly enjoyed the last four episodes, and I feel like I've gotten my money's worth (I purchased a season pass) from this season already.
I love the artwork, the music's terrific, and the writing has been pretty close to excellent. But the simplicity of some of the puzzles, the quality of some of the sound samples, and the repetitive nature of the speech animations are, in my opinion, low points in an otherwise stellar offering.
Thoughts?
What really struck me was the quality and variety of animation - it felt more "pre-rendered" than the in-engine cutscenes we get with each episode (which makes sense, considering that it was). The interaction as Sam is on the phone and Max is frantically grasping for it just looked really neat.
Now, I know that there are a handful of custom animations in each episode - Max's death scene, "playing cards" together, the War Room introduction, but a lot of the gameplay just feels like three characters (Sam, Max, and Someone Else) standing around using recycled and fairly generic speech animations.
Again, I have to qualify that statement - I know that the writing, the sardonic humor, the incisive wit is the raison d’etre of Sam and Max, and so far I've been more and more impressed with it as the season has progressed.
I also know that there are significant limitations imposed by a development cycle as ambitious as this one. Every line can't be synched up to a customized facial and gesture animation, and I understand that. (And every puzzle can't be a brain-twister.)
It's just something that stands out to me as I play.
I've certainly enjoyed the last four episodes, and I feel like I've gotten my money's worth (I purchased a season pass) from this season already.
I love the artwork, the music's terrific, and the writing has been pretty close to excellent. But the simplicity of some of the puzzles, the quality of some of the sound samples, and the repetitive nature of the speech animations are, in my opinion, low points in an otherwise stellar offering.
Thoughts?
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Comments
I agree, even as the Season goes along, I think they are adding new character animations; for example, I don't think the animations of Max picking his teeth, eating lint from his bellybutton, and coughing/swallowing phlegm were in the first episode. (I might be wrong though...)
Those animations were in there in EP1. Along with the armpit-fart thingy. Heh.
Bah, I guess I wasn't paying attention. I thought there was only the armpit fart, random menacing, and picking his butt. I guess the twiddling his arms in the air was also there.
Yeah I liked those so much that I left the game running as a screensaver on my office laptop.
Besides, the facial animations have significantly improved several times and by now are diverse and astonishingly expressive if you stop to consider that our main characters have no visible eyebrows, can't close their mouths, and have black beads for eyes!
And take a close look at
I like it, I like it very much!
As a side node, the little musical number in Ep 4 had some of the best animation in the game, I think. I especially liked how the
Aah Telltale, you do spoil us, really...
As an example from ep3, Max' lip synching
This may be somewhat of a pet peeve of mine, but I find that good lip synching really helps bringing the character to life. I guess it would annoy me less if it wasn't for the fact that I regularly notice bits that are quite noticeably better done than the rest (I just noticed another one, the quality of the lip synching goes down markedly in the middle of the initial cutscene in ep4).
Many other animations are really great, I love how Sam
Edit: the lip synching in the ending of ep2 was absolutely spotless, if only it could be that great all the time...
Like the scene before