An Observation on Character Animations

edited March 2007 in Sam & Max
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?

Comments

  • edited March 2007
    Some of the animations are a little repetitive yeah, but considering we are getting a new episode every month it's to be expected. By the time we hit season 2 I'm sure they will have a nice little arsenal of character animations.
  • edited March 2007
    I'm glad that the animation was done in game engine instead of an artifact riddled prerender video. You can see more detail on the walls and such. I'm impressed by everything in this game, especially the high resolution models.
  • edited March 2007
    Hero1 wrote: »
    Some of the animations are a little repetitive yeah, but considering we are getting a new episode every month it's to be expected. By the time we hit season 2 I'm sure they will have a nice little arsenal of character animations.

    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...)
  • edited March 2007
    numble wrote: »
    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.
  • edited March 2007
    VoodooKing wrote: »
    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.
  • edited March 2007
    numble wrote: »
    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.
  • edited March 2007
    A certain stiffness and repetitiveness in animation had been bothering me in the first two episodes, but no longer after the opening of episode three. Sure, the walking and talking animations are few in number, but can you name even a single adventure game where they're not?
    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
    Superball's lips during the war song
    (another nice excuse :)). That may be the best real-time rendered lip-synching I've seen to date; it's certainly the best I've run on my computer. Finally, I think that not too long ago it was high praise for any 3D-game to be able to get away with doing all its cutscenes in-game.
  • edited March 2007
    I've noticed that since Episode 3 Max uses to have "unsymmetrical" expressions... I really love his mouth that way!
  • edited March 2007
    I too noticed subtle facial expressions. Both Sam and Max can frown and the mouths don't just open and close, but seem to have some more muscle movement there.
    I like it, I like it very much!
  • edited March 2007
    The animations have been getting a lot better; although there's still the odd occasion where Max's mouth folds up on itself, turning into a jagged polygonal mess (and I think once in Sam's case). But yeah; the animations are just getting better and better.

    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
    secret-service agent clones
    weren't dancing entirely in synch with each other.

    Aah Telltale, you do spoil us, really...
  • edited March 2007
    I agree about the facial expressions, they are often very well done. But one thing I've noticed is that the quality of the lip synching is quite uneven during the games.
    As an example from ep3, Max' lip synching
    when he "dies"
    is much more detailed and well done than his line when Sam picks up the ace at the very beginning of the game. Also when sam is saying "playland and casino", his tongue and mouth hardly moves at all until the end of "casino".

    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
    is reaching for the war room door, just like a little kid, when they're being thrown out of the white house
    in ep4.

    Edit: the lip synching in the ending of ep2 was absolutely spotless, if only it could be that great all the time...
  • edited March 2007
    The animation has gotten better, especially in the facial emotion areas. I just hope before the CD release comes out, TellTale goes back and fixes some parts in the earlier episodes.

    Like the scene before
    Culture hypnotizes Sam & Max where Max asks if Culture's cliche villian moment is over.
    That scene was dead when it cuts to Sam & Max.
  • edited March 2007
    when it comess to facial expressions,
    the hurt look on agent Superball's face when you rip the ribbon form his chest, and how he then quickly pulls himself together, is fantastic.
    It made me feel bad for doing that.
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