Similarities in character designs...
The designs for LeChuck, Voodoo Lady, Guybrush and the french doctor were great, but it really seems that every other character was essentially the same two designs re-used except with alterations made to skin color and hair. Was anyone else bothered by this? I can see why this would be done for "extras", but to have somewhat important characters presented this way was little disappointing.
Very pleased with the game otherwise, by the way. Good job, Tell Tale folks.
Very pleased with the game otherwise, by the way. Good job, Tell Tale folks.
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Meh, I was more annoyed with them recycling the voice of the Mole from Sam & Max to play the part of the reporter in this game. His voice is just fingernails on the chalkboard to my ears.
Speaking of voices, the glassblower sounded familiar. Can anyone place it?
I know, but it didn't make those dialogue trees any more bearable.
With all the griping going on on this board, I really didn't want to start a thread about this, and was very surprised that no one else had.
I'm in the same boat. I loved loved loved the game. It was everything I could have wanted in a new Monkey Island game. But the minor character design was just, well, lazy.
The glass blower and Hemlock McGee are basically the same character. If that's not bad enough, the newspaper editor, the captain of the Screaming Narwhal, D'Oro the treasure hunter, and the man at the door of Club 41 are four iterations of the same character. I realize that you guys have to cut corners somewhere, but what was going on was soooo transparent.
Yes, it's a necessary evil, but two designs for six characters is kinda pushing the limit of what I'm willing to let them get by with.
Re-using the rope bag, bringing in character designs from Texas Hold 'Em, and even dropping in a cow and a chicken from Bone are completely different from pallete-swapping half a dozen characters.
I ask because I honestly do not know.
You realize of course that took a significant amount of programming in Mass Effect, correct?
It's totally intentional. I doubt the "recycling" saved then any time since the characters all had different outfits, bodies, etc, and probably had to be made from scratch. I think the native Flotsamites are all supposed to look the same.
They probably could have addressed this in the script though so people don't get it wrong.
Are the people working on character design even the same people working on environment design? I would think those would be two completely separate jobs by two different teams, and therefore "focusing" on one over the other shouldn't come into play.
Of course, I may be completely wrong. Like IrishSmile, I really just don't know enough about how it works.
There's no such thing as a native Flotsamite. The Marquis was the first, and everyone else crashed there afterwards.
That reporters voice though, I kind of accepted the deliberately annoying voice as a mole in Sam and Max, but it was a poor fit in Monkey Island. It just sounds wrong coming out of a human.
I think D'Oro's voice was my favorite. The dance that Guybrush and D'Oro do after finding the Ninja is hilarious.
When you think of all the cool secondary characters in the first games in the series, having pretty much identical (and not very interesting looking) characters here is a bit of a letdown in an otherwise excellent game.
LOL, so TRUE i just pictured the mole character whenever he spoke... i think it was a bad acting choice from the actor though.
NOW, the characters could have looked different with ease without loosing the animations/bones/etc. they could have used "BLEND SHAPES" for that.
I think it was a bit of laziness on their part.
That's a lot harder than you might imagine. The recycling did bother me though. For characters of that detail, modelling/texturing/rigging them shouldn't be too painful or time consuming that it wouldn't be doable in a relatively short time frame.
The models don’t bother me though, but the characters are forgettable.
Same guy as the reporter (who is the same guy as Sam&Max's mole), if I remember the credits correcly.
While technically it's not that challenging to copy animation (though facial is harder), it often looks pretty bad when it's a direct copy. Because you're working with different proportions and models, you can get clipping issues and just bad-looking animation.
His voice is just so distinctive that I think they really need to pick their spots with him. It also distracted me that he voiced another character on the island as well.
Practically the same sprites with minor changes.
Those guys were all nameless "scrubs" though, and were meant to be, but even as the series went on they started looking more distinct, particularly in Curse. I think it's just that we're saying this is a major step back (even further back than the original game) to have so many similar looking minor characters, and none of these guys were nameless either, they all had names and mini backstories. They could have given us a little more uniqueness to them.
I'll admit though, I didn't notice the similarties between the ship captain, D'Oro, and Nipperkin, so I think they did well enough there, but it may also be that their voices were much more distinct, which helped throw me off.
As for most annoying voice: Hemlock wins. I absolutely despised talking to him, not only did his voice annoy me but he was very difficult to understand.
Things will change as the years pass.
I think that if they use the same models but with different eyes and nose, the difference would be much bigger
I said Blend Shapes, with Blend Shapes you can modify the mesh and retain the rig with its animations intact. There is no copying/pasting animation so you don’t get clipping effects. Of course, im not talking about having a dwarf changing into a stylistic tall figure, im talking about facial changes like ears/nose etc.
In essence something lower end similar to what pixar did for the incredibles population characters, only one model that could morph into infinite unique characters, (but of course I will get someone jump with a reply “but that is time consuming and cant compare the two companies because the money and blah blah blah”). You can achieve something similar, with ease, by using a few modifications applied through blend shapes.
That the engine doesn’t support Blend Shapes?... easy, adjust the character's shape then delete the blend shape nodes and export (deleting the blend shape nodes after they where applied will retain the modified shape)
I actually liked the the choise for doing this, if I'm going to be totally honest, I was afraid the island would be weirdly under populated, feel empty, Instead I got 7 interesting people to interact with.