Was the facial capture really necessary?

[imdb_acc]

I.ve just completed the white shoe case in the homicide desk and I was wondering if they could have gotten away with just the normal animation they do on ther games? Games like uncharted which also have motion capture have realistic facial expressions. My point is, could Team Bondi and Rockstar have taken a less expensive route? In the tech video, the facial expression was awesome due to the high polygon count, but thats not the case in the final game.
It's easy to tell if someone is holding something back due to shifty eyes and also the evidence. I'm getting all the questions right...

[Josh BRCB]

it wasnt necessary but it helps to immerse you into being a cop, because this is what detectives have to do every day, they have to seek out liars and make sure they have the right truths

[Mezinger]

Yes it was.

There's over 400 hours of animated voice acting in LA Noire... to do that with motion capture instead of motion scan would have been prohibitively time consuming and expensive, not to mention opening the door for large quality issues (lip sync, realism etc.).

You should take up a professional career of poker if your that good at poker, most people found reading the face much more difficult than what your describing.

[Josh BRCB]

i personally found it easier to listen to the voice than the face alot of the times i have accused someone i have got it wrong because i was looking into the facial expressions to much lol. however i had a brain wave this morning while playing, about the truth, doubt and lie thing lol

[imdb_acc]

I appreciate everything that went into the game but the only reason I asked is because if it is expensive and time consuming, we wnt see that many games like this.

Also, I really wish there were more cases(around 48) or something. The ps3 version could have been a 50gb blu ray disc.

[The New Blueguy]

(05-30-2011 03:03 AM)imdb_acc Wrote:  I appreciate everything that went into the game but the only reason I asked is because if it is expensive and time consuming, we wnt see that many games like this.

Also, I really wish there were more cases(around 48) or something. The ps3 version could have been a 50gb blu ray disc.

It is on a 50 GB Blu-ray. They just didn't use the other side. This game was A LOT bigger originally than it is than it is. They scale back due to time constraints and pairity with the Xbox 360 version.

[Peach Sherbet]

(05-30-2011 03:03 AM)imdb_acc Wrote:  I appreciate everything that went into the game but the only reason I asked is because if it is expensive and time consuming, we wnt see that many games like this.

Also, I really wish there were more cases(around 48) or something. The ps3 version could have been a 50gb blu ray disc.

LAN was basically a test drive for this new technology. Once the creators can develop it faster and perfect it, it won't be so time consuming and you might see it appear in other games.

[Mezinger]

(05-30-2011 03:03 AM)imdb_acc Wrote:  I appreciate everything that went into the game but the only reason I asked is because if it is expensive and time consuming, we wnt see that many games like this.

Also, I really wish there were more cases(around 48) or something. The ps3 version could have been a 50gb blu ray disc.

The problem with Motionscan isn't that it's expensive and time consuming it's actually less so than previous generation technology because it takes less human intervention... the problem with the technology is that the recording is largely immutable meaning you can't alter the in-game characters programatically... so if you were to do a branching story you'd need to record all possibilities, which at some point may become more expensive than the traditional methods and clearly has space ramifications.

Here's a good article, and a snippet:

http://www.3dworldmag.com/2011/05/20/la-...l-capture/


"This policy of ‘run as recorded’ is a deliberate decision on Depth Analysis’s part. “We didn’t want the animators touching up the data,” says Bao.

“People tend to use their own faces as reference, and every time you do that, you lose a little bit of the [original actor’s] personality. We wanted LA Noire to be as authentic as possible.”

Equally importantly, eliminating the need for manual data clean-up increases throughput.

“We can generate 15 minutes of animation a day. An animator could spend a whole week just touching that up,” says Bao.

“[To adjust the output], it’s quicker just to capture different versions of a performance and mix the takes.” "

[DefinitelyPsychotic]

Yes, it absolutely was. It made reading suspects/informants faces much easier!

[Carnivorouspope]

Without it it wouldn't be the game it is.