BA2 Animation - Arcs

 Objects (apart from mechanical devices) often follow a slightly circular path, rather than a straight one. This is particularly evident in the human form, and in animals.

A bad example of arcs in animation would be the original Tekken game. In the cut scenes, character’s joints often move slowly, making the animation look unnatural and odd.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzN9fA-aL4Y

On the other hand, many modern games do this very well. Thinking of Bioshock2, almost everything characters did looked realistic, and natural. Adding greatly to the illusion of life. It seems the quality and realism with arcs, is generally more down to the technical limitations of the time. As time passes, arcs are one of the aspects of animation that tends to consistently improve.

In-game screenshot of a Big Sister

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQrsoZiZlbY&feature=fvst

BA2 Animation - Appeal

Good Example: LittleBigPlanet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAu7cbCplZc&feature=related

Bad Example: Tekken

Since the very first Tekken game, there has been a trademark 'blood' effect every time a fighter is hit. The hit is over exaggerated and looks very dated when seen on modern titles such as Tekken5 and Tekken6. Perhaps it is considered to be 'classic' by Namco, the games creators. But players new to the series often comment on how it looks out of place in a contemporary fighting game. To be fair, the 'effect' looks reasonable in early games of the series, where the rest of the game was on a similar level of quality. However, it now has a dubious quality in the reaction it provokes, in today's audience.

Tekken1: released 1994

Tekken5: released 2004

Tekken6: released 2007

BA2 Animation - Exaggeration

Good Example: Dawn of War

Watch a gruesome sync kill example here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEH-j8mtPQI&feature=related



Bad Example: StarWars: Galactic Battlegrounds

StarWars: Galactic Battlegrounds, is an rts game originally released in 2001. It was basically a Star Wars rendering of the famous title Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings. My criticism of it is that when a unit dies, it will often throw a overly dramatic and loud death animation. I understand, at the scale of an rts game, the animations need to be exaggerated to a certain degree, so that the player can see them more easily. I just think that they sometimes go a bit too far in StarWars: Galactic Battlegrounds.

There are many gameplay videos on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OBzWRu1qQ0&feature=related

BA2 Animation - Solid Drawing

Good Example: Mirror's Edge

I think that Mirror’s Edge does a very good job with its human character models. Everything in the game is done in a photorealistic way. This is especially noticeable with the characters you interact with. When the player is talking to another character face-to-face, or if they are engaging enemies in hand-to-hand combat, where all the slight nuances of the figure's apperance become apparent. Proportion, anatomy, three-dimensional shape, volume, balance are all done to a high standard. I have played games by DICE in the past, and can say that put a lot of detail into their human figures. They have a particular ‘true-to-life’ style, that is typical of past DICE games also. Games such as 'Battlefield 2142' from 2006, still looks very accurate and realistic.

Faith targeting an enemy in close combat

Talking to Celeste

Meeting with Faith's sister

Watch a video of close-up weapon disarms:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtre935U6eE&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Bad Example: Custer's Revenge

A horrible, offensive, ‘adult’ game, in which your goal is to navigate General George Custer from one side of the screen to the other. Where upon he proceeds to rape a Native American women, tied to a stake. Danger comes in the form of the constantly falling arrows, or spears, which the player must avoid being hit by. The animation is awful. The depiction of each character is diabolically bad.  With a small collection of coloured squares made to represent the two characters, and the landscape. Needless to say, this game does an extremely poor job of imitating the human form.

Released Oct. 1982



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBcnl3h2alw&feature=related