World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 from Hardsuit Labs

[imweasel]

I can already see the spinoff threads in the bowels of the Codex:

"Tranny Vampires are so progressive according to developer. Discuss!"
"SJWism is killing gaming, take 52"
"Why is Seattle full of cucks and communists?"
"Attractiveness of women in video games, take three"
"Paradox and Hardsuit Labs say that white men aren't their target audience #VampireGate"

 

[Saerain]

imweasel



Problem?

I can't believe it's 2019 and the gaming industry can let an all-white animation team just exist, like? So gross.

 

[imweasel]

Yep, Hardsuit labs spectacularly failed to fulfill diversity and gender quotas. The team should be at least 75% non-white, 50% female persons with vaginas and 50% homosexual.

 

[Lacrymas]

Pretty sure the guy (yes, I'm assuming its gender) in the foreground on the right is some type of Asian.

 

[Space Nugget]

Luke Steicher, a former Technical Artist at Hardsuit Labs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukesteichen/

Served as interim lead, and later co-lead of the animation team.

Designed and implemented the character facial rigging pipeline to maximize the visual fidelity of FaceFX procedurally-generated lip sync and custom facial animation.

THE VIDEO BELOW VIDEO IS NOT HIS -- It's just to give you all a glimpse of the FaceFX tool:



For those who have been following this thread closely, you might remember how all of the job openings relating to animation mentions facial rigging and animation.

And this as well: "You can pretty much handle ... facial/lip sync animations in your sleep."

We'll see if that emphasis translates to good results.

 

[vortex]

Well, this is already better than in Andromeda.

 

[user]

Pretty sure that kawai dog in the picture is asian as well.

Luke Steicher, a former Technical Artist at Hardsuit Labs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukesteichen/

Served as interim lead, and later co-lead of the animation team.

Designed and implemented the character facial rigging pipeline to maximize the visual fidelity of FaceFX procedurally-generated lip sync and custom facial animation.

THE VIDEO BELOW VIDEO IS NOT HIS -- It's just to give you all a glimpse of the FaceFX tool:



For those who have been following this thread closely, you might remember how all of the job openings relating to animation mentions facial rigging and animation.

And this as well: "You can pretty much handle ... facial/lip sync animations in your sleep."

We'll see if that emphasis translate to good results.

Doesn't seem bad - I think the bioware effect is because they probably use machine generated animations - expression durations are all over the place or overdone.

 

[Delterius]

I ~think~ the problem with Andromeda is that EA and management pushed REALLY HARD for the tools to be the be all end all of all animations. When you're supposed to let them do the hard work and then give it actual human polish. It wasn't the tools or even necessarily the rookie-ness of the rank and file, but rather that the entire project was horribly managed -- Electronic Arts always pined for some kind of FIFA-ification of BioWare's IPs, after all.

 

[Nano]

I ~think~ the problem with Andromeda is that EA and management pushed REALLY HARD for the tools to be the be all end all of all animations. When you're supposed to let them do the hard work and then give it actual human polish.

Explain this:



Animations were somehow better in the alpha version.

 

[user]

I ~think~ the problem with Andromeda is that EA and management pushed REALLY HARD for the tools to be the be all end all of all animations. When you're supposed to let them do the hard work and then give it actual human polish.

Explain this:



Animations were somehow better in the alpha version.

Interesting. In the comments, they say it is because they changed engines.

 

[Delterius]

I ~think~ the problem with Andromeda is that EA and management pushed REALLY HARD for the tools to be the be all end all of all animations. When you're supposed to let them do the hard work and then give it actual human polish.

Explain this:



Animations were somehow better in the alpha version.

Oooh, yeah I remember that. Hmmm, couldn't it be that the Alpha is a really, really early vertical slice/vision of the game? That the whole thing was redone as the actual game was developed.

I mean, its an Alpha. If anything, it shows that the clusterfuck just had to be avoidable.

 

[fantadomat]

OK I've looked at Space Nugget's IP address and I can tell you he's almost certainly not affiliated with Paradox Interactive or Hardsuit Labs.

But seriously, I appreciate what you're doing here Space Nugget, keep it up.

OK I've looked at Space Nugget's IP address and I can tell you he's almost certainly not affiliated with Paradox Interactive or Hardsuit Labs.

Thanks! Now we can put this to rest.

...right, guys?

Also it is coming from Infi,nobody believes him when it comes down to such things!

 

[fantadomat]

Well, this is already better than in Andromeda.

Pretty high standards you got there mate.

 

[santino27]

Oooh, yeah I remember that. Hmmm, couldn't it be that the Alpha is a really, really early vertical slice/vision of the game? That the whole thing was redone as the actual game was developed.

I mean, its an Alpha. If anything, it shows that the clusterfuck just had to be avoidable.

That slice could have also shown them that the time-to-market for that level of visuals was too high for EA's tastes and/or that performance was atrocious and wouldn't fly on consoles. Alpha often involves a lot of attempts that end up getting thrown away.

(Which is not to say they made the right choice, given what Andromeda shipped like, of course.)

 

[Wesp5]

For those who have been following this thread closely, you might remember how all of the job openings relating to animation mentions facial rigging and animation.

And this as well: "You can pretty much handle ... facial/lip sync animations in your sleep."

We'll see if that emphasis translates to good results.

Let's hope so! What might be interesting and not known to anyone not modding Bloodlines, while specific facial animations during cutscenes should be possible in many game engines, Troika actually added an easy system to do this during dialogues, just by triggering some standard emotions in the text, like Neutral [1], Anger [1,2,3], Joy [1,2,3], Sad [1,2,3], Fear [1,2], Disgust [1], Apathy [1], Flirtatious [1] and Confused [1], so these can be switched on and off depending on the player choices! I don't think I ever saw this done in any other game...

 

[Space Nugget]

For those who have been following this thread closely, you might remember how all of the job openings relating to animation mentions facial rigging and animation.

And this as well: "You can pretty much handle ... facial/lip sync animations in your sleep."

We'll see if that emphasis translates to good results.

Let's hope so! What might be interesting and not known to anyone not modding Bloodlines, while specific facial animations during cutscenes should be possible in many game engines, Troika actually added an easy system to do this during dialogues, just by triggering some standard emotions in the text, like Neutral [1], Anger [1,2,3], Joy [1,2,3], Sad [1,2,3], Fear [1,2], Disgust [1], Apathy [1], Flirtatious [1] and Confused [1], so these can be switched on and off depending on the player choices! I don't think I ever saw this done in any other game...

Write it down, KaaiCluney.

 

[conan_edw]

I believe one of the reasons that Bloodlines facial expressions were great is the fact that games used to have lower poly count. The more poly counts the harder it gets to make likable expressions, especially since they are pushing for more realistic look. That's why I'm certain that this game will never reach that level.

 

[Twiglard]

Let's hope so! What might be interesting and not known to anyone not modding Bloodlines, while specific facial animations during cutscenes should be possible in many game engines, Troika actually added an easy system to do this during dialogues, just by triggering some standard emotions in the text, like Neutral [1], Anger [1,2,3], Joy [1,2,3], Sad [1,2,3], Fear [1,2], Disgust [1], Apathy [1], Flirtatious [1] and Confused [1], so these can be switched on and off depending on the player choices! I don't think I ever saw this done in any other game...

There's a bunch of algorithms for creating lip sync data from the voiceover itself. Makes sense, given it doesn't even require full speech-to-text capability. I presume the current issue with lip sync data is lack of understanding for the data formats involved? More importantly, would more reverse engineering and more SDK tools lead to additional quality game content?

Wesp5 Where do I report bugs in the future? Here's one–the voiceovers for "freeze!" and "stop right there!" are used for ghouls in Grout's mansion. There's another issue where moving around causes pedestrians to behave strangely where they just come into view. Coming from around the corner made a guy slide across the screen to a distant place.

I believe one of the reasons that Bloodlines facial expressions were great is the fact that games used to have lower poly count. The more poly counts the harder it gets to make likable expressions, especially since they are pushing for more realistic look. That's why I'm certain that this game will never reach that level.

For me the game has barely aged tech-wise. The only character that looked atrocious was Venus at Club Confession. Some textures could be more high-res but nothing too bad. I blame the great sense of taste and atmosphere for this non-aging blasphemy.[/QUOTE]

 

[Space Nugget]

The only character that looked atrocious was Venus at Club Confession.

 

[Space Nugget]

I've been trying to "track down" some of the Bloodlines dev team, see what they are up to nowadays.

Design, Dialog and Story

Brian Mitsoda -> Writer & Designer at DoubleBear Productions, since July 2009. (Also Additional Support)
Chad Moore -> Creative/Game Director at inXile Entertainment, since January 2019. (Also Lead Character Modeler and Additional Support)
TJ Perillo -> Principal Designer at Midwinter Entertainment, since November 2018. (Also Scripter and Additional Support)
Jason D. Anderson -> "The Help"* at Turtle Rock Studios, since January 2011. (Also Creative Director, Scripter and Level Building)
Leonard Boyarsky -> Co-Director at Obsidian Entertainment, since April 2016. (Also Project Lead, Concept Artist, Texture Artist and Additional Support)

* "I currently work at Turtle Rock Studios. One of the things I love about the company is that there are no titles, everyone are equals. So I don’t have a title."

Additional Design and Dialog

Stephen Bokkes -> Design Director at Rainbow Studios, since 2018.
Tiffany Chu -> Producer at Cryptic Studios, since August 2018.
David Webb -> Designer at ArenaNet, maybe not for long. (Also Additional Scripting)

 

[fantadomat]

We really need Roguey button...

 

[Wesp5]

There's a bunch of algorithms for creating lip sync data from the voiceover itself.

There is a tool for this for the Source engine too, but the main problem that I see is that this doesn't recognize the emotions in which the lines are spoken.

Wesp5 Where do I report bugs in the future?

You can report bugs on Planet Vampire or on other boards that have a UP thread.

Here's one–the voiceovers for "freeze!" and "stop right there!" are used for ghouls in Grout's mansion. There's another issue where moving around causes pedestrians to behave strangely where they just come into view. Coming from around the corner made a guy slide across the screen to a distant place.

These two are known and it seems to me unfixable. The latter probably happens when NPCs teleport to interesting places because the AI was updated too slow. I thought I had fixed the former but somehow if NPCs don't find dedicated lines they fall back to others...

 

[Space Satan]

 

[Brancaleone]

We really need Roguey button...

Something like this?

 

[True Ukrainian]

Yep, Hardsuit labs spectacularly failed to fulfill diversity and gender quotas. The team should be at least 75% non-white, 50% female persons with vaginas and 50% homosexual.

You forgot the asexuals, pansexuals, transexuals, trans whites, trans coloreds and furries shitlord. REE.