World of Darkness Bloodlines facial animation is overrated, many modern games do it better

[Sodafish]

no further productive discussion is possible

Yes, when you're being this obtuse (and insulting) I agree discussion is a waste of time.

Spoiler

Hi, I'm a SLT/Gaffer in Film/TV/Commercial production and have helped lighting setups for professional photographers for still photography as well as my own amateur work.

I won't be insulting. I will tell you that nearly everything you have said is wrong, and that you wrongly trust your bias and personal experience rather than talking to and learning from professionals and other amateurs.

Keep shooting. You have way more control of everything you shoot than you apparently believe you do.

Spoilered the off-topic part of the post.

My face is tired. Do we have to say more?

Spoiler

I appreciate the tone of your response, but please don't make the same assumption as PJ did that I am some clueless amateur who doesn't understand how to use and manipulate light, because I am not. Photography is a genuine passion for me, and I have spent countless hours over the last 12 years or so learning everything I can about it.

With that out of the way, this bone of contention is obviously resting on how we are defining "control" in this discussion. Bias has nothing to do with it. Believe me I am fully aware of how much can be done with light, natural or otherwise. I myself almost exclusively use natural light for my work, and in the latter part of our discussion PJ and I were discussing that and its constraints, or at least that was my impression. FWIW I am in full agreement that natural light can be manipulated to a degree, however at the end of the day one's ability to alter its transient properties to achieve a certain goal only goes so far, especially outside of a studio; a distinction I made clear at the outset. My point at its most fundamental is this: when outside you cannot turn night into (real) day at will, change the momentary angle or elevation of the sun in relation to your desired composition, how globally diffuse the light is, its colour temperature, and so on.

That is what I mean by control in this context: to have the potential of FULL control over every single aspect of the lighting at all times, and with natural light this is not possible. I hope this clears things up.

 

[Semiurge]

Do we have to say more?

Say no more.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Say no more.

That's a cheap shot. Andromeda makes facial animations in first Deus Ex look good

 

[Prime Junta]

Spoiler

Sodafish that is trivially true, the same way it’s trivially true that a race car driver doesn’t have full control over his car because he’s still dealing with physics. It does betray a fundamental misunderstanding of what you can do with light in photography however.

You may or may not be any good as a photographer anyway, I wouldn’t know without seeing some of your work. Many photographers, even really good ones, are poor at expressing what they do and why.

As to our dick-measuring, that’s even more pointless. I’ve taught beginners who take to photography like a fish to water and start producing beautiful work from the first frame, and worked with veterans who never even mastered exposure or basic composition.

 

[Sodafish]

Spoiler

Sodafish that is trivially true, the same way it’s trivially true that a race car driver doesn’t have full control over his car because he’s still dealing with physics. It does betray a fundamental misunderstanding of what you can do with light in photography however.

You may or may not be any good as a photographer anyway, I wouldn’t know without seeing some of your work. Many photographers, even really good ones, are poor at expressing what they do and why.

As to our dick-measuring, that’s even more pointless. I’ve taught beginners who take to photography like a fish to water and start producing beautiful work from the first frame, and worked with veterans who never even mastered exposure or basic composition.

Spoiler

The distinction is not trivial, it is very significant, and I haven't misunderstood anything; that's just more projecting and condescension on your part. As to dick measuring, I agree posting each other's work would likely be pointless in such an adversarial mood, and this thread doesn't need any more OT posts. Look, this discussion really isn't going anywhere and clearly we aren't going to agree, so let's just drop it

 

[Atlantico]

AA, Bloodlines 2 certainly doesn't have the extra A.

Neither did Bloodlines 1. AA at best.

I appreciate the Source engine. When I used to have a crap PC the only good looking games I could play at max settings were Source games.

Yes, it was made for mainstream PCs, i.e. low-end.

There is nothing nostalgic about Source. It's a great engine and easily goes into top-5 best 3D engines of 2000-s.

If you don't read posts, why reply? Of course it is nostalgic claiming the janky facial animations in the Source engine are good today. That's the definition of nostalgia.

My face is tired. Do we have to say more?

Nobody mentioned that game as an example of a game with good facial animations.

 

[Roguey]

Neither did Bloodlines 1. AA at best.

Yeah, Bloodlines had a low budget even for its time, and yet it had better facial animations than the much bigger budget Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire because Valve made the better tool for them.

 

[c2007]

I had a feeling about your perspective, Sodafish .

We are essentially talking about the same thing from different directions, and yes it is a semantic discussion at this point because ultimately we disagree on what control means. That's not a big deal to me - but I do think that I have control, where you feel you have reaction to ethereal control. Your reaction is a control.

Atlantico - uh.... read the title of the thread. Nice gatekeeping attempt shitlord.

 

[Prime Junta]

If you don't read posts, why reply? Of course it is nostalgic claiming the janky facial animations in the Source engine are good today. That's the definition of nostalgia.

Uncanny valley may have something to do with it. Bloodlines' characters are stylised enough that you see them like you'd see cartoon characters. More modern AAA games are much more photorealistic and even with relatively sophisticated facial animation they still look like animated wax masks.

Also the voice acting makes a big difference and Bloodlines' VA is top notch by any standards.

 

[Tacgnol]

If you don't read posts, why reply? Of course it is nostalgic claiming the janky facial animations in the Source engine are good today. That's the definition of nostalgia.

Uncanny valley may have something to do with it. Bloodlines' characters are stylised enough that you see them like you'd see cartoon characters. More modern AAA games are much more photorealistic and even with relatively sophisticated facial animation they still look like animated wax masks.

Also the voice acting makes a big difference and Bloodlines' VA is top notch by any standards.

Yeah, Bloodlines was very stylised which also helped with the facial animations. The facial animations are quite over the top which works well with the art style.

Also as you say, the VA was top notch and fit the setting and characters perfectly.

 

[sullynathan]

Too much e peen stroking in this thread