Interview Chris Avellone on lessons learned and future plans at RPGamer

[Roguey]

He was exaggerating.

Of course, they didn't let the algorithm run and call it a day. The thing both scenes had in common was that they looked a bit amateurish—really, like awkward actors stumbling over a scene in a film, or the not-quite-natural animation of games that started to really explore cinematic character interactions (i.e. almost everything pre-Mass Effect). Most of the time, the animators would take what the generator had created, then go into the timeline to tweak it by hand, which could deliver a much better scene in just a few minutes.

I suppose if some of the filler side quest "Geralt and a guy just stand there talking to each other" animations look like that, they were untouched.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Roguey]

Anyway what I was originally getting at was the notion that cdproject could deliver cinematic experience on such scale, because they were paying with potato dollars.

This is still true, given the exchange rate of the dollar and the zloty.

P.S.

Were I to design a conversation system now, I'd push for a workflow based on fast and accessible face & body capture rather than algorithms.

While it hasn't 100% proved this method, Horizon Zero Dawn's better scenes succeed due to a use of facial mocap.

The one positive to come out of all this is that AAA story-heavy games can't skimp on the animation quality with a systemic approach alone.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

all nonsense, the lipsync was shit because the animator was a secret trump voter, perhaps even a fucking white male, they can fix that by only hiring POCs with majors in social studies, black history, liberal arts etc, which will do wonders for the quality of the product

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG