As much as I agree that this isn't the most productive thread, I also think there is definitely something to be said about how the most recent realistic character/facial tech is seemingly messing things up in a weird, hard to describe way.
Of course the average gamer and game journalist doesn't have the background to pinpoint it, but these facial animation systems just seem to have a tendency to make things slide towards a weird uncanny look. And it just so happens to be especially noticeable on female characters attempting to be realistic but without closely matching a real life actress.
I am replaying Revengence at the moment and I am amazed by some of the visuals. The rendering engine is of course way outdated, but it is fast and butery smooth. And the facial animation on some characters is really damn cool, even showing some nice anticipation on the phonemes which to me illustrates an art team in absolute control of their craft, even with lower ressources from 2013. And something as simple as covering one of the eyes of the characters or keeping them in shadows seems to make the viewer "fill in the blanks".
Of course calling a game woke for featuring yet another sassy girlboss lead isn't the most elegant way to express it, but game studios and the american media and cultural landscape in general are 100% responsible for that anyways after years of advocating for sexist "representation" and expressing overtly racist positions - not gamers. I feel like under the surface gamers might be simply expressing that they just want more cool "game-games" as opposed to yet another attempt at retro 80s nostalgia.
Also I find it hilarious that the team at ND didn't even take the time to look at a real person buzzing their head. This female bounty hunter protagonist is holding the trimmer the wrong way around
I also wonder if one other major reason is that the release timeline is impacted by potential sales figures and consolidation of any losses while keeping up shareholder appeasement.
Certainly there can be many opinions on if a game is ready to ship, but manytimes I feel that a company working under the conditions above would ship it anyway and then try to write off their losses while recouping losses through other investments like real estate.
Happens in AAA, AA and indie and is a big issue in entertainment focused industries.
For Indie, many of these studios operate with grant funding which gives them a lot of room to innovate and the result isn't always ideal (for example Dustborn)
Maybe QA/game testing also doesn't always work as intended, for example if Ubisoft studio asked their game testers for any feedback, are these game testers willing to give honest feedback or are they fans of ubisoft game testing for gift cards and will likely say that everything looks great fearing that a negative feedback my impact their being called in for game testing. And how much feedback is accepted for visual fidelity without it being considered controversial?
And this is outside of internal testing, how many employees are actually willing to call something out and risk falling afoul of leadership. The lack of transparency makes it difficult to assess this since not many are willing to talk atleast not publicly. Not saying it might make a difference, but at the very least it might bring more awareness to developers starting out.
But yes the way the industry operates in the west is probably why developers can risk this level of backlash.
Generally if I was aware of a mass boycott for any reason I would take steps to cover any potential losses, perhaps the studios do this by recouping them from other investments, but losing talent could be seen as an acceptable loss when there are other studios ready to employ them/ talent starts own enterprise, basically not the studios problem.
Like I wish there were other studios ready to employ laid off talent but the way the market it, its just sad to see. Usually a studio would pivot its product towards the market for profitability so maybe that's the direction development will inevitably head in.
If anything maybe AAA companies in the west could invest in AA studios in the east and help distribution, but that's probably what gamepass and playstation +, epic and steam marketplaces do anyway. I'm just not sure if investing more money in development results in better games, or its something else the game industry in the west is missing.
Game testers (QA) are not asked for their opinions on visuals. If anything that would be somewhat disrespectful of the work of the art team, and IMHO a good AD should be proactive at shielding the art team from such unsollicited feedback, even if it comes "from above".
Also, while creative decisions are definitely influenced by the background noise of pop culture (and as said american movie and game studios are reaping what they sow here), believing that any of this is done to please "sHaReHolders" is a massive stretch.
The only thing to blame here is the willingness of studios to paint themselves in a corner because of increasingly heavy tech that prevents iterations - ultimately slowing down development to a crawl.
Kinda feel it would have helped in this games case, but with Kay Vess it is a very peculiar case since generally one assumes that going with a scan over a modification is more sensible since its far less risk. There is no information on the visual target for that model (photo reference moodboard), only discourse about making the character strong, independent badass with a broken nose that is also approachable.
Then again seeing the situation affecting Naughty Dog's Intergalactic's actor which uses a pretty perfect scan and the pushback against it shows that it also comes down to design, personality and story telling to fully flesh out a character and make them appealing to the audience.
Some studios bring in facial expression experts like this person, https://www.linkedin.com/in/annie-sarnblad/ and she would surely have insisted that the game isn't ready to release to market, but maybe for ubisoft any calculated loss can be recouped, so they probably didn't care?
Scott Eaton goes to studios for talks and openly criticises their work adding them to his gallery abominate. Not sure if that has any impact on future development.
I just wish that the art team would be more willing to discuss this rather than be dismissive of criticism, but I don't think they can given how that might potentially affect their future employment opportunities and the studios brand/image. Like studios do insist that they only employ the greatest world class talent so to have that talent come forward and say that they're just normal artists that can make mistakes like any other probably doesn't look very good.
And besides the audience is paying to play the game, not send feedback and with social media there are many who will criticise without caring enough to get a complete picture of why design decision went the way they did.
Thinking that the inclusion aspect should involve more transparent development processes rather than the hype building FOMO approach that studios use to sell games. And besides with many games ending up on game pass, do they even need to market at full price on ubisoft connect if you have the support of a trillion dollar company to recoup a lot of your investment though exclusivity.
Surely you can't hide behind "muh design problems" with Intergalatic? Come on. The complaints are seriously not even pretending to have any merit. Design, personality and storytelling my arse. They're just bitching and moaning because she's a bald woman with muscles and they hate that because it doesn't get their dicks hard.
What you're asking for....It's stupid. The art teams answer to their higher ups, not a load of chimps who think their opinions matter because they have a YouTube channel where they keep moaning that iT's GoNe WoKe or think their opinion matters most because they're cishet men. And even if we pretend - if we stretch our imaginations really hard - that these people are going to be engaging in good faith, the fact is they don't know shit. They can't tell you why a character's skin shader doesn't look right. They can't tell you what anatomy is off. They can't tell you anything of any value. That's like asking a cook to tell you why your programming is running so badly.
How can you live in this timeline and think that putting out the artists - who are basically just doing what they're told by the higher ups - as the meat shield to social media "criticism" is in any way a good idea? That's just putting them in the firing line for harassment. How exactly did you see Laura Bailey get death threats just for voicing Abby and come out of that thinking "Yes, we need more of this, tell the public exactly who is working on it and make them engage with these 'people' on social media."? Or how about all the antisemitism thrown at Druckmann? Or, you know, literally anything about Gamergate?
"FOMO approaches used to sell games" have nothing to do with "the inclusion aspect".
With intergalatic, once the game comes out we'll know more about the character and why they went with that design. The trailer doesn't reveal a lot, but it seems the plot for the game has leaked (though reports are suggesting its fake) so probably best to just keep things level until more is released.
The most I'd say is that the character looks generic, acts insufferable and the trailer feels uninspired. Its literally lifting from Akira which is cool I guess, but I wasn't blown over. https://youtu.be/IGhCPc5BbBQ
What I meant was a game dev approach that is inclusive of constructive audience feedback during development with expert input. Ideally this isn't seen as necessary since the designer/art director is assumed to be competant and aware of audience reception but if that was the case we wouldn't have these situations affecting game products.
Usually designs are based on established visual targets and the response can be anticipated. But even with that in place sometimes even the best artist can't really see past their vision and when the game relies on hype through secrecy to boost sales, the audience reaction can be mixed.
The sonic movie was the best example of this. And the way the team reacted to feedback is I feel the gold standard in professionalism. https://youtu.be/zfU_EEO9QuY You can really see Jeff Fowlers humility and that he genuinely cherishes the characters he creates and is very mindful of audience feedback
I found the Star Wars outlaws team to be incredibly resistant to feedback of any kind. And sure while its fine to be dismissive of criticism that suggests some political controversy, I do feel that their approach affected the reception of the game product by the audience which is now leading to layoffs.
Also I wasn't saying that artists in studio during development need to be open to social media criticism, its usually sufficient to collect feedback though surveys and expert feedback.
Again its rare that this ever becomes a requirement when it comes to realism, for star wars outlaws a lot of the backlash could have been mitigated with the devs releasing more info about their design decisions alongside visual targets. And certainly they aren't required to, but it helps to think about whether the approach to game development in light of social media might need some reflection. Having developer commentary that is very transparent alongside any marketing material does help.
Lightyear was a risk, since the Toy Story Buzz lightyear has a very iconic design (That chunky chin and toy proportions) This video released before the film is really helpful to understand the vision of the art direction and the challenges encountered in a redesign.
That video is fucking stupid. Akira doesn't have a monopoly on retrofuturism or red jackets. And comparing riding off on a bike to flying in a ship just because they're red.....Are you seriously watching that video and turning round here to say "Yes, this is storng evidence"? Really?
You've seen about two seconds of that character, that's nowhere near enough to make judgements on her personality. Just be honest and admit that you already made up your mind because you're hooked on "anti-woke" YouTube channels and websites so it had to be bad from the second she dared look like she didn't jump out of Stellar Blade.
How on earth could they possibly include audience feedback during development? That's completely unworkable. What, every time they revise a character design or a plot beat they're meant to just blab the whole thing to the audience and be like "Do you like that?" That's insane. Even if you put aside the fact that they're working with IP they're obliged to protect, even if you put aside the fact that they don't want to spoil it, it's still completely unworkable because you have no reasonable means of getting a consensus, not to mention designing your game by majority is going to result in completely uninspired, lowest common denominator slop.
You can't complain about games being designed by committee and playing it too safe because corporate wants a sure profit, and then turn around and say that the solution is to do the same thing and just swap out the execs for somehow crystallising the combined thoughts of fucking Gamers.
Who even would this "expert feedback" be? At the end of the day that's still going to be someone's subjective opinion regardless, so essentially all you'd be doing with those is swapping out the opinions of one trained person - who is making the thing - with someone else.
End of the day, creators are creators, and consumers are consumers. This idea that consumers are entitled to so much sway over the creators is an aberration born of social media filling in the distance that used to be between creators and consumers. Consumers should consume, and if they decide they don't want to consume it, then they should just shut the fuck up and leave it alone. They've no entitlement for everything they come across to be perfectly tailored to them, and back in the day, we used to just accept that instead of going on stupid crusades acting like we have a right to tell the devs what to do.
Honestly? You come off as entitled. Where do you get off, thinking that any developer owes you this? That they should be listening to your feedback, designing it around your feedback, listening to you telling them the right way to implement LGBT characters or female character designs? You and those equally entitled Gamers who are pining for the "good old days" when they had "good character designs" that just so happened to always be pimping out their female characters to the male gaze, and kept their LGBT characters either nonexistent, dead, or barely acknowledged as such so the cishets didn't have to strain themselves empathising.
I didn't say the trailer didn't have to copy Akira, I meant that it didn't feel aesthetically inspiring to me because the trailer doesn't really excite me for whats to come. Maybe it would have under different circumstances and I'm sure there an audience that will support it no matter what.
Also its a character focused trailer, not a world or ensemble focused trailer. At the moment I don't have any reason to care about Jordan A Mun, and given her smug attitude it certainly seems that she doesn't care either, so its not unusual that this character isn't quite connecting with the audience just yet.
Maybe this isn't the trailer that's meant to do it? Its an annoucement trailer so I'm not entirely sure what this trailer is supposed to do for the audience other than set the mood, and its very dependent on Naughty dogs and advertiser brand identity.
Atleast that's my take away and I would love for a developer retrospective on how the trailer was created, maybe we'll see this in the next few days.
Consumers vote with their wallet and I'm not really surprised they are getting organised within collective outrage, its not something I particularly like.
The IP protection bit I get, though I do feel that in some cases it could be revised to grow engagement. At the moment its usually applied in a very blanket protection way and comes across as more severe than it needs to be.
Its just a thought I had since consumer demands and awareness are changing so it important for the industry to keep up with the pace.
I'm not exactly pining for the good old days, though I certainly don't look forward to games as I used to before. There is an incredible volume of content, even distribution has changed drastically so many studios do depend on hype and established player base to make the sales they need.
If every gamer was like me, they would buy games for a dollar on steam summer sales which is a disaster for a studio, and thankfully there is a support base that does buy games on release day and live service/DLC is another way to keep up the revenue flow.
And with audience participation, I'm trying to focus on constructive feedback acquired through internal testing and consultation. Its not posting character concepts on twitter and asking the mob if that's cool though this could work for indie/solo developers where they are looking for feedback.
AAA companies do not usually have a system that opens their product to the public before release windows, well maybe snippets and developer diaries and there should be more of those.
And all this is well before the culture war aspect comes into the picture, I believe that there's a lot of work that should go into establishing a game on a solid foundation well before release to secure a market and not just run on brand identity.
I don't think anybody is reading it besides Rima. For me, if there is not a clear point within a sentence or two I aint finishing, and Nikhil is never making any clear points, it is all scatter-brained as if he has few logically formulated thoughts of his own--rather that he has been spelunking in the bowels of youtube and has a miasma of opinions floating around that has little coherence or connection with reality.
even if I care enough to get a chatGPT summary it also struggles to identify the coherent point
by the way I typed this on Dvorak keyboard very slowly. have been learning and I like it a lot for easier typing
I think Michael was echoing Alex_J's sentiment, that you tend to type long posts which do not seem to make a coherent point.
Besides being long-winded, you seem to focus on social media controversies that are not created nor debated by actual game developers.
So for most Polycount members it's really just a lot of hot air.
I don't like singling out any one person, so I try to stay out of the conversation. I think you're honest in your efforts to gather more information that can impact design choices for 3D character models. However you seem to be doing so in a vacuum, without understanding how design decisions are actually made, in actual game development production.
Also I find it hilarious that the team at ND didn't even take the time to look at a real person buzzing their head. This female bounty hunter protagonist is holding the trimmer the wrong way around
Yes and no. I use a buzzer often, and hold it either way depending, as sometimes holding it the "right" way is an incredibly awkward angle. I think were I shaving the top and back of my head, I'd be doing it that way too. Which doesn't make it right, but it does make it human.
Oh god no, not that inverted sheep shearing hand-piece technique - secret is finishing off with a electric (battery) foil shaver which comes in rather handy after wearing face cam under 36°heat in arid environs for ages.
Generally the shaver she's using is when you have longer hair since it's good to remove clumps of hair, like Demi Moore in G.I Jane, And she's using it the right way.
The act of head shaving is meant to be rebellious but usually its better conveyed when it's drastic like in GI Jane. Making a bitch face while trimming doesn't really have the same impact in my opinion unless we just missed the full cut and there's hair all over the floor of the ship which must be mad annoying to clean because of the corrugated nature of space ship floors.
There's probably little hairs all over the ship messing with the electronics through static electricity.
Interestingly both characters are named Jordan so it's possible this scene was a direct reference but they somehow missed the orientation of the razor or space Jordan intentionally uses it wrong to cut her hair or improperly because of mental health issues?
Maybe they called her Jordan after Michael Jordan from Space Jam. Some commenters are suggesting her name Jordan A Mun as a play on Jordan A "Man" or Jordan "Amen" given the prophetic aspect of the game title.
I think what they were trying to convey was attitude, but given the limited context of the trailer the character just comes across as Insufferable which is probably the intention?
Her personality isn't very different from Abby from Last of Us 2.
Likely. I intentionally use my razor wrong all the time because of mental health issues. Do you read what you write before you post?
Thanks for the heads up, I edited the post for clarity, typing on my phone led to hair being mistyped and autocorrected to "head" and I missed out on an "or" This, "Intentionally uses it wrong to cut her head because of mental health issues?" Should have been this "intentionally uses it wrong to cut her hairor improperly because of mental health issues?"
It's not exactly intentional when you have mental health issues which can affect cognition and coordination.
Jordan likely doesn't realise what she's doing.
Using a razor like that intentionally is more concerning since it could cause nicks, cuts and bruises especially when used for trimming.
God's sake, man. Sometimes people just shave their heads because they like the way it looks. Especially people who are making a living getting into fights and don't want a conveniently grabbable rope attached to their most critical part.
"Oh, I'm not misogynistic, but let me just call it a 'bitch face' when a woman isn't making any particular expression because I don't like it." Right.
You've seen her for about two seconds, you can't possibly think you have enough information to compare her to anyone, let alone say she's just like Abby. And I'm pretty sure Abby was a lot more aggressive and moody than she was sarcastic and pushy? You just want to shoehorn her in because then you can go back to bitching about TLoU2, right?
By the way, this stuff is neat. One quick spray on the trimming blades cleans + disinfects + lubricates them all at once. And it has a pleasant, faint lemon scent.
I just watched the Intergalactic trailer. It looks good imo. Don't really get the debate about the hair, the purpose of shaving hair in military is due to lice and mites iirc, which don't exist in space with modern medicine, unless you have alien lice. I personally like the buzzcut, It suits the character. Art is immaculate as expected. Facial anims are a bit off, especially at 1:15 when she turns to face the screen, then turns back to the camera. She raises her eyebrows too high here, and eye movements are not quick enough.
I am picking up a subtle 'hey there, fellow kids' from the video though, which warrants the youtube like/dislike ratio, some of this is due to the focus and tracking of the camera; it's very 'in your face' leading to... visual exposition; underestimating the awareness and intellect of the audience. There is also a corporate aftertaste as well, which stems from trying too hard to mimic streetwise, and failing. This is a writing and character development oversight.
Naughty Dog is branching into cinematography, yet are lacking the acumen to pull it off.
I don't care what anybody says, space jam was a fun movie and unlike many movies I've seen, I still remember the plot and scenes many years later. Do I remember any of the star wars movies? nope
Had sat through original 1977 Star Wars theatrical release aged 16yo at the local "pictures", could recite most of the dialogue verbatim even had a vinyl LP record of the movie soundtrack I'd obsessively replay over-n'-over. Guess at that time our teeny minds weren't prepared to be blown so for me it's THE one which stuck - ain't seen Space Jam, although looks cool cos' imho really can't go wrong with live action/anim Loony Tunes shenanigans.
This idea that consumers are entitled to so much sway over the creators is an aberration born of social media filling in the distance that used to be between creators and consumers.
back in the day, we used to just accept that instead of going on stupid crusades acting like we have a right to tell the devs what to do.
the above quotes might not hold up but overall, I love the post you did.
People bemoaned, publicly mourned, wrote angry letters, did boycotts (20.000 newspaper subscriptions canceled) and sometimes even invested/used big sums of money to sway artists and their publishers. One example from the early 1900s is the resurrection of the character called Sherlock Holmes from the dead.
There's probably little hairs all over the ship messing with the electronics through static electricity.
Those games don´t represent reality or whatever you accept as reality.
Research stuff; Astronauts used/use vacuums while shaving to prevent /limit excessive amounts of hairs flying around. It´s also as it looks like done in small enough room. behind the astronaut is a rectangle where some of the hair goes into so my guess is, it is yet another vacuum.
Here is a video on how an Astronaut washes long hair in space. This time some of the used water floats away and it will take a bit till it gets recaptured by the system and recycled/made available. Dealing with water and hair floating around has been figured out already. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIjNfZbUYu8
Some artistic freedom can be taken and is okay.
Maybe do like the rest and either make your own game(s) and artworks?
People bemoaned, publicly mourned, wrote angry letters, did boycotts (20.000 newspaper subscriptions canceled) and sometimes even invested/used big sums of money to sway artists and their publishers. One example from the early 1900s is the resurrection of the character called Sherlock Holmes from the dead.
Well, it's true that those happened, haha. I don't mean they never did;
more like, they were the exception, not the rule. Whereas the current
climate has that kind of thing happen a lot more often. And if a creator
didn't want to deal with their fandom's shit, they didn't really have
to. It's a lot harder to physically follow someone around hassling them
to make a new book or something than it is to stalk them on Twitter or
wherever.
The impulse was probably always
there, but I think people were less prone to act on it, in part due to
more decency in that regard and in part because it simply wasn't easy
and quick to do. Which part is the bigger reason is debatable, of
course.
there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day
and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace
those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love
beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average
but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect
like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock
Replies
Of course the average gamer and game journalist doesn't have the background to pinpoint it, but these facial animation systems just seem to have a tendency to make things slide towards a weird uncanny look. And it just so happens to be especially noticeable on female characters attempting to be realistic but without closely matching a real life actress.
I am replaying Revengence at the moment and I am amazed by some of the visuals. The rendering engine is of course way outdated, but it is fast and butery smooth. And the facial animation on some characters is really damn cool, even showing some nice anticipation on the phonemes which to me illustrates an art team in absolute control of their craft, even with lower ressources from 2013. And something as simple as covering one of the eyes of the characters or keeping them in shadows seems to make the viewer "fill in the blanks".
Of course calling a game woke for featuring yet another sassy girlboss lead isn't the most elegant way to express it, but game studios and the american media and cultural landscape in general are 100% responsible for that anyways after years of advocating for sexist "representation" and expressing overtly racist positions - not gamers. I feel like under the surface gamers might be simply expressing that they just want more cool "game-games" as opposed to yet another attempt at retro 80s nostalgia.
Also I find it hilarious that the team at ND didn't even take the time to look at a real person buzzing their head. This female bounty hunter protagonist is holding the trimmer the wrong way around
Certainly there can be many opinions on if a game is ready to ship, but manytimes I feel that a company working under the conditions above would ship it anyway and then try to write off their losses while recouping losses through other investments like real estate.
Happens in AAA, AA and indie and is a big issue in entertainment focused industries.
For Indie, many of these studios operate with grant funding which gives them a lot of room to innovate and the result isn't always ideal (for example Dustborn)
Maybe QA/game testing also doesn't always work as intended, for example if Ubisoft studio asked their game testers for any feedback, are these game testers willing to give honest feedback or are they fans of ubisoft game testing for gift cards and will likely say that everything looks great fearing that a negative feedback my impact their being called in for game testing.
And how much feedback is accepted for visual fidelity without it being considered controversial?
And this is outside of internal testing, how many employees are actually willing to call something out and risk falling afoul of leadership.
The lack of transparency makes it difficult to assess this since not many are willing to talk atleast not publicly.
Not saying it might make a difference, but at the very least it might bring more awareness to developers starting out.
But yes the way the industry operates in the west is probably why developers can risk this level of backlash.
Generally if I was aware of a mass boycott for any reason I would take steps to cover any potential losses, perhaps the studios do this by recouping them from other investments, but losing talent could be seen as an acceptable loss when there are other studios ready to employ them/ talent starts own enterprise, basically not the studios problem.
Like I wish there were other studios ready to employ laid off talent but the way the market it, its just sad to see.
Usually a studio would pivot its product towards the market for profitability so maybe that's the direction development will inevitably head in.
If anything maybe AAA companies in the west could invest in AA studios in the east and help distribution, but that's probably what gamepass and playstation +, epic and steam marketplaces do anyway.
I'm just not sure if investing more money in development results in better games, or its something else the game industry in the west is missing.
Also, while creative decisions are definitely influenced by the background noise of pop culture (and as said american movie and game studios are reaping what they sow here), believing that any of this is done to please "sHaReHolders" is a massive stretch.
The only thing to blame here is the willingness of studios to paint themselves in a corner because of increasingly heavy tech that prevents iterations - ultimately slowing down development to a crawl.
There is no information on the visual target for that model (photo reference moodboard), only discourse about making the character strong, independent badass with a broken nose that is also approachable.
Then again seeing the situation affecting Naughty Dog's Intergalactic's actor which uses a pretty perfect scan and the pushback against it shows that it also comes down to design, personality and story telling to fully flesh out a character and make them appealing to the audience.
Some studios bring in facial expression experts like this person,
https://www.linkedin.com/in/annie-sarnblad/
and she would surely have insisted that the game isn't ready to release to market, but maybe for ubisoft any calculated loss can be recouped, so they probably didn't care?
Scott Eaton goes to studios for talks and openly criticises their work adding them to his gallery abominate. Not sure if that has any impact on future development.
I just wish that the art team would be more willing to discuss this rather than be dismissive of criticism, but I don't think they can given how that might potentially affect their future employment opportunities and the studios brand/image.
Like studios do insist that they only employ the greatest world class talent so to have that talent come forward and say that they're just normal artists that can make mistakes like any other probably doesn't look very good.
And besides the audience is paying to play the game, not send feedback and with social media there are many who will criticise without caring enough to get a complete picture of why design decision went the way they did.
Thinking that the inclusion aspect should involve more transparent development processes rather than the hype building FOMO approach that studios use to sell games.
And besides with many games ending up on game pass, do they even need to market at full price on ubisoft connect if you have the support of a trillion dollar company to recoup a lot of your investment though exclusivity.
The trailer doesn't reveal a lot, but it seems the plot for the game has leaked (though reports are suggesting its fake) so probably best to just keep things level until more is released.
The most I'd say is that the character looks generic, acts insufferable and the trailer feels uninspired.
Its literally lifting from Akira which is cool I guess, but I wasn't blown over.
What I meant was a game dev approach that is inclusive of constructive audience feedback during development with expert input.
Ideally this isn't seen as necessary since the designer/art director is assumed to be competant and aware of audience reception but if that was the case we wouldn't have these situations affecting game products.
Usually designs are based on established visual targets and the response can be anticipated.
But even with that in place sometimes even the best artist can't really see past their vision and when the game relies on hype through secrecy to boost sales, the audience reaction can be mixed.
The sonic movie was the best example of this. And the way the team reacted to feedback is I feel the gold standard in professionalism.
You can really see Jeff Fowlers humility and that he genuinely cherishes the characters he creates and is very mindful of audience feedback
I found the Star Wars outlaws team to be incredibly resistant to feedback of any kind. And sure while its fine to be dismissive of criticism that suggests some political controversy, I do feel that their approach affected the reception of the game product by the audience which is now leading to layoffs.
Also I wasn't saying that artists in studio during development need to be open to social media criticism, its usually sufficient to collect feedback though surveys and expert feedback.
Again its rare that this ever becomes a requirement when it comes to realism, for star wars outlaws a lot of the backlash could have been mitigated with the devs releasing more info about their design decisions alongside visual targets.
And certainly they aren't required to, but it helps to think about whether the approach to game development in light of social media might need some reflection.
Having developer commentary that is very transparent alongside any marketing material does help.
Here's a good example.
Lightyear was a risk, since the Toy Story Buzz lightyear has a very iconic design (That chunky chin and toy proportions)
This video released before the film is really helpful to understand the vision of the art direction and the challenges encountered in a redesign.
Maybe it would have under different circumstances and I'm sure there an audience that will support it no matter what.
Also its a character focused trailer, not a world or ensemble focused trailer.
At the moment I don't have any reason to care about Jordan A Mun, and given her smug attitude it certainly seems that she doesn't care either, so its not unusual that this character isn't quite connecting with the audience just yet.
Maybe this isn't the trailer that's meant to do it? Its an annoucement trailer so I'm not entirely sure what this trailer is supposed to do for the audience other than set the mood, and its very dependent on Naughty dogs and advertiser brand identity.
Atleast that's my take away and I would love for a developer retrospective on how the trailer was created, maybe we'll see this in the next few days.
Consumers vote with their wallet and I'm not really surprised they are getting organised within collective outrage, its not something I particularly like.
The IP protection bit I get, though I do feel that in some cases it could be revised to grow engagement.
At the moment its usually applied in a very blanket protection way and comes across as more severe than it needs to be.
Its just a thought I had since consumer demands and awareness are changing so it important for the industry to keep up with the pace.
I'm not exactly pining for the good old days, though I certainly don't look forward to games as I used to before.
There is an incredible volume of content, even distribution has changed drastically so many studios do depend on hype and established player base to make the sales they need.
If every gamer was like me, they would buy games for a dollar on steam summer sales which is a disaster for a studio, and thankfully there is a support base that does buy games on release day and live service/DLC is another way to keep up the revenue flow.
And with audience participation, I'm trying to focus on constructive feedback acquired through internal testing and consultation.
Its not posting character concepts on twitter and asking the mob if that's cool though this could work for indie/solo developers where they are looking for feedback.
AAA companies do not usually have a system that opens their product to the public before release windows, well maybe snippets and developer diaries and there should be more of those.
And all this is well before the culture war aspect comes into the picture, I believe that there's a lot of work that should go into establishing a game on a solid foundation well before release to secure a market and not just run on brand identity.
@Alex_J
Perhaps this is more preferable?
https://screenrant.com/sonic-the-hedgehog-movie-design-backlash-jeff-fowler-reflection/
Besides being long-winded, you seem to focus on social media controversies that are not created nor debated by actual game developers.
So for most Polycount members it's really just a lot of hot air.
I don't like singling out any one person, so I try to stay out of the conversation. I think you're honest in your efforts to gather more information that can impact design choices for 3D character models. However you seem to be doing so in a vacuum, without understanding how design decisions are actually made, in actual game development production.
Also if any company needs 'consultation' with gamers, they're 100% screwed from the get-go because that means their devs aren't gamers...
I think were I shaving the top and back of my head, I'd be doing it that way too. Which doesn't make it right, but it does make it human.
Now this thread is finally getting interesting !!
https://www.remingtonproducts.com/products/shave-and-groom/electric-shavers/rotary-shavers/xr7000a-balder-pro-head-shaver.aspx
Generally the shaver she's using is when you have longer hair since it's good to remove clumps of hair, like Demi Moore in G.I Jane,
And she's using it the right way.
The act of head shaving is meant to be rebellious but usually its better conveyed when it's drastic like in GI Jane.
Making a bitch face while trimming doesn't really have the same impact in my opinion unless we just missed the full cut and there's hair all over the floor of the ship which must be mad annoying to clean because of the corrugated nature of space ship floors.
There's probably little hairs all over the ship messing with the electronics through static electricity.
Interestingly both characters are named Jordan so it's possible this scene was a direct reference but they somehow missed the orientation of the razor or space Jordan intentionally uses it wrong to cut her hair or improperly because of mental health issues?
Maybe they called her Jordan after Michael Jordan from Space Jam.
Some commenters are suggesting her name Jordan A Mun as a play on Jordan A "Man" or Jordan "Amen" given the prophetic aspect of the game title.
I think what they were trying to convey was attitude, but given the limited context of the trailer the character just comes across as Insufferable which is probably the intention?
Her personality isn't very different from Abby from Last of Us 2.
Do you read what you write before you post?
I edited the post for clarity, typing on my phone led to hair being mistyped and autocorrected to "head" and I missed out on an "or"
This,
"Intentionally uses it wrong to cut her head because of mental health issues?"
Should have been this
"intentionally uses it wrong to cut her hair or improperly because of mental health issues?"
It's not exactly intentional when you have mental health issues which can affect cognition and coordination.
Using a razor like that intentionally is more concerning since it could cause nicks, cuts and bruises especially when used for trimming.
I'm not entirely sure what she's trying to do in that scene, but here's a good guide on buzz cuts and bald cuts and how to go about maintaining them.
https://www.myfreebird.com/blogs/grooming/buzz-cut-or-bald
OK, love it or hate it, this was genuinely funny
Naughty Dog is branching into cinematography, yet are lacking the acumen to pull it off.
> Michael Jordan
> Space Jam
> Jar of jam
> Jar Jar Binks
> Star Wars
> X-wing
> X-rated
> Naughty
> Naughty Dog
It makes total sense now !
People bemoaned, publicly mourned, wrote angry letters, did boycotts (20.000 newspaper subscriptions canceled) and sometimes even invested/used big sums of money to sway artists and their publishers.
One example from the early 1900s is the resurrection of the character called Sherlock Holmes from the dead.
Research stuff;
Astronauts used/use vacuums while shaving to prevent /limit excessive amounts of hairs flying around.
It´s also as it looks like done in small enough room.
behind the astronaut is a rectangle where some of the hair goes into so my guess is, it is yet another vacuum.
Here is a video on how an Astronaut washes long hair in space.
This time some of the used water floats away and it will take a bit till it gets recaptured by the system and recycled/made available.
Dealing with water and hair floating around has been figured out already.
Maybe do like the rest and either make your own game(s) and artworks?
The Genius Of The Crowd
there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the averagehuman being to supply any given army on any given day
and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace
those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love
beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average
but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect
like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock
their finest art