Did HL2 Cap Facial Animation?

[EBHughsThe1st]

I was playing Bioshock Infinite and I noticed something about Elizabeth...

Journalists have absolutely showered her AI with praise about how natural she moves and reacts, and I agree it's neat. But I got up close and personal with Lizzie and I noticed her facial animation was...okay. Not terrible, certainly. But sort of wooden. She just wasn't all that expressive unless we were in cutscene, and even then it was just kind of there. It sort of detracted from her novelty a bit.

I just thought about Alyx Vance and how emotive and expressive she was in comparison. How in cutscene her face would move in nuanced ways. I can't really get an in depth description out here, but it was impressive. And indeed, HL2's facial animation is still impressive....almost 9 years after it's release.

I dunno. It just seemed like it was sort of the pinnacle of the video game face. Sort of. Animated enough to be expressive but real enough to have those expressions carry emotion. Admittedly L.A. Noire had impressive animation, though we all know why.

I think The Walking Dead did what it could to fill stylized characters with life and expression, so there's that. But HL2 and all it's following episodes sort of stand the tallest. Maybe not in facial quality, but definitely in animation quality.

What do you think?

 

[JB1528]

The Mass Effect series had pretty good animations too if I remember correctly.

 

[JazzJack2]

I think Tf2 has the most expressive animations from any game I have ever seen, nothing comes close to it in my opinion.

 

[hazabaza1]

The Mass Effect series had pretty good animations too if I remember correctly.

Oh god.
Oh god I hope you're kidding.
Oh god jesus.

OT: Yeah, I have some issues with Valve but they;re pretty much got faces down. Much more than any other game company, maybe excluding Rockstar.

 

[Goofguy]

The Mass Effect series had pretty good animations too if I remember correctly.

I'd have to disagree. While I love the ME series, I found most characters' expressions were pretty wooden or just downright creepy. Shepard may be able to pull off the angry look well but get him/her smiling and s/he looks likes s/he should have a restraining order keeping him/her away from playgrounds.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Valve's facial animations go deeper than you think. Remember the Meet the Heavy video? Go and look up the Russian dubbed version of that trailer. Valve's facial animations can detect what language is being spoken, and use the appropriate lip movements to approximate lip syncing. It's really neat, and I wish that more games would use it, especially ones from Japan or Europe.

 

[DoPo]

Valve's facial animations go deeper than you think. Remember the Meet the Heavy video? Go and look up the Russian dubbed version of that trailer. Valve's facial animations can detect what language is being spoken, and use the appropriate lip movements to approximate lip syncing. It's really neat, and I wish that more games would use it, especially ones from Japan or Europe.

It's been a feature from before it was released.


I remember being really impressed when I saw that the first time. I was like "whaa, facial expressions? and is that a foreign language?" Haven't played Bioshock Infinte yet, so I can't really compare, though.

 

[Smeggs]

I was playing Bioshock Infinite and I noticed something about Elizabeth...

Journalists have absolutely showered her AI with praise about how natural she moves and reacts, and I agree it's neat. But I got up close and personal with Lizzie and I noticed her facial animation was...okay. Not terrible, certainly. But sort of wooden. She just wasn't all that expressive unless we were in cutscene, and even then it was just kind of there. It sort of detracted from her novelty a bit.

I just thought about Alyx Vance and how emotive and expressive she was in comparison. How in cutscene her face would move in nuanced ways. I can't really get an in depth description out here, but it was impressive. And indeed, HL2's facial animation is still impressive....almost 9 years after it's release.

I dunno. It just seemed like it was sort of the pinnacle of the video game face. Sort of. Animated enough to be expressive but real enough to have those expressions carry emotion. Admittedly L.A. Noire had impressive animation, though we all know why.

I think The Walking Dead did what it could to fill stylized characters with life and expression, so there's that. But HL2 and all it's following episodes sort of stand the tallest. Maybe not in facial quality, but definitely in animation quality.

What do you think?

Kinda opposite for me, her facial expressions actually seemed broken. I sometimes stood there for a bit just to see the random facial gestures she made. She'd go from calm to nervous to happy to calm to angry then sad at random.

And lol, The Walking Dead? The facial expressions in those games were terrible. Need I remind anyone of Larry's random facial expressions in Episode 2? The characters faces in The Walking Dead were some f the most wooden I've ever seen, the majority of the time their mouths were out of sync and even looked like a puppet, just opening and closing while someone spoke words.

 

[Requia]

The Mass Effect series had pretty good animations too if I remember correctly.

Only in cutscenes (though they did have a tendency to cutscene nearly every conversation in 2 and 3), outside of them I don't think there was much in the way of face animation at all.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Valve's facial animations go deeper than you think. Remember the Meet the Heavy video? Go and look up the Russian dubbed version of that trailer. Valve's facial animations can detect what language is being spoken, and use the appropriate lip movements to approximate lip syncing. It's really neat, and I wish that more games would use it, especially ones from Japan or Europe.

It's been a feature from before it was released.


I remember being really impressed when I saw that the first time. I was like "whaa, facial expressions? and is that a foreign language?" Haven't played Bioshock Infinte yet, so I can't really compare, though.

It's hard to believe that we're still playing catch up with something Valve had done in 2003. Granted, some parts of Half Life 2's animation don't hold up well, but facial animation is not one of them. It has always been top of the line.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

The Mass Effect series had pretty good animations too if I remember correctly.

I just threw the first game into the drive a few days ago and I can say that, at least that first game, has incredibly wooden animation. Compared to contemporary games it was well above average but that isn't saying much.

 

[Filiecs]

I think you're right. None other games facial expressions have been as memorable to me as Alex's in HL2.
That moment when I had just finished a tough fight with the combine and we both jump back into the car is just burned into my mind. I turned to Alex and she's looking at me with the most realistic and impactful look of worry on her face I've ever seen, it's like she genuinely cares about my safety and is willing to do anything to ensure my survival.

 

[Zhukov]

Rage had some really good facial animation.

Although, granted, that's about all it had.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

The Mass Effect series had pretty good animations too if I remember correctly.

Yes, the best facial animations...

Spoiler

Nope, not creepy at all.

 

[The Madman]

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is something like 8 years old now and I still think it has better facial animation than 99% of games released today. It also coincidentally was built using the Source engine which powered HL2 which has already been mentioned a couple times now in this topic, go figure.

 

[DavidBowieNoReally]

Nope.

This is the best.


The entire tech and gameplay was built around it to make sure not only that it looked good, but it worked for the gameplay aspect (gameplay revolved around reading facial expression and body language to sniff out a lie). If it wasn't top notch, it would be detrimental to the gameplay.

Anyways, I have yet to see anything better.

Also Heavy Rain was pretty impressive. Even though we needed subtitles for the bad French voice acting.

 

[bafrali]

Not only it holds up pretty well but also they are pretty subtle in characterization. Except for G Man but lets face it. He is a weirdo.

What is even more perplexing is that an avarage player will miss most of these while he is busy breaking the mini-teleporter. But Valve added those details anyway. That is respect for your craft and customer and I respect that.

Edit: Oh dear here comes the Anti-Valve crowd. Brace yourself for off-topic shenanigans. We get it guys you don't care. You don't care so hard it hurts.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Oh HL2... that is an old one, if I remember correctly they analyzed facial motion limits and used that to build a sufficient facial structure and algorithms that could recreate a full range of expression.
Mo-cap alone is like a pre-recorded cutscene, stilted and incredibly hard to adjust once done so it can't really be reused for anything else(LA Noire did that), algorithms however leave everything open to be used with any number of adjustments.

Bioshock Infinite probably failed on accuracy as most games do, if the facial structure and capture aren't complex enough there is a lot of data lost and sooner or later you drop into the uncanny valley, this stands out even more when your character expresses severe emotion in sound but the animation can't match that.
Actually found a direct comparison of how far off they are, actor displays full range of expression and the animation only represents eyes and lips to their limited degree, the rest is just stone cold flat.