Poll: Question for Tomb Raider players

[Shuu]

So I've been playing to Tomb Raider reboot lately. Somewhat polarising, but basically well recieved as far as I can tell. I like what it's boasting, but I do think it employs an overall dodgy design philosophy. But this question isn't really about that. I think I've worked out what's passively bugging me about this game.
It's the animation.
I've noticed a massive dissonance between the animation in the cutscenes and the gameplay. In cutscenes, the characters movement is fine. But during gameplay, it looks really weird. It's like they made the animations, and then for some reason, decided to speed them up. Such as when Lara falls (an unusually common occurrence) gravity seems to be twice as strong as it should be, and when she hits the ground, she goes limp way too quickly. It's just very jarring against the otherwise impressive visuals of the game. Very uncanny valley, this just isn't how human beings move.
I couldn't get the thought out of my head that the in game animation in Tomb Raider is just plain bad. Not technically, there was just a weird stylistic choice made by the developers that didn't pay off. But when I went online to see if anyone else noticed this, the only talk I could find about it was people saying they liked it and wished more games would take a note from Tomb Raider's book.
Now I'm very interested in game design, but particularly, visual game design. So my question is, did you notice the unique animation style during Tomb Raider's gameplay segments? And if so, what did you think of it?

 

[Elfgore]

Yeah, I noticed some really weird running animations when she ran up hills with a pistol drawn. Looks like she doesn't know how to run properly.

It doesn't really bother me though. I worry more about gameplay and story than animation quality. The gameplay is amazing and the story was good too... until the end then it just became totally weird.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Cant say I noticed anything really weird nothing that bugged me anyway but then again I have played NetherRealms games the animation has to be pretty bad to be worse than Injustice and Mortal Kombat I dont think I have played anything this gen that has bugged me so much from an animation and character modeling perspective as these two games.

 

[Ferisar]

I don't think I had the same impression when playing it, but I might've just chosen to ignore it. If I ever go back to it I'll try to look for it though. I'm usually a stickler for smoothness rather than realism, so if the animations play well and there's a real transition between each motion, I'm usually blissfully unaware if it's physically normal.

That and games don't have the best track-record with animations. With current tech, I'm expecting a lot of uncanny valley-type of animation and move-sets soon(tm). Especially given what I've seen in DA:I so far.

 

[RA92]

I was too busy loving how high she jumped.

Too many games today don't even include the jump function.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The only real issue I had was with how she switched weapons. Her arms just seemed to move individually from her torso.

Apart from that, yeah the animation can seem a bit cartoony, but I would say most similar games suffer slightly from this. The cutscenes are all mo-capped, so obviously they look more natural compared to the gameplay animation wich is done with keyframe (by hand). And in the case of Tomb Raider, where the action is more frantic and fast paced, that difference can be more apparent.

It's one of those things where you just suspend your disbelieve. Like how dead enemies in Demon's/Dark Souls stick to you like a plastic bag.

 

[Zhukov]

I enjoyed it. Which is more than I can say for the old TR games. Clunky old things.

I wouldn't call it great, or even all that good. But it entertained me for the duration, and for a second go through. It had things to shoot that were fun to shoot and things to jump around on that were fun to jump around on and it strung them together in a competent manner.

So I guess I'd say it was an adequate game.

As for the animation... I remember it being generally up to par. Maybe some rough bits here or there, or some dodgy interactions, but nothing that made me sit up and think, "This game is poorly animated!"

 

[BrotherRool]

Generally I remember the animation being pretty good. Especially when climbing and in battles, I was impressed by the little touches of personality they included.

I could believe there was something a little off in her running animation though, I've played very few games that had a decent one. The problem is they're trying to animate a form of motion that basically doesn't exist. The designers want the character to move much faster than an ordinary walk but they also don't want the ludicrousness of having a person sprint everywhere. So they try these awkward half jogs that never work. Even Uncharted which is famous for the quality of it's animation doesn't get it perfect.

It was definitely nowhere near as bad as Final Fantasy XIII. The running animation there drove me up the wall. It's pretty bad in Mass Effect too.

 

[lacktheknack]

Tomb Raider has a... strange relationship with animation.

The animation quality of the series peaked in Angel of Darkness. That should tell you everything you need to know.

That said, I didn't have an issue with "speeding" animation in the reboot. If you're on a computer, is your CPU overclocked or set up strangely? Syberia had this issue as well, where dual-threaded CPUs would play animations about four times faster than they were supposed to.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

I did notice the falling animations seemed weird. Then again, maybe it's one of those things where we're so used to seeing unrealistic animations in games, that a realistic depiction looks jarring.