Hi all,

I just wanted to start a thread concerning the level of quality we've seen from the animations so far, and also to share a few things I've noticed with all of you that are truly worrying me at this point.

We are all aware (or at least 95% of us are/can agree) that the animations from the previous Elder Scrolls games were mediocre at best. Morrowind, even though the game itself was considered a masterpiece, was plagued with awkward animations, among other defects that the story and game itself well made up for. No problem, they didn't detract from the story as much as they would have if the overall experience wasn't so incredible. We all accepted that. Oblivion, though a massive leap forward in terms of visual quality, still suffered this same fate. Except this time around, they relied on its visual prowess to sustain their audience, I think. Personally, I found Oblivion's story to be decent, but for the most part mediocre, and it literally felt like Morrowind's mechanics had been simply recycled into a new renderer. This reflected into several of the reviews it got, but again, the sheer size and awe the game put its players in, allowed gamers to somewhat ignore its flaws and endure them, just like in Morrowind. Eventually though, Oblivion's flaws, animations being one of several major things people were noticing, started bubbling to the surface and fueling the fires it had started. More and more people now generally accept vanilla Oblivion to be a broken game, and yet it still seems to keep its elite status. This is a serious problem, and I think it may be inflating a needless ego that may come back to nip Bethesda in their sleep. (Keep in mind that issues about combat animations and the feel of combat/animations in general have been criticized in a similar fashion a few times now as well by the press, it's not just me trying to nit-pick) Allow me to elaborate..

With a newly redesigned engine, we should be expecting Bethesda's animators to be ahead of the game, developing open-world RPGs for as long as they all have. Instead, I've noticed very similar flaws in the Skyrim footage we've seen. Have a look at IGN's Rewind Theater when they ran through the official Skyrim trailer a little while back - almost all the qualms I have with the current state of Skyrim's animations are there. Or, if you want to skip all the pvssyr, just have a closer look at the official trailer, and really pay attention to the animations. http://www.ign.com/videos/2011/02/24/skyrim-rewind-theater?objectid=14267318

You'll notice several awkward motions in 3rd person combat when they actually pick the framerate apart, rewind it, or slow it down in general. One example I find always bothering me is when the character is seen from his side, slashing an enemy with his sword whilst doing a spin move. @7:50 minutes into the Rewind Theater video I have linked, they slow it down quite nicely so you are able to see each phase of the animation. In almost every frame that it is paused during this spin move, the main character's limbs are bent far beyond natural possibility, his shoulders remain stiff, and his lower neck to the point of his shoulder blades is somehow pushed forward as though it's a separate joint. This is not the way humans move. It appears as though the animators are still creating strange Oblivion-style movements within this new engine.

Fighting the frost troll @6:34-ish, the idle left hand with the flame spell is very lifeless, stiff and awkwardly configured. This very same thing is shown in the newly-leaked 5 second clip of the demo that was shown to the press. The fire itself inside the hand is dynamic, and yet your hands are displayed at the most unusual angles and in the most uncomfortable of positions while a ball of fire is wreathed inside your palm. If they are going for that Bioshock-esque feel for spells like it was done with plasmids, they should at least create more variation in terms of idle animations. No one runs around with both their hands and arms folded up near their chest, facing each other, in such a sterile way. People are not made of clay. For a great test of this to see what I mean, place both your hands near your chest in the way you see in the screenshots, and experience how truly uncomfortable and bizarre it feels to behave in such a way. It sounds funny, but to really critique what we're seeing, we need to let go of all our hype for a moment to really understand what's on screen. The game may look gorgeous, and we're overwhelmingly anxious to play it, but I think a lot of us aren't criticizing it or comparing it apples to apples like we should be. Bethesda is boasting about their new Creating Engine.. but to me, it still looks eerily close to Oblivion in terms of mechanics.

Another great example, @6:40 or so, the scene where your character slices an unsuspecting person's throat from behind. Pay close attention to the stale movements the character demonstrates very quickly while standing up. It's too rigid of a movement, and doesn't flow properly like a human being would demonstrate. When they slow it down, you can see the individual phases once again, which make it appear smoother, but at full speed it looks incredibly awkward and unnatural. Not to mention the completely oblivious and dumbfounded bystanders that are in the room with you when you do this, which the narrators joke about. (Oblivious Oblivion AI, anyone?)

@7:38, you see a staff shooting a ball of light down a corridor in a cave. While we're all meant to look at the lighting effects displayed on the walls, we're being distracted from the incredibly awkward manner you are holding the staff itself. Try holding an object like that, a broom for instance, and realize how strange it is to hold and thrust things the way it is shown in 1st person during the video. It's as though several animations have been crafted anxiously without the aid or assistance with motion capture or real life reference.

@8:03, your character draws his sword. Pay attention to how robotic the animation looks, and where he holds his sword as if he was hip-firing an AK47 in Counter-Strike. Watch his left arm move into position in a defense stance as if it were made of cement. This is simply poor animation, and quite honestly, I know people who after a year or so in school learning animation techniques that were able to develop more fluid, natural movements in a digital environment.

@8:25, the finishing move is shown when you grab onto a bandit's shoulder and thrust your sword into his stomach. Again, incredibly awkward. Position your own arms into the last frame when the sword is thrusted and the narrators pause to talk about the scene. It is one of the most uncomfortable arm positions I've seen.

But, the absolute worst animation I've seen so far from the trailer, is of the dragon taking flight after he jumps off the temple @10:13. It's as though the dragon is comprised of 2 halves, one front half, one rear half, and the animator simply squeezed the 2 sections of his body together while moving his wings up and down in one of the most unnatural, painful, and abnormal attempts to animate an animal I've ever seen on screen. Now obviously dragons don't exist, so it'd be incredibly challenging to properly animate one without reference, but this is just unacceptable in my eyes. It is things like this, that now after all their latest releases displaying poor game mechanics, I will no longer be able to ignore.

These are just some of the things I've noticed, as I'm sure once you all take a closer look at things and really start to criticize what's happening on-screen instead of drooling, you'll appreciate what I'm saying.

What do you all think? Am I over-anolyzing this, or do I make a valid point? Do you think (or hope) that Bethesda will clean up these issues before the release date, or are we just going to have to accept the fact that their animators are going to continue to plague us with mediocrity for how the game feels and operates, in hopes that the story will somehow make up for it again?

Sound off, TES'ers. :foodndrink:

I am not reading a five page essay on the animations of a pre-alpha trailer at 2:20 in the morning. I'll try again tomorrow.

I think you're over-reacting. It's a video game, nothing will ever look "perfect" until 2050. And am I really going to notice all of those flaws while playing? Probably not, because I don't care, I'm having a great time just playing the game.

A lot of people are expecting Skyim to be this super, realistic, combat simulator when in reality, it's only a video game, and you need to accept that and move on. If not, prepare to be disappointed.

Not to mention the game is most likely in it's pre-alpha phase, alpha phase, or beta phase, so the game ain't done yet.

I find your over-anolyzing this, pointing out ever miniscule detail that you don't like. Most of the details you would only notice if you were playing in slow-motion, as the people in the trailer were.

I agree with all of the posts above me. This game is still in its pre aplha phase. There is over half of a year to work on this. They have plenty of time.

I appreciate everyone's posts about me possibly "over-reacting", or that this is not supposed to be some super-realistic combat sim. No one expects that of Bethesda. But I guarantee, if these development habits are sustained throughout their dev cycle, once again, one of the major flaws in yet another Bethesda release will be its mechanics. Regardless of its phase in development, the official trailer has these poorly designed animations and mechanics on-screen for everyone to see. If that were my game, I would simply not reveal its weaknesses at all if they weren't ready to be shown to the public. And in terms of just noticing these things in slow-mo.. that is simply not the case. A poorly designed animation is felt irrespective to whether or not it is in slow motion or real time. Design flaws cannot be completely masked by increasing the frame rate.

I think they svck.

^ this...cept its not 2:20 am

From what we've seen/read so far, it's an improvement.

I don't think you can honestly judge the animations and say they're "done poorly" at a game that's still being developed, even official trailers have their flaws. You haven't played the game yet, and I bet you'll be pleasantly suprised at the results.

It's freekin' Skyrim man, have a 'lil faith

It's a Bethesda game. When it comes to animations, I come into the game expecting the worst, but hoping for the best. That being said, the animations look pretty good at the moment. They're not on the level of a Red Dead Redemption, or GTA IV, but they're at a reasonable level,. which makes me happy.

I was pleasantly surprised by some of the new animations... especially the dragon animations.

P.S. Op, was your intent to discuss animations or praise Morrowind and bash Oblivion? :huh:

I demonstrated an equal amount of praise/criticism for both titles. Both titles toted incredibly poor game mechanics. The press also seems to enjoy the storyline Morrowind had to offer as well, so regardless of what I think, the common denominator really rules the relevance of this issue out. I offered an equal share of pros and cons.

And the dragon animations, not when he's fighting it, are awful. Have a close look at what the dragon really looks like in game, mid-flight. I also have a hunch that 90% of the combat with the dragon was not real-time, and was more of a cinematic run-through of a dragon battle. We'll see though.

And I do have faith, I'm just expecting mediocrity from previous experiences and from what I've seen so far.

I think when all is said and done the animations are going to be great and we'll all be surprised in the end.

Yes you are. Until games get rid of the animation system entirely and use procedurally generated character movement, animations will never look perfect.

Animation frames take resources and memory, and like I said in the last thread I posted to, you've got 512 MB to work with between rendering and system. Don't expect miracles. I get the feeling I'm going to be saying, "512 MB" a lot if I continue to post in this subforum, because everyone wants everything right now, but only so much is actually going to fit within the tight constraints of the machines this game is supposed to run on.

I thought Morrowind's animations were horrid, and Oblivion's were passable. Certainly not perfect. Skyrim's animations may be a tad better, who knows, but it's all going to be a juggling act when it comes to making the most game out of a very finite amount of computing space.

Calling Oblivion a broken game while praising pretty much everything in Morrowind except for its animations as some type of redeeming factors don't click, in my mind, as being relevant to the discussion.

I haven't seen better dragon animations in a video game (even excluding the combat). I really don't think it looks bad and my first thought about them was rejoicing about how they didn't move like cliffracers. I'm pretty sure the combat was real, though, anyway. Another thing in defense of the animations are the general combat animations. I still think they look better. I'm no expert on meticulous study of human movement and so the combat animations seen (not the dragons) really didn't stick out to me as strange. I especially liked how the giant spider recoiled from the player character's attack and how the giant lumbered as I would expect it to. The finishing moves, just by being there, already make combat appear to be more like actual combat that affects an enemy rather than what we got in past games in addition to the supposed recoiling from attacks (If the dragon's head really reacts to a swing as was shown, I'll be ecstatic).

Sure. I hope so too.

But, while you're all so quick to judge and call me out on over-reacting before even reading all my arguments, when/if Skyrim DOES end up receiving bad press due to whacky game mechanics and anims, don't say I never told ya so. I never said I wasn't expecting to enjoy the hell out of this game, but I do know that this time around, it's going to be more difficult to ignore the flawed mechanics if they just so happen to turn out awkward once again.

I'm satisfied.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKCerijbsW8

This. The dragon literally reacts to your attacks..And it's confirmed gameplay.

/thread

No you didn't.

What we have seen so far is far from horrible so I'm going to disagree with every opinion you have presented for Skyrim. For a pre-alpha it's already stomping a mud hole in it's predecessors and anyone that says otherwise is either blind, jaded or expects to much and that goes for every aspect of the game not just animations.

You're preaching to the wrong person. A majority of the press and criticism it's received over the years points to just that. I enjoyed Morrowind slightly more than Oblivion. So did the majority of other people who've kept up with the series. This is irrelevant. Notice how I spent 95% of my time talking about Skyrim's animations and game play, while completely using the Morrowind vs. Oblivion part as a mere introduction, to lay out more mechanical issues throughout their series as a whole. Your aggressiveness about whether or not you disagree with vanilla Oblivion being broken or not, is aimed in the wrong direction. Talk about this with 90% of the people who heavily modded Oblivion to the point they felt it wasn't broken. I do not think Oblivion was broken, but it certainly played a little smoother with a few choice mods. In my personal opinion. You are entitled to your own. I was simply referring to the data and presenting it. No harm meant.

The dragon battle in the trailer is a cinematic. I guarantee in-game, first or third-person combat with a dragon is not going to operate that way. It looks incredibly scripted and structured compared to the rest of the game play. The dragon in-flight after jumping off the ledge of the mountain is absolutely awful. Before you all start bursting blood vessels trying to insult my judgment, have a look at what I'm referring to before you post.

Not once did I say it wasn't above and beyond from what we've seen since Oblivion. But all in all, I still have the sense that it looks so similar to Oblivion in terms of anatomical movement.

You have to realize I'm not out to bash Skyrim. I'm just as excited to play as you all are that are jumping down my throat to praise what you've been seeing. But if you truly look at it with a keen eye, you'll start to realize the differences between good and bad animation / game mechanics.

The introduction to the argument is just to lay out the progression from Morrowind to Oblivion in terms of game mechanics. Who cares if I enjoyed Morrowind a little more than Oblivion? Clearly you're all reading the first paragraph and not actually getting into the details and specifics I'm mentioning.

Sorry for actually paying attention to the animations and feeling that they could be leagues ahead of what they are. It's called criticism. This game will be criticized when it's released. Hence, why we have critics in this industry.

*EDIT* And clearly topics or polls fantasizing about weapons and hair styles is so much more important than trying to toss out a little constructive criticism. Sorry to burst everyone's bubble, lol.

:tes:

Now simmer down. I'm not trying to steal your cheetoh's.. I'm merely describing what I'm seeing.

I don't know where you get your data, but here is some measurable data:

http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/oblivion/results

http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/morrowind/results

Indeed, personal opinion comes down to it, but that 90% crap is just that and it has no relevance to Skyrim's animations. At the very least, get your facts straight.






Beyond that, you didn't really comment on my animation part of the post, and Bethesda's pretty much said that stuff you did comment on is in-game.

Reviews are not what I'm referring to. IGN rated Morrowind a 9.4 and Oblivion a 9.3. Cool. This is not what I'm talking about, and you losing your cool over the intro to my argument, has less and less substance the more we talk about it.

The dragon battle is confirmed to be in-game. This could mean simply rendered in-game. Do you think you'd be able to one-shot a dragon with a sword on a cinematic camera angle like that? It was scripted, at the very least guided and aided using a renderer. It is NOT confirmed real-time.

*EDIT* But if you actually read my argument about the dragon animations.. I didn't criticize the fight scene. I criticized his flight animation at the END of the trailer flying over the mountains. THAT is in-game. And it's absolutely awful.