» Fri Dec 31, 2010 12:16 pm
Lara Croft time...!
I mark Lara Crofts creation an Artistic Milestone for games because of her ponytail. Previously, 3d characters were all stiff bodied and lacked the sense of weight that you see with characters that have dangling attributes. Her hair was affected by gravity which helped create a connection that gamers had not previously seen.
Since I spent a considerable amount of time studying animation. Squash, stretch, balance, and follow through are important things I look for when observing virtual characters. It is what makes them feel more realistic. Lara’s hair could hide any stiffness in her body the viewer would experience seeing her move around because it explains the momentum and direction of the character.
So why should you care about Lara you might ask? Lara is old and quite frankly the industry has evolved, but you still see the technique of attaching a soft bodied geometry to a character to help display the movement. It is kind of like why in some games the guns are left handed weapons even though they are in the right hand. It simply looks better to see the bullets fly out of the chamber. So for character design, which is something I find very interesting, the last decade has offered a number of cool characters. I can list some for you if I must, but I would prefer people make their own connections.
The secondary animation is something we take for granite today because we are used to seeing long trench coats, flowing hair, or even chains hanging off the swords and belts of our avatars.
So why did I mention it early when referencing what I call ‘Marketing Gold’? Well, until very recently most advertizing for a game is done through still images and when using frozen moments in time to display something the momentum, friction, and direction of the objects in the composition don’t always translate to the viewer unless these follow through elements exist. The screens I see of Crysis 2 mostly use pictures of the NanoSuit2 which is a hard body, consequently flatting the momentum felt from the image and making things look like statues. In order to keep the compositions dynamic, many of the screens are accompanied with an explosion to show that powerful follow through.
So the comment I was making was criticizing the design of the nanosuit2 because it lacks the pieces needed for those visual cues. Furthermore, if the design is to have a character with exposed musculature, as a designer, I would find it important to illustrate the movement by flexing the suit. When we move the muscles on one side contract and the other side relax. In the cinematic shots that have been released displaying the NanoSuit2. This is not happening in a realistic way because the suit is being treated as a skin for the sculpted geometry. You can see this on the butt area in most of the scenes where the texture pulls over the geometry by stretching. In real life things retain their mass, so you should expect the individual muscle tendons to look more stringy or thinner when pulled a further distance. You can also look for those cues to see what direction something is moving in living things.
Verifying the design for the NanoSuit2 to be stiff and bulky was a design choice. Larbrant probably asked for something with the strength of a guerilla when communicating with the Character Designer for the suit design. I would argue that the world the game presents you with is very chaotic and that his stability and strength by being compact offset that and create contrast making it an acceptable design choice. However, for Marketing Stills and Game Covers the suit feels disconnected and void of life.
This isn’t rocket science guys, its just the what happened once Lara got involved.