One of the most game stalling aspects of TES for me has always been the animations. The characters move like DIsney world animatronic characters. From the 70's. In these days of mocap etc, why do they still have such shoddy animations? Have they ever mentioned this in their correspondence?

Yes, Todd Howard specifically mentioned the animation system being revamped in two or three interviews.

Ah. That is good news. No specifics I suppose, I just saw the Gothic 4 video (which I know has been out for a while).

They purchased a mo-cap studio about a year before Fallout 3 came out (and too late to use on that game), didn't they?

I thin they might have mentioned something about getting such a thing, and I do hope that it was too late to use it on Fallout 3 by then, because if they did in fact use it in Fallout 3, then they evidently didn't do a very good job.

So yes, if Bethesda is in fact making an Elder Scrolls V, I hope they put more effort into the animations, because while Bethesda has proven that they can make impressive game worlds, but in terms of animations, their past games have been somewhat underwhelming, which is a problem, since in some ways, I'd say that when it comes to bringing computer generated characters to life, the quality of the animations is more important than how many shaders are on the characters or whether you can count the pours on their faces. There have been games with much less impressive graphics than Oblivion, and yet the characters still feel more lifelike, while admitably, the quality of the writing and voice acting probably does also play a part in this, many of these games also benefit from better quality animations as well, which certainly helps quite a bit. Moreover, I'd say that as in-game graphics get closer to photorealism, I tend to expect such progress in animations as well. Animations like the ones in Oblivion might have been quite impressive in a game with 2000 quality graphics, but if a game were made using the Crysis engine that had the animtions from Oblivion, I'd feel pretty underwhelmed, and considering that I'm quite certain that in future Elder Scrolls games, the graphics are only going to get better, the animations will have to as well. When Oblivion was released, and the same was true for Morrowind, the graphics looked pretty impressive as long as they didn't have to move, but when you saw characters in motion, they tended to look pretty cardboard-like.

Although I will say that the quality of the animations does seem to have improved between Bethesda games, I mean, in Oblivion, the animations already felt much better than in Morrowind, now, I didn't approve of certain design decisions Bethesda made in this department, like say, giving Khajiit and Argonians the same animations as other races, but in terms of the quality of thw animations, I could see an improvement, and I saw further improvement in Fallout 3, but the quality of the animations were still behind the competition, so while there was improvement, it just wasn't really enough.

I didn't. Personally, I thought Fallout 3's animations were worse. My poor Fallout 3 character looked like he was skating across the Wasteland when he ran. Whereas my Oblivion character felt as thought he had some weight and mass when he moved through the landscape, my Fallout 3 character did not feel to me as though he was a part of the environment he was placed in front of. He put me in mind of those 90's-era Infinity-engine-style "sprites." I was particularly disappointed because I thought Bethesda made significant improvements in animation between Morrowind and Oblivion. But - if they really do have access to a mo-cap facilities I have some hope for TES V.

the animation system between F3 and Ob is basically identical. Using mocaps alone, wouldn't fix the way the system is implemented. for example all this skating and odd strafing would still exist.

I see several reasons why it was set up like that, for example optimisation, giving khajit the same animation set as all other characters was probably done because of this, and the way the whole clothing/armor system works . but nothing that would make it impossible to use another, slightly different method. I would like to see a natural motion solution.

Bethesda has an animation dept? I thought it was just some guy in a basemant.

But seriously, Bethesda has been severly lacking in thier animation in Morrowind and Oblivion. Morrowind was too stiff, whereas Oblivion was too.. flexible (not the best term). I ran like a girl, no matter my gender. Bethesda needs to learn to get a nice middle ground, and assign a different animation to each gender. Obviously, I don't want the typical "[censored]" look games like to give women, or the typical "big tough stompy guy" look they like to give men, but they should have different animations.

They are using a revamped engine and Howard mentioned something to the effect that they were working on characters and animation much more now that they feel like they know how to make great environments already.

don't devs always say it's going to be revamped and it never actually happens

Um..no...Bethesda pretty much revamps their entire engine from the ground up with each new Elder Scrolls.

not usually in so many words, and making a real point of it. They way it sounded to me, is they have invested quite a bit of thought, time, and technology to this area. We'll just have to see what Todd actually means.

so they have executed the animation department, hahhahhaha *snobbish roman laugh*

it was quite the little entertainment, well, next we should throw the combat/stealth/magic system designers to the hungry deranged lions of death and doom.

I hope so, this is one area they really need to address. Games were using mo-cap in the mid 90's, I really can't understand why Bethesda haven't used them. Morrowinds animations were atrocious, Oblivions were better but very wooden and FO3s were a slight improvement again but still looked and felt all wrong. You could create the most detailed and beautiful gameworld imaginable but if the NPCs are walking about in it like robots then the illusion is ruined.

THey are working with 2k's highly advanced mo-cap studio, who have worked on NHL, Borderlands, and Bioshock, to name a few...

In Fallout 3, while in third person view, try running with a handgun drawn. Your character looks like a total short-bus-rider.

Character animation is Bethesda's one weak point. I'll be super disappointed if TES V doesn't have massively improved animations over Oblivion and Fallout 3.

I love Bethesda. Those guys/gals take risks. :hehe: