I'll stick wiith the Japanese games and artists for doing the best animations... by far. Clothing and hair, in particular, are simply incredible in Japanese games, and make the characters so alive. That also applies to race-specific elements such as feathers or tails, of course, as well as effects such as characters actually breathing when they pause to stop for a while or after combat. I have yet to see any Western character design come remotely close to such detail and lifelike behavior, thus Western characters always wind up feeling very "dead" in comparison.

We could do it, of course... but it seems like Western developers and/or artists simply choose not to do it for whatever reason.

One of the biggest things Oblivion lacked were any in between animations. There was nothing there to smooth the transition between movements, so movements appeared choppy at best. This was especially visible when jumping, either alone or on a horse. You suddenly popped up into the air, and were in your universal jumping/falling pose. Landing was too abrupt, and the landing animation they attempted was cut short.

Characters had no sense of weight or momentum. If someone started running, they would pop into their full speed run with no build up or run-start animation. Stopping was the same, anyone could stop on a dime in a fraction of a blink of an eye after a dead run. The game needs more animations to link together other animations fluidly.

You hit it right on the spot Bondo

i would say combat and acrobatics being crap, aswell as dialogue...


but yeah, animators would help

Yeah... you're wrong. Sorry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kvl31g77Z8
Also, above somebody posted about Gamebryo affecting animations as well.



Nop. But I've seen the editor. I've also seen some "unofficial" games made by "unofficial" people, that use it. Looks very bad. Search for yourself on youtube. There's plenty of them.

All in all, there's a lot better things out there, and I'm sure Bethesda could do something a lot better themselves if they started from scratch.

Bethseda is hopefully FINALLY using motion capture. They are one of the only higher end studios I know of that haven't used it in the past, and it shows.

Animations were one of the bigger eye-catching draw backs to oblivion for many people, so that should be fairly high on thier "we need to fix this" list.

If they had animations on par with say, Assassin's creed, that'd be superb along with the horses of Red Dead Redemption.

:facepalm: Seriously?


I have, and a few editor tutorials and some amateur development footage is hardly enough to make a definitive evaluation of what the engine is capable of. You should read all http://www.emergent.net/en/Gamebryo-LightSpeed/Features/ to get a better idea of what it is capable of before saying it is crap.


Editorial:
Your a fool if you think a multi-million dollar company has never explored all the ways they can better their bottom line and that includes finding the right engine to do everything you want to do in a game. Gamebryo is like the open source SDK of the gaming industry and perfect for what Bethesda needs it for. That is probably the main reason they have stuck with it since Morrowind.
Besides "a lot better" is subjective considering no other engine out there can match Gamebryo's modding access and Bethesda is tightening it's embrace of the modding community not pushing it away. Graphically it may not be the best the industry has to offer but it will hold it's own with most games released in the past 2 years and it will be unmatched in modifiability. Bethesda is far from being as incompetent as the haters on this site make them out to be.

I've been paying close attention for the past 6 years, I've evaluated all the events, release dates, production dates, interviews and all the evidence points right at the GLS engine.

The Evidence
2007 - Gamebryo Light Speed Engine released
2007 - Skyrim production begins
2008 - Fallout 3 released with features from GLS offered as reverse compatible with previous engine.
2010 - http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-08-16-bethesdas-todd-howard-interview



Todd did not dispute that statement and it's obviously derived from off the record information. Read the whole interview and read between the lines it's obvious they are still using Gamebryo. Live with it.


Are there other engines that look better? Yes.
Can any of those engines do everything that Gamebryo can do? Maybe.
Do any of those engines offer a license that allows a developer to alter the core code anyway they see fit and release portions of the SDK to the public? Highly unlikely.
Could Bethesda make as good a game with as much modifiability on a different engine. Probably not but still plausible.
Do I want Bethesda to give up on the engine that gave birth to the modding utopia we find ourselves in before at least trying the the updated and improved version of it? Absolutely not.

So the game will be on GLS, I'm fine with that because TES has NEVER been about the graphics for me, it's all about the game play and the modifiability.

Until they outright announce that it is using GLS, that is still pure speculation.

As long as we get more content, I dont care what it looks like.

This is blasphemy, Morrowind has the most realistic jumping animation of all time, it is so good in fact, they used it for that Summer Olympics video game.

You don't know what you're talking about hlvr. Engine won't really determine whether animations are good or not. Besides, I can make CryEngine3 look horrible too. You can also make it look wonderful. Same goes for ANY engine.

It's not about what someone can't do with it. It about what someone CAN do with it, and CryEngine has proven itself more capable than Gamebryo.

Is saying the next TES game is running on GLS, speculation? Yes.
Is it based on any kind of factual information and does it line up with that information? Yes.
Can this speculation be called a hypothesis? Yes.


Is saying that Gamebryo is out and an entirely new engine has been built from scratch, speculation? Yes.
Is it based merely on the rumor of a new engine that is their tech? Yes.
Can this speculation be called a hypothesis? No.

@ Luke
If the CryEngine were made to do everything that is going on in a Bethesda's Gamebryo build for even Oblivion, not to mention Fallout 3, no 64bit Computer with a price tag under 3k$ could run it, let alone a 32bit 1.5k$ PC. There goes more than half the market so for marketing reasons alone that will not happen for many years.

Is that proven or did you pull that out of the air? Until someone makes an open singleplayer RPG with the CryEngine, you can't say that.


There is only one thing that is certain and it's this quote.

"We can now confirm that the TES V: Skyrim engine is all-new. And it looks fantastic."

All this confirms is that it's not the old Gamebryo engine.

What's funny is that on the gamebryo Pulse forums the forum with the most posts by far is the "Artist Issues" forum xD

I would have to agree. I think some better animation work would be great.

It would be very nice, but I doubt it will happen.

Heck, Endorphin is awesome. Good times I had with the free demo messing with physics, ragdolls and behaviors. You can create some awesome animation with little work.

Euphoria is the real-time AI that controls Endorphin.

Yes, but Assassin's Creed is a strictly 3rd person, lock-on combat game, it's alot easier to pull of fluid movement and fighting in the in a toggleable 3rd/1st person, non lock-on game.

I hope they are smoother animation is one of the few significant problems for the Elder Scrolls but it makes it no less fun but it would be nice if the worlds movement was not so clunky and mor graceful. :foodndrink:

:rofl: Watch... "Skyrim demo released! 04/01/2011"

What do you mean? I've found no news of a demo nor a video to match

Bethesda doesn't release demos for their games. Not going to happen.

I have to agree that the animations really need to be shown more attention this time around. One of the things that irked me to no end in Oblivion was the lack of different walking and running animations for male and female player models.

They were able to see to this in FO3 so one wonders why this was overlooked in OB, perhaps the number of armor variations had to do with it. :shrug:

Well I'm always a Khajiit so I'm always running and jumping everywhere at speed. The thing is, when I'm running and I switch to third person my character is taking little tiny fast walk steps. It annoys me. I think they should give different animations for different speeds of travel, like very long upright strides for running quickly. I also think that when sneaking you should have the ability to rub up against a wall. Another thing about sneaking was the little tiny steps, it should be more realistic. One last thing, when fighting I want more types of attacks, especially for different weapons. I'd like to hold a knife in my hand and stab someone who gets too close if I don't draw my bowstring back in time. Okay, REAL last thing is a suggestion for the animations. Bethesda should make the animations in 3rd person and then transfer the view to first person so that they're congruent and realistic. Okay I'm done.

P.S. I LOVED the jumping animation in Fallout: New Vegas.