Remedy looking to improve facial animation for Alan Wake DLC

by Christopher Grant on May 6th 2010 8:30PM

Zombies may have been the scariest things in (the truly excellent) Alan Wake. No, we're not talking about the shadow-infested Taken but rather the main characters themselves. While Remedy Entertainment's Markus Maki admits in a forum post that "it's a complex problem trying to dodge the Uncanny Valley," many of the characters in Alan Wake's cutscenes land squarely in the Valley, giving them that just-this-side-of-creepy zombie death mask that we all know and love.

Now for the good news: Remedy "definitely learned a lot doing Alan Wake" and is "using some of the improvements in the DLC production already." And, in case you think it's as easy as checkin off the "make less zombie-like" box in GameDeveloper 7.0, Maki says, "It's not alone a matter of the method how or where the facial capture is done, it's about the run-time animation techniques available, skeleton setup and so on."

Skeletons, too? We told you Alan Wake was creepy!

[Via G4]

Source

Tags: Alan-Wake, DLC, Markus-Maki, Microsoft, Microsoft-Game-Studios, Remedy-Entertainment, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (41)

how can they improve facial animations in such a short time, when it took them 5 years to get the game to the way it is now?

Building a game from zero VS. Improving something in some months. I guess 5 years was a long time but well, who knows.

It was a joke, Danny.

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z72/sirashlondon/38137f.jpg

Ezio knows nothing of Gabbo.

Eh :)) I don't think he knows much in general.

Ugh I so wanna play this but damnit Red Dead Redemption is out in less then 2 weeks!

I'm sorry but for a 5-year development cycle. This game looks like it could have been made in 2. Low Ranked for sure just stating how I see it.

You see it like a moron.

I don't like to call names, but I have to agree with MLS here.

JAmerican, you have to put everything into perspective, which I think you're failing to do. Unlike a big studio, Remedy has a lot going against it.

1. They're a team of about 50 people, which is insanely small for a team building a AAA exclusive.

2. They were also building a new engine.

3. They were developing Alan Wake along with the new engine.

Like Remedy has said, they aren't a studio that just churns games out every few years. They're small and they use their own tech.

Max Payne also had problems, but those games are remembers. Alan Wake will be no different. It's a fantastic looking game. Now get out of the 90s and stop playing Mortal Kombat. Get some Alan Wake.

I think they've also talked about how they had to scrap large parts of the game and basically completely start over because they switched from open-world to linear.

@CheesePirateAssassin @Acosta02: Thanks for the explanation. That makes more sense.

@MLS: Your post provided no input. Just wanted to let you know that.

Hey, you get back what you give, JA

I've spent so much time in that valley that it's actually become canny.

Gawd, enough with the freakin' uncanny valley already. THIS is the Uncanny Valley. http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42847000/jpg/_42847141_android416.jpg
It's like some kind of buzz word people just throw around.

As a survival horror fan, I'm used to this kind of thing. Also I've seen how bad the animations have been since the trailers, so it won't be a shock. I don't think it will ruin the experience for me. Psyched for this game!

Alan Wake looks gorgeous and the animation is just dandy. Sure, there are a few kinks here and there, but it's still above most other games out there.

Alan Wake is gold.

I have to agree that they need to improve the facial animations and for this to be MS's BIG exclusive that's taken sooo long to make, there's no excuse for it, in this day and age.
With games like GTA IV, Unchartered 2 and, even, Heavy Rain using the latest facial technology (and LA Noire about to REALLY blow the lid off the tech) there's no way any story driven games, made these days, should be lacking in that department....but I will digress, a bit. This game did start quite a few years ago, even prior to the current tech, so I guess they just didn't want to undo what was already done. MS gets a bit of a pass on this one.

We should not be praising Heavy Rain's animations at all.While Shelby and a few other characters generally had decent animations. There were some huge oddities in Heavy Rain. A lot of the animations looked off.

PS: I really do love Heavy Rain.

Alan Wake is the next AAA exclusive. It is. And like I said above, you can't use the dev time against it. You have to put everything into perspective. And you, like many other folks, are simply not doing that.

Yea, they weren't perfect but the tech for facial animation was there. I actually started to leave that one off my post but eh.

Can't wait to see what LA Noire looks like based on what those Rockstar devs spoke about their facial animation tech being beyond what is even currently out.

i think alan wakes graphics are probably the xbox has so far...if not one of the best.. the only thing wrong with it is those facial animations...but there gonna fix it anyways...s lets see how they turn out

Alan Wake > fried chicken, fool.

Alan Wake is Canadian?

Not a lot of South Park fans here, eh?

most of the time when i see characters "acting" in these realistic videogames they really only move their mouths. i rarely see dramatic facial movement in the brows, cheekbones or eyes. i'm sure even a crude way of handling these areas would be better than the nothing i usually see.

They pierced their lips and cheeks with the motion ball trackers.

his mouth looks like something from south park like mel gibson talking

The general game was okay. It would have been better if it was sandbox. It mostly just felt like every other go from point A to point B game. Although I will say the lighting in the game is top notch. The graphics are good, but limited interaction slightly kills the believability of the game. For instance some of the bottles sitting on shelves you can not shoot.

But since they made it kinda like a tv series, the sandbox style wouldn't really fit it since he is technically following a script, well in his case its his writings from his book so its pretty linear. Usually sandbox games require you to do dumb minigames that distract you from the main plot which is important for a game such as this.

Why are you talking about a game that isn't even out yet in the past tense?

I played the game a couple days ago.

Awesome photoshopped image, Christopher!

That picture reminds me of those custom dancing Christmas cards you can send to people, where you put faces of you and your friends on dancing elves.

They should learn from Half-Life 2. Best facial expressions and lipsyncing ever :P

That aside, the models in Alan Wake do suffer from some weird ass animations and pretty spotty lip syncing. It's really jarring, and lots of the time takes you out of the immersion (well, many things do, it's the games biggest flaw).

They can definitely go back and tweak things for these Episodes, since the character heavy scenes probably won't be THAT prevalent in such short DLC packages.

Paid DLC to complete the story? What are you talking about? It's set up like a TV show with planned "seasons" meaning the story doesn't end until they decide it ends.

Maybe paid DLC is a new thing to you but DLC has always added to a game's story. Unless it's an EA game. Then you just get guns and armor.

The next "season" should be sold in parts like Fable 3 did. As long as it's priced reasonably I think it could be fun playing an episode and then waiting for the next episode with anticipation.

did they really?

i mean, seriously.. did they?

I have no idea how I missed this the first time around, but I am glad the top banner linked to it. The mouths being so out of sync with the voices was the biggest let down of tis game.

@eimajtl NahI thought the lack of content, lack of game play variety and popcorn fart length of the game were the biggest problem with the game.

I know the boys on the podcast are in love with the game but I just don't feel it. It is definitely a rental at best.

Gameplay variety wasn't such a big thing for me since this isn't some FPS. It's about the story. The length wasn't really an issue for me, it didn't feel short. I'm not sure how to address the lack of content though.... there was plenty to the game. If you just ran straight through the thing and didn't give any thought to the story or to what's around you maybe I could see someone saying there's a lack of content.

Though in the end, it's just a game and not everyone is going to enjoy the same thing.

Trust me I didn't run through it. I watched every episode of Night Springs, read every page and collected all the thermoses I could find. If you buy the game at a budget price or rent it for a weekend then it would be very satisfying. But as a full priced game it was not a good value.

I think if folks rent it for a weekend they will get everything there is to get out of this game.

Eh, to each their own I guess.

I've thoroughly enjoyed the game since I bought it. I like the story and everything you can find. I enjoy that the second time you play through the game you see a lot more than you did the first. It's just all around awesome for me.

Remedy looking to improve facial animation for Alan Wake DLC

Reader Comments (41)

Posted: May 6th 2010 8:33PM Grey said

Posted: May 6th 2010 11:32PM Danzaiver said

Posted: May 6th 2010 11:55PM Acosta02 said

Posted: May 6th 2010 8:35PM Ezio Auditore da Firenze said

Posted: May 6th 2010 8:38PM One Stomy Night go watch it said

Posted: May 7th 2010 12:09AM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 6th 2010 8:43PM whylekat said

Posted: May 6th 2010 9:02PM JAmerican said

Posted: May 6th 2010 9:21PM MLS said

Posted: May 6th 2010 9:45PM KungFuChaosNinja said

Posted: May 7th 2010 12:06AM Acosta02 said

Posted: May 7th 2010 1:37AM JAmerican said

Posted: May 7th 2010 8:09AM MLS said

Posted: May 6th 2010 9:03PM Pure Black World Tendency said

Posted: May 6th 2010 9:16PM squeehunter said

Posted: May 6th 2010 9:18PM MLS said

Posted: May 6th 2010 9:40PM KungFuChaosNinja said

Posted: May 6th 2010 9:46PM TreyIM2 said

Posted: May 6th 2010 9:52PM KungFuChaosNinja said

Posted: May 6th 2010 10:00PM TreyIM2 said

Posted: May 6th 2010 10:45PM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 6th 2010 10:47PM KungFuChaosNinja said

Posted: May 7th 2010 12:19AM Snake Robot Podium said

Posted: May 7th 2010 10:38AM ThatStuffsLethal said

Posted: May 7th 2010 12:40AM jecks said

Posted: May 7th 2010 12:42AM ch3burashka said

Posted: May 7th 2010 2:03AM killahfam69 said

Posted: May 7th 2010 2:31AM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 7th 2010 3:04AM pibs said

Posted: May 7th 2010 4:19AM NBA Kirkland said

Posted: May 7th 2010 4:40AM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 7th 2010 8:46AM tabicat said

Posted: May 7th 2010 9:44AM captplut9465 said

Posted: May 7th 2010 10:39AM jynxycat said

Posted: May 7th 2010 11:19AM xreadmore said

Posted: May 7th 2010 3:22PM BrianH said

Posted: Jun 11th 2010 12:44AM eimajtl said

Posted: Jun 11th 2010 2:58PM Luthorcrow said

Posted: Jun 11th 2010 5:05PM eimajtl said

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