Subject: Re: OFFTOPIC : Gamer Demo Reels
From: [email-masked] (Ace Miles)
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 14:21:24 -0500

>Scott McCabe <[email-masked]> writes:
>>The character animation I think I can handle
>>for the most part, the most popular games usually has about
>>3-5 frames of animation per motion
>
>The point is, these are games that were developed "yesterday". If you are
>going to be competitive, the animation is going to be much more involved
>than what is currently available. I would not shrug it off so casually.
>If you are relatively new to animation, I'd venture to say your character
>skills aren't as up to snuff as you think. But then who am I to say as
>I've never seen your work. Note that many gamers are going to motion capture
>to get the character animation they need. This in itself points to how
>much more sophisticated the motion needs are today, far beyond what you
>are implying.
>  *~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
>  *           Mark Thompson           http://www.mv.com/ipusers/fusion  *
>  *         Fusion Films, Inc.              [email-masked]          *
>  * Director of Animation and Special FX      (603) 424-1829            *
>   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

I agree with Mark that games are starting to use much more realistic and
intense character animation. Yes motion capture is becoming quite the thing.

However, There is  a lot of difference between game systems and the amount
of polygons they can push, the amount of animation information they can load
into memory and of course the size and number of images.

If you're developing a coin-op game you probably have a huge amount of ram
compared to a consumer platform with only say, 2 megs. Likewise you may be
loading off a hard-drive and not off a double speed CD-rom. Or you're system
may not even have a CD-rom and have to store all of you're scene files,
objects, images, audio and code in only a few meg on a cart.

Motion capture is great but it gives you a HUGE number of keys (like every
frame) and most consumer game systems can't deal with that. So it still
comes back to what Mark has always said, you need an intense amount of skill
and knowledge regarding motion and character animation. Particularly so if
you ARE using motion capture. MC saves time, but someone still has to clean
it up and pick whitch frames are needed for smooth animation with the least
number of keys.

Just my 2 cents worth. (OK it's long winded... maybe 3 cents... maybe no sense!)

-Ace

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          Ace Miles  -  Senior Animator  -  Time Warner Interactive

                       "You're soaking in it!"  - Madge