The details

[max power 21]

And wasn´t working AFAIK.

Yep, facial expressions would be really nice.

It seems to be working at least pastially on my end. Dead faces do a dead mimic.

[onlyrazor 11]

It seems to be working at least pastially on my end. Dead faces do a dead mimic.

Just thought I'd point out

.

[max power 21]

Just thought I'd point out

.

That would also be an example of no death mimic.

[Clarkey1 10]

Just thought I'd point out

.

Hahahah! "It's nothing serious, but I am bleeding badly".

[Whirly 1]

Yep, facial expressions would be really nice.

Something like this would be awesome.

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[purepassion 22]

BIS certainly has the abilities for detailed facial MoCap but I think it's a matter of ressources and effort. While it would be very hard to use this for the majority of character interactions and dialogues, I really wish for more detailed facial animations in key scenes of the story and especially more precise pre-recorded facial idle animations. (This would most likely be the place where it could be used efficiently)

[antoineflemming 14]

BIS certainly has the abilities for detailed facial MoCap but I think it's a matter of ressources and effort. While it would be very hard to use this for the majority of character interactions and dialogues, I really wish for more detailed facial animations in key scenes of the story and especially more precise pre-recorded facial idle animations. (This would most likely be the place where it could be used efficiently)

Well, characters already have some facial animation for talking, even if it's just their mouths. So really, if they'd just make that more precise and realistic, then it'd be good.

[Tonci87 163]

The Eyes!

The eyes are together with the mouth and the eyebrows are the most important things to express emotions.

See those videos whirly posted. Mouth? Check! Eyebrows (Are they called like that)? Check! Eyes? No. They are either completely open or completely closed. There is nothing in between. If someone is angry or very concentrated he usually closes his eyes a little bit, you won´t see that in many games. But it is one of those little details that make things more believable.

But I would be very happy if A3 features at least Mouth/Eyebrows/Eyemovement

[antoineflemming 14]

The Eyes!

The eyes are together with the mouth and the eyebrows are the most important things to express emotions.

See those videos whirly posted. Mouth? Check! Eyebrows (Are they called like that)? Check! Eyes? No. They are either completely open or completely closed. There is nothing in between. If someone is angry or very concentrated he usually closes his eyes a little bit, you won´t see that in many games. But it is one of those little details that make things more believable.

But I would be very happy if A3 features at least Mouth/Eyebrows/Eyemovement

Well, it's not the "eyes" that close a little. It's really a combination of eyelids and cheeks. When you smile, your cheeks raise because your mouth "widens", pushing your cheeks up. When you frown, your eyelids close a little, but your brow contorts as well. Honestly, it's not a simple change eyebrows or tweak eye movement. I's got to be full facial motion capture. I think that's the only way to do it and get realistic results. But, if they'd at least animate cheeks if they've got someone smiling or animate the eyelids and brow (eyebrows plus all the skin above the eyes), then it'd be a lot more realistic.

[NoRailgunner 0]

How many times the player looks at certain "highly detailed" facial expressions in A2OA/A3? How important is this for A3 compared to adventure/RPG games? Imo its nice to have/see more facial animations but there are more important things to fix/tweak and improve with ingame characters/models and their animations.

[-Coulum- 35]

I agree with norailgunner. Facial expression would be nice but I think there are much more important gameplay features and what not to focus on instead. In the campaign you'll probably get a good look at many people's faces but other than then, when are you going to see people's faces. Probably only when looking at them through a scope or healing a teammate or checking a dead guy. There are other details that I think would not only add more immersion but also add actual use in game.

Edited March 16, 2012 by -Coulum-

[neokika 62]

Hey,

Well I have to disagree, I don't think a nice facial expression system is less or more important then other features. Is just another feature.

It would indeed bring some life to the characters in-game and I'm not talking about while on cut-scenes or scripted dialogues, but depending on the unit behaviour and current set of actions.

[antoineflemming 14]

How many times the player looks at certain "highly detailed" facial expressions in A2OA/A3? How important is this for A3 compared to adventure/RPG games? Imo its nice to have/see more facial animations but there are more important things to fix/tweak and improve with ingame characters/models and their animations.

You're definitely right. But, who's to say that BIS can only do one or the other? There are more important things to fix/tweak and improve, but why is there this assumption that in a long list of things to tweak or fix, BIS can only do one or two?

[NoRailgunner 0]

Where did I assume that BIS can only one or two important things? Its more about high and low (or lower) priority. Imo more high detailed facial animations could be lower priority for A3 development. Lets hope that BIS don't focus too much on such little details that are just "nice to have". Btw it would be nice to have something like energy grids for towns and cities and better AI taxiing.... ;)

[2nd ranger 282]

Let's not overstuff the idea until it bursts, like every other discussion in this forum. When people start going overboard with their hopes for a certain feature, others start saying "No, we don't need that. Focus on something else."

Unless we find out that BIS is really stoked about having 'highly detailed' facial expressions, we should content ourselves with the more realistic goal of restoring the facial animations to a Flashpoint or Arma standard (I guess they were in Arma too?). We had basic facial expressions, then they were for some reason omitted altogether, which is kind of counter to Bohemia's policy of not dropping features (I know it was said about A2-A3 and not A1-A2, but still). It would be nice to have the AI's dopey grins back even without wishing upon a star for them to be highly detailed.

[max power 21]

I don't recall the faces in ArmA being animated at all, but it has been a while.

[PuFu 4600]

You're definitely right. But, who's to say that BIS can only do one or the other? There are more important things to fix/tweak and improve, but why is there this assumption that in a long list of things to tweak or fix, BIS can only do one or two?

Because:

1. We all know they have limited manpower and limited resources (especially compared with other developers)

2. Because they need to respect a schedule and thus prioritize

3. Because, opposed to you, i for one know pretty well the amount of time that is needed for facial animations (rigging, tweaking, mocap-ing - neved used facial mocap, but i've done it manually. I assume mocap to be easier to and less time consuming, once the input has been cleaned up - and last but not least, implementing it in the game engine).

I don't recall the faces in ArmA being animated at all, but it has been a while.

Yes, there were some idle anims IRC. Enough to make the avatars more alive. I doubt more than that is needed, especially thinking about the scale of everything.

With no pun intended, this sort of threads makes me wonder:

Out of all the things that A3 can bring to the table and improve over the existing A2, is this really the best thing you can think of, or the thing you are annoyed about because it's missing from A2/OA?

[onlyrazor 11]

I don't recall the faces in ArmA being animated at all, but it has been a while.

I remember Arma 2's faces having functioning eyelids. Of course, they snapped closed and open with no transition, but still a nice detail.

[max power 21]

Out of all the things that A3 can bring to the table and improve over the existing A2, is this really the best thing you can think of, or the thing you are annoyed about because it's missing from A2/OA?

I have done blend shape animations with faces using visemes and some other shapes to convey emotion and I must say that I found it quite easy and fast to do.

Looking at the way motion capture seems to create keyframes it seems like that would be the more labour intensive route but I have only had my hands on the files to get familiar with it at school. We didn't really have to do much with them, it was just some extra familiarization.

Personally, I think that ArmA could use some more expressive characters in general, and from the sounds of it, BIS are continuing their plans to develop techniques to 'sell it', and make the characters seem more human. There are some pretty strong themes in the ArmA campaigns, and some pretty intense situation in the game in general. The characters lack the pathos to really allow you to connect with them, I think.

[Whirly 1]

A detail I think would really enhance game immersion is a ragdoll death animation for tank/vehicle crew members that are killed whilst positioned in open turret/gunners hatches. The idea is that the killed crewman's body could slump over and "sink" into the hatch, once out of sight inside of the hatch the body can simply disappear forever.

I found it very difficult to find a ragdoll animation suitable for demonstrating what I mean about "sinking" into the hatch, but if you watch the animation of the ragdoll slumping into the chair at 3:58

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it kind of shows what I mean, except the body needs to keep falling until completely out of view. I hope you can make sense of what I'm trying to say, maybe you can improve on this idea.

Edited March 18, 2012 by Whirly

[Maxzy 12]

Bloody textures of bullet holes on exact spot where the bullet hit the soldier would be very nice. Something like in Rogue Spear. Or Hitman. Small detail, but adding so much to immersion. Wanted to see it since OFP. It feels so good to come close to dead enemy and see that you hit him right between the eyes :cool:.

[Currie 1]

I don't recall the faces in ArmA being animated at all, but it has been a while.

Neither do I.

[maturin 12]

Why on earth would you spend more than five minutes animating something as simple and unimportant as a helmet disappearing into a hatch?

Edit: For tanks and APCs at least. Because the body couldn't disappear if it was in a humvee or something that can be seen from the outside.

[Whirly 1]

Why on earth would you spend more than five minutes animating something as simple and unimportant as a helmet disappearing into a hatch?

BIS put enormous effort into creating realistic environments, realistic lighting, realistic characters, realistic units, yet vehicle commanders/gunners leap ludicrously into the air when hit by enemy fire and magically teleport Star-Trek style onto the ground.

You can't see a glaring contradiction here?

The Arma3 ragdoll animations shown at E3 were visually convincing, I watched them frame by frame and they look very natural and realistic, they make the game look 'believable'. I understand believable animations aren't a big deal for everyone, but I think when a games characters react realistically with the environment it makes the game 'feel' real.

[max power 21]

Well, ragdolls applied to loose characters is one thing, but I don't think that necessarily means that they will use these physics to animate dead units inside of vehicles.

edit: rereading your statement I think you're talking more about believable animations than about ragdolls applied to people in vehicles. I'm really tired. At any rate, currently in ArmA 2, I think there is a different death 'animation' depending on whether the unit is turned in or out. It would be possible to lower the character into the vehicle, I think... or possibly hide the proxy. It might look a little weird inside the vehicle, though.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Max Power