And noticed that Bolvar’s lips moved when he talked, and stopped moving when he stopped talking. It wasn’t perfect (it was 2008 after all), but it was way better than what we have now. Characters who would be difficult to lip synch were wearing headgear that obscured their mouths, a very simple fix.
How are their cinematics so much worse 13 years later?
They probably put more time and resources in that cutscene than their new ones that use their new models in them. It literally looks like they make the new models do their normal talk emote when you click on them and don’t try to make it match what they are saying whatsoever. Lol
I mean, there’s a difference between cinematics and cutscenes. The cinematics are still really good in terms of music, art, etc. (and, on occassion, providing satisfying storytelling, although that’s rare nowadays).
With that said, they really need to stop doing these cutscenes. They’re lackluster and I’d much rather just have whatever happens in these cutscenes occur in-game. They’d honestly look better that way.
A raider is the lead dev. They like to hit escape key skip on and on to next thing.
Some of the 9.1 stuff I’d actually take bad lip sync.
Jaina in the tree scene was almost not animated or animated to be a marionette with stroke like facial symptoms. Blizzard would have to tell us which. If it was marionette with stroke…well then outstanding work.
Not even going to blame an animator there. I’d wager a dollar to a donut some guy from the executive floor came down and said we need this shipped…run it. The suits say jump, you say how high.
The main characters are all ventriloquists and can speak without moving their mouths.
My guess, is that they think suddenly taking artistic license from WC3’s style of ‘syncing’ makes it ok.
I think it’s just an excuse to not do it properly…not that they’d care if I were right.
So just like cutscenes from today.
The animation on Denathrius is fantastic. Mouth/lips/teeth, every sneer, every word, perfectly matched to the dialogue.
You obviously haven’t given this a view, so I suggest watching it. Because it’s fantastic.
LOL okay.
Different team i’d guess. Be they less skilled or not care or both is anyone’s guess.
I second this. It’s REALLY distracting to watch a cutscene where the words aren’t matching the lip movement. It pulls me out of the moment. Keep the cinematics, switch the cutscenes to in game or just don’t do them at all.
I hope we see more of Denathrius someday.
Great character.
It honestly blows my mind, like…
The whole idea of a cutscene is to have something that looks better than is possible ingame. Why on earth would you even bother if it’s anything less?
If it were NPCs doing the /talk emote at each other with speech bubbles, I’d hold it to a much lower standard!
The cutscenes people are having issue with mostly are the in game ones. That fancy one with Denathrius uses different more high quality models.
Characters like Shaw for example in these cutscenes look way different. Since in game, a face option similar to his isn’t in game.
This was a Blizzard who invested in art. Not whatever budget cuts that made them make Ion try to sell us on the “no more tier sets” nonsense.
It’s obvious that the art team has gone through some losses over the last few years.
Or “Hey we had such great feedback over the customizations we made! No we’re not making more” that I am STILL salty about
Wrathgate was pre-rendered. Garrosh wasn’t.
As was Wrathgate.
You mean scenes showing our characters? Like this?
Or this?
Not seeing the issue.
Maybe everything just looks better with a Vulpera in it!
With the “your toon is in the shot” cutscenes the big issue is the lip syncing. The characters are all using default animations and the mouth flaps don’t match at all except for the one cutscene at the start where Anduin does a big light thing as we’re trying to wake up the waystone. You can tell someone went in and actually made the lip sync work
The human brain is programmed to focus on our faces. So if something is wrong it pokes that part of our brain. Kinda like how we experience the uncanny valley.
The default animations don’t always work with the emotion the character is giving out. Instead looking like a horse with peanut butter.
The stuff like the Denathrius cutscene works because we get to see all the micro expressions in his face.
If the in game ones were more like the one with Anduin that I mentioned, it wouldn’t really be an issue. That’s the quality I thought we were getting for the whole expansion.
If I may nerd out a bit. One of my fav examples of animation that used this uncanny valley to its advantage was Silent Hill 2.
The animators were going for a dream like quality hence why even the dialogue sounds a little off. So Angela looking so “odd” I wanna say when she goes “…Lost?” is actually on purpose. But it’s still poking that “something is not right” part of our brain.
Oh, that’s because your purposely ignoring the Garrosh and sylvanas cinematics that are the focus of my Ire.
Why?
IDK.
What’s the issue with the Garrosh one?
Besides the fact that Garrosh is a clown and should have been wearing a rubber nose and oversized shoes so he fit the part.