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BioWare on Mass Effect Andromeda's animations, release date, story & more

S

shinobi602

Member
More here: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-12-09-mass-effect-andromeda-interview

Hey guys - let's start by dissecting the latest trailer a bit. In it we see a character named Sloane Kelly - she looks like the leader of the pirate settlement we're introduced to. And yet, on the Andromeda Initiative website we can see she was once a leader on the Nexus, the Citadel-esque flagship used to spearhead exploration into Andromeda. What happened there, and how long afterwards are we seeing?

Fabrice Condominas: What you see in the trailer is a tease of what happens to the different arks... obviously this is central to the story of how things didn't go as planned [on arrival in Andromeda]. People got spread out. You don't know what happened to the other arks. You may have seen we just announced some Mass Effect novels - I encourage you to look at their titles...
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Ryder speaks to a character named Sam, or SAM, and I was wondering whether this is your version of EDI on the Tempest [your new Normandy]?

Fabrice Condominas: Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that SAM is ultimately not a living being - its more of an AI or robot. But it's way broader than EDI - the relationship is way different. SAM handles a number of things as well as your vessel. It is connected to you permanently and was connected to - and knew - your father, Alec. There's a very specific relationship there. It's more of a partner than EDI was - you're way closer emotionally to SAM.
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One piece of feedback you guys got from the trailer and responded to very quickly via Twitter to is the quality of the facial animations and lip-syncing. You've said you're working on it but I wondered how much more you can do there in the engine?

Fabrice Condominas: We are absolutely working on it. As was mentioned in the tweets it's actually something that comes last in the polishing stage. We've been using full facial capture for the first time to record the actor's performance and it's also the first time for BioWare working in Frostbite - I think we're beginning to push that fairly far. We're actively working on it and it's the last thing to be polished before we do a manual pass and really, really tweak all those movements because we first wanted to make sure the dialogue is final and settled.
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One thing I think people expected to see in the trailer and we didn't get is a release date - apart from the vague mention again of "spring 2017". That's getting pretty close - why aren't you announcing it? Should fans be worried it'll slip?

Fabrice Condominas: There's absolutely no reason to be worried. BioWare is all about quality and believe me - the team is extremely aware of how fast that is coming [laughs]. But we're focusing on that - that's our objective. Maybe we'll need two extra days? When we're 100 per cent confident we can go to certification on a certain date, then we'll give a very specific date. In the meantime, we're focusing on quality and every day counts. We don't want to pressure that.
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Mass_effect_3_shepard_running.gif

Betty said:
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The worst thing here is the turian had plenty of time to squeeze the trigger but you can see his arm pull away even before the gun is snatched. It's animations like that which feel really canned and annoying.
 
Fabrice Condominas: We are absolutely working on it. As was mentioned in the tweets it's actually something that comes last in the polishing stage. We've been using full facial capture for the first time to record the actor's performance and it's also the first time for BioWare working in Frostbite - I think we're beginning to push that fairly far. We're actively working on it and it's the last thing to be polished before we do a manual pass and really, really tweak all those movements because we first wanted to make sure the dialogue is final and settled.
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I can understand that something like that comes late in the process. What i don't understand is why they pick a scene where this is so apparent. Or maybe we should give Bioware props for not trying to "Ubisofting" their marketing?
 
Bedameister said:
Oh god the Nightmares
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And friends kept asking me why I went with DudeShep through ME3 when Jennifer Hale's VA was so much better. I just said "well my character doesn't run like a total fucking doofus."

Staf said:
I can understand that something like that comes late in the process. What i don't understand is why they pick a scene where this is so apparent. Or maybe we should give Bioware props for not trying to "Ubisofting" their marketing?
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I mean, what do you think is more likely to give them shit, some bad lip syncing during dialog, or having a trailer without a dialog scene at all? Since it's clearly a vertical slice, if you don't include it, the assumption is you ditched it.
 
Staf said:
I can understand that something like that comes late in the process. What i don't understand is why they pick a scene where this is so apparent. Or maybe we should give Bioware props for not trying to "Ubisofting" their marketing?
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From what I was told they wanted to give female Ryder some spotlight since male Ryder's been in the latest few trailers. Only thing is he's farther along in polish in terms of facial animations.
 
FrontalMonk said:
I mean, what do you think is more likely to give them shit, some bad lip syncing during dialog, or having a trailer without a dialog scene at all? Since it's clearly a vertical slice, if you don't include it, the assumption is you ditched it.
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I would put a helm or something on her. But fair enough.
 
No news on the trilogy remaster? I don't wanna skip those games and jump straight into Andromeda.
 
full facial capture for the first time to record the actor's performance
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They must have just had all that animation data switched off for the trailer then.


HMD said:
No news on the trilogy remaster? I don't wanna skip those games and jump straight into Andromeda.
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It not happening.
 
The first novel is called "Nexus Uprising" sooooo yeah.
 
Mass Effect has always had it's share of jank, so I am not exactly up in arms. As the game in general looks like a quantum leap over Mass Effect 3.
 
ironcreed said:
Mass Effect has always had it's share of jank, so I am not exactly up in arms. As the game in general looks like a quantum leap over Mass Effect 3.
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Bioware always had their problem. I mean, UE3 was kinda rough on the edge but after BF4, Battlefront and BF1, I never expected Andromeda to look so rough on character models and animations
 
ironcreed said:
Mass Effect has always had it's share of jank, so I am not exactly up in arms. As the game in general looks like a quantum leap over Mass Effect 3.
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Yeah, I just started replaying ME3 a few days ago. Andromeda looks light years better in every aspect.
 
UnluckyKate said:
Bioware always had their problem. I mean, UE3 was kinda rough on the edge but after BF4, Battlefront and BF1, I never expected Andromeda to look so rough on character models and animations
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Well, they are still polishing. But even then, I expect the typical BioWare quirks and will be fine.
 
That last answer is a little weird considering EA said they were more than happy to delay the game if they need to on their last earnings call.
 
UnluckyKate said:
Bioware always had their problem. I mean, UE3 was kinda rough on the edge but after BF4, Battlefront and BF1, I never expected Andromeda to look so rough on character models and animations
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Come on people, Bioware games feature a shit ton of animations and dialogue. Comparing that to BF1 and Battlefront, what...

YaBish said:
Did I miss something? Last I knew, EA had said they were reconsidering their position on remasters.
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They specifically said no ME trilogy remasters.
 
ironcreed said:
Well, they are still polishing. But even then, I expect the typical BioWare quirks and will be fine.
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yeah that's my grip with Bioware. They are kinda good but also full of themselves and they always go one step forward and two steps backs.

ME3 gameplay was their best but some of the shit they pulled in this game I swear... Jesus
 
NYR said:
Serious question: Is Spring for EA March/April/May?
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Fiscal year ends in March and Q1 has been tossed around previously by EA. But realistically, if it sees another delay it'll probably be until early summer at earliest for a launch.
 
The running and jogging animation still needs work. After working on the lip-synch, hopefully they spruce it up a bit as well.
 
DevilDog said:
Come on people, Bioware games feature a shit ton of animations and dialogue. Comparing that to BF1 and Battlefront, what...



They specifically said no ME trilogy remasters.
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they feature lots of conversation animation. They focus on facial animation.

But even so, the combat animation we saw from andromeda were very basic after what we saw in other frostbite games
 
They used facial capture and it still looks like shit? Whew. I guess the manual passes the animators do are what really changes it up. Naughty Dog does manual passing for their games and they nail it. I just hope they can nail this by April or may.
 
Betty said:
D4qQXLc.gif
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That fucking handshake disarm haha.
Still so goofy.

As long as we don't see the same recycled animations from the original trilogy, Andromeda's animations will be considered an upgrade.

Y'all need to focus on Shep's ridiculous non combat running animation as well. That bowlegged running cycle was just as bad as the combat run.
 
10k said:
They used facial capture and it still looks like shit? Whew. I guess the manual passes the animators do are what really changes it up. Naughty Dog does manual passing for their games and they nail it. I just hope they can nail this by April or may.
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Not anymore. Naughty Dog now uses performance capture, just like anybody else.
 
Is it just me, or does it feel like there's some subtle shitting on EDI to build up SAM?

EDI was a squadmate. Implying that you didn't really have an emotional connection to her kind of implies that they failed in that.
 
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