The Evolution of Facial Animation In Video Games
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- čas přidán 4. 08. 2017
- Faces are everything, even in video games. While they may have started out non-existent they've come a long way. Here's a history lesson.
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My one criticism of modern realistic animation is the hair is way too.. flowy. It moves too much. Your bangs don't float around every time you move your head. It still looks great though
Kaytlin Waggoner my hair is very flowy tho, I get hair in my face a lot, it's very bouncy too
But when it gets slidey and squirmy, you can overtell that it's animation and not an in-game expression.
I completely agree. Lara’s hair in Tomb Raider (2013) made me nervous af
Ellie’s hair in thou was like that, it bothered me haha
hair physics is extremely complicated apparently.
Sometimes i would like to think to go back to the past like 1980's and show the games of today, imagine their reactions.
Gelo meister i think that a lot xD
You'd be burned alive for heresy.
they'll think you're an alien
They would explode
It would be like showing a cave man a cell phone. Time is sensitive and so are people when it comes to the future.
2016: Uncharted 4
2018: Detroit: Become Human
MemeyLoaf U4 came out in 2016
@Reaper Gaming Yes
2019: The Last Of Us PART II
2019 Resident Evil 2
Detroit's facial animations are average at best. It's a good looking game, but man some of those animations were pretty bad.
14:41 'Realisticleh'
Why am I in the wrong comment section
Leh
*l e h*
Lol
I should listen to the narrator more
Half Life 2 still has really impressive facial animations. And it's all hand-made.
I think the facial animations are way better than many games even today. And the speaking animations are even better than Witcher 3. Though it's understandable since Witcher 3 has so much dialogue.
Umbrabellum Source's Faceposer has an auto lip syncing system that generates the proper phonemes.
But the animation in HL2 was a combination of that and sliders.
I'm talking about face expressions. Like for example when someone is suprised and it's shown on that character's face.
Like when Alyx has a squee moment and glomps Gordon.
Especially in episode 1 and 2 Alyx has amazingly good facial animations.
Seeing the way technology is going, those awkward sex scenes are going to be on a whole new level
High King Dovahkiin You ever seen sfm porn? We're there.
spaghetti mkay oh yes sfm porn can be made into a whole other level yet somehow actual game still cant get a kiss down
And then came Detroit
Bananna Cakez that’s on another level😂
that was what i was thinking
they became humans
DBH has almost old Final Fantasy movie graphics.
Become android
LA Noire was great though. Honestly I would love another game that refines the facial movements. I'm sure we could make them look a lot better these days too.
TheAndkonmegalodon There are a lot of them. Beyond two Souls, Heavy Rain, Detroit: Become Human which just came out.
Karisima I take it you really like quantic dreams.
Until Dawn is another really good one
-has a masters degree in wumbology Quantic is one of the few big ones that do it.
LA Noire 2 ;-;
HalfLife 2 was in 2004?! Damn I feel old
I had this epiphany when I quoted Viewtiful Joe today, which came out in 2003.
We 30 year old fogey Millennials.
I thought half life 2 was 2007, or is that because I play The Orange Box?
lλmbda• makes sense now.
Well you're kinda right, Half Life 2: Episode 2 came out in 2007, thats also i believe around the time the orange box released which updated most of there games to a new up to date version of source usually referred to as the orange box engine or new engine.
LA Noire blew my mind. I have to disagree with your opinion of going for a more stylistic approach over realism, because style does absolutely nothing to moving us closer to a real holodeck. The real reason why it didn't catch on as standard, as of right now it's expensive af.
Anyone else that couldn't focus during the Pac Man sequence due to stressing out while watching?
Ben Anderson Yes. Pacman always stresses me out.
gods yes. and the player avoided eating the big table-turning dots too.
Biiiiiiiiiiiitch i thought i was the only one
ItsRedrum biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch me too 😥
it's right beHIND YOU RUN RUN RUN
Very surprised SIREN wasn't mentioned. They used a technology similar to LA Noire, but it was projected onto the character's heads as a 2D texture instead of a 3D model. It was as if a film projector was casting the image of somebody's face onto their body. It was meant to look uncanny, being a horror game from the director of Silent Hill. It looks very primitive, but in a really cool way that I appreciate a lot artistically.
does that mean that the meme that went around about L.A Noire's "Subtle facial cues" were the guy literally looks like he's about to cry, was actually acted out by an actual actor.
edit: you can see it at 13:14
Oscar Armstrong I love that face.
IMO they fucked up because they captured only faces, while whole body remained static. It's not an issue of uber realistic animation as is said in video.
They fucked up because the actors overacted.
Sometimes with the overacting I couldn't tell if they were lying or just pretending to lie or some crazy double-fake you out crap like that, lol. It usually just ended up being the more straight forward interpretation though.
+8thDay Maybe capturing the hands as well would be enough.
I think the ghosts had more detail than Pacman. I mean, they at least had eyeballs
Well yeah but the ghosts would follow pacman or just the direction they are facing,the pupils would dart right in that direction,which would become very predictable,so it also became boring,but you're right!
You know why face capture ends up looking weird? Because the actors overact. Real people in real life situations rarely go for the extremes. Depending on the culture they're from, they tone down their facial expressions or suppress them to the best of their ability. They don't xD when they find something funny and they don't >:C when they get angry. Their eyebrows don't fly all over the face. The only time people exaggerate facial expressions is during performances, whether it's to entertain or deceive (poorly).
L4D's eyebrows...
Doesn't looks that bad to me
That was the problem for LA Noire imo, everybody in that game has the exact opposite of a "Poker Face", if you are interrogating a murderer he's gonna try to hide his emotions as much as possible, and here they are openly cringing and looking suspicious (still a great game).
Nope. It's because (1) the sampling of the face is imperfect and (2) the imperfect sampling is targeted at an imperfect rig. The end result looks unreal.
@@graphicsRat That certainly contributes, but fact of the matter is that the acting is fit for cartoons, not live action.
Love that Detroit: becoming human kinda tried to do what LA Noir but with the technology of now. Like a mix between things like uncharted and LA Noir actually
No.. Detroit used mo-cap, no game since LA Noire used motionscan.
Frane Šustić yes!!
*Sorry, My Face Is Tired*
DESTROOOY, DESTROOOY
Rise and shine Mr. Freeman, rise and shine.
Uncharted 4 has some of the best facial animations ever, not to mention some of the best graphics to date
Goy Guy I love the gameplay and story
don't forget about bf1
Now imagine how could be The Last Of Us Part II... damn it, I can't wait to play it.
Ikr can't wait the graphics look amazing and so realistic. But on GAM1NGgeek 369's point tomb raider looked amazing too.
GAM1NGgeek 369 for the faces well I like facial expressions in hl2
"Peak uncanny valley"
How can something be both a peak, and a valley?
If you turn the chart upside-down, the valley looks like a hill.
What an oxymoron
I dunno, but I thought he meant that the peak is the point before it goes downhill, or down the valley, anyway. Basically, the point before the whole thing goes uncanny.
But maybe I’m wrong.
Divide by zero?
Uncanny valley is a concept of something looking so almost human but not quite that it feels really uncomfortable because we can tell it isn’t human but it’s too close for comfort. We prefer things that are human-ish but not that close to reality. The “peak of uncanny valley” means that game is when video game characters were too close to human but still off and making us uncomfortable whereas now they are realistic but stylized so they don’t make us uncomfortable.
0:15 wtf happened to Lara's eyebrows?
fullicat I was thinking the exact same thing! Lol
Someone cut them off
It's 0:16
I scared
I disagree partially with regards to your final thoughts on L.A. Noire. Firstly, I think the developers /were/ trying to achieve something closer to photorealism but were limited by the technology available at the time. The game only looks cartoony by our standards because of the graphical limitations of the engine (e.g. global illumination, HBAO+, etc.); hence, the shadow contrast on the high-res facial capture made the visual representation "cartoony." For me, at least, L.A. Noire fell in the uncanny valley at points for two main reasons: 1. the facial animation was captured separately from the motion capture. You can see an example of this at 11:40 where Cole picks up a clue and is supposed to be staring at it, but his eyes are aiming elsewhere. This, however, falls in the technological limitations of its time, and I don't think one can really fault it, as it pioneered the way for performance capture where facial and body motion are captured simultaneously. 2. since a major part of the gameplay was deducing truth/doubt/lie from expressions during interrogation, the actors were given instructions to exaggerate expressions. This was the crux of the game's progression and it legitimately got more difficult (and realistic) towards the end of the game as players had to deduce difficult logical puzzles in addition to subtle human intonations. For the reason of providing a good gameplay experience, I don't think the sometimes hilarious faces you see can also be faulted as a judgment placed upon the game, as that element was crucial to L.A. Noire as a gameplay element.
That being said, I absolutely agree with you in that the artist's eye will almost always provide a better fit for whatever scenario that demands specific animations---for the moment, at least. Given how the devs of L.A. Noire used facial capture to great success despite its limitations, I think there may come a point where performance capture will mature and enable developers to have minimal input with regards to hand-made animations (in real-time cutscenes at the least) and fully capture the actors' nuances. I understand that it is conjecture, but with the advances seen in performance capture in videogames like Halo 4, 5, and Uncharted as well as movies like the new Planet of the Apes trilogy, I think there is a real chance that it will happen.
Please note that I am by no means a L.A. Noire fanboy; that game had serious issues with the gunplay and the last act in general.
That one dislike on this video is Bethesda
+Cali Sharp Fallout and Skyrim fans
too far
1,000 Subs With No Videos naw its Mass Effect Andromeda
I disliked because this idiot falcon thinks 1980 is when millennials as a generation started.
It's 1986 when you factor in the fact that baby boomers were fuck started in 1946. Not all countries share the same generation timeline.
Hell china is currently in the year 4715, wrap your head around that shit.
1,000 Subs With No Videos that's great xD
The Half-Life series is truly revolutionary.
Pity that Valve dropped the ball, and instead of inventing they are now just making money.
Say it now.
Half Life Alyx. Valve is back bitches. Praise be upon our Lord Gaben
@@MrSam1804 they're back
They do stuff all the time
Cant belive Heavy Rain/ Beyond:Two Souls isnt mentionend.
looool I agree with Beyond Two Souls, but heavy rain, really? 😂 that game's faces look low-detail af
Ethan didn’t scream SHAWN to be done dirty like this tsk tsk
Jovis I remember being totally amazed by Heavy Rain when it came out. It may not have held up well but at the time it was a pretty big step forward.
+Jovis Heavy Rain wasn't made in 2015, you know?
"They say white man has not ridden a horse for thousands of years, a life of comfort has made them weak like the water bufallo.
Here, eat my barn for luck."
How about you do a video on Evolution of cutscenes in video games.
Mad Max Must include Metal Gear Solid
good idea!
I wanna see that
The top of the evolution is Half-Life: no cutscenes
...Blizzard cutscenes...
I can't wait till games actually trick me to thinking they're real people but it's just a polygon model done perfect.
+Lou Oz
You can't hire actors to replace the job of a 3D model inside a game without having thousands of cameras!
Omg these comments are hilarious...
Xavier: Renegade Angel is a funny show.
Lou Oz - you're thinking of "realtime video" games, they were all the rage in the early to mid 90's, but the problem is you have a limited number of angles/reactions etc. due to needing video of EVERY actor for every action, and then you need to store each frame of animation vs. storing a single model with textures and animating it which is FAR more efficient and allows a wider range of actions. Come to think of it, I can't believe I seriously replied to you, you're obviously trolling.
Advanced warfare did that to me a couple times
Half Life 2 had facial animations from 2050 when it was made in 2003
Beyond two souls, a very beautifull facial animation too
your avatar got me confused
Jovis Trump Jong Un
then wtf was mass effect andromeda? lol
bankaispirits Obviously not en evolution in facial animation. Uncharted 4 is probably the best we have at the moment
Andromeda was a total fail.
I dunno about Uncharted 4, but The Witcher 3 was also pretty good about facial animation. The really interesting part: The expressions in TW3 were done by algorythm and this used as a baseline to be fine-tuned by hand. What came out looks very good while taking a fraction of the resources other methods would need for the many many *many* lines of dialogue.
A more straightforward game like Uncharted may get away with using motion capture for all dialogues, but for a RPG of massive proportions like TW3, the manhours needed would be ruinous.
pcgamer has a fascinating article on this topic: www.pcgamer.com/most-of-the-witcher-3s-dialogue-scenes-was-animated-by-an-algorithm/
bankaispirits a de-evolution?
Have you downloaded the patch?
Garbage duh
was I the only one who couldn't help but smile at that face at 15:45, lmfao he looks so weird
Oscar Armstrong That's Nathan Drake from Uncharted 4 running on a PS4.
The Phantom Thief 2000 Dude reminds me of Liam Neeson.
that's because his mouth is smiling but his eyes aren't
:D No brother you're not the only one :D
Oscar Armstrong b
Detroit become human, Detroit become human!
@ballistic noob incoming!!! actually, the demo of the animation used in Detroit, "Kara" was made several years before the game as a demonstration of QD's new engine. (The concept being turned into the game) Therefore there was an example of that animation before this video was made lmao
@ballistic noob incoming!!! I'm aware, but a demo of what a studio can accomplish in a video game is certainly a good enough example that could have been used here, since this videos discusses the advancements made in game animation.
Regardless, it's understandable it wasn't included because I'm not sure the demo was well known
How the fuck can you say L.A Noire looked weird and did the realism wrong? dude have you played that masterpiece? jesus christ you could tell someone was lying just by LOOKING AT THEM! Fuck, thats a level of immersion never achieved!
IMMERSIVE
One the best games I ever played!!
Yes!!! Everyone looks and reacts a bit differently when they lie, so it's much better to have a diverse set of actors than a few animators deciding what lying looks like. The subtle cues is what makes the game challenging
I actually like LA Noir facial animations the most in this video, others seem either too cartoonish or lack any emotion at all (hello young Lara Croft and surprisingly GTA V). Oh btw Injustice 2 got some real badass facial animations.
Funny thing while I generally prefer realistic facial movement in realistic worlds ironically I'm working on a game where surroundings are realistic but characters are complete cartoons :P
What they mean is that the faces looked too real compared to the abilities of the software and the slightly more stylized bodies. It didn't fit quite properly. I'm a 3D animator and trained to look at this stuff, most people who play the games may not notice it. Yes, the facial animation is superb, because it's hi def film mapped onto the head polys, which, again, using lighting/shadow systems that can't emulate the environment as well and character bodies that can't compete, it does look a bit off.
L.A. Noire was epic at that time, and fun to play.
siedlikmasterek facts
still pretty fun!
and still
Hell yeah
Still pretty much the best modern interrogation game, the facial animations are still the best.
I WANT L.A.NOIRE REMASTERED!!!
Giorgos K that would be nice
Giorgos K not going to happen it wasn't rockstar who made it and the company that did is dead and it was their only game rockstar only helped a little
Team Bondi is the name of the company.
Best Face animations ever. Every face movement and feeling they make look so real. Scarry that is 2011 and no games today can handle like L.A Noire.
i want hl3 to get la noired
15:25 Naughty dog uses a combination morph and bone based system. They didn't use 400 bones but used 800 morphs with very less bones. Both are very different. If you aren't sure of it, don't say it at all.
I realized the complexity and sheer multitude of facial expression the other day while looking for a certain emoji and not finding the one I wanted. You can't even make enough emojis to cover all of it.
You are one hell of a youtuber.
My hat is off to you sir.
Royalheart Golden it’s a whole team actually
Yeah new games like mass effect andromeda have really good animations, oh wait.....
Wut you talking about... one of the best looking game, nothing can touch it's animations, they are light years beyond us!
their faces were just tired!
Why does Lara have no eyebrows?
MadEvil Lemon the fact no one has answered this is genuinely hilarious because it means no one knows either
Kat F ikr?
Games have bugs apparently. I can maybe tell if I know where it's from (Game version, platform, hardware, drivers etc.)
It's because this footage was taken from a guy that tried to put the ps4 Lara model to pc and there was still problems. It's not something official.
Half Life Facial Animation: 😭 😱 😏 😩 😖
Mass Effect Andromeda Facial Animation: 😐🙂🙁😕
what about sims? it would've been really cool if the sims was mentioned in this video (the aspect of actually manipulating and altering a face by yourself)
Lilia_Spn the sims wasn't really that special, maybe the sims 2 but not sims 3 or 4
Lilia_Spn I love the Sims
Lilia_Spn ikr? Sims 2 had so many facial expressions, followed by the Sims 3 and the Sims 4.
Charlotte Louise me too lol
Down the same thread, I think the video would have benefited if it mentioned all of the games that allow you to customize your character and how Skyrim face mods (and similar) let you pretty much become a developer to create your own face.
To be perfectly honest, if L.A Noire was made today, in a modern engine for a modern system, it would most likely not be uncanny at all. Higher res textures, lighting and environments would work really, really well with that facial animation. Also, Subsurface Scattering materials would alleviate the plastic-y feel of the faces.
Team Bondi, the studio that made the game, went bankrupt just for developing that facial capture technology. You have to admire a studio developing a groundbreaking technology for a single game over the course of 8 years. Few are the developers who put that much effort into a single title.
Detriot: Become Human
Great video,not only show us a bunch of good-looking facial expresions,but explain us the evolution since pacman and how the uncanny valley works
Until Dawn had amazing facial animations.
Abrxpt_ not really
pity the framerate is donkey shit
Some of the facial animations were actually pretty bad. They were way too expressive and animated and looked way off.
The asian girl literally spoke through her teeth in multiple scenes
reggie freeborn 👄😂
Now i am scared of Donkey Kong
Great, thorough video! I love retrospective / historical / documentary style information videos about games' evolution over the years. I'm so grateful to have been alive from the early 80s to now, enjoying the heyday 8 bit / retro to the more contemporary Oculus, XB, PS technology. Here's to the future-future-future-future!
I love these kind of videos, they make me appreciate even more videogames when I'm playing
Andromeda would be the Extinction of facial animations because clearly nothing evolved.
ninja of fire devolved
Even fucking half life 2 beat it
You forget to mention Ninja Theory's Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. They used performance capture for Senua's face as well but using the same technology as John Cameron's Avatar, Peter Jackson's Hobbit Trilogy and the recent Planet of the Apes series.
On top of all that - transition the capture into in-game engine in real time.
i have no idea why Hellblade was not on the list - sometimes the animation looks a bit unpleasant, but that is because of the faces the actress was really making - that doesn't mean it looked not believable or unrealistic.
He showed the last of us 2 demo which uses the same tec
ikr. Hellblade Facial Animation looks Awesome af!
He missed out a lot. Like RE5 as well that done motion capture too
Or they should have mentioned Enslaved: Odyssey to the West which came before that and also had great animations.
hey can you do an Evolution of Fingernails in Gaming?
What the fuck
Umm
Where yo videos??💻😱
Lmao
Aburrki T.F
It is just amazing how far graphics have come in such a short period of time I don't think it will be much longer and we will feel like we are playing a movie instead of a game. I am looking forward to the future in graphics and game play.. I still have a soft spot for cartoon style shooters and hack n slashers though =) Great topic and another great video always enjoy all of your guys topic's and comparison videos !
The peak of uncanny valley is not L.A. Noire, its Heavy Rain.
Arnabb CHAKRABORTY *S H A U N*
Arnabb CHAKRABORTY Beyond two souls has even better animation in that regard
The peak of a valley, lmao :D
*SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUN*
Ghost JASON
I Love the bust a nut face animation 👌
Good morning my love how are you doing today. It's all good and I am so sorry to hear about your family tried calling the house.
I remember being so impressed with how expressive ratchet and clank was in 2002. That is years before even youtube and facebook. It was not an easy thing to do at that time.
the spooky thing is if you lower the resolution low enough, it just looks like a real person
you forgot
Jackie chan stunt master (ps1)
first motion capture ps1 game that jackie chan ever made
when finish you the bonus game you will get cutscene where jackie chan interview about making motion capture about this game
and this made by year 2000 pre 9/11 in newyork
3 Words:
Mass Effect Andromeda xD
Kasbar Kasbarian I would like your comment, but that "XD" made me cringe
GREAT video Bro , keep up the good work , can't wait for next video
I think that what makes face animation great are the more subtle expressions, because sometimes when a certain character is more introverted, they tend to show less expressions than extroverted ones. So I love when the designers play around with subtle stuff like the curving of the lips or teary eyes. That's more than just eyebrows moving and it makes the eyes look more alive.
11:59, i completely disagree, it looked amazing, and not strange at all
Heh heh... Mass Effect Andromeda.
This is actually kind of interesting, do more of these videos.
You should have included a few quantic dreams games, the facial evolutions from Fahrenheit, to heavy rain to beyond: two souls was so good. You could also see that not only did the facial expressions get better but the consistency with the facial expressions and realism stayed good too
Half-Life 2 is my favorite by far.
Sqooshy
I don't know though why he didn't include Left 4 Dead 2 in the mix, tho...
LMAO, I DIED AT THE INTRO SHOWING LARA WITH NO EYEBROWS X'DDDDDDDDD
Omg I was OBSESSED with Crash Bandicoot, it was such a great game.
This is great. Well done, gameranx.
You deserve more subs ans views
l.a noire look so good expresion
The way this guy edits his speech feels like I'm in a different universe every other word.
Also the new motion capture with Andy Serkis is looking pretty good
I think you really should've talked about quantic dream's tech demo and games. They're the one who really made the push for facial motion capture. LA Noire came in 2011. Their Casting demo came in 2006. That thing put everything else to shame at the time...
15:32 Wow, does anyone else think Uncharted 4 Nathan Drake looks a LOT like Nathan Fillion? :O
The Source engine really did spark something amazing. Back in 2004 when GTA: San Andreas was made, it had your standard polygons with not so much of face flexes and all that. Then, one month later (GTA: San Andreas was released in October) Half-Life 2, with its amazing graphics, (comparing to San Andreas, not to high-graphic games like Uncharted 4) had been released.
They didn't even show Hellblade and that was really well done. The facial animation in that is some of the best I've seen.
Beyond: Two Souls deserves a mention
Well I love facials and I love animations.
Putting them together is just a perfect combination.
I remember playing 3D games before the mouths moved when they spoke, then when they made them move. So near the end of the 90s coming into 2000s
an interesting case not pointed in this video was the Forbidden Siren/SIREN series from the PS2, where they animated the faces of real life actors as textures that were pasted on top of the model's face resulting in pretty realistic conversations during cutscenes. obviously as you get closer to the character you can tell it's just a bunch of (kinda pixelated) textures, but for the early 2000's I was really impressed.
Wouldn't it be great, that one day you would be able to 'scan' your own face (webcam), and put it on a game character...And it would be even greater if you'd have something like a 'Star Trek Holodeck' to play games...
I can imagine that happening sometime in the future. I really wonder what games will look like in another thirty years... they'll probably be insanely realistic
Beyond Two Souls not mentioned??? Hmmm...
Abbey McNeill it has both great movement _and_ facial animations
Abbey McNeill Theres so many games that this topic applies to that we should assume ALOT of games had to be ignored
And heavy rain???
No one played that crap , compared to tr and half life
Great video. Still think through that photorealistic games will be possible and look great in 10 years.
The thumbnail just makes this look like a potential evolution of Alyx's face.
Half-Life 2 is my favorite game of all time❤
I feel like the best faces you could do today would be motion capture applied to a stylized character. Have an artist make a character that has a detailed enough face to let the actor really express themselves, but don't try to make them look real.
Excellent video with tons of great info. But I feel like the dialogue was just one long sentence, lol. Take a breath, dude!
Dragon Age Origins came out in 2009 and has pretty amazing face animations in dialogue. I was astounded at the time.
why not mention dialog connected animation system, like in the witcher 3?
Actually unlike the first two games Witcher 3 was originally written in english
as far as i know at least the voicework was done simultaneously. so there is no original language version for tw3wh
15:33that face u make when your mama leaves the home so u can beat up the meat
This channel is one of best, really interesthing stuff
La Noire's unusual facial animation was good for the game because how much you had to pay attention to peoples faces when talking to them
"Uncharted 4 just came out" wait what?! That came out 1 year ago
Back to the 00' with Mass effect Andromeda
It was certainly rushed, but it had great potential.
The trilogy is a whole other league above. Especially ME2 and ME3's animations
La noire scared me because I wasn’t ready for it. Took me a second to get use to it.
C&C Renegade had pretty good mouth-movement that I've not seen in any game, since. It deserves a mention just for that.
Games look better now but they are not better,story etc everything is same,LA Noire has awesome story like all games from that time.
Paco I take it you haven't played many of the newer games then. Plenty with awesome story and narratives.
And then Mass Effect:Andromeda happened.
*Realism*
2006: Damn
You know what game I’m talking about 🙂
As an animator i can truly say that facial animation is what i find most fascinating