Mass Effect: Andromeda has taken a huge beating lately as players, reviewers, and streamers have discovered some nasty animation glitches. Some characters look like they’re about to crap their pants or over exaggerate their facial movements, and still others look like they’re dead inside.
BioWare has been pretty quiet through this whole process, aside from responding to that nasty business where the Internet tried to blame a single person for the work of a whole team. But now, a former member of the BioWare animation team has spoken up. Jonathan Cooper is currently working as an animator for Naughty Dog on Uncharted , but he was involved in Mass Effect 1 and 2 .
In a slew of messages on Twitter, Cooper attempts to explain the process of animation for large-scale games like Mass Effect: Andromeda . His best explanation is to compare to Uncharted , “Every encounter in Uncharted is unique & highly controlled because we create highly-authored ‘wide’ linear stories with bespoke animations.”
He continues to mention that in large RPGs, like Mass Effect: Andromeda , there is a “quantity vs quality tradeoff” because the players’ choices change the game so much. The amount of animations that go into games with tons of choices tends to get away from teams. This underestimation of how much time it takes to have your hands on every single animation is how we get things like Mass Effect: Andromeda .
Cooper’s thoughts on the matter did end on a high note however, since he said, “The one positive to come out of all this is that AAA story-heavy games can’t skimp on the animation quality with a systemic approach alone. The audience has grown more discerning, which makes our job more difficult but furthers animation quality (and animators) as a requirement.”
Source: Jonathan Cooper’s Twitter
In a slew of messages on Twitter, Cooper attempts to explain the process of animation for large-scale games like Mass Effect: Andromeda . His best explanation is to compare to Uncharted , “Every encounter in Uncharted is unique & highly controlled because we create highly-authored ‘wide’ linear stories with bespoke animations.”
He continues to mention that in large RPGs, like Andromeda , there is a “quantity vs quality tradeoff” because the players’ choices change the game so much. The amount of animations that go into games with tons of choices tends to get away from teams. This underestimation of how much time it takes to have your hands on every single animation is how we get things like Mass Effect: Andromeda .
Cooper’s thoughts on the matter did end on a high note however, since he said, “The one positive to come out of all this is that AAA story-heavy games can’t skimp on the animation quality with a systemic approach alone. The audience has grown more discerning, which makes our job more difficult but furthers animation quality (and animators) as a requirement.”
Source: Jonathan Cooper’s Twitter