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Developers, please let your characters actually sleep under the blanket in games

Jawmuncher

Jawmuncher

Crisis Dino
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
38,845
Ibis Island
EHb-TawX4AEc0nZ.jpg:large


While characters sleeping in beds was common the in 8 & 16 bit era, after that time the practice of animating a blanket and having the character actually sleep underneath became a lost art. Even some of the biggest AAA games with budgets the same as a small country stay away from this complex task.

I understand why on paper. It's 10x easier to just slap your model on a bed in their default gear for what will ultimately be a 5 swc transition scene as they never go to sleep again. But the act of seeing a character actually under the covers has elevated numerous titles to GOTY status.

We have accounts for stuff like "Can you pet the dog" when in reality this is a 10x more important and relevant matter.

Because of this, I'd love if the community could post some games in recent years that weren't scared to go above and beyond so we can celebrate them and their sacrifice to true art.
 
Aerial51

Aerial51

Member
Apr 24, 2020
3,693
I somehow knew before i clicked on that Thread that i would see a picture of Deadly Premonition lol
 
Caiusto

Caiusto

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,994
Cyberpunk is so funny on this aspect that not only does the character not sleep under the blanket but they don't even lie down in parallel with the bed.
 
jblanco

jblanco

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,499
Ys 1 actually has an unlockable achievement about it. With very fan servicey intentions of course.
 
Nanashrew

Nanashrew

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,328
The nights are cold and a warm blanket will keep you from catching a cold. Please think of the health of your characters.


But seriously, it's always been weird how characters just sleep on top of the blankets.
 
GameAddict411

GameAddict411

Member
Oct 26, 2017
8,586
Nanashrew said:
The nights are cold and a warm blanket will keep you from catching a cold. Please think of the health of your characters.


But seriously, it's always been weird how characters just sleep on top of the blankets.
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It's actually not weird as modelling dynamic bed sheets would be expensive to run but also take some time to actually implement.
 
Tahnit

Tahnit

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,965
FF3 did this in a brilliant way. They set the bottom half of the bed to cut away at the characters sprite so it looks like the character is laying down on the pillow under the covers. Its so smart.

14-ffvi07_026.png
 

SkyOdin

Member
Apr 21, 2018
2,680
The Trials of Mana remake actually has the characters under the covers when you sleep at an inn. It isn't as cool as the original SNES version where they had custom sleeping sprites and took off their shoes, but it is still better than average.
 
Vampirolol

Vampirolol

Member
Dec 13, 2017
5,887
I also hate when they go to sleep with the fucking armor they used all day to slaughter filthy monsters.
 
Melpomene

Melpomene

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jun 9, 2019
18,443
Persona 5 even accurately emulates the struggle of attempting to sleep with a pet.
maxresdefault.jpg
 
HorseFD

HorseFD

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,040
Melbourne
This always really annoys me, until I think about how much developer work it would be for so little gain, and that they could better spend their time on other elements of the game.
 
inpHilltr8r

inpHilltr8r

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,288
so there's a scene in tlou2, where someone takes a t-shirt off, and all the technical animators I know lost their shit about it
 
Jakenbakin

Jakenbakin

"This guy are sick" and Corrupted by Vengeance
Member
Jun 17, 2018
11,972
I didn't take a picture but I thought it was funny when I played Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna the other day there was a cutscene of the party all sleeping around a campfire. The two children in the party, that are NPCs, are covered by blankets, but everyone else is just laying around in their dorky Xenoarmor.
 
Dust

Dust

C H A O S
Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,885
entremet said:
Eww.

But this due to having a "uniform" as part of his design. Leads to stuff like this. Also why video game characters don't use the toilet.
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When Cloud goes to sleep there is little animation of him placing his Buster Sword against the wall and then laying down. They could have just make camera pan upwards as you hear sounds of shoes hitting the floor for few seconds, while obviously model still has them.
Probably everyone at SE would have went "dude, no one cares" to such suggestion lol.
 
Stopdoor

Stopdoor

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,785
Toronto
Tahnit said:
FF3 did this in a brilliant way. They set the bottom half of the bed to cut away at the characters sprite so it looks like the character is laying down on the pillow under the covers. Its so smart.

14-ffvi07_026.png
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I mean, it's much easier to be brilliant when this is all it takes lol. Imagine how this would work at all in 3D?
 
A1an

A1an

Member
Oct 26, 2017
1,341
UK
Yes, I mean they have bothered to make a blanket that goes on the bed in the first place, surely it cannot be that hard to have a characters under a blanket, it is not like they have to have the character change size or shape the dimensions with the clothing they are wearing wouldn't change.
 
DiipuSurotu

DiipuSurotu

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
53,148
Dust said:
When Cloud goes to sleep there is little animation of him placing his Buster Sword against the wall and then laying down. They could have just make camera pan upwards as you hear sounds of shoes hitting the floor for few seconds, while obviously model still has them.
Probably everyone at SE would have went "dude, no one cares" to such suggestion lol.
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If it were Aerith of Lightning you can bet they would have cared lol
 
Tab

Tab

Member
Nov 23, 2017
1,288
Tahnit said:
FF3 did this in a brilliant way. They set the bottom half of the bed to cut away at the characters sprite so it looks like the character is laying down on the pillow under the covers. Its so smart.

14-ffvi07_026.png
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I don't know if I'd call it brilliant, I know for a fact that the Gen 3 Pokemon games do this exact thing (I can't find an image online though), and I would assume other sprite-based games do this as well.

It's really more an issue with 3D games, I assume because they'd rather have them just lay on top of the bed than have a clipping issue.
 
Weiss

Weiss

User requested ban
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
64,265
Seiken Densetsu 3/Trials of Mana went so far as to make wholly original sprites for the cast when they sleep at the inn you could barely see because they were covered by a blanket.

Anyway I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying consider the manpower that would go into this and whether it's worth it.
 
Kain

Kain

Unshakable Resolve - One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
7,670
I read somewhere that an animator's worst nightmare is a character handing an object to another character on screen. This might come at close second
 
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