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Last of US 2 frame per frame animation analysis by Motive senior tech animator (Read OP)

Decarb

Decarb

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,643
Strat said:
What the hell does "it's fake" even imply? It's obviously all real animation, probably in-engine animation at that? Are people saying it's fake in that it will not be indicative of moment to moment gameplay, because that's probably correct? It's clearly a heavily scripted sequence.
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You should read that other thread where some people are going into great details to explain how it is faked and how UC4 did it too. By explain I mean speculate but then state as fact.

janusfilmsfan said:
That's how you know it was a stellar demo. When people question if it real and call it fake or whatever. Lol. ND devs must be loving it
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Exactly. I've seen this with UC2 and UC3 and with TLoU teaser reveals so ND is probably used to it by now.
 
Avitus

Avitus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,919
Kaiser Swayze said:
I don't know why so much effort is going in to trying to validate that a Naughty Dog game will look amazing. Wouldn't their track record be sufficient?
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It's not approached from an angle of validation, but rather admiration. ND stepped their already impressive game up here.

Even the truck thing, while scripted for the demo, could conceivably be systemic if they make looking under vehicles a huge part of the game (looks that way).
 
Maneil99

Maneil99

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
5,252
I think it'll be like TLOU 1 Demo at E3. Mostly real, just the perfect run where every AI character does everything right. 80/20 split in behavior and animation.
 
Faithless

Faithless

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,183
chris 1515 said:
summary

They say it is probably systemic a combination of pysics, coverage and motion capture with some scene scripted as in cutscenes like the end of the vid.
Nothing is set in stone yet, but they believe it could be real gameplay seeing naughty dogs track record. I havent seen the second vid yet, will check tonight.
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OP, please note that black font is unreadable with DarkERA theme.
 
Zatoichi

Zatoichi

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
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Oct 25, 2017
1,073
Ireland
Production values in Sony first party surpass almost all others completely.

It's why their games look so much better. Investment of time, money and belief in the team.
 
nelsonroyale

nelsonroyale

Member
Oct 28, 2017
12,128
Thanks for this.

I was astounded by the quality of facial animation in gameplay by the npcs, and the quality of the character models. The big bald bady guy had some eerily realistic expressions...as good as the cutscenes actually. Amazing!
 
Couscous

Couscous

Member
Oct 30, 2017
6,089
Twente (The Netherlands)
Zhukov said:
So unlike a lot of you silly sods, I watched the whole thing.

And, umm... holy shit. Naughty Dog really are in a league all of their own.

However, there are parts that he thinks are scripted. And I feel very clever because they're mostly the same parts I suspected. For example, the part where Ellie is under the truck and the part where the three enemies gather up before entering the abandoned shop Ellie is hiding in.

However he's adamant that it's mostly the real deal. He points out all the little transitions and where they just have to kind of fudge it and hope you don't notice. (Turns out the placement of feet is very important. Who knew.)

If you're remotely interested in animation it's worth watching. The guy does a decent job of presenting things without getting too technical. I have only the barest layman's understanding of animation and was still able to follow along.
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I agree with him doing a really good job informing people who have no understanding of animations. He struggled a few fimes, but he always found the right words.

He also stated that the part where the man gets hanged was scripted, but that was obvious. The thing I also wonder about is if you could save that man before the animations start or if he dies regardless of your actions.
 
Maneil99

Maneil99

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
5,252
Wackamole said:
was that the case with TLoU1 first gameplay trailer?
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Some of the AI behavior wasn't in the game but most of it was, it just didn't happen very often and they basically scripted the AI to use the behaviors rarely in the game. Wasn't a big deal but essentially there are things the AI do 20% of the time that they had them all doing.

http://www.gameondaily.com/what-happened-to-the-last-of-us-a-i/

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2014/04/14/ellie-knows-stand

 
patapon

patapon

Banned
Dec 7, 2017
3,614
Zatoichi said:
Production values in Sony first party surpass almost all others completely.

It's why their games look so much better. Investment of time, money and belief in the team.
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Very well said. Sony First Part developers are wizards. It's insane how amazing Sony exclusives look. I can only imagine what they'll be able to achieve with the power of PS5 :O
 
Ryuhza

Ryuhza

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
11,440
San Diego County
One thing that seemed a little scripted to me is when she's under the car, aiming her pistol, and right before the cultist peeks underneath it, Ellie pulls back the hammer.



It just seems like too random of a situation to have that little hammer touch in there at such a cinematic moment, but with ND, who knows. Maybe the hammer thing happens whenever you're aiming at someone and about to be discovered.
 
Zhukov

Zhukov

Banned
Dec 6, 2017
2,641
Heckler456 said:
What about the truck sequence was scripted according to him, by the way? Haven't gotten to that part yet.

If it's the fact that the enemies run toward each other and communicate, the Naughty Dog guys specifically mentioned this as an AI features they've been heavily working on, where AI awareness is propagated through encounters like this, or through communication like the whistling you see throughout the video.
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No, it's not that. That's AI, not animation. (And yeah, I'm aware of what the devs said. Sounds cool.)

It's the way the female enemy moves during that conversation and afterwards as she's checking under the trucks. Then the absolutely perfect and specific death animation. There's no transitions. She goes from walking up to the truck, to crouching down, to spotting Ellie (complete with facial reaction animation), to aiming her weapon, to being shot in the face and collapsing, all perfectly and without a single transition to be seen.
 
Mashing

Mashing

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,967
The fluidity of the transitions is just what I find unbelievable. I will have to see it and play it myself to be convinced otherwise.
 

Deleted member 14353

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Oct 27, 2017
26
Thank you OP for this amazing video, really, really interesting stuff in there.

It's amazing to know that other developers are inspired and even "challenged" by the incredible work done by ND
 
Wollan

Wollan

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Oct 25, 2017
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Norway but living in France
Watched the whole thing. Excellent insights and detective-work by Dan Lowe here.
If you're semi-interested in how games and gameplay flow and behave then this is a recommended watch.
 
Zhukov

Zhukov

Banned
Dec 6, 2017
2,641
Couscous said:
He also stated that the part where the man gets hanged was scripted, but that was obvious. The thing I also wonder about is if you could save that man before the animations start or if he dies regardless of your actions.
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Yeah, I don't know shit about animation beyond "Ohhhh, that looks nice", but as a player when watching these press demos I'm always questioning what would happen if I did something different

(Hell, even when playing games I always try and break the scripted sequences, just to see if I can. I remember doing it way back in the original Red Faction in, what 2002 or thereabouts.)

In this TLOU2 example, what would happen to that big final kill if I had shot the hammer guy dead as soon as he walked in the door? When Ellie is under the truck, how would that enemy conversation play out if I'd killed before that point me and there was nobody left for the Ethan NPC to meet up with?

And so on and so forth.
 
Clocian

Clocian

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Apr 23, 2018
839
People still doubt Naught Dog....LOL

The salt....the salt....

Can't wait til this releases
 
X1 Two

X1 Two

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Oct 26, 2017
3,023
Is there even enough RAM to have all these animations? Seems like an awful lot amount of data that you have to keep there, taking away memory for textures and geometry.
 
Zhukov

Zhukov

Banned
Dec 6, 2017
2,641
Seriously, you people who are commenting on this without watching it are embarrassing yourselves on multiple levels.
 
lukeskymac

lukeskymac

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
992
Complicated said:
The actual question to ask is how is it going to feel to play the game if your character is just doing their own thing with these animations, and how is Naughty Dog ensuring your character animating isn't going to get you killed unfairly or save you by itself.
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With a button to dodge and another to attack? Why would it be "doing their own thing"?

808s & Villainy said:
I think people are becoming/have become conditioned to elaborate context-based animations nowadays as western AAA games are filled with them, because they look "cinematic" and flashy
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Stay salty.
 
Turbo Tu-Tone

Turbo Tu-Tone

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Oct 27, 2017
2,951
Ever since they debuted footage and screenshots of Uncharted 2, ND have been consistently driving bitch ass haters up the wall. Pure comedy.
 
Hawkijustin

Hawkijustin

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Oct 27, 2017
375
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patapon said:
Very well said. Sony First Part developers are wizards. It's insane how amazing Sony exclusives look. I can only imagine what they'll be able to achieve with the power of PS5 :O
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You can also thank ND and the ICE department for some of that. Most of it is also the amount of love these devs put in these first party games. They are not yearly releases pushed out by 40 different teams and thousands of people.
 
Decarb

Decarb

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,643
Couscous said:
I agree with him doing a really good job informing people who have no understanding of animations. He struggled a few fimes, but he always found the right words.

He also stated that the part where the man gets hanged was scripted, but that was obvious. The thing I also wonder about is if you could save that man before the animations start or if he dies regardless of your actions.
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I'm guessing the game completely takes the control away for that moment so the cutscene plays out like a cutscene, and hands you back the control once alarm is raised. Plenty of moments like this in other games.
 
Duxxy3

Duxxy3

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Oct 27, 2017
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The demo was obviously more dramatic than what we'll see in the game. Chances are we'll have a lot more ammo. We'll have different tactics. We won't care if something looks more dramatic, just if the enemies are all dead.

For example - if we see a bunch of enemies hanging a friendly person we're going to unload on the enemies right there and then. Molotov's, whatever. That probably ends the dramatic encounter right there. There's a few sections in the first game with that option.
The store scene was cool, but we were all thinking the same thing. Make a circle, sneak up on this one and stab, sneak up on the next one and stab.
 
Doom_Bringer

Doom_Bringer

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Oct 31, 2017
3,181
Questioning Naughty Dog at this point is pathetic. They are a competent studio. Sure they overestimated what the PS4 could do and suggested Uncharted 4 would run at 60 FPS initially, but otherwise I am pretty sure their track record is clean.

Oh I forgot about the initial trailer for Uncharted 1. That was fake as well. But still their track record is good
 
Nappuccino

Nappuccino

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Oct 25, 2017
13,019
Ryuhza said:
One thing that seemed a little scripted to me is when she's under the car, aiming her pistol, and right before the cultist peeks underneath it, Ellie pulls back the hammer.



It just seems like too random of a situation to have that little hammer touch in there at such a cinematic moment, but with ND, who knows. Maybe the hammer thing happens whenever you're aiming at someone and about to be discovered.
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Yeah, I think could be something so simple as "not yet discovered" and "aiming for x seconds." It might be complicated with a "10% of the time" or "not within two hours of play" or something like that.
 
Loudninja

Loudninja

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Oct 27, 2017
42,216
Ryuhza said:
One thing that seemed a little scripted to me is when she's under the car, aiming her pistol, and right before the cultist peeks underneath it, Ellie pulls back the hammer.
.

It just seems like too random of a situation to have that little hammer touch in there at such a cinematic moment, but with ND, who knows. Maybe the hammer thing happens whenever you're aiming at someone and about to be discovered.
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No not really they can just have her have animation that pulls back the hammer when a enemy is near.

Since they have AI that search under cars and other cover.
 

dFORCE

Member
Dec 7, 2017
296
I watched most of it and I was impressed.

Some parts may have been scripted, but the parts that used "static" animation was still very impressive to me. People believe most of it was scripted, which means they were in a way.... impressed. I want to see the final game and I can't wait to see what they have in store for us.

I really hope they give us multiplayer too because it on the first one.
 
Blackleg-sanji1

Blackleg-sanji1

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Oct 25, 2017
56,663
Just wanna take this time to plug Sony bend. Their e32016 was scripted and fake and now 2 years later it can play out exactly like that and the horde is real and the environment interaction is real. So now we have ND who if we go off this site are leaps and bounds ahead why doubt them
 

Apex88

Member
Jan 15, 2018
1,428
I remember when Spider-Man was revealed a well known journalist said on his podcast (after speaking to other devs) it was impossible to have such fluid animations and responsiveness in real-time.

As we now know, if anything, the animation quality and variety has improved.
 

Deleted member 4976

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,246
I think the only thing that stood out to me as clearly being scripted for the purposes of dramtizing a demo is the hammer on the gun being pulled back as the enemy is about to peak under the truck.

Everything else was ridiculous impressive. But I just beat UC4 again so I totally buy ND being able to pull that off.

Some of the fist fights in UC4 still blow my mind animation wise, especially when you start tag teaming seamlessly.
 
Jaypah

Jaypah

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,866
The almost perfect flow of the game was what stood out to me the most and I said as much after the reveal. I don't really mind if this exact frame by frame sequence isn't easily pulled off by the player in the retail version so long as it's technically possible. It's an E3 demo so I expect it to be the game and its systems shown in the best possible light. But ND has time, money and talent and if anyone could pull it off it's them. The "salty" accusations are flying like mud in a pigpen though so I hope this post wasn't controversial.
 
Dust

Dust

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Oct 25, 2017
32,288
We are reaching peak graphics/animation.
My brain has hard time projecting GoW2 or Naughty Dog's next game on PS5.
 
Zhukov

Zhukov

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Dec 6, 2017
2,641
Loudninja said:
No not really they can just have her have animation that pulls back the hammer when a enemy is near.

Since they have AI that search under cars and other cover.
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What if the player isn't aiming their weapon?
What if the player was looking in a different direction? Would Ellie just randomly cock her weapon in response to an enemy approaching behind her?
What if the player lowers their weapon or looks away in the middle of the cocking animation?
What if the enemy is already close when the player raises their weapon or looks in the correct direction?
Is there a separate cocking animation for every weapon? Shotguns, bolt-actions, the bow, automatic weapons if there are any?

Yes, it's entirely possible, but it also means they'd have to build a whole system just around Ellie cocking a gun at a dramatic moment.

Oooooor, they could have just used a scripted animation in a sequence that, according to a professional animator, already looked very scripted.
 
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