https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3omw9dLkrR8&feature=youtu.be&t=57m45s
The demo's a bit buggy but it's not due to come out until later this year. Great to see this coming to more games in the future.
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Unity announces Kinematica motion matching animation system (TLoU Part 2 tech)
- Thread starter zombiejames
- Start date
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3omw9dLkrR8&feature=youtu.be&t=57m45s
The demo's a bit buggy but it's not due to come out until later this year. Great to see this coming to more games in the future.
Looks very promising. I'm really liking the output of Unity development that's happened over the past couple of years. I remember a bunch of high-profile hires such as graphics programmers from DICE I remember and I felt quite optimistic about how that'd help Unity in the face of strong competition from Unreal Engine so it's nice to see the fruits of their labours with these big new systems.
It's so weird to see MM being attributed to TLOU2 specifically when it's been used in other games/engines this gen and the person involved is directly related to the last prominent game that incorporated it.
Probably the myriad of,"TLoU2 can't be the real deal!" even from some notable people in the industry itself. So now everyone wants to know how and its going to be associated with TLoU2.
Because those games didn't implement it as effectively. TLOU2 has blown people away with its animations system to the point where some people aren't even sure if it's real, hence people want more animations in games on that sort of level. It's essentially a prime example of the potential of Motion Matching.
Seems like the best implementation so far, the animations look unreal.
The general animation of the non scripted parts is believable, as there are even flaws:
Motion matching covers pretty much everything.
It's just some things are so very obviously scripted like...it'd be funny to see just how badly the demo would break if the demo person tried to do anything but this if there's even any control at all.
First, one person doesn't represent the thoughts of the entire studio, second, pretty sure he was referring to stuff like the second gif above, not motion matching as a concept.
You can already download a plugin for it.
To be fair, I think it was only the studio head who said that. I don't know anything about him but chances are, he is more of a business person and not really up-to-date on new methods and techonolgies. I'm sure the animators at Eidos Montreal were well aware of what motion matching is.Doesn't this just look even more embarrassing for Eidos Montreal when a range of studios are getting in on this technology and their people are in the corner talking about how it can't be real?
What's scripted about that?The general animation of the non scripted parts is believable, as there are even flaws:
Motion matching covers pretty much everything.
It's just some things are so very obviously scripted like...it'd be funny to see just how badly the demo would break if the demo person tried to do anything but this if there's even any control at all.
But that is an unofficial, unfinished plugin that hasn't been updated in four months. Would be nice to see Epic add in a complete, fully-integrated solution.
I watched that GDC presentation at the time and found the tech interesting... But I had no idea that it was going to be implemented outside of Ubisoft productions. Not so soon, anyway.
I also had no idea it was used for TLoU2.
Seems like one of these things the industry is anxious to benefit from as soon as possible.
And I can see why. Excellent results with (comparatively) less work for the animators.
I also had no idea it was used for TLoU2.
Seems like one of these things the industry is anxious to benefit from as soon as possible.
And I can see why. Excellent results with (comparatively) less work for the animators.
The animation, the reactions, the positioning, hell, likely even the timing of each arrow shot. Ask yourself what would happen if that occurred anywhere else in the room, it cuts directly into a cinematic, ok,
-What if Ellie didn't have a machete equipped
-What if she never went into the store
-The health bar going very conveniently to the last sliver of health
-The enemy drops a perfect number of arrows?
There are so many valid questions pertaining to that scenario that can only lead one to assume that it's very heavily scripted for the sake of that demo's presentation.
I imagine that something's in the works. At least I HOPE so.
Guerrilla Games is looking into it for Horizon 2.
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In particular? All the contextual animations in that short gameplay demo looked a bit too polished compared to the current industry standards, to the point some people suspected they were canned to make the demo look good, rather than actual real time gameplay.
ND, (and other devs), have also done this before, e3 demos are well documented at this point that it's odd that people would assume otherwise. Are they planning on making a game that's vaguely as dynamic as that demo? Yes, will it be that smooth polished and choreographed even in the hands of the best players? Nah.
I like how in every TLoU II thread you come and point out things are fake.
Anyway, I am pretty sure the entire presentation was rehearshed and running a specific set of animation scripts to make the best showing for E3. That said, it's quite the leap to assume that the game would break if the player demoing didn't take the exact path through it as was shown off.
Probably a very similar thing, just like the animation at the end of the original Last of Us gameplay reveal demo, which can occur throughout the game.
Likewise, this contextual hitting against the door animation from the demo simply seems like a more advanced version of the following collision animation from Uncharted 4.
No it's not:
These are a thing that happen because of necessity, not because of nefarious means. The game isn't finished yet.
Just the fact other games use it and don't move in anyway as well is just cause for people not to get overly excited about this.
No other game does pretty much anything else as good as TLoU2 either. That hour and twenty minute video breaking it down made it very clear that you still need huge focus on animation and huge resources to do what TLoU2 is doing.
As for the legitimacy of the demo. The game really will be cutting to and from two timelines, now if it's in that way exactly or not, who can say. But it could certainly be that the task of that level was to kill the lead baddie with the pickaxe. He's the one that guts the dude. He's bigger than everyone else. He clearly stands out.
Maybe once you kill him, no matter where you are, the final killing blow is scripted and used to flashback.
No other game does pretty much anything else as good as TLoU2 either. That hour and twenty minute video breaking it down made it very clear that you still need huge focus on animation and huge resources to do what TLoU2 is doing.
As for the legitimacy of the demo. The game really will be cutting to and from two timelines, now if it's in that way exactly or not, who can say. But it could certainly be that the task of that level was to kill the lead baddie with the pickaxe. He's the one that guts the dude. He's bigger than everyone else. He clearly stands out.
Maybe once you kill him, no matter where you are, the final killing blow is scripted and used to flashback.
This scene in particular is super impressive. Many different animations and contexts and environmental interactions that just seamlessly flow without a single hitch.
It's not only a leap, it's most likely completely false since not only did Neil already state they played the demo countless times in countless different ways until they got the best looking outcomes for the trailer, but there were also live demonstrations of the game at E3, and nothing broke or looked off. It was fully playable.
Simply put, you don't play your demo over, and over and over again in countless different ways for the best looking outcomes, if there's only a few particular ways to play it in the first place.
Sigh. Is this gonna be another thread where Crossing Eden has like 80% of the posts and makes the thread all about himself?
Not a personal attack, but sometimes it's hard to read a thread when it's one person against the world repeating the same points at nauseam, it doesn't make for interesting conversation.
The tech looks amazing btw.
Not a personal attack, but sometimes it's hard to read a thread when it's one person against the world repeating the same points at nauseam, it doesn't make for interesting conversation.
The tech looks amazing btw.
I remember seeing that video last year. And yea, I do stand corrected. The caveat is, it is a still an assumption and not a fact until someone verified states the limitations of the E3 2018 build.
Please point to where I made the thread about myself.
You could always contribute something besides "It looks amazing" you know.
No dev in their right mind would ever state this especially not so close to the demonstration itself. At most it'd be implied, note we didn't even get an alternate look at the original game's e3 demo until months after the fact.
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If i'm able to point to specific examples from other ND showcases of the same scenario occurring, (as well as other e3 demos from other studios), what evidence is contrary to the statements that i'm making?
Speak for yourself.
I'm interested in the tech itself and what it allows; I don't care if e very developer around is going to match 1:1 what Naughty Dog did (which is clearly unlikely, given their level of expertise and unlimited budget).
Isn't this very thread about how that technology works?
I think you misunderstood a little. I'm not saying people shouldn't get excited, but people shouldn't think it means TLoU2 quality animations for everything, or really probably anything else. They've been ahead of the game in animation for like a decade.
This tech isn't for making animations, it's for making blends between them smoother.
Basically it takes the animation playing, with the one you queue up, and finds the frames that are closest so the jump is as small as possible.
In the breakdown by the EA animator, he said this is traditionally just done with the position of the pelvis and the feet, because the more data points, the more complex the coverage you have to plan for, but it seems TLoU2 is using more points.
Yeah? Your point?
I wasn't claiming the demo is fake. I just pointed where the skepticism came from.
Funny coming from the person that repeats the same two points over and over across multiple threads.
We get it, you hate the fact that TLoU II has brought this kind of tech Yo everyone's attention, but is it necessary to keep derailing every MM thread into a "TLoU II has scripted and fake animations" thread? There was a thread about an interview with Neil explaining how they plan E3 demos, I'm guessing you were posting there too so if you want to keep discussing that topic, I believe that thread would be best suited for it.
On-topic: It's going to be interesting seeing more games start adopting this tech, sure, it'll take time for several studios to implement it correctly, but I'm looking forward to seeing more fascinating stuff like this. A shame it's not as feasible in fighting games though, given how canceling animations is a staple of the genre.
Few games animate as well as Naughty Dog games with or without this tech
Let's not forget that they have been on the forefront of highly contextualised animations for years, like Drake changing movement animation over different surfaces or landings, contextual fighting animations in UC4, small touches like hands on surfaces or leaping into a Jeep from different angles which change the animation, increasing the amount of breakables to a huge degree - down to stuff like sandbags leaking in UC4. There is a huge combination of tech and detail that they have been at the forefront of for years that have gone into this
That's high key revisionist history when it comes to gameplay animation, their cinematics were ahead of the competition yes.
No I don't. If that's what you're taking away from my posts then you're not paying attention to anything i'm saying.
Please point to where I made the thread about myself.
You could always contribute something besides "It looks amazing" you know.
No dev in their right mind would ever state this especially not so close to the demonstration itself. At most it'd be implied.
Yes, devs sometimes do discuss the E3 builds post (successful) game launches. Given the controversy their demo is generating, I hope that in time, they talk about this E3 build candidly.
And as for implication, I don't deny, given the history of the E3 demos in general, that all of them are feature incomplete and is shown in the best light. But your prior claims in the prior TLoU II thread, calling the animation 'fake' and claiming that a segment/segments if U4's stage demo doesn't match up with retail release, has me wary when it comes engaging you in good faith (unless it was a title from another publisher, "Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!" :P) given I am not interested in being party to spreading of misinformation, willingly or otherwise.
That is where a lot of the skepticism is coming from though, because Ellie doesn't seem to ever move back into a "default" combat stance, it all flows naturally. Which is what this tech helps achieve
No, no I really don't think it is. And it's hardly some alien opinion either. It's pretty clear from this thread that you don't think as highly of their work, and that's certainly fine, but I'm hardly alone in thinking since UC1, they have been a step ahead in animation work.
Further back and I would favour Team ICO though.
All I got from this thread is that Naughty Dog does indeed consist of a mixture of wizards and dev gods.
Actually, it's Ubisoft that were originator of the tech back in 2016 (IIRC). It looks like the tech has evolved and I'd wager ND and ICE took it and pushed it to the limit.
That's a bit dismissive and inaccurate.
As the long GDC presentation explained in detail, it actually procedurally generates physics-based animations starting from limited data sets. Animations that take into consideration weight, balance, center of gravity, ecc.
And of course it generates transitions between different states.
It's conceptually rather similar to the Euphoria system, even if starting from an entirely different codebase (and apparently far less demanding).
Doubting we get anything but passing mentions. I wish otherwise because it's fun to look behind the curtain.
Did you miss the part where I literally said other demos do the same and literally pointed to an e3 demo from Ubisoft. Accusing me of fanboyism in this context is an agressively stupid thing to do, in fact, to make you feel better, here's one such example from a Ubisoft demo, because APPARENTLY I can't discuss anything without being even jokingly accused of fanboyism because I'm not constantly doing a whataboutism about other studios, even better, he's holding an axe too:
Did you also miss the part where people claimed "But that part does happen!" and never EVER provided footage of it happening? Funny how that works...
If you think I don't think highly of ND's work then you sincerely need to get a grip. I don't think highly of misinformation and revisionist history.
Nah it is, I'd rather not play list wars with listing out the games that had better gameplay animation than ND's titles the year of their release. Yes they invested in good tech last gen like the contextual animations for Nathan Drake in Uncharted 3 and ofc the explicit set pieces and cinematics but it wasn't "oh it's an ND game, literally everything else looks worse." That's just not correct.[/QUOTE]
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The animations in TLOU2 are pretty insane, so it's not surprising that despite it not being the pinoeer of the tech, it's being associated with it.
ND has always been pretty ahead of the game in terms animations in game and in cutscenes. Given how accurate the 99% of the UC4 demo was to the actual game, I have little doubt that aside from the end transition, TLOU2 will be like the demo as well.
ND has always been pretty ahead of the game in terms animations in game and in cutscenes. Given how accurate the 99% of the UC4 demo was to the actual game, I have little doubt that aside from the end transition, TLOU2 will be like the demo as well.
Well that's how the EA Senior Animator explained it in his TLoU2 gameplay breakdown video.
