Skeptical John Noble is fraught with skepticism.
The revolutionary facial capture system of MotionScan, first used in L.A. Noire, could be coming to the next Grand Theft Auto. Brendan McNamara, controversial head of the Team Bondi studio, confirmed Rockstar’s interest in the technology in an interview with PSM3 (via CVG).
“Yeah, I think they’re looking at it for every game. As much as LA Noire is a huge game, Grand Theft Auto is incredibly huge, so you’ve got all the problems of how big the cast would be and how many lines would you have to record and all that kind of stuff.” McNamara mused, “Obviously we’d like them to, and they’re more than welcome to use MotionScan, but if they decide it’s not right for that and want to use it for another game, then that’s fine too.”
McNamara continued, stating, “I think it brings a level of humanity to the experience that means people will – in the first few minutes – start relating to the characters on screen. They don’t have to make that decision about ‘whether I like this guy’ or ‘do I actually believe them? – but they can make all the like or dislike decisions based on the actor’s performance…Rockstar will make those decisions. They generally make the right decisions in terms of what they do for their games.”
(via MCV)
Removed from L.A. Noire‘s detective gameplay, would MotionScan be something you’d be interested integrated into more games? Grand Theft Auto specifically? Comment below!
Haven’t played L.A. Noire yet, but i’m very weary of the mainstream uses of its facial technology. Maybe i’m just old, but i like my games looking and feeling like games, not movies, and so far no graphics fidelity attempt has made me feel empathy for the characters as if it were a real movie. There’s been little difference for me between MGS1 and MGS4, and those are really cinematic games. Pumping up facial graphics in games like GTA, that rely a lot more on player narrative, feel like just a waste of money.
I wish the industry would catch on that the push for emotional connection comes with better scripts and game designs, not just graphics.
I think Rockstar wanted more focus on characters and depth to make you feel more immersed with this technology that caring for them, I’ve comepleted LA Noire and I think it’s quite boring mainly because of the character you play ‘Cole Phelps’ I didn’t really care for him like I did with Niko Bellic for a example(GTA IV), Niko’s quite a character behind all the violence =P
Anyways I think this tech should definitely be used in the next GTA game, just limit it to a couple of the main characters though because I think it would be very cool but probably way too costly to do this for every character in a GTA game, LA Noire’s amount of characters is about 1/4 of that in GTA IV.