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Hey, welcome to New Frame Plus,

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a series about video game animation.

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We have spend the last month marveling at
Red Dead Redemption 2’s tiny little details.

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The way your main character’s facial hair
grows in real time and requires regular shaving.

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The way you have to dress appropriately 
for the weather.

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The way your guy visibly gains or loses weight
depending on how much you feed him.

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This game seems to have an infinite quantity
of those novel elements,

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a million tiny recreations 
of realistic detail from our world.

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I want to talk about the animation
in Red Dead 2 today,

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because animation (naturally) plays a huge role
in creating that sense of simulated realism,

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and it highlights a question
I’ve been pondering for a while now:

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To explain what I’m talking about,

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let’s look at a particular subset
of these animation details:

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the way your main character interacts
with collectable objects in the game world.

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You know: the looting system,
the gathering system... that particular stuff.

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Say you’ve just survived a shootout and
your opponents lay scattered before you...

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You can loot all of them, and when you do,

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Arthur (your character) will approach them,

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bend down, lift them by the collar
and pat them down for valuables.

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There are multiple versions of this animation.

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Say you’re in a building and you want to
loot the place…

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If you see a collectable item sitting on a table,

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just hold the loot button
and Arthur will actually reach out,

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pick it up and stuff it into his satchel.

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He will physically open cupboards and drawers,
and grab the contents individually.

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Is there a piece of paper or a photo over
there you want to check out?

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Arthur will approach, pick it up
and hold it for you to see,

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flipping it over if you like
before returning it to its place.

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Did you spot an herb out there in the wild 
that you want to gather?

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Watch Arthur kneel down to pluck it,
actually strip it of the leaves and bits he wants

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then stuff all that into his satchel!

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Feeling hungry at camp?

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Arthur will actually spoon himself up
some stew from the pot,

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then you can walk around and eat that stew,
bite by bite, at your leisure.

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And then he drops the bowl on the ground because
I guess we were raised in a barn, ARTHUR.

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We’ve all got to live on this hill, man.

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Pick up after yourself.

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Did that mean old bandit punch your hat right
off?

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Better go pick it up and put it right back
on your head, like that's an EASY thing to do.

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You want to head out on foot
but then you realize you forgot your rifle?

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Well, just head back to your horse and watch
Arthur grab the rifle off of his horse’s saddle

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and sling it over his shoulder.

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Do you realize how HARD
that had to have been to get right?

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And I know the horses' balls shrinking in cold
weather is kind of a played out punchline at this point

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but *BLEEP* man, that ACTUALLY HAPPENS.

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I feel like we’ve become numb to the fact
through sheer repetition but that’s actually real!

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I can barely fathom the thousands upon thousands
of animations and supplemental animation systems

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built into this game, much less the technical
wizardry required to make it all actually

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look and function the way it was intended.

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This is mind boggling.

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Most games don’t DO stuff like this.

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They don’t actually show these kinds of
actions in animation.

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And if they DO actually animate some interactions
like this, they don’t animate NEARLY this many.

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It’s really impressive what Red Dead Redemption 2’s
dev team have achieved here.

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But the question I’m now left asking
as a game animator

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(now that my jaw is finally up off the floor) is this:

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To what extent does this massive showcase
of realistically-animated detail

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enhance the Red Dead game experience?

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Enough to be worth the thousands of expensive
work hours that were no-doubt required to create them?

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And I’m not even asking this in reference
to the working conditions

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and the excessive quantities of unpaid overtime Rockstar demands of its employees

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(although that is unquestionably
the most important factor here).

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But let’s put that aside for a second
and just talk strictly in terms of cost-benefit:

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is the impact these animations
have on the play experience positive?

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And is it positive enough to be worth the
enormous financial investment required to create them?

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On the one hand...

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...maybe so?

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I mean, it IS amazing to look at.

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And knowing what went into creating it
only makes the spectacle more impressive.

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There is something to the fact
that half of the positive buzz
surrounding this game since release

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has been the lot of us marveling
about all these little details.

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It’s not often these days that a AAA game
can push fidelity far enough past what its

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competitors are doing for us to actually sit
up and take notice and 'ooo' and 'ahhh' over it.

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That novelty value alone has almost certainly
led to SOME increase in sales, right?

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But has it led to enough to offset the costs?

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Because this stuff IS expensive!

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You need skilled animators,
you need really skilled technical animators,

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and really skilled engineers working with them.

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Animation is just EXPENSIVE.

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It is a slow process,
and every hour of that work costs money.

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Is all that money best spent here?

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On realistically-rendered simple interactions
like picking up a can of beans?

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...Maybe?

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In most any scenario, for most any other game,
I would say...

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NO

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Absolutely NOT

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Are you KIDDING me?

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but Rockstar just isn’t subject to the
same limitations as most studios, so...

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You know what?

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Let’s look at this from a different angle…

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Red Dead Redemption 2 is
clearly intended to provide a robust

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simulation-style open world experience.

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This enormous sandbox
that we’ve been given to play in

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is painstakingly designed to immerse you
in that 'Wild West outlaw' fantasy.

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But a big part of the appeal of that wild
west fantasy is how grounded it is

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in the historical reality of the
late 19th century American west

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(or at least, a romanticized approximation of it).

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And a big part of creating that sense of
historical, lived-in reality is in the details.

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So, in a very real way, this robust suite
of unusually realistic game animations

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is contributing to that sense of simulated reality.

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By removing as much of the 'video game-y' animation
shorthand as possible and respecting the realistic

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detail of the world being presented, these
animation systems are unquestionably enriching

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that wild west fantasy simulation.

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But THEN AGAIN...

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there’s a reason other games don’t do this,
and it’s not just because of the expense

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(although that is definitely a big reason).

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It’s also because realism can get really
repetitive and boring!

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Reality is boring!

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Seeing Arthur reach out and open a cabinet
to loot its individual contents

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is impressive as heck THE FIRST TIME,

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but having to sit through
one of these animations

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every single time you just want to pick something up

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gets TEDIOUS.

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And when almost every single interaction with
the world takes several seconds to play out,

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it has a significant effect on the game’s pace.

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The thing about animating for games is that
you've always got to be mindful of how your

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your animation impacts
the play experience as a whole.

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This is one of many many places where the
disciplines of Animation and Game Design overlap.

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All that game-animation shorthand that 
other games usually do instead of this?

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We came up with (and still use) that shorthand
for a REASON.

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It’s more fun!

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It gets all the tedious stuff out of your
way so you can get back to the fun parts.

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In Breath of the Wild, when you want Link
to pick something up, he doesn’t reach down,

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grab it and stuff it into his pants.

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You press the button and BAM.

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You have that item.

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It’s quicker, it’s easier, it happens
as fast as you can think it, and it just works!

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Players are cool with that.

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No one is sad that Link didn’t spend four seconds picking up each one of these items individually.

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Heck, a lot of the time, we don’t
even really consciously NOTICE

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animation shorthand like this in our games.

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Do you ever stop and think about how many
doors you walk through in these games that

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your character doesn’t physically open?

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Even in some extremely AAA games,
you just click on that door and...

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...look at that.

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It opens on its own!

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You basically opened the door FOR that character,
like a perfect gentleperson.

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And I think that’s great!

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It’s a difference that no one really notices
while playing, and not only does it save the

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devs some unnecessary work, but it actually
makes the experience of walking through a

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video game door that much less cumbersome
for the player.

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Sure, it’s unrealistic, but
in a way that bothers nobody and

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tends to actually improve the play experience.

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Or look at Monster Hunter.

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That one is an interesting case,
because it’s a franchise that is becoming

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increasingly AAA in its presentation,
but has ALSO simultaneously

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started using more
animation shorthand than it used to.

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One of the things that makes Monster Hunter
World such a huge step up over its predecessors

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is the way it’s done so much to streamline
the tedious bits of Monster Hunter gameplay.

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Unlike in the previous games,

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grabbing plants and insects and stuff
is INSTANTANEOUS now.

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You don’t even have to stop running!

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Just hit the button, your character kinda
does a grabbing motion with their hand

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and BAM.

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That thing is in your inventory.

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And climbing in Monster Hunter World is effortless!

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Unlike your Uncharteds or your Tomb Raiders,
where every jump or climbing motion is tied

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to a button press, scaling a wall in Monster
Hunter requires nothing more than

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just running at that wall.

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The hunter takes care of the rest.

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And that makes it so you, the player,
don’t have to worry nearly so much about terrain
while you're out hunting!

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You can just focus on the exciting bit: tracking
and fighting that giant monst--

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AH GEEZ

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But then again (again)...

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Zelda and Monster Hunter?

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These games aren’t aiming for any kind of
grounded realism.

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I mean… clearly.

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They are both much more video game-y play
experiences than Red Dead is trying to be.

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Maybe you like game-y games more than
the simulation-y ones (I tend to favor them myself),

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but each of these play experiences does require a very
different approach to animation design.

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That said:

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there is a point at which additional
animation fidelity DOES start to detract from

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even a grounded, realistic game experience.

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That point may be different from game to game,
but it does exist.

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And Rockstar was clearly aware of that too,
because - even in Red Dead 2,

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even in a game where you pick up and loot
every single thing individually - they have compromised

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on that sense of animation reality.
In a lot of little places!

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I mean, there’s a reason that your character 
picks up ammunition automatically just by

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running over the guns his enemies drop.

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[ammo pickup sound effects]

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That is a VERY video game-y thing to do!

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But Rockstar know that nobody... NOBODY....
wants to watch Arthur stop and

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realistically collect individual bullets
from each weapon in the middle of a firefight.

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So they just have him do the game-y thing.

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And we are all kinda grateful for that, right?

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Even in our simulators, players do appreciate
those little conveniences.

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And, if streamlining ammo collection was a
good idea, maybe streamlining item gathering

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would have been a good idea too?

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Maybe having to loot or interact with every
little thing individually DOESN’T enhance

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the Red Dead gameplay experience
quite as much as it first appears?

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I’ve been bouncing these questions around
in my head for weeks, and (clearly) I don’t

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have a definitive answer for them, probably
because there ISN’T one.

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Changing the way looting animates in Red Dead
wouldn’t just be making a change to how

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realistic the game looks.

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It would be making a fundamental change 
to both the game’s pace

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and the game world's sense of internal realism.

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Maybe for worse, but... maybe for better.

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Different games do have different needs, and
making the best decision for your own game

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especially when you’re in the middle of making it
can actually be REALLY challenging.

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If you happen to be working on a game right now,
I guess the best advice I can give is:

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Know experience you’re trying to create, and always
ALWAYS look for opportunities to streamline

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It can be really easy to default to realism
sometimes when you’re just trying to

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figure out how to visually present something.

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Like, it’s easy to think: “Oh man we’ve got
doors in our game...

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hmm... I guess I HAVE to animate
our character opening them..."

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But no! Maybe that door can just... open.

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Maybe that’s fine!

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The video game-y animation answer won’t always be
the right choice for your specific game, but

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look for those opportunities anyway, because

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It’s good to at least know what your simpler
alternative options are.

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[Zelda cooking sounds]

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But I also want to say this:

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Hats off to Rockstar’s animators and
technical animation team for ALL of this.

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Like, this is a stunning achievement.

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As a person who plays games, as a person who
does this work for a living…

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I am in AWE of what you folks created.

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This is breathtaking, and you should all
be proud as hell.

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And I really hope that your employer decides to respect
its talent enough to give you

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the sustainable working life you deserve,
because DAGGUM.

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You lot sure have earned it.

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Anyway, thank you all for watching
and listening to me ramble.

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We’ll get back to our more usual thing next time.

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Until then, subscribe if you want to see more
game animation videos, and I’ll see y’all soon!