WEBVTT 00:00:01.360 --> 00:00:03.140 Hey, welcome to New Frame Plus, 00:00:03.140 --> 00:00:05.440 a series about video game animation. 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:10.780 We have spend the last month marveling at Red Dead Redemption 2’s tiny little details. 00:00:10.780 --> 00:00:15.980 The way your main character’s facial hair grows in real time and requires regular shaving. 00:00:15.980 --> 00:00:18.540 The way you have to dress appropriately for the weather. 00:00:18.540 --> 00:00:23.180 The way your guy visibly gains or loses weight depending on how much you feed him. 00:00:23.180 --> 00:00:27.160 This game seems to have an infinite quantity of those novel elements, 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:31.420 a million tiny recreations of realistic detail from our world. 00:00:31.420 --> 00:00:34.340 I want to talk about the animation in Red Dead 2 today, 00:00:34.340 --> 00:00:39.600 because animation (naturally) plays a huge role in creating that sense of simulated realism, 00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:43.260 and it highlights a question I’ve been pondering for a while now: 00:00:50.580 --> 00:00:51.980 To explain what I’m talking about, 00:00:51.980 --> 00:00:55.140 let’s look at a particular subset of these animation details: 00:00:55.140 --> 00:00:59.480 the way your main character interacts with collectable objects in the game world. 00:00:59.480 --> 00:01:03.480 You know: the looting system, the gathering system... that particular stuff. 00:01:03.480 --> 00:01:08.200 Say you’ve just survived a shootout and your opponents lay scattered before you... 00:01:08.200 --> 00:01:10.300 You can loot all of them, and when you do, 00:01:10.300 --> 00:01:12.740 Arthur (your character) will approach them, 00:01:12.740 --> 00:01:16.920 bend down, lift them by the collar and pat them down for valuables. 00:01:16.920 --> 00:01:19.220 There are multiple versions of this animation. 00:01:19.960 --> 00:01:22.640 Say you’re in a building and you want to loot the place… 00:01:22.640 --> 00:01:25.120 If you see a collectable item sitting on a table, 00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:28.800 just hold the loot button and Arthur will actually reach out, 00:01:28.800 --> 00:01:30.899 pick it up and stuff it into his satchel. 00:01:30.899 --> 00:01:35.870 He will physically open cupboards and drawers, and grab the contents individually. 00:01:35.870 --> 00:01:39.420 Is there a piece of paper or a photo over there you want to check out? 00:01:39.420 --> 00:01:42.660 Arthur will approach, pick it up and hold it for you to see, 00:01:42.660 --> 00:01:45.880 flipping it over if you like before returning it to its place. 00:01:45.880 --> 00:01:48.780 Did you spot an herb out there in the wild that you want to gather? 00:01:48.780 --> 00:01:53.539 Watch Arthur kneel down to pluck it, actually strip it of the leaves and bits he wants 00:01:53.540 --> 00:01:55.340 then stuff all that into his satchel! 00:01:55.340 --> 00:01:56.680 Feeling hungry at camp? 00:01:56.680 --> 00:02:00.320 Arthur will actually spoon himself up some stew from the pot, 00:02:00.320 --> 00:02:04.060 then you can walk around and eat that stew, bite by bite, at your leisure. 00:02:04.060 --> 00:02:08.160 And then he drops the bowl on the ground because I guess we were raised in a barn, ARTHUR. 00:02:08.170 --> 00:02:09.860 We’ve all got to live on this hill, man. 00:02:09.860 --> 00:02:10.869 Pick up after yourself. 00:02:10.869 --> 00:02:13.720 Did that mean old bandit punch your hat right off? 00:02:13.720 --> 00:02:17.840 Better go pick it up and put it right back on your head, like that's an EASY thing to do. 00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:21.000 You want to head out on foot but then you realize you forgot your rifle? 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:25.500 Well, just head back to your horse and watch Arthur grab the rifle off of his horse’s saddle 00:02:25.500 --> 00:02:27.360 and sling it over his shoulder. 00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:30.300 Do you realize how HARD that had to have been to get right? 00:02:30.300 --> 00:02:34.680 And I know the horses' balls shrinking in cold weather is kind of a played out punchline at this point 00:02:34.680 --> 00:02:36.860 but *BLEEP* man, that ACTUALLY HAPPENS. 00:02:36.860 --> 00:02:41.660 I feel like we’ve become numb to the fact through sheer repetition but that’s actually real! 00:02:41.660 --> 00:02:47.400 I can barely fathom the thousands upon thousands of animations and supplemental animation systems 00:02:47.409 --> 00:02:52.140 built into this game, much less the technical wizardry required to make it all actually 00:02:52.140 --> 00:02:54.500 look and function the way it was intended. 00:02:54.500 --> 00:02:56.260 This is mind boggling. 00:02:56.260 --> 00:02:58.380 Most games don’t DO stuff like this. 00:02:58.380 --> 00:03:02.020 They don’t actually show these kinds of actions in animation. 00:03:02.020 --> 00:03:06.820 And if they DO actually animate some interactions like this, they don’t animate NEARLY this many. 00:03:06.820 --> 00:03:11.680 It’s really impressive what Red Dead Redemption 2’s dev team have achieved here. 00:03:11.680 --> 00:03:14.980 But the question I’m now left asking as a game animator 00:03:14.980 --> 00:03:18.100 (now that my jaw is finally up off the floor) is this: 00:03:21.780 --> 00:03:26.480 To what extent does this massive showcase of realistically-animated detail 00:03:26.480 --> 00:03:28.860 enhance the Red Dead game experience? 00:03:28.860 --> 00:03:34.140 Enough to be worth the thousands of expensive work hours that were no-doubt required to create them? 00:03:34.140 --> 00:03:37.240 And I’m not even asking this in reference to the working conditions 00:03:37.240 --> 00:03:41.500 and the excessive quantities of unpaid overtime Rockstar demands of its employees 00:03:41.500 --> 00:03:44.880 (although that is unquestionably the most important factor here). 00:03:44.880 --> 00:03:49.660 But let’s put that aside for a second and just talk strictly in terms of cost-benefit: 00:03:49.660 --> 00:03:54.520 is the impact these animations have on the play experience positive? 00:03:54.520 --> 00:03:59.880 And is it positive enough to be worth the enormous financial investment required to create them? 00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:01.200 On the one hand... 00:04:01.200 --> 00:04:02.260 ...maybe so? 00:04:02.260 --> 00:04:04.620 I mean, it IS amazing to look at. 00:04:04.620 --> 00:04:08.680 And knowing what went into creating it only makes the spectacle more impressive. 00:04:08.680 --> 00:04:13.600 There is something to the fact that half of the positive buzz surrounding this game since release 00:04:13.600 --> 00:04:17.180 has been the lot of us marveling about all these little details. 00:04:17.180 --> 00:04:22.350 It’s not often these days that a AAA game can push fidelity far enough past what its 00:04:22.350 --> 00:04:28.100 competitors are doing for us to actually sit up and take notice and 'ooo' and 'ahhh' over it. 00:04:28.100 --> 00:04:33.320 That novelty value alone has almost certainly led to SOME increase in sales, right? 00:04:33.320 --> 00:04:36.420 But has it led to enough to offset the costs? 00:04:36.420 --> 00:04:38.760 Because this stuff IS expensive! 00:04:38.760 --> 00:04:42.300 You need skilled animators, you need really skilled technical animators, 00:04:42.300 --> 00:04:44.860 and really skilled engineers working with them. 00:04:44.860 --> 00:04:46.880 Animation is just EXPENSIVE. 00:04:46.880 --> 00:04:51.220 It is a slow process, and every hour of that work costs money. 00:04:51.220 --> 00:04:53.820 Is all that money best spent here? 00:04:53.820 --> 00:04:58.420 On realistically-rendered simple interactions like picking up a can of beans? 00:04:58.760 --> 00:04:59.740 ...Maybe? 00:04:59.740 --> 00:05:03.120 In most any scenario, for most any other game, I would say... 00:05:03.120 --> 00:05:03.620 NO 00:05:03.620 --> 00:05:04.600 Absolutely NOT 00:05:04.600 --> 00:05:05.660 Are you KIDDING me? 00:05:05.660 --> 00:05:10.180 but Rockstar just isn’t subject to the same limitations as most studios, so... 00:05:10.500 --> 00:05:11.180 You know what? 00:05:11.180 --> 00:05:12.940 Let’s look at this from a different angle… 00:05:12.940 --> 00:05:16.980 Red Dead Redemption 2 is clearly intended to provide a robust 00:05:16.980 --> 00:05:19.740 simulation-style open world experience. 00:05:19.740 --> 00:05:22.840 This enormous sandbox that we’ve been given to play in 00:05:22.840 --> 00:05:28.020 is painstakingly designed to immerse you in that 'Wild West outlaw' fantasy. 00:05:28.020 --> 00:05:32.140 But a big part of the appeal of that wild west fantasy is how grounded it is 00:05:32.140 --> 00:05:35.740 in the historical reality of the late 19th century American west 00:05:35.740 --> 00:05:38.480 (or at least, a romanticized approximation of it). 00:05:38.480 --> 00:05:44.120 And a big part of creating that sense of historical, lived-in reality is in the details. 00:05:44.120 --> 00:05:49.900 So, in a very real way, this robust suite of unusually realistic game animations 00:05:49.900 --> 00:05:53.360 is contributing to that sense of simulated reality. 00:05:53.360 --> 00:05:59.660 By removing as much of the 'video game-y' animation shorthand as possible and respecting the realistic 00:05:59.660 --> 00:06:04.910 detail of the world being presented, these animation systems are unquestionably enriching 00:06:04.910 --> 00:06:07.600 that wild west fantasy simulation. 00:06:07.600 --> 00:06:08.860 But THEN AGAIN... 00:06:08.860 --> 00:06:13.200 there’s a reason other games don’t do this, and it’s not just because of the expense 00:06:13.200 --> 00:06:15.660 (although that is definitely a big reason). 00:06:15.660 --> 00:06:20.100 It’s also because realism can get really repetitive and boring! 00:06:20.100 --> 00:06:21.440 Reality is boring! 00:06:21.440 --> 00:06:25.720 Seeing Arthur reach out and open a cabinet to loot its individual contents 00:06:25.720 --> 00:06:28.160 is impressive as heck THE FIRST TIME, 00:06:28.160 --> 00:06:30.440 but having to sit through one of these animations 00:06:30.440 --> 00:06:33.640 every single time you just want to pick something up 00:06:33.640 --> 00:06:35.040 gets TEDIOUS. 00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:39.940 And when almost every single interaction with the world takes several seconds to play out, 00:06:39.949 --> 00:06:42.690 it has a significant effect on the game’s pace. 00:06:42.690 --> 00:06:46.660 The thing about animating for games is that you've always got to be mindful of how your 00:06:46.660 --> 00:06:49.980 your animation impacts the play experience as a whole. 00:06:49.980 --> 00:06:55.700 This is one of many many places where the disciplines of Animation and Game Design overlap. 00:06:55.700 --> 00:07:00.360 All that game-animation shorthand that other games usually do instead of this? 00:07:00.360 --> 00:07:03.840 We came up with (and still use) that shorthand for a REASON. 00:07:03.840 --> 00:07:05.240 It’s more fun! 00:07:05.240 --> 00:07:09.740 It gets all the tedious stuff out of your way so you can get back to the fun parts. 00:07:09.740 --> 00:07:13.680 In Breath of the Wild, when you want Link to pick something up, he doesn’t reach down, 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:15.580 grab it and stuff it into his pants. 00:07:15.580 --> 00:07:17.180 You press the button and BAM. 00:07:17.180 --> 00:07:18.180 You have that item. 00:07:18.180 --> 00:07:23.520 It’s quicker, it’s easier, it happens as fast as you can think it, and it just works! 00:07:23.520 --> 00:07:25.040 Players are cool with that. 00:07:25.040 --> 00:07:30.320 No one is sad that Link didn’t spend four seconds picking up each one of these items individually. 00:07:30.320 --> 00:07:33.260 Heck, a lot of the time, we don’t even really consciously NOTICE 00:07:33.260 --> 00:07:35.700 animation shorthand like this in our games. 00:07:35.780 --> 00:07:39.440 Do you ever stop and think about how many doors you walk through in these games that 00:07:39.440 --> 00:07:41.900 your character doesn’t physically open? 00:07:41.900 --> 00:07:46.020 Even in some extremely AAA games, you just click on that door and... 00:07:46.660 --> 00:07:47.600 ...look at that. 00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:48.840 It opens on its own! 00:07:48.840 --> 00:07:52.820 You basically opened the door FOR that character, like a perfect gentleperson. 00:07:52.820 --> 00:07:54.099 And I think that’s great! 00:07:54.099 --> 00:07:58.430 It’s a difference that no one really notices while playing, and not only does it save the 00:07:58.430 --> 00:08:02.590 devs some unnecessary work, but it actually makes the experience of walking through a 00:08:02.590 --> 00:08:06.000 video game door that much less cumbersome for the player. 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:09.640 Sure, it’s unrealistic, but in a way that bothers nobody and 00:08:09.640 --> 00:08:12.460 tends to actually improve the play experience. 00:08:12.460 --> 00:08:13.900 Or look at Monster Hunter. 00:08:13.900 --> 00:08:17.100 That one is an interesting case, because it’s a franchise that is becoming 00:08:17.100 --> 00:08:21.380 increasingly AAA in its presentation, but has ALSO simultaneously 00:08:21.380 --> 00:08:24.860 started using more animation shorthand than it used to. 00:08:24.860 --> 00:08:29.440 One of the things that makes Monster Hunter World such a huge step up over its predecessors 00:08:29.440 --> 00:08:34.660 is the way it’s done so much to streamline the tedious bits of Monster Hunter gameplay. 00:08:34.660 --> 00:08:36.220 Unlike in the previous games, 00:08:36.220 --> 00:08:39.860 grabbing plants and insects and stuff is INSTANTANEOUS now. 00:08:39.860 --> 00:08:41.520 You don’t even have to stop running! 00:08:41.520 --> 00:08:45.020 Just hit the button, your character kinda does a grabbing motion with their hand 00:08:45.020 --> 00:08:45.740 and BAM. 00:08:45.740 --> 00:08:47.220 That thing is in your inventory. 00:08:47.220 --> 00:08:50.060 And climbing in Monster Hunter World is effortless! 00:08:50.060 --> 00:08:54.880 Unlike your Uncharteds or your Tomb Raiders, where every jump or climbing motion is tied 00:08:54.880 --> 00:08:58.940 to a button press, scaling a wall in Monster Hunter requires nothing more than 00:08:58.940 --> 00:09:00.640 just running at that wall. 00:09:00.640 --> 00:09:02.280 The hunter takes care of the rest. 00:09:02.280 --> 00:09:08.320 And that makes it so you, the player, don’t have to worry nearly so much about terrain while you're out hunting! 00:09:08.320 --> 00:09:12.740 You can just focus on the exciting bit: tracking and fighting that giant monst-- 00:09:12.740 --> 00:09:14.300 AH GEEZ 00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:17.140 But then again (again)... 00:09:17.140 --> 00:09:18.860 Zelda and Monster Hunter? 00:09:18.860 --> 00:09:22.400 These games aren’t aiming for any kind of grounded realism. 00:09:22.400 --> 00:09:24.500 I mean… clearly. 00:09:27.080 --> 00:09:32.340 They are both much more video game-y play experiences than Red Dead is trying to be. 00:09:32.340 --> 00:09:37.460 Maybe you like game-y games more than the simulation-y ones (I tend to favor them myself), 00:09:37.460 --> 00:09:43.300 but each of these play experiences does require a very different approach to animation design. 00:09:43.300 --> 00:09:44.260 That said: 00:09:44.260 --> 00:09:49.540 there is a point at which additional animation fidelity DOES start to detract from 00:09:49.540 --> 00:09:52.680 even a grounded, realistic game experience. 00:09:52.680 --> 00:09:56.740 That point may be different from game to game, but it does exist. 00:09:56.740 --> 00:10:01.100 And Rockstar was clearly aware of that too, because - even in Red Dead 2, 00:10:01.100 --> 00:10:06.320 even in a game where you pick up and loot every single thing individually - they have compromised 00:10:06.330 --> 00:10:09.960 on that sense of animation reality. In a lot of little places! 00:10:09.960 --> 00:10:14.270 I mean, there’s a reason that your character picks up ammunition automatically just by 00:10:14.270 --> 00:10:16.840 running over the guns his enemies drop. 00:10:17.020 --> 00:10:19.420 [ammo pickup sound effects] 00:10:19.580 --> 00:10:21.960 That is a VERY video game-y thing to do! 00:10:21.960 --> 00:10:26.780 But Rockstar know that nobody... NOBODY.... wants to watch Arthur stop and 00:10:26.780 --> 00:10:31.980 realistically collect individual bullets from each weapon in the middle of a firefight. 00:10:31.980 --> 00:10:34.040 So they just have him do the game-y thing. 00:10:34.040 --> 00:10:36.900 And we are all kinda grateful for that, right? 00:10:36.900 --> 00:10:41.600 Even in our simulators, players do appreciate those little conveniences. 00:10:41.600 --> 00:10:47.180 And, if streamlining ammo collection was a good idea, maybe streamlining item gathering 00:10:47.180 --> 00:10:49.400 would have been a good idea too? 00:10:49.400 --> 00:10:54.500 Maybe having to loot or interact with every little thing individually DOESN’T enhance 00:10:54.500 --> 00:10:58.700 the Red Dead gameplay experience quite as much as it first appears? 00:10:58.700 --> 00:11:03.100 I’ve been bouncing these questions around in my head for weeks, and (clearly) I don’t 00:11:03.100 --> 00:11:06.740 have a definitive answer for them, probably because there ISN’T one. 00:11:06.740 --> 00:11:11.300 Changing the way looting animates in Red Dead wouldn’t just be making a change to how 00:11:11.300 --> 00:11:13.080 realistic the game looks. 00:11:13.080 --> 00:11:16.280 It would be making a fundamental change to both the game’s pace 00:11:16.280 --> 00:11:19.480 and the game world's sense of internal realism. 00:11:19.480 --> 00:11:22.640 Maybe for worse, but... maybe for better. 00:11:22.640 --> 00:11:27.280 Different games do have different needs, and making the best decision for your own game 00:11:27.280 --> 00:11:31.420 especially when you’re in the middle of making it can actually be REALLY challenging. 00:11:31.420 --> 00:11:35.940 If you happen to be working on a game right now, I guess the best advice I can give is: 00:11:35.940 --> 00:11:42.720 Know experience you’re trying to create, and always ALWAYS look for opportunities to streamline 00:11:42.720 --> 00:11:47.080 It can be really easy to default to realism sometimes when you’re just trying to 00:11:47.080 --> 00:11:49.500 figure out how to visually present something. 00:11:49.500 --> 00:11:52.540 Like, it’s easy to think: “Oh man we’ve got doors in our game... 00:11:52.540 --> 00:11:55.540 hmm... I guess I HAVE to animate our character opening them..." 00:11:55.540 --> 00:11:58.840 But no! Maybe that door can just... open. 00:11:58.840 --> 00:12:00.000 Maybe that’s fine! 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:05.320 The video game-y animation answer won’t always be the right choice for your specific game, but 00:12:05.320 --> 00:12:07.480 look for those opportunities anyway, because 00:12:07.480 --> 00:12:11.420 It’s good to at least know what your simpler alternative options are. 00:12:11.740 --> 00:12:14.280 [Zelda cooking sounds] 00:12:14.480 --> 00:12:16.340 But I also want to say this: 00:12:16.340 --> 00:12:21.240 Hats off to Rockstar’s animators and technical animation team for ALL of this. 00:12:21.240 --> 00:12:23.640 Like, this is a stunning achievement. 00:12:23.640 --> 00:12:27.520 As a person who plays games, as a person who does this work for a living… 00:12:27.520 --> 00:12:30.180 I am in AWE of what you folks created. 00:12:30.180 --> 00:12:33.840 This is breathtaking, and you should all be proud as hell. 00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:38.800 And I really hope that your employer decides to respect its talent enough to give you 00:12:38.800 --> 00:12:41.320 the sustainable working life you deserve, because DAGGUM. 00:12:41.320 --> 00:12:43.300 You lot sure have earned it. 00:12:43.300 --> 00:12:46.360 Anyway, thank you all for watching and listening to me ramble. 00:12:46.360 --> 00:12:48.980 We’ll get back to our more usual thing next time. 00:12:48.980 --> 00:12:53.900 Until then, subscribe if you want to see more game animation videos, and I’ll see y’all soon!