Facial animations and hair concerns

Maybe she just used A LOT of hairspray? All joking aside, if they do delay the game then good. I want them to fix stuff. However, I think we have much bigger things to worry about like the fact that we have a character who thinks sliding two feet in either direction is a viable combat strategy. Electric Boogaloo time people!

First off, I thought the video looked amazing. Stunning visuals. I'm pleasantly surprised about what they showed, especially that setttlement. The Turian lady looks good too. Combat looks decent so far.

But Ryder's face is a total freak show. How come Bioware can't get this shit fixed?! The claymation horror and lip sync issues were already pretty bad in DAI at times, but somehow it keeps getting worse...

Ryder looks TERRIBLE. I'm sorry, but she looks like a cartoon pardody of a human being. Face looks waxen, like a horror movie doll, really bad reconstructive surgery. Or a face tuck gone horribly wrong. And those damn dull eyes, just as bad as ME3. ME2 had great eyes that seemed to have a soul. They didn't stare blankly into space all the time. Then ME3 came along and everyone's Shepard looked way worse than before. Such dead derpy eyes. And I didn't like these new facial animations at all either. ME2 was by far the best-looking game of the trilogy.

Then DAI came along and face textures looked great but the animation was terrible again. Smiles still give me the creeps. It won't keep me from enjoying the game, but I can't recall other recent AAA games where the faces are so poorly animated. Might have to wear a helmet 24/7 if they don't fix it.

I was really hoping Bioware got their act together on this but apparently not.

Sorry for the rant, I'm just so horrifed right now. I'm really trying to put Shepard behind me but that face is not making it easy...
The other human in the video looked decent, though. So maybe it's just the DAI Sera effect and my own character will look better. But usually facial animations of companions/NPCs are better, so I guess I'll just mentally prepare for this being the end result once again.

Aptly described the problems in DAI...one additional thing I noticed too was often the framing of the cutscene was weird or off like taken from a bad perspective.  Prior to DAI I would have said cutscenes were one of Bioware's strengths, definitely not anymore.  I honestly cannot recall any other game I've ever played having anything nearly as bad as what I saw in DAI.  Cutscenes are their main storytelling method, they need to be topnotch.

About the hair physics, I think there is a GREATER chance for them be more available only for PC, even with PS4 Pro being released and maybe this feature will show up on Xbox One Scorpio.

Why, you ask me?

Ok, it's simple... First of all, PS4 Pro might be strong, but most of it's game run on Upscaled 4K and that's not real 4K, no matter how big the upgrade was from the standard PS4, this console is not even 10% of a real Ultimate Gaming PC.

We already know XBOX ONE SCORPIO will be a stronger console, there's no excuse to that and haters can hate as much as they want, that won't change the facts.

PS4 and XBOX ONE versions of Rise of the Tomb Raider have the Hair Physics, but they are simply not as good as the PureHair Effect present on PC, not only that but this graphical effect is much better optimized on PC, because you guys know AMD. The same goes for The Witcher 3, the console uses simply hair physics and all that, but the PC version gets the real shine, NVIDIA HairWorks gives Geralt's hair and beard amazing movement and looks, and the monsters? Omg, don't even get me started they look gorgeous, at least their fur and manes do

But the difference between AMD PureHair and NVIDIA HairWorks is very simple: AMD PureHair has less realistic physics, but I think it's better look and not only that is WAAAAAAAY better optmized than NVIDIA HairWorks, famous for causing huge frame drops and needing an extremely powerful PC to handle it.

It is good to remember that Battlefield 1 is one of the best optmized games released for PC in the last years, and that is thanks to AMD partnership with Electronic Arts, because unlike NVIDIA... AMD tends to be honest and release a game very well optmized for both AMD and Intel+NVIDIA, but when a game is made with the help of NVIDIA GameWorks, they tend to be awful in AMD and have good performance only in Intel and NVIDIA cards.

So in my point of view, considering Electronic Arts long term partnership with Electronic Arts, that there is a great chance of we seeing the PureHair physics on the PC version of Mass Effect: Andromeda, and the console versions, including the PS4 PRO one using a simple hair physics preset (this gameplay trailer looked like it was played on PS4 Pro). But only time will show us the truth, ignoring that I believe this game looks fantastic and I'm not an extremist whiner that is going to start to cry just because the in-game doesn't look fabulous or the best thing ever and also I really look forward to playing this game on PC, on max settings and maybe 4K if get a monitor before the release

Also guys, I see a lot of people complaining about the hair. Is the hair going to make Ryder a better character, is the hair going to make Ryder stronger or faster? No that is defined by the writers and by your gameplay style, if writer is a good written character, is going to be an awesome character even if it is BALD.

The Face she made in that scene reminded me to The Joker 

Yeah we heard this before ME3 and DA:I and just look how that turned out.

They didn't look too bad. Also have to consider that some touches are still missing as the game isn't complete yet.

And yes, the backdrops look great but to be honest I don't think anyone can beat Bungie (Halo Reach and Destiny) when it comes to skyboxes. But I'm really curious to see what Andromeda has. It looked like there was a black hole or something somewhere in the trailer that looked amazing, actually reminded me of the black hole from Interstellar but sort of a dark version.

I agree that the face animations aren't great but looking at some of the comments (youtube comments) under the gameplay trailer people make it sound like these are the worst animations they have ever seen, like they are from a game from 2001. But somehow when I look back at the 1 year old Fallout 4 this is the face animations that game has and noone seemed to mention it at the time:



I would love it if bioware improved on what we saw last night, and they said on twitter that they will. But as these animations are now they wouldn't ruin the game for me. In fact i was incredibly hyped after watching the gameplay video. The beautiful scenery, the female turian, Drack, fun combat (biotic charge!) and just how overall mass effect it felt that i didn't stop to think "ew those faces" as some people seem to have done. I didn't really notice until others started complaining and i watched the trailer at least ten times after downloading the 4k version of it.

As for the hair, it looks to be an improvement over biowares previous games. It moves now even if its just a tiny bit.. I too would love flowing locks with realistic physics but that will probably be something for future games, at least they are taking steps in the right direction.

The face animations did stand out among an otherwise beautiful game, and I do hope that's something that gets some polish. That said, people describe DAI as terrible, but I actually thought it looked fine. A few wacky expressions here and there, but the faces themselves were realistic and full of character so I found it an okay trade. DA2's face animations looked better, sure, but I thought the faces themselves were kind of cartoonish and plasticky, somehow. I would agree though that out of the three ME games so far, ME2 looked the best in that regard.

But, look at screencaps of a real person talking, particularly one not trained to be in front of a camera. You'll get some very unflattering, funny expressions as well. So yeah, while I hope to see some improvement, if there isn't I could live with it. Fallout 4 had some weird face animations too, but I got used to them and it didn't bother me much.

As for the hair... well, it's Bioware so my expectations are low. Because even when they do make nice hairs, they always seem to make them for only NPCs or the 'default' face and no one else But as long as there's one or two styles I like enough to use I'm good. At least until the modders step in.

I will say this - I'm really really pleased with Ryder's movement animations. No sexy model walk! No weird hip sway while she's running! (it's a bit too bouncy, maybe, but I can live with that) Nor does she walk or run like a caveman! Yay! Now as long they don't feature any manspread sitting they'll have finally fixed a very major annoyance for myself and the many other fans who play female characters.

It's easy to complain if you don't do the work yourself...
Games improve slowly and steadily, but it's not a linear journey.

We've come a long way in 10 years:

I agree, but I don't dislike the disarming scene. It's ok.

Had I designed that scene, I would have shown Sara Ryder's physical ability to, in rapid succession, swipe the turian's gun aside, hold that wrist, reverse block him with her back and right elbow to his chest to knock him off his balance to the floor, and then pull his gun from a crouched position using the turian as a body shield. Not kill the turian, mind you, but disable him so he can't move/respond while she takes aim at the seated Aria-type rebel 'queen-bee'. Dexterity, skill, ability, hand-to-hand tactics, etc. Certainly she has that capability from her training and her father's teachings ....

Edit:    Darn it - I went off topic.

Sara's hair: The pony tail 'do' is a nice style and it moves - a little. It's a casual style that's more in keeping with an explorer who is not primarily a combat soldier and I'd gladly choose it in the CC. Hair styles and texture, wispy hair movement, and facial features are the three things, other than the armor, that we will see throughout the whole game. These design aspects are important and I was just not impressed with these as shown in the game-play trailer. It just seems to me that Sara's hair did not get the graphics, textures, and physics improvements I have been hoping for.

Edit: Hair for women needs a higher level of realism. For example, in Uncharted 4, Elena's hair has a very good balance of shape, texture, and natural flow with her head movements. Take a look at this Youtube vid starting at time code: 1:40. This segment demonstrates what I feel is a better hair aesthetic and more state of the art for in-game hair representation graphics. Of course, this is a cut-scene so the hair is not being rendered on the fly, allowing for more carefully detailed elements in her scenes. It's disappointing to me that we've not seen something this good for Sara. Even Nate's short hair style shows higher detail and realism.