I’m returning to Darktide after taking a break for a bit, and I’ve been reminded of the mission pose animations at the end of a mission, win or lose.
While I really like the idea of the characters being more animated during this portion rather than simply being a still, I am put off a bit on how the animation is rigged generally, especially on the Ogryn; the Ogryn looks almost like a FNAF animatronic with the jerky, robotic movements that he does, and it generally doesn’t look natural. I haven’t played the human characters yet so I’d have to see whether their animations are similar, but if memory serves me correctly, it was similar though less jerky but still awkward looking.
I don’t really like taking a crap on these animations because clearly it takes some time from your day to work on these rather than the main project that your team is working on, but I kinda wish we could turn these off; the poses look more natural with the squad standing still than moving but also trying to stay within their assigned poses. If the animation were made to be more natural then I’d be all for it, but until then, I’m almost more inclined to keep it to the original static posing.
I get what you’re saying about the ogryn animations. My guess is that they are entirely intended. In character as it were with their stunted mental development. If anything, their voicelines make them appear way smarter than they really are.
I do not believe that was exactly intended. Sure, they may be some coordination issues for Ogryns, but not to the point they look like they’re suffering from tremors and rigid muscles. Stunted mental development doesn’t necessarily imply stunted physical capabilities.
Agreed, its a little strange. I think it may be due to the posing of the ogryn being more ‘active’ than the humans in general and the animators had to add more movement to them, but it looks a little too forced.
Yeah, I feel a lot of the poses were meant to look good static and they worked way too hard to add unnecessary movement. These chaps downright ungulate constantly and it looks real weird. Reminds me vaguely of those uncanny AI “animations” that have been springing up like weeds in my feeds.
If they wanted to make them more animated I’d rather they “Act Out” their pose instead. So an Ogryn might throw out some punches, for example, if they have the boxing pose equipped. Or a Point Forward pose might add an occasional finger-wag or emphatic jut (“Yes, I’m pointing at YOU!”). Emphasis on the term “occasional”.
Otherwise slight shifting/breathing and the odd look about/fidgit before returning to the pose would have sufficed.
Throne_of_Rats isn’t too far off, they seem like fidgety children told to strike a pose and are getting impatient waiting for the photographer to take the picture, oblivious that the photographer is actually just recording a video.
I agree with the OP. Ever since they were added I’ve found them uncanny. Same with the dropship animations. They are poorly designed, and have a very short loop.
I was just going to say they remind me of the new dropship cutscenes. An entirely unnecessary change to something completely serviceable that arguably makes it worse.
At least for the dropship loading screen I can laugh at how ridiculous it looks.
I like the shot of us going down to the planet. That provides some good context. But a lot of the cinematic pans after are not only unnecessary, but also don’t seem to take into account Ogryns all that well (I.E. we get a slow pan over someone’s elbow).
Either act out, or perhaps even dont feel like they have to be stuck within the framework of the original pose, like with the Ogryn pointing pose. I think the overall pose that you choose seems too restrictive for the animators.
I just got those, and yeah Im gonna have to agree. The panning from side to side is a bit weird. The angled shots from the corners of the ship are pretty good though. Im pretty okay with the addition since I think seeing the ship fly into the atmosphere, while repetitive if playing a ton of missions at once, doesnt take away from the initial loading screen IMO (though I wish we had a shot of the mission terminal in the centre to really get better context of what mission we’re on, aside from simply listening to the dialogue).
Yeah. I dont mind that we cant read the actual details since there’s big pictures that basically summarize what we’re doing, but having more focus on the hologram would be kinda nice.
Indeed. It would have been a nice opportunity for more world-building. Like, having a paragraph of flavor text on the sector or a report from another operative detailing intel.
But thinking of that just makes me wish we had a “Lore Room” of sorts on the mourning start that fills out as we complete missions/level operators. Man, that was a cool feature in VT2 I sorely miss.