Animator Jonathan Cooper Weighs in on Andromeda’s Shortcomings
Mass Effect: Andromeda has garnered a fair bit of criticism regarding the quality of the game’s facial animations. This has been a divisive issue causing attacks and defenses to pop up in a very public manner. One such defender of the game and it’s shortcomings is former BioWare animator Johnathan Cooper.
Cooper took to Twitter yesterday to try and offer some context regarding the well-documented problems. He explained that animating a massive RPG like BioWare’s Mass Effect series is “a really, really big undertaking.” This is in direct contrast to a series like Uncharted, which Cooper most recently worked on. Games of that nature use a more “highly controlled” system of encounters which rely on much more “bespoke” animations and expressions.
A series like Mass Effect, Cooper explained, is forced to separate different game segments into different tiers of animation quality. Due to time and budget constraints, scenes and sections on the lowest level “may not even be touched by hand,” relying on an algorithm for composition and control. Cooper suggested that the quality of this algorithm may be to blame for Andromeda’s facial animation woes.
Reviews for Mass Effect: Andromeda have varied across the board, likely as a result of problems such as this one. Our own evaluation was positive in spite of the associated flaws, whereas Gamespot was a bit more critical. Players will likely be equally divided until the problems in question are addressed or resolved.
SOURCE: Gamespot