Early (year old) Footage of Project Trico

Lovely. Let's hope this shows up at E3.

 

I'm kind of skeptical that this will show up at E3 in anything but trailer form, if it even shows up at all. Either way, I think it looks fantastic.

 

I love Team Ico's games.

They are filled with emotion. They are fresh entries compared to all the violent, gun fight, war zone games. They are so different. The developers create concepts that wont necessary guarantee huge sales but at least to me they look like they focus on their creativity freedom.

 

It's an old build, and not really indicative of what to expect. So I wasn't particularly impressed with the visuals, but wasn't expecting to be. What really did shine for me was the animation, as the creatures motions were very natural. The silhouette veiw with the twitching ear was fabulously convincing in suggesting a real, living critter.

 

I wonder in what kind of world this is more impressive than the animation or the modeling/shading of the creature....

 

Yes, reminds me of the Zebras and Hippos in Afrika.

 

It's excellent yeah (except the feathers), but I was distracted by the boy and the environments and how unfinished both looked. It looked placeholder, but I wasnt giving Ueda/Ico the benefit of the doubt until I got some confirmation. I look forward to seeing something more recent, as an 18 month old build is quite ancient.

 

Also, the environment seemed to look exactly like if had used ICO geometry and SOTC textures/art direction.

Hopefully the final design will be more unique/distinquished(sp).

 

I understand this video is old, and chances are the majority of it is placeholder or holdover content...

With that said..
I feel what this video shows is how important subtlety of animation is in producing a convincing feel.
The camera work and the creature animation is simply so good that the sometimes (frankly) appalling lighting and texture work just don't matter at all. The eye is drawn and you can't help but stay fixed on the creature. (Or at least I couldn't )

The ears and eyes are extraordinarily convincing. I'd imagine they have modeled the muscle structure of the creature, either that or put a kitten in a motion captured suit

 

. They need to devote an entire Qore episode to document the process. Pronto.

I agree motion will draw the most attention if the scene is carefully planned (instead of ad hoc explosions and movements everywhere).

 

I think at least the last sequence is from something much more recent.It looks really good.

 

Worse, they glued table-tennis balls straight onto the fur

 

I think there are some species of cat that dont have fur. They could easily stick few dozen markers on it.

 

I sometimes wonder whether, with the availability of mo-cap facilities these days, maybe proper animation is a dying art. Or at least, maybe an under-appreciated and under-used one.

I've known artists who would be perfectly capable of animating a character like that, giving proper weight to all its movements and ensuring every subtle little movement is shown. And I think that having done it (properly) by hand you'd get something actually more convincing than sticking ping-pong balls on a person (or cat) and sampling a relatively small amount of the motion which is going on.

 

Team ICO's Ueda has said before that they did not use use Motion Capture on their past projects. It's was all just very carefully researched and animated by artists.

I recall for SoTC he said they went to a farm to study horses. And not just any horse, he was interesting in reproducing the specific motions of a particular farm horse.

Probably it is the same case for this game. There are not to many more things more frustrating in the whole world than trying to get a live cat to cooperate with you.

 

Cooperate with you? You mean you cooperate with it until what it decides to do happens to be what you wanted it to do?

 

Your post reminds me of the "Behind the Scene" video for "Spirited Away". The animators observed a dog to craft the animation of the dragon.

But I am curious What work did your artist friends do ? If they can make a flat character/animal come to life, their achievements cannot be missed.

EDIT:

 

I believe SCEA has a huge mo-cap facility in So Cal, but with that being said I've read that God of War 3's animation is all being done by hand. So its nice to know there are still developers who use proper animation.......I can only imagine how that game is going to animate as well.

 

Animation of the baby griff is fantastic. Wasn't quite so impressed with the feathers so far. Hopefully it's as cool or cooler than ICO was in a different way. If that made sense.

This might be the one game that convinces me to buy a PS3 if the price drops to 300 or less. Seems more like a game I'd like to play alone with noone around rather than just heading over to a friends place.

Regards,
SB

 

How did I miss all of this !

I have not watched the video yet, not at a place where I can !
Oh ! man i am so pumped !

I guess I will have to wait for a day or two before I will get to watch this. I can't wait !

Agroooooo........................! .....heh ! heh !