Maybe if their budget was 10x what it is ;) Those Blur/Digic cinematics ain't cheap!

The only thing is it wasn't a video game or even a demo (in the video game sense) really. It was just a short film filtered through a game engine. I'm not disagreeing with its emotional vitality - I thought it was awesome and very powerful - but it wasn't a video game. If they can take that sort of impact and infuse…

Yep! It's called Love & Loss from their Dynasty album. They've used Two Steps for a number of the trailers now, it's awesome!

It's a tough discussion I guess because we have very different opinions of what artists should spend their time on. Time spent on that needs to come from somewhere and I'd much rather see it used on something more significant than a little picture meant for set dressing.

Here's the issue. A day or two. Say a concept/character artist is getting paid $70 an hour. He/she spends two days on it - that costs over $1,100 in that guy's time assuming he's only working 8 hour days (rare in games). For a tiny photo that 99% of people otherwise wouldn't have seen, that's a bit outrageous.…

Thank you... This is what I'm trying to say too. It's about priorities. It isn't laziness, it's efficiency. They totally COULD have taken the time to make a super detailed, high-res, hand painted original image for that tiny picture meant mostly just for set dressing... But that time would be taken from something else…

I posted this elsewhere but the issue here is one of priority, not laziness. If it's a piece of concept art showing exactly what she would look like or if it's something that's going to be featured large, front and center as a huge story moment, then I would agree. This thing is just a little picture sitting around…

The issue here is one of priority, not laziness. If it's a piece of concept art showing exactly what she would look like or if it's something that's going to be featured large, front and center as a huge story moment, then I would agree. This thing is just a little picture sitting around the environment. They don't…

I posted this in response elsewhere too.

I'm an artist in games. The outrage over this stuff is sort of ridiculous.. A lot of games now begin with an actual 3D scan of an actor's head. Textures are often generated by projecting a photo of someone's face onto a model. Environment textures are often all stock photos. ME is a huge franchise with an insane…

Unfortunately, I think you can only draw that comparison if your PC is running the same OS as this Valve deal. Otherwise the hardware will be utilized very differently.

Marman said it wrecks the spirit of it, not the act itself. The act itself is still generous and kind, but since announcing it, the intentions behind it seem to be more about getting praise.

It's just a joke. It's a character he does. He has a section of more serious videos (not really game related) where he isn't acting.

It's actually just a joke. It's a character he does. He has a section of more serious videos (not really game related) where he isn't acting.

Entertainment.

Exactly. Depending on how different the character looks, it could very well double the budget for animation. Then there are the implications on gameplay itself because different characters will move in their own unique way. An athletic buff man sprinting will no doubt run faster than a really old wizard.

Not to mention animation assets. The models a lot of times aren't even the most expensive assets to make. If you drastically change the physique of a character (i.e. buff hero man to withering old wizard), animations won't transfer well. Plus, you probably wouldn't want the same animations for the two of them - they…

There's usually many more moving parts than you're assuming. This all depends on the studio, but there's someone designing a characters, oftentimes someone else designing armor sets, someone modeling the character and someone else modeling the armor. Then there's at least 1 TD rigging it all, trying to do it in such a…

Like what Carlanga said, everything in the trailer is done with all in-game assets and rendered from the PS3 ;)

He's a critic.. I'm a bit confused. He's paid to give his opinion of the game, which is what he's doing. I highly doubt John sat down to write his review (and this) hoping that he could fracture the gaming community.