You're incredible. Reasonable, clear, patient, and understanding arguments. Whether or not anyone here changes outright, please continue planting these seeds.

I think it may actually be quite appropriate. To Sarkeesian, it's essentially the same concept as discussing gun control after a tragedy. The exact terminology and wording she chose does illicit the wrong tone at first - I was put off by it initially, but shortly after, her intended meaning came through. Current gun…

I'll admit I don't read these sites that often, but when did they paint every single gamer as vile psychos? Is there a specific article that does it? Not trying to sound like a smartass, I'm genuinely asking because I haven't seen one.

The problem with someone constructing their identity on the foundation of a label like "gamer" is that anytime someone says, "some gamers did this," that person immediately feels they're the target. Which is absurd. If you aren't making violent threats, then it isn't a discussion about you. But the act of defining…

If you weren't listened to on your own then and you aren't being listened to with the Gamergate label now, why are you still fighting to associate yourself with it? What's the use? You contradict yourself by saying you use it because people will listen to it, yet say that no one cares about anything tagged with…

A likely reason is simply that they had a certain artistic vision and tons of customization didn't fit that vision.

With Destiny, the folks at Bungie have made amazing strides towards making more customization possible from an animation perspective. Maybe not with their own character customization, but their tech allows for fairly easy retargeting among characters that are dramatically different - even with different bone…

Similar argument, but I think Insomniac has a much better case to be made for this. Purely speaking about animation, if a woman character has the same overall proportions (height, limb length, etc.), then it really isn't too difficult to re-use a lot of the same anims because their body types can be nearly the same…

I don't think it's entirely a cost or technical thing, but usually a bit of both. Anything dynamic will always be a big hit on performance - particularly if it's dynamic by a variable amount and will need to be happening nearly 100% of the time. Not to mention it doesn't happen in a vacuum, it needs to be calculated…

Ah I misunderstood - I thought you meant the distance of the light source to the object, not the object to the shadow-projected surface. Definitely a solid point, my mistake. You're right for sure in some instances - your example illustrates that well. Though I wouldn't say that any of the thicker branches are…

To nitpick the nitpick here, actually it varies greatly on the source of light. The distance away is only part of the equation. If you were referring to a flashlight or floor lamp, you're correct. But the sun's light is so intense that it creates sharp shadows like that all the time. The only time the sun doesn't…

One of the biggest reasons that 3rd person is less exaggerated is that it's typically mocapped, whereas 1st person is nearly always hand-keyed.

Just chipping in to make one tiny correction - rigging is easily one of the hardest parts of the pipeline. Organic and hard-surface alike have their respective challenges. Careful not to upset any TDs here reading because they're too rare and precious!

Looks like you've heard from a couple animators already, but another one chipping in. Unless you're working at a really small studio, you'll likely only be there to animate. I've never done any modeling at any of studios I've worked at. You likely would give input on models - particularly with characters and props -…

What? That stance makes no sense. It isn't as if the work done on every game is completely unique to that game. Things are generally done using the same few overall methods universally, with different nuances. And if you're referring to Jonathan Cooper... The man not only was Anim Director on AC3, but was also lead on…

I just wanted to add - thank you for the civilized chat. It's refreshing to talk to somebody about a charged topic like this without someone losing it. While we may disagree here and there (and I think we agree on other areas of this discussion), you were logical and reasonable. Cheers.

Hah if only it worked like that. Per your example, map design would come first and would be a back and forth effort with other departments (determining metrics with art, seeing how the style of the time would influence the street arrangement etc.) and collectible placement would be done long after the fact, once all…

I'm sorry man, this just sounds like excuses to me. You're not seeing the forest for the trees. I'm not speaking about the specific technical details of what studio handled what part or how many projects they had. Fact of game development is that everyone is swamped. It will always come back to an issue of priority.…

The collectible thing was just an example. It all comes down to money. If they made it a higher priority, then they wouldn't have to pay a level designer to drop those glowy spoons around the place and they could pay an animator to work on retargeted anims. It's just about resource allocation and priority. I promise…

Your first paragraph is exactly what I was suggesting for this game. Exactly. I don't believe women want more characters to be female because their gender is critical to the story - quite the opposite. They want equality. Most games with a male lead - you could swap him out for a woman and it wouldn't anything…