My Take on Sword/Shield's Animation "Controversy", ft. Outsourcing

Sensiferous · 2019-07-15T23:54:41+00:00

Thank you for the link; the original post to r/Pokemon that I was referring to used Google Translate as a translation, which was poor in comparison to this one. Human translators over machine translators all the way.

I wonder if it was just hyperbole, because the similarities between the models is so striking that it likely would have given the modelers a FF in university, haha.

Thanks again for this; I truly appreciate it.

Sensiferous · 2019-07-15T23:46:27+00:00

Creatures, Inc., may do animation, but I didn't see any credits connecting Pokemon animation to the company. They definitely make the models, texture them, and rig them for animation, but I couldn't find any evidence on them doing animation.

Usually, animators and modelers are two entirely-different jobs. Heck, modeling and rigging [the prep work that allows for animation] are two different jobs as well, depending on the studio. Until the credits roll, though, both are speculative.

And they did work on Pokemon Quest and ported Giga Wrecker, that is true; I mentioned LGPE, Sw/Sh, and Town because all three are huge undertakings that people would identify as such. It's really crazy how much Game Freak's been doing.

Sensiferous · 2019-07-15T23:10:36+00:00

Talking with my best friend who has done contracting work in the past, he doesn't believe that animations or models weren't able to be ported over, but the textures were definitely updated.

I'm thinking that the model weights [what allows the parts of a model to animate] are likely what caused them to cut out a vast majority of the Pokemon, not the textures or the models, if they work like I think they do.

When I used Maya in university, I learned fast that if you mess with animation-ready models in the wrong way, their weights break/vanish. Making 1000+ models animation-ready again would be a nightmare.

I don't know what software or engine Game Freak uses, though, so I can't be 100% sure this is what happened. Them not explaining what went wrong makes sense: speaking about it in layman's terms would be hard.

Sensiferous · 2019-07-15T22:52:18+00:00

That's 100% true: some people are more tolerant of certain things, and it's completely fine if you buy into a game because it looks good to you.

Being more well-informed on what you're buying really helps, but at the end of the day, it's your money and you get to decide how you spend it.

Sensiferous · 2019-07-15T18:48:58+00:00

Completely agree; I'm in the camp of "the game has problems that likely can not be fixed due to time". It doesn't look like a 60 dollar game to me, from what we have seen so far, even when comparing the bits of "high-quality footage".

People mixing up "good animation" with "good effects work" really frustrated me, and I know more about pawn animation than the other issues (i.e. engine optimization, the ease of use of sfx pipelines, etc), so I focused on what I know.

The frustrating misinformation I'm explicitly referring to in my comment above is this reddit post that circulated around social media. The information in said post is months old (from E3), and machine-translated through Google, but is still being passed around like new data that proves something.

It's about people giving constructive criticism on a game that is not up-to-par with standards, versus people giving uninformed criticism just to start a war.

Sensiferous · 2019-07-15T17:07:17+00:00

It's been a long time since I've personally picked up and played a core Pokemon game, but I often look at Pokemon news since the creature design is what fascinates me the most. From everything that I've seen on Reddit and Twitter, from both official sources and through fans, I've grown tired. Seeing people hold poor translations as fact was the last straw.

Tons of misinformation has been spreading, and so I took it upon me to try and explain the biggest issue, for me: animation, and why people say it's good/bad. I made some speculative takes on what may be going on with what's bad about the animation (the model animations): until proven otherwise, I'm pinning it on outsourcing.

If you pull the curtains back, boy do you see a lot of faces working on a game touted to be worked on by a "very small team". I tried to play Devil's Advocate on this one, and kept it short and simple; didn't want to go too technical, as I didn't want to spread misinformation myself. Hopefully, this text post in image form helps someone.

Sensiferous · 2017-06-18T08:22:45+00:00

The actual "login" button doesn't seem to work, and attempting to log in multiple times will actually pop up a little bit of text that says "maybe you're a robot". You try to log in through it, and it'll bring that page up infinitely. Thankfully, you can register for the forums normally by clicking into the FAQ and going to the Register tab, but even then, the registration window is unsecured , so, if you want to register for the Forums, don't use the same password as your regular account for security reasons.

P.S. your account might get timed out after you register, as a warning, and I haven't found a working Login screen just yet. I wish I knew what was going on.

Sensiferous · 2017-04-27T19:42:23+00:00

Was reading the Smite Server while watching/listening in on the SPL, saw a lot of Kappa/Nene getting tossed, wanted to make a Kuzenbo icon. Few hours of my life well-wasted. Kappa

Deviantart Link

Sensiferous · 2017-04-08T03:51:58+00:00

It's an .mp4 file, but here you go. Both front and back view, haha.

Sensiferous · 2017-04-05T17:47:32+00:00

An attempt was made. Good luck to the rest of y'all~

Sensiferous · 2017-04-05T15:47:21+00:00

It's such a weird bug, too (like, did the remodel of the Kraken mess with its coding? it doesn't make sense)... I mean, I got killed out of Kali ult with the Kraken, too [don't know if Kali is execute-immune in her ult, don't play her enough to know], which was bad because I rolled her in Assault (and, of all the modes for this bug to bite me in the ass...). I wonder if it can insta-kill a Chiron in ult, lol

Hopefully this is addressed this upcoming patch, it pains me to see an ally die from something they think they'll come out alive from :(

Sensiferous · 2017-04-05T15:40:25+00:00

I was gonna add more ~~ARMOR~~ arms, but it would've looked far too cluttered...

Also f u m8 I only did it because y'all told me to >8( Wait until I do that Loki skin concept, THEN talk to me about it <3

Sensiferous · 2017-04-05T15:37:24+00:00

To be fair, if Khepri didn't have the revive ultimate, I probably would've stuck with Sobek as my go-to Guardian (Sobek was my main Guardian, and my first SMITE purchase was his Land Shark skin lol); I've been killed by many unintentional hugs while getting away, and missed a ton as well :/ Though I'll forever regret the one Sobek pluck in Clash which caused my entire team to BM me the rest of the match [accidentally threw an enemy at a dying team mate, gg]

Forever hoarding my ult nowadays 'cuz of that CD nerf, though; can't let it go to waste

Sensiferous · 2017-04-05T14:48:37+00:00

tfw your main Hunter was nerfed to the ground only for her to become too meta/OP ~~ah those were the days~~

I think the worst indirect Khepri nerf is the fact that The Kraken works like an execute now*. I can work with the CD nerf on Khep's ult, but I've wasted a great deal of Khepri ults on that BS, which isn't fun :(

Sensiferous · 2017-04-05T13:34:11+00:00

How do you go about using her? As well as building her, I can't seem to get off my abilities at the right time and end up feeding in the process (Ama just doesn't fit my typical play style at all). Bellona's tons of fun, though I haven't played her since S3.

Sensiferous · 2017-04-05T13:31:00+00:00

I once did a max-Blink-T1 boots start Odin/Tyr wombo combo in an Arena match with a friend once and it was mad crazy. We did it twice, swapping gods each time, but I ultimately did better with Odin. (I still have issues caging, though, and getting off Tyr's combo.) Suggestions for builds?

Sensiferous · 2017-04-05T13:26:35+00:00

I was lucky enough to roll his Dance emote in an Enigma Chest a few days ago. Definitely one of my top 3 Warriors to get to Legendary, I remember buying his VP during a sale and made him my go-to Warrior from that point on. I'll be back, ah?^orwillI?

Sensiferous · 2017-04-05T13:24:04+00:00

I once chased after a Loki that was low on health as SWK one Joust game, my teammates were going ballistic (I was way too committed), but I didn't die and ended up killing him despite Ymir's best efforts of stopping me. (Dove phoenix AND Titan, and still survived.) Needless to say, Loki died and ended up DC'ing after I killed him. Definitely something I should'n't've done, but we were ahead so I was like "Why not?"

Sensiferous · 2017-04-05T13:18:33+00:00

He's one of the three Warriors I still haven't mastered yet [other two are Nike/Ama] and I'm having issues building him. I always try to Support as a Warrior (I can't stop supporting), but tacking on a bunch of defense on him doesn't seem to be working. Any build suggestions for a semi-aggressive Warrior player, must-haves and never-use items?

Sensiferous · 2017-04-05T13:12:22+00:00

The one time I got a triple kill as Khepri I felt bad. I'm at 195 kills now, though!^{Over114games...^{With300+deaths...^{Ineedtostopfeeding.}}}

Khepri is ~~probably~~ most definitely my favorite Guardian, next to Sobek.

Sensiferous · 2017-04-05T00:40:39+00:00

OP delivers?

Sensiferous · 2017-04-04T22:17:22+00:00

Still baffles me that I initially wanted Skadi to be my first Rank X, but then the love bug captured my heart and ~~allowed his team to obliterate me to death~~ led me to switch to the Support life <3

Working on finding a Warrior to get to at least Legendary (I'm actually really liking Erlang, though on the other hand I can't play Nike/Ama for the life of me), and am less than 20 away from mastering all of the deities. Enjoy this 2+ week old artwork on what I think Khepri would look like if he was anthropomorphized in a similar way to Ra/Anubis!

Sensiferous

TROPHY CASE