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Without it, most games are nothing. With it, some of the best story games out there can be told, and it also adds to that extra polish of the game.
Animation in games is one hell of a important aspect of games.
Every game that comes out has got animation in it, whether it be the characters or objects, its just common knowledge that something in the game is going to move and have animation in it, whether it be to mimic something in real life such as a person walking or just a leaf falling from a tree. At some point, the developers have looked at this and copied onto their computer to put in the game the best they possibly could.
Back when gaming first really took off (and for me this was back on the Nes), animation of the characters was pretty poor. Very simple 8-bit characters such as Mario would consist of the upper body and his legs which would come in and out as he moved across the level. By today’s standards that is pretty poor, but back then it was sure something, and it gives the games there own sense of character. As gaming got more advanced and we moved on the Snes and the Mega Drive, so did the graphics and ultimately the animation of the graphics.
Two pretty well known games that were known for their animation steps were Another World and Flashback on the Mega Drive, and the likes of Donkey Kong on Snes. These games started to go for more realism. The developer made accurate models of the characters (in the mega drive games it was two men and in DD it was, as we know, a gorilla). These models behaved and moved similar to people did in there real lives, as did the gorilla. The limbs of the bodies and the lever systems of their skeleton worked as proper humans did. This was a huge step forward in creating a real world on a limited memory space of these early computers, but this was the beginning of what we are now seeing today.
As we finally got to the bigger machines coming out such as the Saturn, N64 and PS1, this animation took a whole new turn, and things really started to get interesting.
The PS1 and Saturn gave Lara Croft her debut in the gaming world, and were superbly received. The wonders of the new technology allowed the modelling of a complete 3D woman in her very own vast world. She moved exactly like her real life counterpart would. She could walk, run, swim, jump, summersault and so on. She was a real as you were going to get on your computers. And so the animation race began. Other developers caught onto the power of these machines and saw what could be achieved. Soon all the basic characters we use to see slowly began to disappear and being replaced by characters with 10 times as many pixels and moves to there names.
‘Movie gaming was born’ and with this, so was the realism of games stepped up to a much higher degree.
Without such leaps in authenticness of the animation, such games as MGS would never have come about, and other games that prided themselves on lush cut scenes that made them come across as movie/games would never have had the impact as they did either. Would you really have believed a stale moving zombie walking in a straight line to be a threat to you on Resident Evil? I think not. Hollywood style storylines could finally have a look to them that fitted each other, bring us a whole new gaming experience that none of us had ever seen before. MGS set the standards for this, and then we had the likes of Shemue and Silent Hill turn up. Gamers liked this new era of gaming, and developers knew that we all wanted a bit of it.
A recently released game some of you maybe familiar with has just been released. Hitman 2. This game boasts some of the best animation that you will be pushed to beat at the moment. Your character, along with all the enemies act and look exactly like you would find in any film. Pull out a shot gun and shoot your enemy at point blank range and watch as they fly threw the air, legs and arms sprawled as they do so and then landing against the wall with a sheer food, slowly slivering down to the floor. On this game, just watching there lifeless bodies fall of the they path they are stood on is fun.
Its not just RPG type games that have taken all this on board either, sport games have used animation to take there levels or realism so much further too.
Games such as Destruction Derby, NHL games, SSX, Fifa, Pro Evo and this list goes on have all studied how the subjects of there genre work and run and re-created them onto the gaming screen. In Destruction Derby the cars were realistically modelled so that every crash you had the bodywork would crack and crumble, in the end you could totally right the car off as if you had been in a high-speed accident…which more than likely you just had!
Fifa and Pro Evo and other football games try there best to get the animation of the players spot on too. Some companies have even got the likes of Paul Scholes and Co to come to there premises so that can motion capture them and put them in there games to get the most realistic that they can (so no wonder Fifa games are made up of diving players). Looking at the last few games, they have been the best by far in the motion captured players, with each person looking like there real life counter parts and moving like them. The new Pro Evo has even gone to the lengths of copying stars like Beckhams free kick stances to get it that little bit more realistic. That just shows the lengths that some developers are willing to go to.
All this is good, but there is a down side to the whole animation process. And there is living proof:
The Bouncer.
This is just one of many games that too the whole Graphics and Animation process to far, and totally forgot about the gaming part. Being one of the launch titles, this game was more about showing the graphical power of the console than game play, and this is the down side. Developers spending too much time making there game look good and realistic and then when we come to play, that all counts for nothing. Fifa has had this problem in the past. Its all fine and dandy to get Paul Scholes to model for you, but when the thing looks realistic but plays more like beach football its really not what you want. And this is a major let down for many other games. Some accuse the likes of MGS2, FFX and other games of taking the animation of the game too far and making them into a movie.
But, if the developers can get it right, with the best game play and the best Animations that the developers can come up with these days, we really are in an era of superb gaming experiences to be had.
Animation in games is one hell of a important aspect of games.
Every game that comes out has got animation in it, whether it be the characters or objects, its just common knowledge that something in the game is going to move and have animation in it, whether it be to mimic something in real life such as a person walking or just a leaf falling from a tree. At some point, the developers have looked at this and copied onto their computer to put in the game the best they possibly could.
Back when gaming first really took off (and for me this was back on the Nes), animation of the characters was pretty poor. Very simple 8-bit characters such as Mario would consist of the upper body and his legs which would come in and out as he moved across the level. By today’s standards that is pretty poor, but back then it was sure something, and it gives the games there own sense of character. As gaming got more advanced and we moved on the Snes and the Mega Drive, so did the graphics and ultimately the animation of the graphics.
Two pretty well known games that were known for their animation steps were Another World and Flashback on the Mega Drive, and the likes of Donkey Kong on Snes. These games started to go for more realism. The developer made accurate models of the characters (in the mega drive games it was two men and in DD it was, as we know, a gorilla). These models behaved and moved similar to people did in there real lives, as did the gorilla. The limbs of the bodies and the lever systems of their skeleton worked as proper humans did. This was a huge step forward in creating a real world on a limited memory space of these early computers, but this was the beginning of what we are now seeing today.
As we finally got to the bigger machines coming out such as the Saturn, N64 and PS1, this animation took a whole new turn, and things really started to get interesting.
The PS1 and Saturn gave Lara Croft her debut in the gaming world, and were superbly received. The wonders of the new technology allowed the modelling of a complete 3D woman in her very own vast world. She moved exactly like her real life counterpart would. She could walk, run, swim, jump, summersault and so on. She was a real as you were going to get on your computers. And so the animation race began. Other developers caught onto the power of these machines and saw what could be achieved. Soon all the basic characters we use to see slowly began to disappear and being replaced by characters with 10 times as many pixels and moves to there names.
‘Movie gaming was born’ and with this, so was the realism of games stepped up to a much higher degree.
Without such leaps in authenticness of the animation, such games as MGS would never have come about, and other games that prided themselves on lush cut scenes that made them come across as movie/games would never have had the impact as they did either. Would you really have believed a stale moving zombie walking in a straight line to be a threat to you on Resident Evil? I think not. Hollywood style storylines could finally have a look to them that fitted each other, bring us a whole new gaming experience that none of us had ever seen before. MGS set the standards for this, and then we had the likes of Shemue and Silent Hill turn up. Gamers liked this new era of gaming, and developers knew that we all wanted a bit of it.
A recently released game some of you maybe familiar with has just been released. Hitman 2. This game boasts some of the best animation that you will be pushed to beat at the moment. Your character, along with all the enemies act and look exactly like you would find in any film. Pull out a shot gun and shoot your enemy at point blank range and watch as they fly threw the air, legs and arms sprawled as they do so and then landing against the wall with a sheer food, slowly slivering down to the floor. On this game, just watching there lifeless bodies fall of the they path they are stood on is fun.
Its not just RPG type games that have taken all this on board either, sport games have used animation to take there levels or realism so much further too.
Games such as Destruction Derby, NHL games, SSX, Fifa, Pro Evo and this list goes on have all studied how the subjects of there genre work and run and re-created them onto the gaming screen. In Destruction Derby the cars were realistically modelled so that every crash you had the bodywork would crack and crumble, in the end you could totally right the car off as if you had been in a high-speed accident…which more than likely you just had!
Fifa and Pro Evo and other football games try there best to get the animation of the players spot on too. Some companies have even got the likes of Paul Scholes and Co to come to there premises so that can motion capture them and put them in there games to get the most realistic that they can (so no wonder Fifa games are made up of diving players). Looking at the last few games, they have been the best by far in the motion captured players, with each person looking like there real life counter parts and moving like them. The new Pro Evo has even gone to the lengths of copying stars like Beckhams free kick stances to get it that little bit more realistic. That just shows the lengths that some developers are willing to go to.
All this is good, but there is a down side to the whole animation process. And there is living proof:
The Bouncer.
This is just one of many games that too the whole Graphics and Animation process to far, and totally forgot about the gaming part. Being one of the launch titles, this game was more about showing the graphical power of the console than game play, and this is the down side. Developers spending too much time making there game look good and realistic and then when we come to play, that all counts for nothing. Fifa has had this problem in the past. Its all fine and dandy to get Paul Scholes to model for you, but when the thing looks realistic but plays more like beach football its really not what you want. And this is a major let down for many other games. Some accuse the likes of MGS2, FFX and other games of taking the animation of the game too far and making them into a movie.
But, if the developers can get it right, with the best game play and the best Animations that the developers can come up with these days, we really are in an era of superb gaming experiences to be had.
My favourite bit about animation is the little "boredom animations" they sometimes put in. Sonic the Hedgehog, Earthworm Jim and Crash Bandicoot are my favourite examples. Sonic would tap his feet, and eventually lie down, whilst Crash would juggle fruit and do all sorts of weird stuff. Earthworm Jim went a whole stage of madness further, often using his own body to swing around, sitting there shooting his own head off etc...
Jak and Daxter had a fair few, but I was disappointed that they hadn`t been taken a little further by a Next-Gen console. If the megadrive could do a nice selection, then surely the PS2 can. Perhaps Ratchet and Clank will have some amusing ones to watch, so I look forward to that a great deal!
Jak and Daxter had a fair few, but I was disappointed that they hadn`t been taken a little further by a Next-Gen console. If the megadrive could do a nice selection, then surely the PS2 can. Perhaps Ratchet and Clank will have some amusing ones to watch, so I look forward to that a great deal!
Animation must be difficult for developers, the process of 'animating' characters, scenary and various gameplay has to come to a point whre it has to be accurate because of the power of today consoles. for example MGS 2 had to be a major improvement on MGS 1 firstly in graphics/animation (and of course gameplay) because thats what us fans demand, we'd rather play a game with excellent graphics and 'realistic' looking characters than something that is poorely designed where Paul Scholes looks more like Gazza! the 'little detail' in games is where the impressive animations comes into play, very little games have things that are in MGS 2 -- like the FHM posters, the bleeding, footprints, realistic characters, the rainfall etc --- these features have been based on real life and they have been incorporated superbly and visually 'perfect'.
Pro Evo 2 looks to have improved the player animation within it also, so does the likes of Fifa and other games coming out.
Not to mention the cartoony looks of Ratchet and Clank, these characters look to have all the life out of a Disney film!
Not to mention the cartoony looks of Ratchet and Clank, these characters look to have all the life out of a Disney film!
Yup, couldn't agree more, animation plays a massive part in games, i've seen a fair share of poor animation and some excellent animation, MGS2 was very impressive in my eyes, i can only hope that we won't see muchmore poor animation as the developers get more powerful consoles and better tools to play with, its a good topic you've chosen, good post too :)
I agree!
Without it, most games are nothing. With it, some of the best story games out there can be told, and it also adds to that extra polish of the game.
Animation in games is one hell of a important aspect of games.
Every game that comes out has got animation in it, whether it be the characters or objects, its just common knowledge that something in the game is going to move and have animation in it, whether it be to mimic something in real life such as a person walking or just a leaf falling from a tree. At some point, the developers have looked at this and copied onto their computer to put in the game the best they possibly could.
Back when gaming first really took off (and for me this was back on the Nes), animation of the characters was pretty poor. Very simple 8-bit characters such as Mario would consist of the upper body and his legs which would come in and out as he moved across the level. By today’s standards that is pretty poor, but back then it was sure something, and it gives the games there own sense of character. As gaming got more advanced and we moved on the Snes and the Mega Drive, so did the graphics and ultimately the animation of the graphics.
Two pretty well known games that were known for their animation steps were Another World and Flashback on the Mega Drive, and the likes of Donkey Kong on Snes. These games started to go for more realism. The developer made accurate models of the characters (in the mega drive games it was two men and in DD it was, as we know, a gorilla). These models behaved and moved similar to people did in there real lives, as did the gorilla. The limbs of the bodies and the lever systems of their skeleton worked as proper humans did. This was a huge step forward in creating a real world on a limited memory space of these early computers, but this was the beginning of what we are now seeing today.
As we finally got to the bigger machines coming out such as the Saturn, N64 and PS1, this animation took a whole new turn, and things really started to get interesting.
The PS1 and Saturn gave Lara Croft her debut in the gaming world, and were superbly received. The wonders of the new technology allowed the modelling of a complete 3D woman in her very own vast world. She moved exactly like her real life counterpart would. She could walk, run, swim, jump, summersault and so on. She was a real as you were going to get on your computers. And so the animation race began. Other developers caught onto the power of these machines and saw what could be achieved. Soon all the basic characters we use to see slowly began to disappear and being replaced by characters with 10 times as many pixels and moves to there names.
‘Movie gaming was born’ and with this, so was the realism of games stepped up to a much higher degree.
Without such leaps in authenticness of the animation, such games as MGS would never have come about, and other games that prided themselves on lush cut scenes that made them come across as movie/games would never have had the impact as they did either. Would you really have believed a stale moving zombie walking in a straight line to be a threat to you on Resident Evil? I think not. Hollywood style storylines could finally have a look to them that fitted each other, bring us a whole new gaming experience that none of us had ever seen before. MGS set the standards for this, and then we had the likes of Shemue and Silent Hill turn up. Gamers liked this new era of gaming, and developers knew that we all wanted a bit of it.
A recently released game some of you maybe familiar with has just been released. Hitman 2. This game boasts some of the best animation that you will be pushed to beat at the moment. Your character, along with all the enemies act and look exactly like you would find in any film. Pull out a shot gun and shoot your enemy at point blank range and watch as they fly threw the air, legs and arms sprawled as they do so and then landing against the wall with a sheer food, slowly slivering down to the floor. On this game, just watching there lifeless bodies fall of the they path they are stood on is fun.
Its not just RPG type games that have taken all this on board either, sport games have used animation to take there levels or realism so much further too.
Games such as Destruction Derby, NHL games, SSX, Fifa, Pro Evo and this list goes on have all studied how the subjects of there genre work and run and re-created them onto the gaming screen. In Destruction Derby the cars were realistically modelled so that every crash you had the bodywork would crack and crumble, in the end you could totally right the car off as if you had been in a high-speed accident…which more than likely you just had!
Fifa and Pro Evo and other football games try there best to get the animation of the players spot on too. Some companies have even got the likes of Paul Scholes and Co to come to there premises so that can motion capture them and put them in there games to get the most realistic that they can (so no wonder Fifa games are made up of diving players). Looking at the last few games, they have been the best by far in the motion captured players, with each person looking like there real life counter parts and moving like them. The new Pro Evo has even gone to the lengths of copying stars like Beckhams free kick stances to get it that little bit more realistic. That just shows the lengths that some developers are willing to go to.
All this is good, but there is a down side to the whole animation process. And there is living proof:
The Bouncer.
This is just one of many games that too the whole Graphics and Animation process to far, and totally forgot about the gaming part. Being one of the launch titles, this game was more about showing the graphical power of the console than game play, and this is the down side. Developers spending too much time making there game look good and realistic and then when we come to play, that all counts for nothing. Fifa has had this problem in the past. Its all fine and dandy to get Paul Scholes to model for you, but when the thing looks realistic but plays more like beach football its really not what you want. And this is a major let down for many other games. Some accuse the likes of MGS2, FFX and other games of taking the animation of the game too far and making them into a movie.
But, if the developers can get it right, with the best game play and the best Animations that the developers can come up with these days, we really are in an era of superb gaming experiences to be had.
Animation in games is one hell of a important aspect of games.
Every game that comes out has got animation in it, whether it be the characters or objects, its just common knowledge that something in the game is going to move and have animation in it, whether it be to mimic something in real life such as a person walking or just a leaf falling from a tree. At some point, the developers have looked at this and copied onto their computer to put in the game the best they possibly could.
Back when gaming first really took off (and for me this was back on the Nes), animation of the characters was pretty poor. Very simple 8-bit characters such as Mario would consist of the upper body and his legs which would come in and out as he moved across the level. By today’s standards that is pretty poor, but back then it was sure something, and it gives the games there own sense of character. As gaming got more advanced and we moved on the Snes and the Mega Drive, so did the graphics and ultimately the animation of the graphics.
Two pretty well known games that were known for their animation steps were Another World and Flashback on the Mega Drive, and the likes of Donkey Kong on Snes. These games started to go for more realism. The developer made accurate models of the characters (in the mega drive games it was two men and in DD it was, as we know, a gorilla). These models behaved and moved similar to people did in there real lives, as did the gorilla. The limbs of the bodies and the lever systems of their skeleton worked as proper humans did. This was a huge step forward in creating a real world on a limited memory space of these early computers, but this was the beginning of what we are now seeing today.
As we finally got to the bigger machines coming out such as the Saturn, N64 and PS1, this animation took a whole new turn, and things really started to get interesting.
The PS1 and Saturn gave Lara Croft her debut in the gaming world, and were superbly received. The wonders of the new technology allowed the modelling of a complete 3D woman in her very own vast world. She moved exactly like her real life counterpart would. She could walk, run, swim, jump, summersault and so on. She was a real as you were going to get on your computers. And so the animation race began. Other developers caught onto the power of these machines and saw what could be achieved. Soon all the basic characters we use to see slowly began to disappear and being replaced by characters with 10 times as many pixels and moves to there names.
‘Movie gaming was born’ and with this, so was the realism of games stepped up to a much higher degree.
Without such leaps in authenticness of the animation, such games as MGS would never have come about, and other games that prided themselves on lush cut scenes that made them come across as movie/games would never have had the impact as they did either. Would you really have believed a stale moving zombie walking in a straight line to be a threat to you on Resident Evil? I think not. Hollywood style storylines could finally have a look to them that fitted each other, bring us a whole new gaming experience that none of us had ever seen before. MGS set the standards for this, and then we had the likes of Shemue and Silent Hill turn up. Gamers liked this new era of gaming, and developers knew that we all wanted a bit of it.
A recently released game some of you maybe familiar with has just been released. Hitman 2. This game boasts some of the best animation that you will be pushed to beat at the moment. Your character, along with all the enemies act and look exactly like you would find in any film. Pull out a shot gun and shoot your enemy at point blank range and watch as they fly threw the air, legs and arms sprawled as they do so and then landing against the wall with a sheer food, slowly slivering down to the floor. On this game, just watching there lifeless bodies fall of the they path they are stood on is fun.
Its not just RPG type games that have taken all this on board either, sport games have used animation to take there levels or realism so much further too.
Games such as Destruction Derby, NHL games, SSX, Fifa, Pro Evo and this list goes on have all studied how the subjects of there genre work and run and re-created them onto the gaming screen. In Destruction Derby the cars were realistically modelled so that every crash you had the bodywork would crack and crumble, in the end you could totally right the car off as if you had been in a high-speed accident…which more than likely you just had!
Fifa and Pro Evo and other football games try there best to get the animation of the players spot on too. Some companies have even got the likes of Paul Scholes and Co to come to there premises so that can motion capture them and put them in there games to get the most realistic that they can (so no wonder Fifa games are made up of diving players). Looking at the last few games, they have been the best by far in the motion captured players, with each person looking like there real life counter parts and moving like them. The new Pro Evo has even gone to the lengths of copying stars like Beckhams free kick stances to get it that little bit more realistic. That just shows the lengths that some developers are willing to go to.
All this is good, but there is a down side to the whole animation process. And there is living proof:
The Bouncer.
This is just one of many games that too the whole Graphics and Animation process to far, and totally forgot about the gaming part. Being one of the launch titles, this game was more about showing the graphical power of the console than game play, and this is the down side. Developers spending too much time making there game look good and realistic and then when we come to play, that all counts for nothing. Fifa has had this problem in the past. Its all fine and dandy to get Paul Scholes to model for you, but when the thing looks realistic but plays more like beach football its really not what you want. And this is a major let down for many other games. Some accuse the likes of MGS2, FFX and other games of taking the animation of the game too far and making them into a movie.
But, if the developers can get it right, with the best game play and the best Animations that the developers can come up with these days, we really are in an era of superb gaming experiences to be had.