Face-Off
by Estim20, HSM guest contributor
As much as Sony desires us to spend cash for entertainment and impress our friends with leaderboards, the company can’t ignore Home’s adeptness at promoting socialization. Seven million users hit Home by July 2009, blossoming to twelve million by March 2010; this isn’t some ordinary program with no weight in the gaming scene. People are taking it seriously and are funding Sony’s efforts to maintain servers into the foreseeable future (thanks for the clothes, Sony!).
To that end: couldn’t Sony offer a bit more options to animations and facial expressions? Yes, there’s limits to the software, but are you hoping to condense all of human emotions to “happy,” “sad,” “angry” and “confused?” Are we not adults?
Actually, don’t answer that; I hate to think what the average age of a Home user really is. I’m already feeling like I should yell at the kids to get off my lawn, the little snots.
Avatars are our digital representations: how we would dress and look, if we’re given the chance to decide every nook and crook of our bodies (because, you know, biology needed that massive blow to its creative process). Naturally some people get – to put it lightly – “creative” with the system and produce unique avatars. Some people desire to let their avatars look as they are in real life, forgiving a little artistic license or a system’s inability to render that exactly. Others approximate real life looks, but don’t mind exaggerating or underplaying certain features to fit the costumes (if you’re reading this, Just_A_Avatar, you need to bring back Speedo Cowboy; he was a trip).
This isn’t something we – as a community – aren’t aware of, naturally. There is plenty of customization on the table, and the options only grow each week (with the occasional unfortunate closure, such as Irem facing the unenviable task of closing off most of its popular public spaces).
However, two aspects are lacking: facial and body animations, though the latter got a boost from such costumes as the Mummy outfit and the collection of World War II pin-ups. Still, there is plenty of room of improvement – lord knows we ought to represent as much of the gamut of human emotion as possible when Home is being its normal, exotically bizarre self.
Andy Serkis, doing the face motion capture for King Bohan in the PS3 exclusive, Heavenly Sword
Today, we’ll be looking at the human face. Most people are going to look at least vaguely human at any given time, forgiving the occasional hamster, alien and indescribable arcane horror from beyond mortal comprehension. When we interact in real life, the human face is intensely expressive and is the go-to section of the body for emotion perception. Facial expressions are a universal language and we know when a person is becoming angered, scared or pleased based on the human face alone. This of course comes with the caveat that some issues arise, such as the Autism spectrum.
This isn’t exactly limited to humans mind you. Pigeons can identify facial expressions with similar identity and emotion, just as we can, for example. Whether the pigeons may actually use that knowledge is unknown but we can only assume that’s the motivation behind crapping over our cars. They know all.
Either case, the human face provides a significant look into a person’s mental state. We are naturally attuned, it seems, to wearing our hearts on our faces – and in real life, this is an autonomic process, even forgiving the effects of the very deliberate nature of lying. Anyone who has ever argued with a spouse can attest to all this: it isn’t just what is said, but what is shown that matters. You could remove all the dialogue and focus on just the face and you can tell if spouses are arguing and can identify some instances of whether a lie is being told. If you’re particularly perceptive you may be able to tell if they’re even spouses, or at least how well they know each other. Of course, if you could read lips, you can see what they’re saying — but none of that, it’s cheating.
On Home, however, the human face is reduced to a simple façade of human expression that wouldn’t work well in the real world. We’d be thoroughly creeped out if a person could only show four facial expressions, although there may be physical limitations that explain why. Granted this isn’t meant to be a substitute for real life. We are physical creatures and we like certain benefits therein, including (if not limited to) food, exercise and, of course, holding a controller to send Mario to a mushroom-related demise.
How can Home update its facial animations so that we aren’t hindered to the restricted palette? Well, I have a few ideas, and you can thank the personality archetypes somewhat for the following list. Based on my observations, we’ll need certain expressions to address the daily needs of Home, expressions such as:
WHAT IS THIS I DON’T EVEN?
You’re on the bench in Central Plaza. You know the one – the huge curved beastie that overlooks the fountain (or whatever Central is trying to plug this week, such as Scribble Shooter at the time of this writing). You’re holding a decent conversation with your friends, perhaps involving the tense deliberations of zombie hunters who would weigh 500 pounds lighter if they simply removed their ‘mobile’ armory.
Then it happens. The noob element enters the picture. You know the kind; their linguistic skills are so severely lacking, a bowl of alphabet soup makes more sense. They dance incessantly in front of a random spot near the fountain. They may have even missed the memo that the AXE angels are NPCs. It won’t matter; the point is the provided ‘confusion’ expression just won’t cut it.
You can wrestle with the controller until it falls from your hands, but it won’t twist your mug until it satisfactorily makes your avatar as confused as you are. You feel ready to pop a damned blood vessel, and yet your avatar can only muster up a mild, “well, that’s weird.”
Of course words, can provide the necessary context, but by that point you’ve wasted a perfectly good opportunity to let your avatar get in a little variety.
LAUGHTER IMMINENT
Let’s rewind just a moment back to early July. AXE Body Spray, in its infinite wisdom, decided what Central Plaza needed is a minor makeover that reminded people AXE body spray still existed. One ad campaign and a Home contract later, they confiscated control of the fountain to let people play a falling angel mini-game. Prevent ten angels from colliding feet-strong onto the pavement and you’ll win two prizes. All in all, it was a decent mini-game; getting an angel companion proved fascinating enough to forgive the fact the only separating the angels from foot trauma and spinal injuries was a well-timed pillow. Science? Yeah, no.
The prompt to enter the mini-game proved too funny to pass up: you spoke to one of two moving angel NPCs that, for all intents and purposes, were Home avatars without users guiding them. They followed pre-set paths and kept to themselves, except in the game when they plummeted to Earth because AXE body spray is the pheremonal opposite of OFF, according to the commercials. The process seemed innocent enough, and the Home audience largely transitioned through it without any problem.
I say ‘largely’ because apparently the NPC angels looked too convincing as Home avatars. Maybe it’s the way they sashayed near the fountain? Anyway, the punch-line is some users proved too daft (or otherwise unaware) to realize these angels weren’t guided by hand. There are tales from users as such, of misinformed girlfriend-seeking missiles that tried to attract the attention of NPCs – some users even went so far as to argue with the angels about behaving like very naughty words.
This is where contorting your face into one gripped with laughter would prove useful. Oh, we do have the laughter animation and it adequately demonstrates our ability to find life on Home humorous. However, Home just needs a good “I’m going to lose all social tact and laugh at your failure in 3.1 seconds” visual when you’d rather not give it away just yet.
I AM DISAPPOINT
This is something we’ve all felt at some point on Home – and not because of Home itself. Home’s a beautiful program and capable of greatness. The personality archetypes, though, are proof positive that we need to express our disappointment in our status.
This is far and wide the most applicable when it comes to dealing with the noobish behavior. Ignoring such behavior should be and is the best defense against it, but sometimes we just want to show our disapproval in a productive way. A deadpan stare into the huddled masses means we won’t have to say a word and keep on ignoring, while giving just enough of a hint that others will notice and know who/what to ignore in the future. Plus it works great if you must warn the offending party to stop misbehaving or face a report. (This reminds me of the “mom look,” which I often utilize on my son – T)
Admit it, adding this expression, plus companion = epic win.
PENDING EVIL
Oh please, we all know we wanted to act like mad scientists or Snidely Whiplash once in our lifetimes. Let’s just get it over with and include this option. Make it complete with compulsive hand rubbing or and a smirk that lets all in sight that evil is afoot, and watch the hilarity ensue.
Attempting to offer suggestions for everything is a tough call for one article, especially if you’re a wordy little minx any erudite journalist desires to be.
However, condensing everything into one article may give this topic an injustice. Don’t get me wrong, of course; keeping things from reaching ‘too-long-didn’t-read’ territory is a physical impossibility on such a site as HomeStation Magazine. We are a site dedicated to professional and mature journalism and the last thing we need (among other things) is to insinuate that we can’t tackle a little thing like a verbose article.
That said, I’m intending on making this a multi-part article serires and to that effect, I aim to focus each one (out of how many, I’m not sure yet – thank the Maker for improvisation) on a specific feature of the avatars.
July 29th, 2011 by Estim20 | 8 comments
Wow Estim. I was very impressed by that article! You are a wonderful addition to the team,(I knew you would be), and I can’t wait til you come up with the next one. How about one that expresses anger better, maybe they could have a little steam come out of our ears, or we could turn beet red, that would convey either anger or embarrassment. The possibilities are endless.LOL I can see you are going to have fun with this one.
I’m still hoping the facepalm comes to Home someday,preferably with a double facepalm option and for those “special” occasions a triple facepalm where a 3rd arm goes out of your chest for the action then disappears.
Great article, Estim. Looking forward to part 2.
@Cthulu: YES! We want…nay, we NEED a third arm facepalm!
Starting a petition for Third Arm Facepalm: Sign up HERE
Sign me up!
You know I’m in.
Fantastic read Estim, I liked your own personality shine through, you have such warmth and humour, yes i would say keep writing!
I’d like to see some expressions a little more animated, if your avatar is sad, he or she isnt gonna walk around so chirpy, that avatar is going to slouch their shoulders and walk alot slower. An Anger animation, could be literally (As Burbie says) turn beetroot red, (or if avatar is wearing a hat) throw the hat down onto the ground and stomp all over it! (for the ladies it would probably run along the lines of pull hair out of skull)
I do agree with you on facial animations, the PS3 console is very powerful graphically and can do alot more than other virtual world services in that respect.
The technology is there, Motion capture of facial and other physical animations. We just need to see that utilized. And if Home had to be disc based and hard drive based combined, then it would make things alot easier in the long run in loading and rendering both in terms of avatar production and the world around us on home.
At the moment, even though we are into 2011, it is still early days as far as home is going and there will be (hopefully) massive improvements to come.
Who knows what we will be seeing in another five years from now with home. And if this is anything to go by, very excited to say the least!
Great Read and welcome to the team