Alan Wake DLC Will Improve Facial Animation

07 May 2010 at 10:44:40 by Tim McDonald

Remedy's Markus Maki has claimed that the forthcoming Alan Wake DLC will have superior facial animation.

Following a variety of reviewers noting that the otherwise excellent game has lip-synching and facial animation that's a bit off, a discussion kicked off on the official forums, and Maki stepped in to offer the team's views.

"While I think it'll always be possible to get 'fugly' single frames out of any game we definitely learned a lot doing Alan Wake, and will try to improve the way we do things to get best possible looking facials," said Maki, making the immature among us laugh hysterically. "In fact, we're using some of the improvements in the DLC production already."

"It's not alone a matter of the method how or where the facial capture is done, it's about the run-time animation techniques available, skeleton setup and so on.

"It's a complex problem trying to dodge the Uncanny Valley," he finished.

We still don't know what this DLC is, and that lack of knowledge is both tantalising and annoying. Being that Alan Wake is a single-player title, we're expecting to possibly see a new chapter or two - although the game feels "complete" as it is - or possibly a survival mode, akin to Max Payne 2. We'd relish the opportunity to take on more Taken after how much we enjoyed the game itself.

Comment