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| Picture from here |
As i may have mention i've been looking at the character Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite and her animations for part of my case study. I've played it myself and watched another person play. Despite having two perspectives they are both influenced by my research. I'm obviously going to critically analyse everything and pay much closer attention to the performance than the average player to the point where i cant help but break the immersion slightly. The person i watched knows everything about my project and so will have a similar if not quite as extreme version of this which will skew their experience and any feedback i get from them.
Because of this it occurred to me that i should probably ask others their experience of Elizabeth, not to use as references due to questions on quality but more so i could have a couple more impartial opinions to think about.
I asked two people who luckily both will have had different levels of immersion due to their backgrounds. The first is a student at Abertay and due to the nature of his own project he will be looking at certain aspects of the game more closely but wont be looking at animations at all. As far as i know he's never looked into animations too deeply and so that wont sway his opinions. He has seen a load of the stuff before hand though which may have encouraged him to pay closer attention as Elizabeth has been a big focus for bioshock infinite.
In an attempt to avoid spoilers I'll trim the feedback down to just some key quotes which don't reveal anything and fill in the gaps myself in a more vague non specific manner.
"so far I am really liking the character development. There are some really authentic lines of dialogue, that from a game point of view,is what makes her well rounded and implemented well."
" I think that the way that she moves and interacts is very well done."
This statement was followed by a few examples but interestingly most were either referencing dialogue or the sort of in game cuts cenes that a lot of games now use to try and help maintain immersion.
He then went on to explain that Elizabeth's nature is in keeping with her background but doesn't go to the extreme where it could become irritating implying that the balance that they've achieved is creating a likeable character that the player is able to form a connection with.
The other person i asked is someone whose finished an animation degree 5 years ago but hasn't really acted on it since, they also only have a basic knowledge of game development process and animation for games and so they will have the knowledge to judge performance but probably wont be actively looking for it, allowing them to achieve a level of immersion I'm not able to. Finally they haven't seen any previous footage in regards to the development process so their comments are uninfluenced.
"I'm impressed with the way she seems interested in things. I like how she sits down if she gets bored. I adore the fact that she tells you not to worry about her, and that she can fight for herself (I have a personal hatred of Protect The VIP missions in games)
In fact, she doesn't act like a game NPC She acts more like Rapunzel from Tangled, as if she has been animated at every turn by the chaps who did her"
It's interesting that he picks up on the general vibe mentioned by Ken Levine in his Bafta interview/presentation they were going for in regards to the Disney princess type actions and also that he seems to speak as if she has a mind of her own and that she's thinking about where she is and what's happening around her, this is key to creating a character seem believable in Film animation.
I've asked both of them to let me know if they have any thoughts as they continue playing.
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