For some reason, I remember there being proof somewhere that Colors through Forces used motion capture and then tweaked the animations in editing. So, that's my bad. But my point remains the same: frontmouth has absolutely nothing to do with Sonic characters not being expressive in the games.
Dubs the last time they even did mocap was back in Unleashed, and there it was pretty obvious with how everyone jostled. Everything else is hand animated afterwards.
Look I gotta be honest with you I don't have a massive investment in this argument but I do think the one on the left looks better here
I mean obviously his mouth should switch between front/side mouth depending on the situation. Like even back in the opening animation for sonic 1 on the genesis, he uses both side and front mouth. The side mouth is meant to be a smirk, if he's not smirking he probably doesn't need side mouth. Personally i think the liberal use of front mouth in the gamecube era games like riders charming. My bigger problem with his mouth is how it looks in 3d, there's always these gross creases around the corners that just dont work with the art style. Like even in the prime screenshots posted, the characters mouths look really bad to me whether or not it's front/side. I think this is just due to the fact that the sonic models just aren't built to emote that much. Sonic especially always has furrowed brows which if you look at the old genesis sprites was not how the character was originally animated. The animal crossing games are a lot better at incorporating 2d animation elements on a 3d model and looking good, a number of villagers have side mouth and it never looks awkward
Prime has the better animation quality overall, but I think the most versatile Sonic's face has been in 3D is maybe still the Sonic Boom cartoon? Spoiler His mouth is definitely still on the front of his face, but the model is flexible enough that it can move to wherever it needs to be for a given expression. The eyebrows are flatter against his head but can still be pushed together when the emotions call for it, and it doesn't have the "Ron Lim TV screen eyes" problem that Prime sometimes does. As a side note, while that's obviously more difficult for a video game to do, Rise of Lyric had its own solution, which was switching between models for Sonic's head depending on the camera angle, one with frontmouth, and another with it on the side (maybe even two sides?). There's definitely no excuse for SEGA not to do that if it would avoid the Lost World/Forces thing where it's on the wrong side of his face during a scene.
The boom model is definitely a lot better for expressions than some of the recent stuff we've gotten from the main games. After playing mario wonder i just wish wed get a sonic game with that level of care. I was a little sad to see that superstars took the approach of copying the genesis animations 1-1 instead of pushing the characters further with modern tech. Sonic has always had such a thought out design, that has a lot going on despite how simple it looks. If its just a little off it looks really weird. Like ever since i saw someone point out how they modeled his shoulders as if the blue part is a weird vest i haven't been able to unsee it and it always bothers me. Personally my favorite official sonic artist is Nathalie Fourdrain, i really didnt like Belle's design until i saw her drawn in her style.
On a related note... I've always thought it was weird that they talk about modern Sonic being slightly "redesigned" in Sonic Unleashed, because that's where an lot of current model and render complaints claim to have started, but it honestly doesn't feel like they did much of anything. Other than Secret Rings's horrible separated teeth (and the crappiness of the Shadow renders in general), I don't get a strong impression of change from 2005 onwards, it was really only spinoffs and I guess Sonic 06 that diverged very much. As early as the Shadow render, you can see the stuff people complain about in regards to Sonic's muzzle curve and the way his quills connect, and the size of his hands and feet is pretty consistent (also, his right leg has that weird bend people complained about in the birthday render).
06 has it too. I used to call it "razormouth" because it looks like he's got a sawblade in there, but no, his whole mouth is just at a weird angle.
That's because the model was created for unleashed. SEGA put it to use shortly after it was created, but it was ultimately made by the unleashed team for unleashed in early 2005.
Is that a joke, or did you mean to write a different year than 2005. Because uh. Sonic Unleashed was not in development then
You people never noticed his teeth in those renders before? The Rise of Lyric boxart has it too, looking worst on Amy. It's why I've always hated the renders in question. It gives shades of this
Unleashed's development began in 2005 because that's when they began working on the Hedgehog Engine, ahead of full-scale production in 2006 iirc
I just never noticed it in Secret Rings specifically. In parts because Unleashed's model removed it and so my brain probably just tricked me into thinking they were never there in the first place
I don't mean to argue for this specifically cause I haven't heard about it myself, but 06 did have that fuzzy, far more Unleashed-looking concept render. Wouldn't surprise me if they were working on it in 2005.
I mean. I guess? But given the phrasing of "by the Unleashed team for Unleashed" it's kind of weird to mean "the early testing phases of the engine Sonic Unleashed was built on", especially when our own Unleashed development history article implies Kawamura was rethinking Sonic's look in direct response to Sonic 06. This isn't exactly a detailed account of what was done when, especially given the development of the engine probably took up a ton of time before the game was really in the full swing of production. If that's not the case, then I guess our wiki has some inaccurate information? Either way, I don't see anything in here about Sonic's character model.
