Sonic Unleashed animations in older Sonic games

I'm pretty sure he just meant the character's animations, which I don't think would fit well in other games due to the fact that unleashed's animations were primarily ment to be viewed from the side, whereas the other games are viewed from the back.

 

I personally believe that the cartoony, non-mo-capped animations of Unleashed's characters added bunches and bunches of charm that the other (3D) games didn't quite have. They tried to do exaggerated, comical movements in the past (Sonic Adventure's insane mouth/eyebrow movements anyone?), but previous games' graphics engines and lack of model rigs made it look more like the characters had Parkinson's disease or something (like Sonic would make a wild pointing gesture and his arm would shake in place like he was fighting off a seizure, etc.). Please correct me if I'm wrong, that's the impression I've always got and we've never really discussed this matter.

I don't know if it's something particular to the Hedgehog Engine, as other games with colorful 'mascot' characters pull off fun looking animations just fine (like...the first Crash Bandicoot even, and eventually Jak & Daxter, to name a couple). Perhaps Sonic Team just had a lack of animation prowess prior to Hashimoto taking the reigns. Even Sonic '06's animations were incredibly stiff, and Sonic's facial expression NEVER changed. I'm glad the Unleashed team finally managed to show off Sonic's side-mouth in game. Sonic just...always looked weird when his mouth appeared right under his nose, and that helped take away most of his "attitude" as it looks much, much less like a snarky smirk. It leaves the rest of his visible muzzle with nothing to do, and he looks much more....generic and serious than he should. Having the mouth show up on the side closest to the camera was a genius move. I don't see why it hadn't been done before, outside of pre-rendered scenes.

Only now I'm kind of bothered as it seems Sonic's the only one they feel like doing this with. Tails and Amy both had front mouths in Unleashed. Yes, I'm aware that it's only a minor detail, but it affects the expression much more than you'd realize.

And Professor Pickle was the shit. I always liked how he'd happily bounce back and forth with a grin as you ended conversations with him.

Sonic Unleashed was just...great, in terms of visuals and animation. It's a shame they hadn't ironed everything out in the framerate department (like when it tries to render the Werehog's fur in a cutscene), but it's still an artistic marvel all around. Moreso than most current gen titles.

I'm glad there are games out there like Unleashed, Mirror's Edge and Borderlands that don't throw your everyday muscle-bound army guy(who may or may not be in a mechanical suit) into a city that looks suspiciously like New York, Chicago, or a mix of the two.

*sigh* I'll never get over Gears of War beating Okami for best art direction that year. Fucking ridiculous.

 

You might have noticed that the characters in Unleashed on the PS360 blend very smoothly into one another. You might be thinking that that's the result of the effort that Sonic Team put into the game, but you'd be wrong. It uses Havok Animation.

The Hedgehog Engine needs serious work. It can't come close to "HD" display resolutions, can't reach 60 fps, and can't render decent foliage to save it's life. Even as ugly as it is, the game still chokes on that very same foliage.

Amy will look good when she doesn't give the impression she'd go for my throat if she wasn't hiding her true nature from Sonic.

 

Go and take a look at Black Knight- Knuckles and Shadow also sport the side-mouth. It seems to be a specific part of the design now. I can totally understand why Amy, Tails and Blaze have front mouths and Sonic, Knuckles and Shadow have side ones. For just the normal characters (non-robots, non-humans, Big or Vector) I think they'll decide which ones will get side mouths. I can see them giving it to Espio. but not so much for Cream if you understand what I'm saying.

 

What are you talking about? Unleashed had a ton of back shots as well.

 

O, Good Lord, forgive me, for I can't belive in what had been just written.

First. I'll assume that, by 'characters', you actually mean 'animations'. The animations in Sonic Unleashed on the PS360 blend very smoothly into one another thanks for the Triple Buffering technic, not because of Havok Animation™. Havok Animation™ can only be used in integration with Havok Physics™, and only the PS3 version of Sonic Unleashed uses Havok Physics™, while the 360 version doesn't. Even though the PS3 version does uses Havok Physics™, Havok Animation™ wasn't used to develop the animations in any point in the project.

Second. Oh, it needs to be quoted again. In sections.

...unless by "HD" you mean a 200000x100000 pixels resolution, with 256 bits of depth of color, then, the answer no really.

"The fact that games that uses the Unreal Engine™ 3 aren't 60 fps, doesn't means that the Unreal Engine™ 3 is unable to render an entire game at 60 fps. In fact, Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe runs at 60 fps." That's what I've been discussing with the lead game director, and this case pretty much applies in here as well.

Once again, you make an automatic assumption of, Hedgehog Engine = Sonic Unleashed. The fact that Sonic Unleashed is run at 30 fps doesn't means that obrigatorly every software developed under the Hedgehog Engine must run in this very same refresh rate. Sonic Unleashed isn't 60 fps for the simple fact of massive load of resources in memory to avoid load times as much as possible, due to it's absolutely HUGE scenaries, that are so huge that they must be subtly loaded in sdections while you play them. Hell, once I was passing through Eggmanland so fast, that the game couldn't have time to load the rest of the scenary, and only loaded after I was already falling into oblivion. The are scenaries which are divided into 2, 3 sections, such as Rooftop Run and Jungle Joyride. That's one of the reason why they prevent you from backtracking in many points. Another thing that this engine has that no other uses at this point: Global Illumination. Needles to say, even though the scenaries theirselves uses lightmappings, the characters and objects are rendered with a global illumination layer, and this is a process that takes a lot of the cpu/gpu. Still about the 60 fps issue, massive amount of geometry being rendered at the same time, the draw clipping distance of the game is very, very high. To prove my point, in fact, while the 360 version is caped at 30 fps, in the PS3 version the frame rate is uncaped (and therefore, unstable), but there are many, many points where the game plays at full 60 fps. More than enough proof that the Hedgehog Engine can render at 60 fps.

...and what... would this... come to be...?

 

Considering the way you just spoke to Phos, I dunno if I should dare question what you just said. But I shall anyway.

The 360 version doesn't use Havok? That makes no sense to me if the PS3 version is a port especially since my box, the one that I just checked, said it does use it. As does the Wii version box. I always understood that the PS3 and 360 games are identical bar the speed-cap and obvious differences like button-prompts.

 

I don't think those large hands help...



No matter what game she's rendered in, her model ALWAYS has those large freaking hands. Nonetheless, yes, indeed, the Hedgehog Engine could do wonders to the models of any character in the other 3D Sonic games. The rendering with the Hedgehog Engine is absolutely amazing.

 

Right, but the animations look sloppy, squashed, and bland from back there. I honestly think Uekawa's in-game character animations are the best, as they hold weight when viewed from any angle. His cutscene animations however (if they are even done by him, remember that in sa2 the 'events' had a different artist.) not so much.

 

I think that's subject to opinion. Sat here right now with Sonic in Arid Sands (360) and can't see the slightest issue with his animations from behind. Nothing looks squashed or sloppy. Compared to other 3D Sonic titles however, the camera is automatically centred behind Sonic quite often.

 

Beats me. Technically, the 360/PS3 versions are a 1/1 copy. However, you can notice a slight difference in the dynamic objects in the PS3 version. That's Havok Physics in action.

About the Wii/PS2 version, I'm pretty sure it uses Ageia PhysX, as the community of the PS2 scene decrypted the game wide open, and would find PhysX instruction sets.

About the covers, though, I've no idea why they state they use Havok Physics.

 

Hmm. I don't believe that the 360 version doesn't use Havok because that would be incredibly strange. Could I ask for a comparison video? Sonic 06 used Havok, and did so badly. It always felt like Unleashed 360 did too, only far better.

 

Cryengine 3

 

You have no idea what triple buffering is.

So why is the Havok logo on the back of the box? And listed as using it on Havok's website?

It didn't come up much, except for this big Japanese thing that I can't find the link to now. The only translation I had was machine translated, but it clearly said that Havok animation was used on Sonic. Like I said, I don't have the link to check anymore, but I also think it said "Havok Animation" even in the Japanese version.

It's still going to have to do all that in the next game as well, and the hardware isn't getting any faster.

Do you think that Sonic Unleashed runs at 1920×1080? It doesn't, it doesn't even run at 1280x720. It's rendered at a lower resolution and then stretched to fit the screen.

http://lightsprint.com/

And look, it doesn't require days of precalculation. Bonus points: The shadows it renders don't look like they're made out of Legos, and it actually allows for dynamic light sources.

 

Why do you care so much about these technicalities and whatnot? I played Unleashed on my friend's HDTV and it looked and played great. I couldn't give a rat's ass if the animations only look good due to Havok animation or whatever shite your spewing. If it's fun and it looks nice, who cares?

 

Matter of opinion now. They looked fine.

 

So I belive you and your company are developing an entire game engine from scratch as well, I see. Sorry, I couldn't help it but laugh.

It means that Sonic Unleashed runs at 30fps and has an *awful* screen resolution. The game. We know that already. The engine itself can render in a much, much greater resolution, and you know that. It still doesn't prove your point.

Never said "no other has". I said "no other uses", meaning that many game developers whose use such engines doesn't develop the games taking advantage of such feature. If precaulation is a problem, mine renders the screen in individual layers that are blended together, and renders the global illumination in realtime, with an optmized code that doesn't require amount of massive CPU overload.


...But this discussion isn't helping the thread in any point. The thread subject is "Sonic Unleashed animations in older Sonic games", and not "I know more than you do about x". Let's get back on topic and let's refrain from inserting personal attacks please.

 

I knew you were doing this, so I was surprised that you thought that tripple buffering has anything to do with animations.