#snackrat talks

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So uhhh... long hiatus I know but do people still use this site after the nsfw-ban fiasco lmao

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so tumblr’s explore page thinks I’m in the market for their soup-positive content and they couldn’t be more wrong >:C

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Making a Yuan-Ti pureblood warlock for a friend’s campaign and decided to try drawing it (never played a Yuan-Ti before) and uhh... wow I can’t believe I managed this wow i did this? me?

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....I absolutely read the tags y’all reblog with ʕಠᴗಠʔ thank you!

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the cyclone isn’t even here yet and my windows are rattling and thundering so loud i’m freaking out, how am I supposed to sleep in this huh, the wind is facing my side of the house and my bed is rIGHT UNDER THE WINDOW

i can hear something loud tumbling along outside and the wind isn’t even at peak, okay maybe I’m just freaking out a lot but this is new for me so I make this post so if you never hear from me again you know what happened :^)

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On an arbitary scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is a feverdream where everyone's face is replaced by melted plastic that reminds you of that woman in Doctor Who telling people to 'moisturize her' and where 10 is too scary-good to be actual cgi thus making you uncomfortable, how were those facial and general animations on ME:A would you say?

Let’s eschew the numerical rating system altogether, because I see this ‘discussed’ SO MUCH that reducing it to a number is the opposite of productive.

Some elements or characters are weak, and you’ll note people using those as an example over and over again. Over and over, the overly-madeup Addison “My Face is Tired” woman, as proof of terrible face animations. One side NPC does not a game make.

Then you have people saying “the aliens look realistic! So real! Why can’t the humans and asari look that real?” Well here we meet the problem: the uncanny valley. Aliens are different enough from humans that we don’t NOTICE any weird discrepancies in how they move, because we have nothing to compare against. When it comes to humans, and the human-faced asari, however, we are very very fussy. Literally impossibly so.

And if you’ve been playing an exhaustive amount of games of high-end quality, you’ll always find SOMETHING to complain about, because like art, different elements have different strengths, and what one prefers isn’t necessarily what another prefers. Over and over people compare MEA to W3:WH. Over and over. They are both beautiful. They are not the same, so it is up to you which you think is better. But they are both beautiful. And the environments of MEA, which is more important to me than a single side NPC, are absolutely fantasy-art-style gorgeous.

The facial animations are not bad. In fact, with a few exceptions, they are very very GOOD. The most expressive I have ever seen a Mass Effect game, which looked canned in comparison. The weak points are just that - points, in the overall experience, where the veneer crumbles slightly. (Notably “My Face is Tired” Addison.)

The problem is that, until computer models have the same intricacies and animation points as a real, muscular face, we will never consider them good enough.

….as for general animations, yeah okay, I grant those can be wonky. Legs spasm when you turn, and so much focus was placed on realistic facial animations that nobody ever moves their bodies, they just stand there stiffly dictating dialogue to you. When they do move their body, it’s lift an arm to gesture, the hands and wrists of which also never move.

Reddit is constantly complaining about the faces, but in my opinion, the lack of overall body movement is the problem.

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Curious question: What face-claim do YOU think Rev. Light has? I have my own, but I'm interested what you think :3c

I’m like…. so bad at faceclaims hahahah

Like initially I just used Jason Bright from FONV when I drew him and I still didn’t…. do a great likeness but oh well

There is a real guy called Jason Bright, he is an aussie racer, you could use:

…just for like the name reference if nothing else, heh

But he does have a real good face I think, it’s interesting and distinctive and would stand out without looking weird. I love how blunt and strong this face looks, esp his crooked ears and large nose, this is a great face

Distinctive faces are good, I think a lot of people use the same kinda samey ‘conventionally-attractive’ faces over and over and it makes everybody look the same. Don’t be afraid to make them look more interesting! Real people have lots of different faces and they’re all good 👏

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For those of you following my aesthetic/reblog side blog @snarkrat (which these days is getting way more than this one because i’ve been drawing less... cough)... I’m cleaning out the drafts there right now and I am so so sorry for your dashboard :,)