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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperDesignSolutions to Talking Head syndrome?
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starsrift
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« on: October 02, 2016, 07:38:39 PM »

Trying to get into development much more seriously this fall, but I keep coming up against this problem where I have absolutely no talent in modelling and animation. Which is fine; proficiency in design, programming, and music are all a good start.

So I'm trying to go a much less model-intensive route, and I think my next big project is a spaceship RPG. The problem is, I've never been able to get invested in the Talking Head style of RPG where you just pop up a portrait and show some text. Especially if you're not even seeing the character person itself in combat, but instead (as planned) a ship. The characters just aren't relatable. Or maybe it's just me, but I can hardly get any emotional or cerebral involvement with them. This problem even shows up in a few of the early console JRPG's, where you do see the characters moving around and stuff.

The Star Wolves series got around this by putting (with an exception) everyone in their own ship, so you identified them with their ships. I thought this was clunky as hell and inelegant. And it still didn't really work much.

King Arthur gets around the problem (since you see mostly armies even on your tactical maps, even if you don't auto-resolve) by using text adventures over vague background imagery, which is a bit more attractive, but that hits me right in my weak spot. Still, it carries a certain amount of stylized elegance and thank goodness for image filtering.

The Star Trek 25th Anniversary got around this by showing everyone on the bridge of the Enterprise, and it probably helped a lot that it was a licensed property, as well. That also, hits me right in my weak spot, but at least sitting and idle animations is something a lot easier than gesture and mouth movement.

I was just wondering if anyone else had come up with or seen another solution to the Talking Head problem.
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voidSkipper
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« Reply #1 on: October 02, 2016, 08:02:33 PM »

Varying the character's talking styles would be a great start. Having characters fly in characteristic ways would be another. Also, even if they don't have individual ships, there's nothing stopping them from having personalized ships, is there? Some pilots might lean towards certain weapon loadouts, some might paint a marker for each victory, some might have a pin-up model painted on the fuselage.
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starsrift
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« Reply #2 on: October 03, 2016, 12:34:17 AM »

Varying the character's talking styles would be a great start.


Could you elaborate on what you mean? Do you mean using different selections of words to create dialects (such as in Whedon's Firefly), or tryin' t'write in some sorta way to suggest 'n accent?

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Having characters fly in characteristic ways would be another. Also, even if they don't have individual ships, there's nothing stopping them from having personalized ships, is there? Some pilots might lean towards certain weapon loadouts, some might paint a marker for each victory, some might have a pin-up model painted on the fuselage.

The player only has one ship, and the characters are the crew. As well as NPC's, of course, but I see those as flat story widgets, not dramatic persons.
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Pishtaco
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« Reply #3 on: October 03, 2016, 12:53:45 PM »

Showing everybody on the bridge sounds like a great idea to me. Animating bodies seems like it should be easier to do passably than animating faces; just get people to look at each other and occasionally wave their arms. Interpersonal relations should be easier to show as well. And having the bridge positions permanently on screen could allow some neat UI gimmicks. What are the downsides?
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starsrift
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« Reply #4 on: October 03, 2016, 09:56:38 PM »

Downsides are plentiful, but not meaningful.
One, it means more modelling and animation. Which is not to an unbearable degree, just a bit of tasking.
Two, I don't think I wanna keep up the scene of the bridge. Maybe as a picture in picture.
Third, it's excessive polys on the screen and ramps up performance requirements.
Fourth, I'm actually not sure how good that method is. ST: 25th Anniversary benefited from a licensed property with real actors backing it. If you play a line of text and show a pixellized Spock, or even just the back of his head, your audience is probably going to hear Leonard Nimoy read the words in their head.

None of those downsides are particular meaningful, though. It's an interesting thought, I'm not just not sold on it.
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JWK5
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« Reply #5 on: October 04, 2016, 07:45:13 AM »

Phantasy Star 4 went about its cut scenes in a pseudo-comic book format and it worked out nicely:





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voidSkipper
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« Reply #6 on: October 12, 2016, 08:12:36 PM »

Varying the character's talking styles would be a great start.


Could you elaborate on what you mean? Do you mean using different selections of words to create dialects (such as in Whedon's Firefly), or tryin' t'write in some sorta way to suggest 'n accent?

Either/both, really - whatever fits what you're going for stylistically.

I never really noticed how samey a lot of fictional characters are in the majority of English fiction until I started reading books in Japanese. The characters' talking styles are so distinct that it's not uncommon to have a conversation with a dozen turns that never has any "he said", "she said" etc accompanying the lines. It's obvious who's talking based on their grammatical quirks, choice of pronoun, masculine vs feminine language, and a few other stylistic devices.

Obviously not all of those are available to you in English, but it's worth considering that there's a lot you can do with speaking styles to differentiate characters.
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Sustrato
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« Reply #7 on: October 19, 2016, 09:31:33 AM »

Talking heads can sometimes hold a lot of power. The Homeworld series never shows a character's real physical body fully, or actively doing anything, but their emotional staying power - partially because of the mystery, partially the overall quality and style of the game - remains with many fans (including me, obviously) to this day.

Here's Makaan, the main villain of the second game:


And a lot of the other characters are shown only as shots of their ship's bridge - not even the inside, the hull, from space.

There are lots of other ways to tie together whatever portraits you use to their characters - idle chatter/animations like in StarCraft, a specific color/symbol carried over between units and their commander, perhaps even making characters with body types similar to their ship shape? I could see Borderlands trying it.
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Kyuugatsu
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« Reply #8 on: October 22, 2016, 08:10:54 PM »

Varying the character's talking styles would be a great start.


Could you elaborate on what you mean? Do you mean using different selections of words to create dialects (such as in Whedon's Firefly), or tryin' t'write in some sorta way to suggest 'n accent?

Either/both, really - whatever fits what you're going for stylistically.

I never really noticed how samey a lot of fictional characters are in the majority of English fiction until I started reading books in Japanese. The characters' talking styles are so distinct that it's not uncommon to have a conversation with a dozen turns that never has any "he said", "she said" etc accompanying the lines. It's obvious who's talking based on their grammatical quirks, choice of pronoun, masculine vs feminine language, and a few other stylistic devices.

Obviously not all of those are available to you in English, but it's worth considering that there's a lot you can do with speaking styles to differentiate characters.

Yeah, that sort of thing isn't going to work in English. Japanese has people speaking differently based on gender, (relative) age, situation, and "era" - not (usually) personality. The personality part mostly comes from people choosing to speak in a manner that doesn't conform to the expected gender, age, era or situation.

You'd be better off using different colored speech bubbles, if distinction is your only concern. If you want players to empathize with the characters, give them more...emotional baggage.
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