Rise and Fall of Facial Animations

Рет қаралды 456,806

7 ай бұрын

What made the OG titles so great were the great stories. And those stories were empowered by high quality cutscenes and animations. But over the years that quality has decreased significantly. So I thought to compare four AC games from their respective generations to see how they evolved.

Пікірлер: 1 566

@willbentley8856 7 ай бұрын

It's crazy that Unity is now 9 years old and still looks like something that could've come out a year ago. Progress has really stagnated.

@TrumpIsTheRootOfAllEvil 6 ай бұрын

I mean, we kinda hit the ceiling, really. Unity is an incredible looking game

@m00rtin4 6 ай бұрын

true. graphics are becoming more and more obsolete in games. its more about gameplay. just look at zelda.

@S.O.A_Zero 6 ай бұрын

@@m00rtin4wtf no, GoW, TLOU2, RDR2, Control, Baldur's Gate 3, Horizon, Doom are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to top level graphics

@EP_mc 6 ай бұрын

@@S.O.A_Zerorespectfully. Graphics < gameplay

@S.O.A_Zero 6 ай бұрын

@@EP_mc And nowadays gameplay is a thousand times better than in older videogames, so you proved nothing

@FutureIndustrieseditz 7 ай бұрын

Syndicate is about 9 years old and Jacob has more detail in his facial animations than the whole of Mirage, Valhalla and Odyssey game's that came way after.

@StealthyWiley 7 ай бұрын

I forgot how good syndicate looked.

@jamesfleming5830 7 ай бұрын

That's because Origins is the last game to use motion capture.

@FutureIndustrieseditz 7 ай бұрын

@@jamesfleming5830true

@spriteking3944 7 ай бұрын

@jamesfleming5830 I'm pretty sure odyssey had partial motion capture, but then they gave up after that.

@user-sx5xh1xp1j 7 ай бұрын

@@spriteking3944Odyssey definitely used motion capture.

@Lark88 7 ай бұрын

It's off topic, but I'm still baffled that a French company using French characters set in France during the French Revolution couldn't or wouldn't find voice actors who could do a French accent.

@sebasbandera 7 ай бұрын

Lmao they said it would be too hard to understand

@live22morrow 7 ай бұрын

They did have French accents though in AC Liberation set in colonial Louisiana.

@Lark88 7 ай бұрын

@@live22morrow Exactly!

@alexandergladkov3270 7 ай бұрын

Ubisoft Montreal is a canadian company, not french. That's why all voice actors are canadians. I know that Quebec is a french speaking region, but making ALL voice actors to have french accent is problematic and not worth it imo.

@Ronwind 6 ай бұрын

Better than what we got for origins lmao

@BruteForceLink 7 ай бұрын

Unity was the peak imo

@itsaxel8088 7 ай бұрын

I agree too. You can tell their subtle emotions by just looking at their face.

@mrhappyartworks 7 ай бұрын

Yeah, a shame many people seem to really love to use footages from the Bastille, which is the worst moment in the game graphic wise. Later moments with Arno and Mirabeau, or Arno and Elise, or Arno and Germain would be much better.

@mylifeistrash9591 7 ай бұрын

Unity was their peak. You know there is a quote and that goes like this " When you reach your peak from there you can go only downhill"

@1lham_edits 7 ай бұрын

Syndicate's facial animations and details are better. Unity is really good too - better in terms of gameplay definitely though less polished. Both are decent games.

@NickelRacker112 7 ай бұрын

When it comes to graphic, yes.

6 ай бұрын

Bro the slight smile in 1:13 gives so much personality to the character

@RobertoRuiz08 6 ай бұрын

Those kind of details are the ones that we lost at the moment we went to the rpg and ubi started making factory selling games 💀

@dannybald9671 6 ай бұрын

Edward Kenway is my favorite assassin and still one of the most memorable characters in gaming for me

@last_aid_kit 6 ай бұрын

@@RobertoRuiz08tbh it has nothing in common with the real rpg genre, more like grinding-oriented action-rpg

@RobertoRuiz08 6 ай бұрын

@@last_aid_kit It on has with rpg the attributes and the numbers, In everything else Is just a factory made game made without dedication, and yes, the only thing where they put dedication was on the place and the history of the age, but In everything else (like you would do on any other game) Is just rushed out, parkour, characters, story, etc

@aspirewot8408 6 ай бұрын

@@RobertoRuiz08 wrong Valhalla has better animation , graphics + facial expressions and I've added the proof in my C0mun1ty p0st . Check yourself :) if u got the guts liar

@NOTH4R 5 ай бұрын

Actually it's not only the facial animations, it's also the skin shading, face geometry, light subsurface scattering and tone mapping. It really peaked in Unity, that version of the Anvil engine is way more technically advanced than what we got after Origins.

@Navierstokes256 5 ай бұрын

If it only wasn’t running so buggy and poorly at launch, it caused the series to pivot hard due to the outrage. Should’ve been better

@Murzac 5 ай бұрын

The funny thing is that Unity was the first game to use AnvilNext 2.0, and they also used that in Syndicate, Origins, and Odyssey. My guess is that the reason why the latter games don't look as good as Unity did was because Ubisoft realized that while yes, the engine is capable of the kind of fancy shit that we saw in Unity, the engine is incredibly unstable when you do that. So they then went and got rid of the systems that were causing the issues which fixed the problems in the long run but also made the games look a bit worse. A fair trade despite the fact that Unity looks gorgeous. Then again even in this clip you can see a **LOT** of artifacts from the post processing and the lighting engine.

@John-X 5 ай бұрын

The last Ubisoft game i bought was Farcry 3...on PS3...

@MrQko 5 ай бұрын

then you are all up to speed honestly in terms of gameplay loop@@John-X

@hippityhoppity5823 4 ай бұрын

@@Navierstokes256 Graphics aren't everything, everyone thought unity was boring and mid

@MrJay1El 6 ай бұрын

Just a reminder to everyone that the reason for this loss in quality is not "we have reached the peak in animation quality". If anything, we have even better technology available today. It's just that today companies allocate a lot of resources into things like microtransactions, or making huge games that don't actually have anything in it. it's all about making games faster, cutting expenses and maximizing profits.

@Adrenalin844 6 ай бұрын

Honestly, I can see why a company like Ubisoft would do something like this. Why hire all those professional actors and stunt artists and use motion capture to rig their movements to PC and NPC skeletons when you can just do the whole thing once using nothing but software and save the presets for later use? I bet a good chunk of these animations are just rehashes of what they've been using since Origins.

@DaDoubleDee 6 ай бұрын

@@Adrenalin844 I think everyone can understand the financial reasoning to reuse assets for a game, and this is why corporations keep getting away with it, all this "understanding" is all they need to become cheaper with their developments and increase their profits - profits that the people who actually work on the games don't take part in. I can't think of a single mega corporation that has any interest in their products other than the bottom line of profits. Every release from these game corpo's have progressively become worse in overall quality yet still manage to make money. Not pointing fingers here, just venting, but people's standards have decreased along with it because everything is about the bag these days.

@whyitmatters6906 6 ай бұрын

@@DaDoubleDee "all this "understanding" is all they need" no, it isn't. and if u think u can make a really big company behave by "boycotting" their products you didn't much attention to the history of games or food or any sector of any industry really.

@futurestoryteller 6 ай бұрын

While the last sentence is true by itself, the idea that resources are allocated away from animation and into microtransactions is like a joke. This is like when that one Mass Effect game came out, and everybody complained about how "the woke" ruined the game. When really the models were jacked up and the animations were bad because the people with the money didn't want to spend any to fix it. Because of course that's what happened. That's what always happens. I get that people actually have good reason to hate microtransactions, but these things really don't have anything to do with each other. It's a general philosophy of cutting corners, not a reallocation.

@MrJay1El 6 ай бұрын

@@DaDoubleDee It baffles me how many people explain away this kind of behavior by saying "it's just what it is". Or they are openly negative like the person who replied to your comment by basically saying "this world sucks, you can't make a difference, you're fooling yourself". Used to be people complained about bad things, but today we just kind of accept it.

@TheSuperflyKing 7 ай бұрын

Second they went RPG I always felt like they cut a lot of corners

@StealthyWiley 7 ай бұрын

Bro I remember watching your AC 3 video. Great stuff man. Keep posting awesome stuff. And thanks for watching my video :)

@jcmee91 7 ай бұрын

Disagree, AC4 was the beginning of the RPG style and it was fantastic. It was just the style of Odyssey that killed it.

@raiden1766 7 ай бұрын

@@jcmee91 Mustve been something in the post Origins bit, cause that game had some really solid animations

@1lham_edits 7 ай бұрын

@@jcmee91 with your first statement about AC4 being the "beginning of the RPG style", how so?

@1lham_edits 7 ай бұрын

The video is titled "The Rise" and then "The Fall" - my correction unless the publisher changed the title.

@TigerChamp99 6 ай бұрын

According to the thumbnail, Mirage looks 9 years older than Unity.

@aspirewot8408 6 ай бұрын

Play Valhalla it has better animation and details

@agentj3627 6 ай бұрын

@@aspirewot8408 Valhalla is dogshit

@aspirewot8408 6 ай бұрын

@@agentj3627 can you tell me the reason why u think it's "D_sht" ?? Please I'd like to hear I'm someone who has been playing assassin creed games since Ac 1, and who also has 200+ hours on Valhalla :) let's hear what you got to say

@spectralassassin6030 5 ай бұрын

@@aspirewot8408 I watched plenty of Valhalla cutscenes. No. They do not even come close.

@njux1871 5 ай бұрын

@@agentj3627 Valhalla has a fantastic story and really has the time come alive. It's one of my favorite games. I am obsessed with Norse mythology and vikings tho. The game is sadly stretched out till there's no tomorrow and watered down so much you don't even taste the fruit. It's such a cheap move and incredibly annoying because it killed so much of its replayability. Fucking zones. Still love it. But I also hate it.

@AlePryo82 6 ай бұрын

0:22 No way Ezio did the thing 🤌🏻

@tou_shi Ай бұрын

@Volnas97 Ай бұрын

You can't speak Italian without hand gestures. I tried. It's impossible

@PecoraSpec 27 күн бұрын

@@Volnas97 I am italian 100% agree

@zacharydrahm825 26 күн бұрын

Ezio did it on the first mission in AC2 lol he’s always done it

@123evilwolf 7 ай бұрын

Jesus, Unity was released a decade ago, I still remember the hype and reaction videos to the trailer like it was a week ago.

@panchohalo2158 6 ай бұрын

Don't forget how broken it was after release

@deepflare1028 6 ай бұрын

@@panchohalo2158don't forget how most of those bugs were fixed years later

@ezioauditore8946 6 ай бұрын

9 years ago dummy

@samuraijackoff5354 6 ай бұрын

@@deepflare1028 Years later...

@Legion849 6 ай бұрын

@@panchohalo2158Don't forget the terrible writing that makes Syndicate look like a masterpiece

@maboilaurence8227 6 ай бұрын

What really sets these games apart is the lighting, you can still see shadows covering a character's face while wearing a hood in a 10 year old game, and yet modern ACs completely lack details like that, it looks like characters themselves are emanating light.

@Razumen 5 ай бұрын

Yeah, lots of games don't use self-shadowing because it's expensive, and characters look like they're emanating light because they're not actually lit by the environment, but by a "hack" that approximates what it should look like based on the surrounding brightness - which is why you don't get shadows in the proper places and there's often weird highlights where there should be shadows instead.

@Totone56 5 ай бұрын

@@Razumen It's wild to see such visual flaws not categorized as "first priority" in games with a lot of focus on characters, etc. I mean, Scree Space Shadows and that kind of stuff exist for these kind of scenarios and are pretty common, but for some reason some studios don't seem to care about such important visual features.

@Hoodedvigilant1 7 ай бұрын

Unity & syndicate were so advanced & ahead of their time. Unity wasn’t even completed. That is why bugs exist. I also read that we were suppose to play as a female character but after the writer quit, it was changed to Arno.

@izzry_ 6 ай бұрын

Imagine if the game have more time to develop

@deepflare1028 6 ай бұрын

What's funny is that Syndicate was originally supposed to completely focus on a male character with a darker tone, this series is full of wasted potential, if only Ubisoft would just keep their games at least 2 years in the oven

@aspirewot8408 6 ай бұрын

Syndicate and advanced ?? What you smoking bud pass that thing to me 😂. Syndicate is worse game I've ever played took me 13 hours to complete and the game 0 story . We have Jacob n Eve one removes tempalr and your finds Eden . The end I .Lol

@Hoodedvigilant1 6 ай бұрын

@@aspirewot8408 I didn’t specifically say on what so here are my thoughts. The world feels alive, the map was detailed, the activities were fun, the story was not good but the voice acting was perfect. I actually enjoyed some missions. Stealth was also good. This game and Unity coulda been good if the devs finished the game and made better stories for these games. Thats all.

@aspirewot8408 6 ай бұрын

@@Hoodedvigilant1 yes I do agree voice acting was fun and some mission were funny like the Desmond being a puppy ,but I was disappointed with syndicate due to its lack of plot or any story felt so boring not to forget those grappling hooks it discourages parkour tbh . U just hook like spiderman n swing one point to another . Unity was something else , but syndicate not really.but yeah I agree stealth was rewarding but it was just same nothing new basically

@ion_X 5 ай бұрын

Evie was such a great character, her voice actress as well, not just performance, her voice as well; really quite fitting

@ion_X 5 ай бұрын

And the Great Edward Kenway performed by Constantine himself

@umairahmed1235 7 ай бұрын

Unity and syndicate were the last 2 games with great facial animations.... After that, the fall of facial animations started

@Husky92223 6 ай бұрын

Origins did a good job

@R3TR0J4N 5 ай бұрын

for still being a story driven game yea

@R3TR0J4N 5 ай бұрын

@@Husky92223 yea was surprized its well paced for its narrative regards being an arpg openworld

@Husky92223 5 ай бұрын

@@R3TR0J4N They set the narrative and the time period in such a perfect way in the end that i was so hyped for the sequel... instead we had Ac Odyssey T_T

@meurer13daniel 5 ай бұрын

Nope, Origins had great facial animations during the cutscenes. Like, really good animations.

@AgustinY98 6 ай бұрын

it's crazy the fact that the more of these games come out, the more you miss games that they were terrible when they came out

@ZAH33D 6 ай бұрын

Ubisoft perfected the formula for releasing worse games every generation. Although, the new parkour update for Mirage that recently came out did surprise me a lot.

@ErnieZee 5 ай бұрын

@@ZAH33D AC series was straight bangers until Origins. They only fucked up the animus story and needlessly pushed for uplay.

@francisrondeau2565 5 ай бұрын

origin was good just a bit to bloated@@ErnieZee

@65firered 3 ай бұрын

Most just Unity and Syndicate.

@Walker733 2 ай бұрын

I think it's time they pull the plug altogether. They are great games but clearly they are running out of ideas and passion.

@Mk_Otaid 7 ай бұрын

Origins is the last one that had great facial capture as I recall. After that just a few cutscenes in Odyssey and I think only a couple in Valhalla. This is what happens when you go full-on quantity over quality. The only thing that's stayed consistent is environment design. AC used to be about gameplay and story complementing each other. Each newer title has a ton of content, sure - but the gameplay eventually becomes mundane (because there's too much to do) and the story stays serviceable, at best. They have lost their spark for a while now.

@jacksondunn3284 7 ай бұрын

And even then, then just the way the character model moves below the neck breaks any sense of immersion. Sucks, though I still feel Origins is the strongest of the hack and slash trilogy.

@Even_N.D. 7 ай бұрын

Yet the old games had Shit combat and Origins took that in a new fresh direction. But i agree about facial animations. The thing is they dont use mocap for the newer games. And for Mirage i can forgive it, since it was a small studio with limited Budget by Ubisoft.

@leealanwhite 7 ай бұрын

There was actually a cutscene in Origins where Bayek mouths something to Aya and its such a good facial capture that I could actually read his lips. I was absolutely shocked when I saw it the first time just having never seen such a natural animation in anything.

@Kumihox94 6 ай бұрын

Odyssey was the same as Origins in quality of cinematics and graphic, if not better. Idk about Valhalla, didn't even have the will to try it out after how milked this franchise is.

@mark9237 6 ай бұрын

origins was a fucking joke

@kitchensarehot8769 7 ай бұрын

So weird how Mirage has such a beautiful city and general aesthetic, but the animations are just so stiff. Not just the animation, but the direction of the cutcenes is very bland.

@haaxeu6501 4 ай бұрын

Yeah they obviously didn't use performance capture, which is a very time consuming expensive and involved process. It's just about cutting corners and pumping out content faster and cheaper, there is no passion left in Ubisoft.

@DarknessAlchemist00 4 ай бұрын

It was a lower budget entry. Originally, it was going to be DLC for Valhalla, but it was spun off into its own thing and given less resources than a full standalone title would have.

@Walker733 2 ай бұрын

Same with odyssey

@vernonparker5154 Ай бұрын

Baghdad was beautiful, but it was so lifeless, felt like walking through a ghost town at points

@yavuzkhan7369 6 ай бұрын

I always loved how yusuf calls ezio "mentor da firenze" at the end :)

@gregddr 6 ай бұрын

2:38 that 'yes' from evie perfectly captures her character. Syndicate had some damn good moments.

@simonandsimbagaming 5 ай бұрын

Unfortunately it also contained some of the most weird dialogue, alongside Rogue. "How do we tell the audience what the characters' names are?" "Uh... just have another character say it for no particular reason."

@bugs1285 6 ай бұрын

I’m pretty sure Black Flag was the first AC game that used motion capture and Unity the first to use performance capture. Then the mythological saga used some performance capture, but also relied on an automated system to synchronise voice acting with lip movement. I’ve seen it also badly done in Mass Effect Andromeda, though not as bad as Mirage, which highly likely was fully automated.

@ODC_3D 5 ай бұрын

I doubt it‘s fully automated but I think you are on to something here.

@bugs1285 5 ай бұрын

@@ODC_3D Yeah, it’s not fully automated. But it’s a program that attempts to synchronise sound and lip-movement.

@thedrumboy78 5 ай бұрын

Unity and Syndicate are so underrated, I know people didn’t like them when they were released but those two together with Black Flag are the best AC experiences for me

@TheMordgan 5 ай бұрын

*looks to unity* - Perhaps I treated you too harshly, little one.

@Toxin___InterHalfer 3 ай бұрын

It was never a question for me to play or not to play Syndicate because I was and still is heavily fond of Britain The architecture, the old newspapers, so many different things And Jacob with Evie, siblings done right

@thedrumboy78 3 ай бұрын

@@Toxin___InterHalfer Very relatable! The time period is a huge YES for me as well

@buttons6812 7 ай бұрын

Syndicate looking fine 🔥

@StealthyWiley 7 ай бұрын

Yes sir :)

@eminkilicaslan8945 6 ай бұрын

As a Turkish, I deeply relate to that "I have a hard time remembering that Italian gibberish" lmao.

@twitchizle 6 ай бұрын

Ezio auditore de frenze, it took me days to remember it. Altho i still dont know if i did write it correct or not. 😢

@byletheisner5006 6 ай бұрын

@@twitchizle It is: "Ezio Auditore da Firenze". Meaning Ezio Auditore from Florence.

@isipscognac 6 ай бұрын

Is it true that Turks deny the Armenian genocide, or just the government?

@DetaiIist 5 ай бұрын

kıçımla gülüyorum!

@Senator_StevenArmstrong 4 ай бұрын

Hoş geldin Kardeşim

@wielderXII 6 ай бұрын

unity will never cease to amaze me. the people are missing out so much by not giving it a 2nd chance. to be fair, it is massively ubisoft fault for releasing broken unfinished game.

@Legion849 6 ай бұрын

Unity is all about style but it has no substance and nothing of value to offer. It has eye candy visuals but it also has a blue tint all over the game

@jorgeloredo100 6 ай бұрын

@Legion849 It has the best parkour system, the best stealth system, a very descent combat system where your build actually matters. Unity wasn't perfect but it to say it had no substance is hyperbolic nonsense.

@aspirewot8408 6 ай бұрын

You're one of them too go play Odyssey n Valhalla you'll forget unity 😂

@noobguy9973 6 ай бұрын

@@aspirewot8408 why are you on everyones comment talking about fucken Valhala? Were you paid by Ubisoft to promote the game or you are one of the devolopers or something?

@aspirewot8408 6 ай бұрын

@@noobguy9973 no I'm here saying that thing because y'all her on bandwagon of h@te :) and I've played every AC game and let me tell you Valhalla n Odyssey were great

@SniperJoJo-fo9su 6 ай бұрын

Bro bayek has more movement in the ring finger he sliced off on accident than basim has in his hole body

@mailoszek3 5 ай бұрын

I am playing Odyssey and it is easy to notice that during normal dialogues faces show no realistic emotions but during some story missions there are some short moments and scenes where Kassandra's face look alive

@safi6749 7 ай бұрын

Last 3 games rely on body movement more than facial expression for some reason

@renzo0227 7 ай бұрын

They move their heads like damn robots lol. What a disgrace...

@angelcastiel98 7 ай бұрын

I thinks its one of the many things they copied from witcher

@devinsills6053 7 ай бұрын

@@angelcastiel98 witcher at least has good voice acting

@deepflare1028 6 ай бұрын

@@devinsills6053and the faces looked better

@TH_Zireael2077 6 ай бұрын

@@deepflare1028 And the actual facial animations aswell. I've seen countless comparisons between The Witcher 3 and Mass Effect Andromeda in that aspect alone lol

@UnofficialDoJo 6 ай бұрын

When passion drives you vs when money drives you

@onomee130 6 ай бұрын

Its amazing, after 12 years, ezio auditore de lalala still is one of the best characters in the franchise

@britto9903 5 ай бұрын

It's crazy how far we went with technology since Mirage!

@Cam_47 7 ай бұрын

It'd been years since I had played unity and I still timed that "bully foh you" line perfectly..

@akshatvishwanathan8668 6 ай бұрын

sydnicate was peak of facial animation and voice acting after that they just could'nt climb further

@Kat1kafka 6 ай бұрын

Ubisoft really lost their way,but not just with facial animation, but character designs as well.

@CodeLife_12 11 күн бұрын

Hard disagree on this. Bayek and Kassandra were extremely well made characters in my opinion!

@prettyboyg1278 5 ай бұрын

Despite Unity having a disastrous release, it was undoubtedly AC’s peak in almost every regard.

@SALEH-98 5 ай бұрын

We're evolving backwards

@Mychannelbandung 5 ай бұрын

Thanks for raising this awareness. Turns out Im not alone who think there is a huge decline in AC cutscene quality.

@Mr.Vini2204 6 ай бұрын

Not only the facial animation, but the animation in general. Look at the body linguage of the characters, how the ones from the newer games are so much more bland and generic

@johnpap675 5 ай бұрын

The World wasn't ready for Unity and Syndicate.

@StormRaid417 5 ай бұрын

Animated faces were so good. Whoever did the animations understood how faces work.

@sandcrakes 7 ай бұрын

I think they don't use those tracking device when making Mirage at all

@deepflare1028 6 ай бұрын

Motion capture suits

@StickzDev 6 ай бұрын

they just use pre-made motion captured animations and copy paste them in cutscenes for the facial animations it's all just based on ai (or something else) to find how the faces moves when they talk

@simonandsimbagaming 5 ай бұрын

@@StickzDev The thing is, you can use pre-made animations and make it look good, games used to do this all the time. The Mass Effect trilogy didn't use motion capture, and despite there being some very repetitive animations here and there, it still holds up.

@StickzDev 5 ай бұрын

@@simonandsimbagaming Agreed.

@DJordydj 6 ай бұрын

Assassin's Creed Unity is still the peak in AC visuals to date. It's amazing how great it has aged, those faces, those textures, those animations... No AC has been the same since then.

@aspirewot8408 6 ай бұрын

Have you played Valhalla ? Odyssey ? Lol these games have 100x better graphics n facial animation d detail 😂

@DJordydj 6 ай бұрын

@@aspirewot8408 I have Origins and Valhalla and both have terrible facial animations, they're just basic animations and terrible lighting in general to make the colors feel more punchy.

@aspirewot8408 6 ай бұрын

@@DJordydj origins is I agree , but Valhalla No way did you play on ultra maxed out settings on PC ??. There's no way or else you got eye problem I'm sorry lol

@fozzyalfonso 5 ай бұрын

@@DJordydj I like the earlier games more but really? origins? that game had people praising the emotions felt from bayek and you're saying it has terrible facial animations? Odyssey and valhalla sure, have worse facial expressions but origins? really?

@DJordydj 5 ай бұрын

@@fozzyalfonso important characters staring directly at you with eyes open wide and with no emotion on their face (just their voice). It feels like puppets. Face animations peaked on Unity. From then on they've been getting worse and worse. I hate to talk to characters that look like Horizon Zeron Dawn NPC in conversations.

@jacksondunn3284 7 ай бұрын

Aesthetics beats Graphics every time. Origins and Valhalla and Mirage do objectively look better then the older titles, but the immersion you get in the older titles is just far and away superior. Feels like you’re actually controlling a character in a world rather then a model in a sandbox.

@LPboy77 7 ай бұрын

Indeed! It feels like you’re controlling something dead, rather than living the character

@Halo_Legend 7 ай бұрын

Omfg... Facial animations are not aestetics. They are still technical visual processes, they ARE part of graphics. You just couldn't help yourself but draw a false dyhotomy. Typical.

@aChewyGummyBear 7 ай бұрын

They don’t look better than Unity. And honestly, not much better than Black Flag

@Nathan-ui6bm 7 ай бұрын

what you on about??? origins looked crazy amazing, it was odyssey, valhalla and mirage which looks bad, origins was a solid game just like the older titles

@ray4493 7 ай бұрын

Stop smoking cheap weed dude. It has clearly messed up with your brain and eyes. ACIV Edward had way more actual personality in his movement animations and the world around him than the dead world filled with same looking npcs of the garbage rpg series. The last 3 games had aesthetics? Touch grass and have a better sense.

@LEK 18 сағат бұрын

Unity is still absolutely gorgeous. Origins also needs an honorable mention, it was the last AC with AAA Facial Animations.

@torke3095 6 ай бұрын

Thank you mate, I was talking to my friends about this a few weeks ago, the difference between the emotions of the AC2 and Valhalla itself is just absurd, how can a game of more than 10 years be better in delivering the emotion than a game of less than 5, the quality is dropping by much and no one seems to notice it

@ELdASenSei 6 ай бұрын

Gotta admid that Ubisoft Bordeaux did a great job on Mirage considering the low budget

@IsaiahGuerrieri 6 ай бұрын

I thought I was going crazy! Facial animations have less effort put into it! Just glad someone made a video on it.

@aiis6821 6 ай бұрын

Ok "you have two openings" line got a chuckle

@TotallyToonsTV 5 ай бұрын

You can tell the exact moment Ubisoft started using AI to do all their canned animations for them

@notyourdaddude1957 5 ай бұрын

Can't believe you didn't mentioned Valhalla, where the only facial expression that the characters have is moving their eyebrows whenever they feel an intense emotion. In Mirage the evolution of the facial animations reached it's ultimate form to the point that the characters don't even need to move their lips to talk anymore, that's what i call innovation Ubisoft 👌

@Resvain 5 ай бұрын

What are you talking about? I've played Mirage for almost 30 hours and I haven't seen a single cutscene or in game interaction where someone talks without moving their lips. Unless you mean Basim's inner monologue but that would be a pretty moronic thing to complain about.

@mensatico 5 ай бұрын

@@Resvain never read something this retarded. Characters in Mirage do, in fact, barely move their lips to speak, the corner of their mouths don't even move at all. Did you watch the video?

@mensatico 5 ай бұрын

@@Resvain Basim saying "I can do more" (the example in the video you commented this shit on) just has his face going ":0", while the eyes actualy stay still. And his smile persists while he's in light distress.

@Resvain 5 ай бұрын

@@mensatico do you have troubles with simple reading? The guy claims characters in Mirage don't move their lips while talking. This is not true and in this video no one talks without moving their lips. I'm not saying that facial animations are great.

@fredbyoutubing 5 ай бұрын

I work on games using facial animation and my take on it is: animators used to have very limited control. Only a few facial expressions were possible. Now they have just as much control as they would in a major motion picture. More controls means exponentially more work plus more openings to make mistakes. Point is, it's much harder to make a realistic face look good than a low resolution model.

@kielbasamage 5 ай бұрын

I imagine there’s very few shortcuts since a “blanket expression” for lack of better terminology would look fine on one facial mesh and uncanny on another?

@fredbyoutubing 5 ай бұрын

@@kielbasamage There are certainly shortcut ways but it'll depend on the direction or the team's experience. We also work from facial capture and it'll soon be a lot better. But I think right now it forces artists to follow too closely. While you gain from the actor's performance, you lose the personal touch an animator could have. There are good modern examples. I'm interested to see Hellblade 2. Cyberpunk 2077 also did a fantastic job too. One of the reason it was 1rs person because those dialogue sequences are so well done.

@angryjoe98 6 ай бұрын

Naughty dog, ninja theory, and the coalition are the top of the food chain nowadays for facial animation.

@ghostblaze01 5 ай бұрын

Lara croft facial animation and hair quality in Rise of the Tomb Raider >>> Pc ver.

@thepizzaboy7904 5 ай бұрын

I believe the facial animation in mirage is fully made by AI, without the devs actually fine tune the animation.

@Eheklo 6 ай бұрын

I'll keep saying this, Unity is a masterpiece.

@pietroalessandrini 5 ай бұрын

they spend so much creating huge yet uninteresting world that they don't have time to refine the details that can really give you the impression of a polished and cared for product

@Raging-Lion 6 ай бұрын

Edward had the goofiest faces when he was just a drunk pirate, dude was the GOAT

@Stickfigure414 5 ай бұрын

Unity truly has become one of the best AC games after they touched it up. It's a shame they didn't continue with that model.

@robertomacetti7069 5 ай бұрын

eh, parkour still works as intended 20% of the times at best, which is a damn shame because the few times it works is actually pretty sick but arno is uncontrollable most of the times sadly

@J0rdan912 5 ай бұрын

I found it freaking hilarious that people are constantly surprised how almost 10 years old games looks almost as good, if not better than modern games and still defending insane system requirements, horrible performance and incompetent use of modern visuals techniques in modern games...

@tiffles3890 17 күн бұрын

This is how the late Roman Empire's folk might've felt, just many times more acutely. Brings to mind the whole fantasy fiction motif of "the arts and crafts of our forefathers lost to us now".

@MILDMONSTER1234 2 ай бұрын

I remember being a kid and my mom looking at the screen in shock at how the characters looked while I was playing

@rossolini3588 7 ай бұрын

Black flag will always be the one of the best Assassin's creed game

@why-is-this-handle--a-thing 6 ай бұрын

that weird female assassin from mirage sounds like a ghoul from fallout. or an argonian from elder scrolls. im so glad i didnt get mirage or valhalla. i saw the writing on the wall in origins/odyssey and tapped out.

@Nightraven26 3 ай бұрын

I’m 99% sure that’s Shohreh Aghdashloo’s voice, she plays Avasarala in The Expanse, it’s a shame she was in such a mediocre game…

@deltakodiak 6 ай бұрын

The leap from Ac4 to Unity is light years away

@daniel8181 2 ай бұрын

There is a cutscene in unity somewhere between sequence 5 and 9 where arno gives the most comically well down scowl I've ever seen, he actually almost overdoes it.

@georjoporjo3323 7 ай бұрын

Roshan voice literally burp stock sound effect

@Sandlund93 5 ай бұрын

Well, Shohreh Aghdashloo sounds just like that. At least in The Expanse, which I can recommend.

@jimmymurphy898 7 ай бұрын

Enjoying Mirage but honestly this series in many ways devolved after Unity. I have played all the AC games and Unity is just phenomenal and my favorite out of the series. I loved Arno as a protagonist, the setting, and the gameplay is absolutely incredible. They really needed to mocap the cutscenes for Mirage and pursue the parkour. Both of those elements are stiff af and honestly take me out of the game despite the awesome city and fun stealth.

@alphagamer9505 7 ай бұрын

Unity has the best gameplay and the best stealth of the series

@jimmymurphy898 7 ай бұрын

@@alphagamer9505 Agreed. Stealth and general gameplay in Unity was amazing.

@MegaSlash1987 5 ай бұрын

the voice acting and the dialogues was so much better

@cptinvincible3223 Ай бұрын

Really should've shown some Origins gameplay here, particularly Bayek killing Rudjek. Bayek's actor consistently kills it throughout the game and conveys so much emotion. He can be a kind and friendly family man in one scene and a vengeful killer in the next. Bayek's actor had the best performance in the entire franchine

@Kollon_tai 6 ай бұрын

In my opinion, adding “RPG aspects” to a franchise is usually just an excuse for poor graphics and animation.

@red_leader93 7 ай бұрын

How we go from Unity and Syndicate, to Mirage?

@Sandlund93 5 ай бұрын

Money would be a safe bet. They either spent it on something else or not at all.

@kahvipaputyyppi 2 ай бұрын

I started playing Odyssey a couple of days ago and was baffled how they have gone back to mouths having light inside.

@jstandhh 3 ай бұрын

Back then: LETS MAKE GAME TASTES LIKE MOVIE Now: Lets make game tastes like school animation project

@ragnarth_781 6 ай бұрын

Unity's DLC has great facial animation, even better than the main game.

@zayyinhaidar452 6 ай бұрын

Ey, don't forget about AC Origin!! This game has a really good animation too!!! At least that's the last Assassin's Creed that really good at capturing their emotion.

@COomjiNX 5 ай бұрын

The jump from black flag to unity was another level and since syndicate it has been backwards

@Luapre9ead 22 күн бұрын

I guess the difference lies in how these cutscenes are created in the first place. I think the newer games like Mirage use the in-game elements and the actual models to generate the scenes in real-time, like in GTA or RDR. This means that the "muscles" that are used for facial expressions in cut-scenes like these are also the same are also the same "muscles" that are being used when Basim grunts or changes his face while playing or jumping or fighting enemies, hence emotionless and not as expressive. Meanwhile, the prior cutscenes are CGI-rendered and pre-recorded, they just play whenever you trigger the scene, with a dedicated team animating and directing each one.

@hydra7427 6 ай бұрын

The difference is it used to be facial animations had to be ANIMATED and now everything is just lazily mocapped and they call it a day. Technology has improved, the artform has died.

@deepflare1028 6 ай бұрын

Isn't it the complete opposite? Mo-cap was used a lot more often in the early games and it looks miles better than Odyssey and Valhalla which were animated

@hydra7427 6 ай бұрын

@@deepflare1028 Almost everything is poured into mo-cap now. It's not a new technology, that is true, but having your own in-house mo-cap studio is considered a sign of AAA. Before it was a mix of mo-cap and regular animation, where as now it is "mo-cap for anything important, static pose with mouth flaps for anything not important".

@assassin8636 6 ай бұрын

It's not lazy to be honest it cam be good if done right

@assassin8636 6 ай бұрын

@hydra7427 aren't you overlooking at this

@deepflare1028 6 ай бұрын

@@assassin8636 True, Witcher 3 proves that it can be done well if given enough time

@neosmith3642 5 ай бұрын

Even brotherhood has better facial animations than ac odysseys or valhala

@cedricsipakam2601 6 ай бұрын

If they make a remake with these facial animations, I would definitely do them!

@aspirewot8408 6 ай бұрын

Play Valhalla

@cedricsipakam2601 6 ай бұрын

@@aspirewot8408 I played Valhalla, I loved it, but sometimes I felt like the facial expression during non-cinematic cut scenes were not that good. Maybe it's just me though...

@jcmee91 7 ай бұрын

So depressing.

@meridianspark 6 ай бұрын

It's crazy that Unity is getting all this praise now. It really was a pillar for the series from the start. It defined, or at the very least was the foundation of having so much control with upward and downward freerunning. It's also probably my favourite story of them all. An assassin, friends with a templar as they work on a common goal. The fem lead was strong and took no shit, was very capable on her own. And Arno would frequently make mistakes or give in to his urges to break the rules for what he really believed was right, only for it to bite him on the ass. It really made for some great story telling to shake up all those cliches.

@thealandude9146 6 ай бұрын

Jesus that hair in Unity looks so good

@aspirewot8408 6 ай бұрын

Ever seen hair in Valhalla ? If not see my c0mun1tey p0st I added Valhalla :)

@Nippelpanzer 5 ай бұрын

It really reminds me of Mass Effect Andromeda. Which really wasn't a bad game in its core, but the conversations and the facial animations have been so much better in previous titles, that the community is (legitimately) questioning the developers ambition to make a great game.

@NickelRacker112 7 ай бұрын

Unity and Syndicate proof that even with these face animations, it doesn't mean that a game is good automaicly.

@hehebuoy6246 6 ай бұрын

Lol unity was good......the parkour fights stealth everything was top notch nd character acting plus dialogue deliveries weren’t as cringe as today's ac games. Like mirage is horrible af....

@NickelRacker112 6 ай бұрын

@@hehebuoy6246 The game wasn't bad. But the only outstanding thing was the graphics. Story, Stealth and combat were much weaker than the most previous ones.

@blackdragon1ist 5 ай бұрын

the voice of ezio just gives me goosebumps man

@kotyissocool 6 ай бұрын

I liked unity. I liked syndicate. Everyone fucking hated these games. I love mirage. I’ve only just started playing it but hearing the classic hawk screech when you leap of faith, seeing alumut, using the Altair costume - hell just having Altair MENTIONED again - makes me feel like I’m playing assassins creed again for the first time. I’m not into the combat system tbh, I miss the Batman Arkham style combat system of counters and counter attacking. They added it sorta in mirage but the combat is just kinda weird. It’s not as smooth as silk like it was in brotherhood. But God DAMN the *SCHING* Sfx as you assassinate fools is so satisfying. The classic air assassination is back, white hoods, social stealth, big medieval city free running, killing targets and running away from screaming guards, pickpocketing, eavesdropping. Literally anything you’d expect from an AC game is in mirage. I love it. I know nostalgia is playing a factor here, and mirage is definitely playing off of old fan nostalgia, but God damn it’s like an old friend is paying a visit. I’ve missed this gameplay since syndicate. Even tho the animations are kinda jank, it’s fun and reminds me of the first three AC games. There’s even a notoriety system with wanted posters like ACII!

@enthusia86 4 ай бұрын

Unity was such a good game. The atmosphere, the gameplay, the graphics, the large crowds. I might replay it soon.

@dryteishere289 3 ай бұрын

Unfortunately the launch was a complete disaster. I'm glad Ubisoft did try to fix it and now in 2024 it's a good game :)

@carterskindle7086 5 ай бұрын

I recently started playing AC Unity not too long ago, and it astounds me how good the game looks despite being almost a decade old. Ubisoft really has fallen off

@andraakmalmaulidani1793 3 ай бұрын

Every time I see something like this, I always remember how Leon facial animation in Re 4 PS 2 was handmade and it's goddamn amazing...

@Avinash_Lincoln 4 ай бұрын

man!, Yusuf is a total vibe.

@riteshsaha9729 6 ай бұрын

They need to bring back the motion capture cameras

@aaronvasseur6559 5 ай бұрын

Just you animation including facial animations have gotten so much better as of 2024 your just blind

@EJaDav 5 ай бұрын

The fact I got a Ubisoft+ ad before watching this is beyond ironic 😂

@KappaDoge 7 ай бұрын

Its Evolving, just backwards.

@simonrockstream 5 ай бұрын

OVER A DECADE OF EXPERIENCE

@JusticeInGaming_JIG 5 ай бұрын

1:22 was the reasons why i personally loved to play Assassins Creed stories and timelines, to solve the elders puzzles about what happened with the great nation before us.

@kassaken6521 6 ай бұрын

This might sound werid, but Horizon Forbidden West is the new standard. Absolutely insane how much they improved from the first game.

@ThePreciseClimber 5 ай бұрын

I really hope that rumoured remake of Zero Dawn is gonna have the same character animations as Forbidden West. Outside of the possible gameplay enhancements, that's the biggest upgrade they could do there.

@CasperFGhost 5 ай бұрын

For me, Unity felt peak in terms of the character animation and the voice’s behind them. Syndicate had some great counter-play between Evie and Jacob but didn’t feel like that work was there for all the other characters.