Crysis Character Facial Detail

    I saw this back at Crymod, and I had to post it here!

    The German Magazine PC Games Hardware has published an interesting article about characters and their very lifelike details in the world of Crysis. They went through the game and had a closer look at the human characters of Crysis, and showcasing several screenshots for those who couldn't have a look on them during the stressful fights.

    These character models show much attention to detail as the character artist did a very good job making them look like real people. Overall there are two sets with facial detail shots available. Unfortunately all articles are in German only, but still the screenshots are definitely worth a look or two!

    [Blocked Image: http://www.crymod.com/uploads/mediap…sis_faces_1.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://www.crymod.com/uploads/mediap…sis_faces_2.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://www.crymod.com/uploads/mediap…sis_faces_3.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://www.crymod.com/uploads/mediap…sis_faces_4.jpg]

    Those guys were nominated for for the 6th Annual Visual Effects Society (VES)

    http://www.visualeffectssociety.com/dow ... se2008.pdf

    Related Links

    - Facial Detail Article #1

    http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?article_id=623362

    - Facial Detail Gallery #1

    http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?menu=bro ... _id=623362

    - Facial Detail Article #2

    http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?article_id=626513

    - Facial Detail Gallery #2

    http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?menu=bro ... _id=753473

    First: The Facial Animation looks better in Source - don't know why exactly but the choreography of the different parts in the face just works better there.

    Second: As much as these are awesome models, they are just proof of how talented the artists are but I somehow dislike how they are rendered in cryengine - they look like plastic (especially: this guy and he as well)

    One thing I'll say is that resolution makes a big difference in Crysis. On something like 1920x1200 you can actually see all this immense detail especially during cutscenes, while on lower resolutions it's kind of blurred out. Just a shame that resolution makes it run about -50 fps unless you turn everything down.

    Quote from Pericolos0

    teh charcters are really awesome in crysis, especially because they don't really use that complex shaders, it's just a case of good modelling and texturing. The normal maps used are actually pretty low res (something like 256*256), and most of the detail comes out of the diffuse. And the post processing gives the shadow areas a purpleish desaturated hue which looks really good aswel.

    This is the way it should be done imho, there's too much reliance on the normal and specular and the defuse maps end up being very basic when they could have a lot more detail. Unlike say Doom 3 or F.E.A.R., FarCry's character defuses were always well done, especially Jack's, Crytek have upped the stakes further still!

    Quote from e-freak

    Second: As much as these are awesome models, they are just proof of how talented the artists are but I somehow dislike how they are rendered in cryengine - they look like plastic (especially: this guy and he as well)

    Agreed, and they look strange.

    I think the Crysis heads look really damn good. I hadn't even seen most of those, but it looks like there's a lot more than I thought, and they all look pretty unique. It's hard to judge the facial animation when locked in horrible first person cinematics

    No, I agree with Buddy. The aesthetic quality of Crysis' characters clearly far exceeds that of those in Half-Life 2, but I think Valve better executed the art of moving the muscles in a realistic way (helped by them getting actual face doctors or some shit in). Crysis' characters seem more like scarily realistic robots rather than living, breathing characters. I've played Crysis and this is something that stood out to me immediately -- I'm not just basing it on your screenshots.

    That's a really poor example of Half-Life 2, though. The lighting in Episode Two is infinitely better than the shitty model viewer, and bridges the cap between looking like a low-resolution mess and the ultra-high-resolution Crysis detail a bit. Alyx in particular has great facial animation in Episode Two.

    Quote from Wunderboy

    All I see is higher-res photo-textures with Crysis. Is that it? Is that what makes them more realistic? Still not quite in the uncanny valley yet.

    What do you mean with "photo textures"? Take a photo of an actor and slap that on the mesh? That's not how these textures were done...

    They are mostly just photos, I've seen those which propably 've been used, it doesn't mean it's bad but there is also no reason to get overly excited. Sure they look good but that's it. Photo-based faces looked ok in Max Payne because every single texture was a photo and it looked overally nice, in crisis the head is a bit "separated" from the body in some cases and it makes it look it a bit weird, (example) what I mean is, that the human characters in games with all the photo detail will look completely beliveable if Everything surrounding them will be up to the level as well.

    I was impressed when I saw LC fisherman being built from ground up without using any sort of photo refs... It just look REAL and LIFELIKE when I first time saw him, the fine motion, face muscles, he just seems Alive! And he would blend with the environment as far as I remember him.

    Also, If you put a normal map that arleady have some sort of facial expression or other features, then it's less Real no matter how photo realistic. This is what I liked about new Source Facial Features, the compress/stretch maps that really sort this one out, tiny detail but always when you need it and gives even better overall picture (TF2 characters really look "alive" somehow I think).

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