Interview with Quantic Dream

[FrieChamp]

I think when we showed The Casting everyone agreed it was nice and it really showed that there was a potential for creating virtual actors, but we're still at this frontier where we don't totally suspend disbelief. We still have this uncanny valley to bridge. But today, I can officially announce that there is no uncanny valley any more, not in real-time.

With our next project we're going to demonstrate with hundreds of characters that we can have extremely realistic characters that not only move like real actors but express themselves through facial animations and speech like real actors, and are extremely accurate to the actors they are portraying.

How important is the actor in this process compared to the technology?

It's one hundred per cent important, and that's the big difference compared with what we were doing in the past. In the past the limit was the technology. In the production of our next title what we're discussing with Sony, is not "does it look good?" but "is the actor right?" Now we are really casting actors and we're looking for a performance because we've bridged the technological gap.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=31593

I'm skeptical about the "interactive cinema" thing. I played Fahrenheit and while I thought the ability to have influence on the storyline by choosing different actions was amazing, the button mash parts were quite frustrating. If they drop that and the tech demo they showed is an indication of the technology they are developing for the character animations, they could create something truely great! Hurray for emotions in games

[Thrik]

I loved Fahrenheit, but agree that the 'dance dance revolution' actions where pretty ridiculous and didn't add much to the game at all.

I do think budget and deadlines played a factor in a lot of Fahrenheit's unimaginative areas though, because it was clear that some stuff was awesome and some stuff was a bit iffy, particularly towards the end (apparently they just ran out of time and had to rush it together).

With more time and money I think they'll iron out the stuff that wasn't so enjoyable in Fahrenheit. The reviews and player comments were full of feedback about it so it's not like they aren't aware that most people didn't like those bits.

Definitely a title to watch out for.