With The Last of Us: Part 2, developer Naughty Dog is debuting a brand new expertise within the game’s animations.
Naughty Dog games are identified for very good animation high quality, whether or not you’re watching a cutscene or enjoying the game. The Last of Us: Part 2 will proceed this longstanding custom, however not with out enhancing on it in a key approach.
In the sequel, the studio is making use of a tech it referred to as movement matching. The thought is that as a substitute of mixing collectively separate key animations, The Last of Us: Part 2 depends on tons of of smaller ones that neatly sustain with participant momentum.
“In all our previous games there’s been this really distinct state machine where we say, ‘Play a run animation. Then play a turn left animation. Then play a turn right animation,’” co-director Anthony Newman defined to Gamespot.
“The approach movement matching works is it takes this huge bucket of animation, simply tons of and tons of of animations, and chops them into little tiny bits.
“When you outline the trail {that a} participant or an enemy needs to take, relatively than saying, ‘Play this after which play that after which play that,’ the system truly seems to be on the bucket of animations, finds those that matches the trail that you simply’re already taking, and blends them collectively frame-by-frame.”
This ought to create a extra pure, and responsive character motion with out scarifying the reasonable look of the animations themselves, one thing games typically wrestle with.
“I think, as you play the game, you must have noticed just how fluid the player feels. With every foot plant, every turn, there’s as little blending as possible,” Newman added.
“That’s applied to our NPCs. That’s applied to the horses. That’s applied to the dogs. We even have these dogs and horses and mocap suits running around getting the data that we needed for this really intricate system.”
Although it could be exhausting to convey one thing like this with out enjoying it, motion and game really feel have been among the many components Kirk praised in his hands-on preview, so Naughty Dog actually seems to be heading in the right direction.
The Last of Us: Part is out February 21 on PS4.
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