"Criticism Of The Facial Animation In 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' May Have Been Misdirected" Article Review

The article "Criticism Of The Facial Animation In 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' May Have Been Misdirected" by Kevin Murnane discusses how many people have negative opinions on Mass Effect: Andromeda's facial animations. The article first summarizes people's reactions, and then explains why the facial animations are so bad.

Murnane believes that criticisms towards the game should have been directed at Electronic Arts, the game's publishing company, rather than the animators who may have been rushed to get the game ready for release. The author states that "people at either Bioware or Electronic Arts, the game's publisher, that insisted the game be released before it was ready." (Kevin Murnane). Murnane talked with Jonathan Cooper, a lead animator on previous Mass Effect games. Cooper said that "In RPGs like Mass Effect, the player chooses among dialogue options which lead to different paths through a conversation. Rather than a single, scripted dialogue sequence there are any number of possible dialogue paths. Facial animations must be created for all of these paths" (Jonathan Cooper).

The article does a really nice job at defending the animators at Bioware, and informing people of the reasons as to why the game's facial animations are so low quality. However, Murnane compares Mass Effect: Andromeda to several other games, such as Uncharted and The Witcher 3. Mass Effect: Andromeda is a different game made by a different company, and while it's easy to compare, it's unfair since Bioware is a smaller company.

Overall, I agree with Murnane. Bioware's animators were likely not at fault here, and may have been rushed to finish the game so it could be released quickly. Bioware has been known to rush games, and were criticized for reusing assets from Dragon Age: Origins in Dragon Age 2 so it isn't rare to see this kind of criticism direct at Bioware's development team.

Artificial Intelligence Generated Animation

A critique of this article by Selina Cheng.

Recently, famed animator Hayao Miyazaki was shown an animation which was generated through artificial intelligence. The animation showed strange movements, some of which had "zombies" crawling across floors in grotesque ways. Miyazaki expressed extreme discomfort and disappointment when he remembered a friend who has a disability, and has problems simply trying to give high-fives. He believes that this form of animation is "an insult to life itself" and that the people who created it have no idea what true pain is.

My thoughts

Cheng believes that Miyazaki's reaction isn't that surprising, as many of his works display characters with a lot of depth to them, abd are based on
"progressive themes like war, environmental issues and feminism".

Cheng's article is short and to the point. The issue- Miyazaki's opinions on AI animation- is clear. The article, however, lacks much of a conclusion other than stating Miyazaki's plans for coming out of retirement. Cheng also didn't seem to take a side on the matter, and only displayed Miyazaki's thoughts. The fact that Cheng doesn't think Miyazaki's reaction is surprising may mean that she agrees with him, and finds his opinions easy to understand.

I feel as though Miyazaki's thoughts should be taken into consideration. He did have a very extreme reaction, but the point he made of his disabled friend is important, and people should be careful when they create AI programs.

Conclusion 

Cheng's article helped shed some light on Miyazaki's thoughts. Though without the inclusion of the video, the article might have not made much sense.