Face-to-Face with “L.A. Noire’s” Cutting-Edge Tech

By Evan Narcisse | December 17, 2010 | +

I talked a bit about the revolutionary technology behind L.A. Noire after I first saw it awhile back. The facial expressions in the game look astoundingly real and will be a key part of how players solve cases. Now, Rockstar and Team Bondi reveal a look at how those amazing faces get made.

(More on TIME.com: Why Rockstar’s “L.A. Noire” Won’t Be Another “GTA” or “Red Dead”)

As good as this stuff looks, we’re deep into Uncanny Valley-land here. It remains to be seen if the MotionScan performances will be at all off-putting for people who want to play the game. L.A. Noire hits next spring for PS3 and Xbox 360.

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chimparzan

I had to watch this multiple times, and thats after a few viewings yesterday. Graphics advances like this always entertain me to no end. I can still be captivated for hours by great in game physics and there are many times I stop playing the actuall game and just tool around with the enviorment and objects. Im sure in LA Noire I will get people to confess just becuase they will get creeped out at how long I watch their faces.
laughinghero

Really awesome technology and I love how they are incorporating facial expression as an actual variable in the game in how well you can detect lying. What I don’t like is how it takes away from actual character concept. Rather than completely inventing a new character all the way through I almost feel like they cheated and just used the face of the actor. I had the same disappointment with Heavy Rain.

Though I suppose that it’s harder to get the facial expressions to transfer correctly to a face that is not originally making the expression.

Then again as an animator I say hire good animators to use the actor as a reference and create all those expressions.
http://freemantim.wordpress.com freemantim

I love the idea behind the tech, but I hope that they are able to accurately map head movements of an actor stuck in a chair and paste it on the body mo-cap successfully. Some of the footage feels a bit off with how stiff the actor’s heads are compared to the rest of the body language/movement. It’s not as off-putting as the spinning head bug from Fallout New Vegas, but instead of being drawn into the story and the ability to tell if someone is lying, I can’t help but think I’ll be distracted by a head that doesn’t quite move naturally with the rest of the body.
chimparzan

@ freemantim I noticed that too, when he pulls the gun in the video it becomes very noticable.