#Facial Expressions

37 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

stark karma
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I think something that could be really cool is reading facial expressions. Imagine if you talk to someone and ask a question, the killer in this example, they lie and say they do not. It would be neat to be able to know their expressions like descriptors. Nervous, Sad, Angry, Sleepy, ect.

Some killers may be sloppy and easy to read. Others may be stone cold professionals.

Another example, Maybe someone is helping cover up for a friend's murder. They mislead you, look nervous. So you look through their friends PC thinking they might be the killer. You find an email talking about how the actual killer needs help as they did something bad and to meet up. Now you know who the killer is.

I feel expressions could add a lot to the immersion. You could take this a step further with nervous ticks, maybe able to be read if you get a disk?

drowsy moat
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I feel blatantly telling someone's descriptor wouldn't be the best as it misses the ability for the player to miss the detail, but at the same time I'm not sure how you'd express facial qualities in a game with these types of graphics and models. I can roughly see that people are angry during combat but sad, nervous, etc. might be harder to pin down visibly.

jaunty halo
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Perhaps some sort of mechanic when you're talking or inspecting a person that next to their name you can get a 'emotional state' indicator. Perhaps standing out as vague but with the right upgrades you can get more precise.

Type of thing would work well if we get more in-depth conversations where we can nettle people for more information.

stark karma
drowsy moat
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upgraded sync disk that lets you know someone's feelings would be interesting with the default being relying on visual cues

stark karma
drowsy moat
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if we ever getany form of voice acting even if its just random "buh bah boh bih" noises, could even have variants to that.

stark karma
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Voices could help a lot too. Could even help with the voice section on the profiles.

jaunty halo
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that sort of thing would really help if in the ambient dialogue if we know who's talking the game could somehow let us know. Like put on the HUD somewhere who's voices you hear. Like say in one of the corners when you are hearing a ambient conversation the faces of people you hear talking pop up... i you don't know who it is it's the standard '?' face.

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but that's starting to get away from the topic 😄

knotty mica
# stark karma The descriptor I think would start in dialogue. Like: [Nervous] "I don't know w...

I could see this adding depth to an investigation, but also trivializing it. Maybe an NPC could be flagged as being an anxious person so you'd have to do more digging to see whether these tells are meaningful. But unless there's a lot more to this system, having this information straight up could make finding certain leads too easy. And I don't think randomizing these emotions is a way to go.

stark karma
drowsy moat
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^ and even if you are told something, people respond to "law" differently. Some respect it, some have a tinge of fear for whatever reason it may be, some hate them and would rather shove a door in your face.

stark karma
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You have to remember that some killers leave the weapon on scene with their fingerprints on it. Some criminals are just bad and so facial evidence being easy is just another think to investigate that may lead you to the next clue.

drowsy moat
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Yes I know our guy isn't actually a law enforcer but they are the main driving force of investigations in the city so.. yeah.

jaunty halo
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there's already medications in the game that could help inform this to the player. Like 'oh this person is constantly nervous and fidgeting... that's suspicious! Oh wait... he has a medical condition that causes that and just can't afford his meds'

stark karma
jaunty halo
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Traits like 'shy' or 'natural asshole' or 'overly trusting'

knotty mica
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I like the idea of meds interacting with this

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Maybe they could just be hungry and irritable in that moment too lol

stark karma
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There could be a lot of factors. Like if you knock at the door at 4am and wake them up the mood could start irritable. XD

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That's why I don't imagine it would simplify it. It simply adds so much depth. It might make some cases easy but it would definitely lead to dead ends a lot of times.

drowsy moat
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just got off a 12H shift
just want to sleep
BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG
"fmlllllll"

stark karma
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It definitely would make you think when the best time to investigate a person would be.

icy robin
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Right now, people can look angry or distressed based on their eyebrow position. It could be useful to have more expressions, but considering the voxel graphics I don't know how far you'd get in doing that without spelling out their expression, and at that point it might be too easy to tell what's happening. I mean I'm sure we've all opened inspection profiles to see people described in ways we would not have expected based on their physical appearance. Some things just don't come across in this format because there's not much room for them to.

stark karma
# icy robin Right now, people can look angry or distressed based on their eyebrow position. ...

Yes, they can give off very basic expressions but the idea here is to get clues potentially through indicators of how they are acting. Do they seem tired, angry, upset, nervous? It even went into the subject which I think you overlooked of them having nervous twitches. Rubbing their arms, blinking a lot, moving their foot around when talking to the player. These are things that could give hints and be tied in with the personality of the person as well. Maybe the person is naturally nervous so some investigation is in order to find that. Then their nervousness doesn't seem to be much of a hint. Maybe they unnaturally seem angry, but that could also be tied to you knocking at their door at 3am to ask questions and to be let in.

The actions of a character and emotions is a very common aspect in detective like games. Yes they could potentially be expressed through the actual face but we talked about the possibility it could simply be text on the screen. Maybe a disk can be used to help give more accurate details as well when loaded. This wouldn't outright make cases easy because it's easy to get false positives just like this game is set up for and with real life.

icy robin
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That was notably explored in LA Noire but the difference there is that they had motion captured faces and trippy facially-scanned animated textures. Other detective games as well have a lot more real estate for NPC expressions and animations. But a game like LA Noire also has a focus on witnesses and their personalities etc. In this game, when it comes to gathering info at least, NPCs are basically all the same and the focus is on evidence rather than testimony.

stark karma
# icy robin That was notably explored in LA Noire but the difference there is that they had ...

The game is still early access and has lots of room to grow. Saying it doesn't fit the game by the standards of such an early build of the game seems wrong. Not to mention, we've seen some of what could be coming in the future through the tutorial. Like where someone is sad when they heard a friend of the family died (in the tutorial). Right now they are all very basic yes, but a lot of people are hoping for immersion and personality in the characters.

You don't need graphics to express the emotions and nervous twitches. A lot of info is currently expressed through text anyway so expressing that info when dialogue happens could make sense. It really depends on the aim the developers have which we aren't fully aware of but expressing desires is the whole point of the suggestion box. I think it would make a good feature personally and with how IRL investigations work, it would make a lot of sense.

icy robin
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I agree it makes sense and absolutely the game can grow. If it was implemented, I wouldn't be upset. But if I had to choose, I'd rather take features focusing on evidence collection and other things. Completely my preference, but that's stated in the official thread for why this channel was made, to say what you want and what you don't. Just not something I'm particularly concerned about seeing and that's my two cents, but of course you have yours too which is worth at least as much.

warped flame
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Interesting idea. I feel like it's a little weird due to the voxel graphics, at the same time I don't really want text descriptors because of "show, don't tell". I feel like rudimentary facial expressions would be fantastic, it would be fun to learn to read them.

stark karma
# warped flame Interesting idea. I feel like it's a little weird due to the voxel graphics, at...

What do you think of anxiious ques and whatnot? Like a person rubbing their arm when they lie, maybe they look away, blink a lot. Maybe you ask them if they know a person and you find out they are lying by that. It could lead you to looking into why they are lying. Maybe they are covering up for a friend or they are the murderer? Just an example but I feel those kind of expressions as well would fit well.

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At the same time, a person could naturally just be nervous and you have to investigate and learn that aspect of them. So it wouldn't just immediately give things away. poi_think

acoustic remnant
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I like this idea a lot (and suggested it in the old channel). The NPCs already have eyebrows that move - most important expressions could be conveyed through movement of eyebrows, mouth curving up or down, and eyes widening/narrowing/avoiding eye contact.
There should always be multiple possible explanations for any expression eg someone could look nervous because they’re shy/introverted, or because they have some other secret that they don’t want to give away, unrelated to the crime; or just because a strange person has turned up at their door at 2am to interrogate them.
You could have a “hard mode” option that makes facial expressions more subtle or switches them off.

stark karma
warped flame