Alex suggests that one of the reasons David Hayter might not be returning for the role of Solid Snake is because of the game's reliance on performance capture.

If that's the case, is he suggesting that the game will be mo-capped here in America as opposed to Japan?

Because... American physical acting will COMPLETELY change the tone of Metal Gear. (in my opinion, for the better)

Where exactly does Alex suggest that? They straight up said in the announcement trailer that Kiefer Sutherland is doing facial capture for Snake in addition to doing the voice, I think the way it's going to work is the full body motion capture is done in Japan, and then the facial capture is done by the Japanese actor while doing voice work for the Japanese version, and the American actor while doing voice work for the American version.

Big Boss, not Solid Snake. Solid Snake is 2 years-old when this game takes place.

Wasn't MGS3 motion captured? And didn't that game look really, really good?

@video_game_king: Maybe for general animation, but I don't think the Avatar-style facial capture really became a thing until this gen.

@taku128 said:

I feel like the amount of money you'd have to spend to do double facial capture for different languages wouldn't be worth it.

@jeanluc said:

I don't know how much it actually costs, but Kojima has been tweeting about flying back and forth between Japan and America to oversee both the English and Japanese voice over sessions.

I'm not talking about motion capture in general, I'm talking about japenese acting vs. american acting. Japanese acting is VERY, VERY different than american acting.

For example, a begging motion in American acting might be clasping ones hands together and shaking them at another person while saying "please, please, please do me this favor!"

A japanese begging motion might be drawing both arms in, vertically, to the trunk of the body making tight fists and leaning side to side quickly.

A "Don't worry about it" motion in America might be a slow casual throw of the hand at another person.

In japan, the same motion is patting the ground with the hand rigid.

These are just really small examples of localization. In the broad sense, Japanse acting tends to be drawn from Kabuki and Noh theatre. Even when trying to be naturalistic, Japanse acting frequently relies on "Comedia Del Arte-esque" character-types in lieu of an actor coming up with an original interpretation for a character. That's why in so many videogames, the "cool guy" characters (like Knuckles, Protoman, Vegeta. etc.) or cute girl (Aeris, Peach, Jun Kazama ) all behave the so identically.

I feel like an american acted Metal Gear would visually look entirely different than the previous versions which are thick with japanese acting.

Alex says it in his writeup on the main page.

Isn't that more an issue with archetypes in general than simply a cultural thing?

I agree that is would be a really welcome change, but from the footage that's been shown, it's clear they're sticking to their usual animation methods. You even hear the ridiculous "whoosh" sound effects when characters move their arms while making a fist. But with how crazy this game's going to be, I don't mind the animation being as weird as it's always been.

Yes and no.

Some archetypes are just due to poor writing. But some styles of theatre actually have them be intrinsic to the style of theatre.

Humorously, I just did a paper on Henrik Ibsen's plays being performed in Japan in the late sixties. Most of the people who went to the see the plays had never seen a play featuring naturalistic acting before. The critical write-ups said things like "It was amazing! It was like I was looking into a window and the people behaved as people naturally would! Japan must have more of this type of theatre!" But, then, other's found it to be an abomination. They didn't understand why it wasn't more like Kabuki, which they were comfortable with. Some theatre's even changed the stories to be more similar to the kabuki theatre they were familiar with.

Here in the west, we still rely on a fairly post-modern style of theatre for movies and whatnot. Pushing bounderies is seen to be good and noble. But a lot of places still see tradition and format as being pure and indicative of structure and class. I think trace amounts of that finds it's way into the body language of east vs. western acting.

It's also interesting that so much Japanese body language has found it's way into gamer culture as "the way videogame characters behave" when in reality it's just japanese body language. Hand motions, specifically, are common in video games and japanese culture and completely foreign to western audiences.

@jazgalaxy: I guess that explains the super over the top and melodramatic nature of anime voice acting.

yeah, I've always wondered about that.

12 years old. Post-Ground Zeroes coma, this takes place in 1984. Also, I'm pretty excited to see the result of this performance capture. Hopeful to see a trailer at E3 proper showing off some of the Sutherland-ness. I hadn't really considered how much doing American capture would change everything, but you're totally right. And honestly, it might be for the better. Perhaps people will take the series a little more seriously if it's a little less hammy.

I just hope Kojima doesn't treat this whole realistic face modeling/animation thing like 3D. From the MGSV reveal trailer, there was an awful long shot of Snake looking out the helicopter and I have a feeling that there's gonna be a ton of shots like that where he just wants to get up in character's faces for awkward amounts of time to show their feels. Treat it as a tool Kojima, not a gimmick to be trotted out every scene and focused on to amaze the audience at your face capture tech, which is only really revolutionary to the MGS series.

@minipato: well, self indulgent is kojima's middle name, so... you can bet there will be tons of all of those things.

I was under the impression that it might just be facial capture, for the lip syncing and stuff.

Oooooh. Patrick wrote that not Alex, which is why I was confused.

Huh? Can you provide examples of the two things you've mentioned? I've never seen those before.

To the contrary, here's a scene from Bayonetta, a Japanese game, in which a character begs on his knees with his hands clasped together: http://youtu.be/9995iemL4FU?t=6m55s

Whoops! Wrong decade, ha!

@hamst3r: To be fair, Bayonetta tried to stick to a lot of western themes, and his character is more of a western archetype. So I think that scene uses different bodylanguage intentionally.

I can't find examples off the top of my head, but then again body language isn't anything I paid a lot of attention to. Look around in Jrpgs or games like Yakuza and I'd bet you would notice something though

@hamst3r:

If you want a more common example of a thing that Japanese people are more into, look at the thumbs up. Things such as the end of Resident Evil Zero, or MGS3, just seem like super awkward body movements at those moments to us, but in Japan, I guess it's a more natural thing.

It's all Avi Arad's fault...

"Friend of mine used to be Snake... and that's what I think of your X-Men scripts, David!"

@minipato said:

I actually thought that looked great. It would be better then the long drawn out dialogue common to MGS. Although you're right it could suck if it's not skillfully used.

All of this is an interesting shift in tone that I'm really interested in how it might end up.

@tobbrobb: Final Fantasy XIII-2 is chock full of insane hand animations during conversations.

@evilnights: I know, talk about a freaking punch in the gut from Avi Arad. How the hell does he have money to be a producer when he drove Marvel into bankruptcy in 96'?

@maskedarcstrike: My understanding of that is Ronald Perelman over-expanded the company in the 90s, and Arad was able to save it through licensing deals. Good that he got them out of bankruptcy, but depressing in the sense that the movies essentially keep the comics afloat now.

Do find it a bit creepy when Kojima makes a point of name-dropping his Hollywood buddies though. I guess it's an insight into where he ultimately wants to be, but in some senses it gives off that sense of arrogance that makes Itagaki so tiresome.