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[Sand Dan Glokta]

I personally dislike it very much; it has homogenized game character designs to lean more and more towards being 'realistic' instead of devs being more creative with anthromorphic artstyles in the recent years, with 'realistic' being the quickest artstyle to go outdated with every incremental update in technology.
We are all human with flawed faces and subjective beauty. Why inject people's average/ugly mugs into videogames when they could be the exact chads/chadettes that the devs desire? Same for 'villain' characters that they want to make look evil.

Another big issue I have with this is the Hollywierd celebrities trying to infiltrate gaming with their mediocre VA, but wanting to be compensated for their so-called 'stardom', thus inflating the price of games even more. There is also the issue of legality and copyright when a dev want to continue with sequels but the mocap now wants to move on. I think devs should either use renowned professional VAs that already know the game, or hire new talents instead. Keep mainstream movie people away (for the most part).

Lastly and most obvious; making OCs doesn't restrict the physical appearance of the character to the VA (Race, BMI, Beauty, Eye color, Imperfections etc)

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I think using real-life faces is a bad idea overall, and devs should follow the anime industry route; where no two characters by the same VA look even remotely the same.

A few examples:
Excellent VAs that didn't have their faces in the games

Masked I know, but the is still valid since its the same character.

Its clear that they started with Nolan's face here, but beautified it for Nathan, which was a great choice.

What games should strive for:

A few examples of what I don't like:

Why change his look in Dead space remake into the VA?

Alan is no longer Alan in Alan Wake 2

Movie guy in my video game. Why?

Lame rapper now forever bound to NFS unbound

Everyone in this game except Joel and Ellie suck compared to TLOU (The Original, not Neil's "Part 1")

 

[phant0m]

Damn, is it the weekend already

 

[yet_another_alt]

Don't care as long as the lip-synch isn't off.

 

[Tobimacoss]

I don't see an issue either way. The reason they often use VAs for mocap is the animations better match their voices, as the person is better able to act it out, without the disconnect between action and voice. It's more natural and fluid.

It's fine either way, whatever the creative directors see as best.

 

[nial]

There should be an option for "I don't necessarily like it, I don't necessarily dislike it".

 

[fatmarco]

The original Dead Space actually had the other Voice Actors scanned/modelled and play the characters in the game, which I think helped make those characters believable and has actually made that game age more gracefully because they're based on real faces.

But then weirdly as a consequence of that, because they couldn't get those original actors back for the Remake, they had to completely recast the main characters and ended up with much worse/cheaper actors as a result, so ultimately this very issue, in combination with what was likely a lower budget, actually compromised the remake.

Peter Mensah, Keith Szarabajka, Navid Negahban are incredible actors who exude screen presence, only to then be replaced with literal nobodies with no charisma. Maybe the issue is that great, charismatic actors with cool faces can positively help a game with their faces scanned, while mediocre actors being scanned in actually damages the quality of a game.

 

[PixelatedBeast]

Of course. It's one of the few ways video games have become a legitimate medium of entertainment, past for being known as something only nerds could enjoy. You think Keanu Reeves would have signed on to Cyberpunk if he couldnt get his likeness in the game?

 

[Shubh_C63]

I think I prefer new faces over familiar ones. Popular faces comes with familiar history where you have already situated them on other famous projects.

But really don't care either way.

 

[Sand Dan Glokta]

Of course. It's one of the few ways video games have become a legitimate medium of entertainment, past for being known as something only nerds could enjoy. You think Keanu Reeves would have signed on to Cyberpunk if he couldnt get his likeness in the game?

I'm sorry but gaming has always been a legitimate medium of entertainment. I find your inferiority-minded view irksome. Gaming has been bigger than movie biz for a few years now, and if anything. Its the Developers and VAs crossing over to that medium that should be given the celebrity treatment. Keanu is a darling celebrity and humble person irl yes, but he is the exact exception that proves the rule. Most people from mainstream hollyweird are insufferable twats with baggage. Let them stay in their lane.

 

[Durin]

I'd honestly go with neither.

I think the best approach has been to largely make a distinct face for the character, but blend in some minor facial features of the given main actor for each game. Mainly I found adding some facial features around the mouth and eyebrows usually are where the voice actor's body language is gonna match their voice to sell a scene better. Or you could just have the animator spend more time by hand editing the mo-cap to do that too, either works.

 

[MrCunningham]

It's a weird thing to me, only because of the classification between a voice actor and an actor, or a body double. Animation has been basing characters on voice actors for eons. Disney did it all the time for their animated movies, the Genie being based on Robin Williams will always be a go-to example.

I feel like with Keanu, Cyberpunk paid him to use his voice and his likeness for the game. Which became a huge adverting pull. Rockstar Games tends to like using the actor likeness and voice in their games as well. Trevor being a popular one.

I'm not against it. Most human character designs are derived from characters seen in movies, TV shows and real life people anyway. Maybe as well pay to use someones likeness instead of skirting around the legalities of it. The other is fine too, if you can get away with it,

It really depends on who the 'actors' are.

 

[Robb]

Including celebrity "likeness" in games is, imo, one of the biggest wastes of money for developers.

I also think it's funny how a lot of developers talk about "immersion", then they put some real world dude that you recognize from a million different movies/tv-series into their game immediately taking you out of the game world and into the real one as soon as you see them.

 

[Pimpbaa]

I'm ok with it, as long as it isn't Debra Wilson for the millionth time. I thought I escaped her horrible visage in death stranding 2, but there she was in even more detail.

 

[calico]

Capturing the facial performance is fine.

Using the likeness of famous people is not so good imo, as I think it exacerbates the uncanny valley effect and is a needless distraction and strain on suspension of disbelief.

If they're using the visual appearance of a non-famous actor (or at least not well known to me) then it's fine. My brain then lacks the familiarity to constantly compare the character in game to 'the real thing', and to keep reminding me that what I'm looking at is fake.

 

[MrCunningham]

I'm trying to think back to some of the earliest games that feature the actor likenesses and voice overs... and many 16-bit era licensed games tended to avoid using the real world actors faces... for royalty reasons. There are early examples of games like One on the PS1, where Bruce Willis would be paid to use his likeness and voice for the main character. Or Jackie Chan's Stunt Master, where the devs used his motion capture performances and his voice. Another one that sticks out in my head is the David Cage game Omnikron: The Nomad Soul, which used David Bowie as an NPC:



That is an interesting example, because it used his music as well. There's developers like Remedy Entertainment, who would hire a different body likeness and voice actor for the same character. Sam Lake likeness and James McCaffrey's voice. Or Max Payne 2; with Timothy Gibs as the body likeness of Max Payne and McCaffrey returned as the voice. Max Payne 3, which was a Rockstar game used James McCaffrey as the voice and likeness... which was honestly fine. I preferred him over Gibs, anyway.

In more recent years, it has really been more of the norm, than anything. It's hard to think of a AAA tier game that doesn't use a real world likeness or actor in some way or another.


A game like Shenmue always blew me away with how there were no actual 'actor' likenesses being used in the game. Every major character was modeled in clay before being translated over to 3D models. The amount of work that went into the Shenmue character models is nothing short of amazing :



I feel like this is something that Shenmue 3 really lacked. They just didn't have the budget to this this level of attention to detail.

 

[dispensergoinup]

I think there's room for both and I'll leave it to the director to decide what kind of story to tell.

Sure some of it doesn't hit but I'm all for giving them the power to make those choices. If that game connects with me or not is entirely up to the execution.

 

[KàIRóS]

Don´t like it, the Lenny Kravitz bit at the game awards was cringe AF

 

[Brakum]

Hate it and refuse to play games where i see a familiar real life face.

 

[StueyDuck]

meh, who cares.

lets get the games to a better state first, then we can complain about the mundane.

 

[Radical_3d]

Damn, is it the weekend already

It's not generalised so it's ok. No need to panic.

 

[MrCunningham]

Don´t like it, the Lenny Kravitz bit at the game awards was cringe AF

I am on the fence with this. It is not like Lenny Kravitz is a well known actor. Looking at his 'filmography' he mostly does cameo roles as himself with the odd small bit-part. I think he looks fine for what they want out of a villain. But I do half expect him to break out into song and reveal his top secret 'Project Dragonfly' plans to Bond through a musical number.