soldiergeralt: the face scanning system is the most accurate, detailed and realistic looking system ever.
Yeah, no. Just because it takes a video of a person's face doesn't mean that the video is actually high rez. The textures on the faces of L.A Noire are nothing short of awful. Everything on the front blends together in a really weird mix, the eyes bleeding into the back of the head due to the poor placement of lights on the actor. I've seen far more convincing faces in many other games. Just because there's a wide range of movement on what the faces can react with does not mean it's convincing.
soldiergeralt: calling it exaggerated is like saying that human facial expression is exaggerated.
They are acting. Of course it will be exaggerated, but what really irks me about L.A Noire is that the actors are doing it
live and on the spot. Not only does the audio quality suffer for it, but the actors have to make their expressions so clear as to basically say "I am smirking" when they do. Comapre that to say, Half-Life 2, there's a lot you can tell from the animation of NPCs and that without it being completely telegraphed. I'd point to the final talking scene in the Citadel to see what I'm talking about. L.A Noire has none of these moments. Actors I don't think are even given that much context for L.A. Noire and thus it's extremely disconnected.
soldiergeralt: but yes, the drawback is that you are dependent on actors and must use relatively expensive equipment to capture it...and you cannot do it procedurally anymore.
I highly doubt this will be picked up by any majority of video gaming companies. Why? Because artists like to make stuff. Is there anyone in the world who looks like the Geralt we see now? No. Thus, the only solution to this is to make actual systems of joints within the game (or with mo-cap, if that's even possible) to create facial expressions. People vastly ignore the limitations of the L.A Noire tech and merely look at the benefits. Yes, it's fine for a game grounded in realism with a lot of money behind it but it's hardly and artistically friendly application.