{"id":713,"date":"2018-04-16T18:42:50","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T22:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fms321.danielhdavis.com\/video-games\/the-last-of-us-3\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T20:09:04","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T00:09:04","slug":"the-last-of-us-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/games18\/2018\/04\/16\/the-last-of-us-3\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last of Us #3"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a deaf person who wears hearing aids, my primary form of communication since I was three years old has been through vocal speech. While hearing aids help me distinguish what is being said, I don\u2019t really rely on my hearing all that much. Instead, I depend on my ability to read lips. When it comes to video games however, it\u2019s impossible to even try to read the characters\u2019 lips in the game. I\u2019ve had to rely on subtitles\/close-captioning to fill in the blanks. The reason I pointed this out, is because subtle facial reactions and cues are huge when trying to get a read on someone\u2019s emotion. It\u2019s an extension of the game for me personally and the face is such an important and complex communication channel.<\/p>\n

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Facial animation was first introduced in 1982 and focused solely on the mouth and eyebrows. In 1991, it was proposed that animation systems consider the link between intonation and the emotion to drive their system. Pretty much all video games are lacking in the ability to effectively communicate the emotions of the characters. In my opinion, it is essential that people realize that literally every single aspect of your face is used to communicate with people. Video games have never really focused on the following during dialogues between characters: cheek muscles, eyebrows, forehead creases, nostrils, position of chin, the clenching of your jawline, pupil dilation\/constriction, eyelashes, tongue, and how much teeth is being shown. Video games that depict humans also never seem to produce the desired emotion of what is happening in the game. If you look at Grand Theft Auto V<\/em>, the facial animations are decent, but they don\u2019t really capture the essence of what\u2019s happening in the game. It exudes laziness.\u00a0The Last of Us<\/em> is unique in that Naughty Dog, Inc. put a serious effort to exhibit the emotions completely.<\/p>\n