Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Overanimated NPCS?

Perhaps I'm alone in this, but after playing 10 hours of BG3 I started noticing that most character interactions seem to be, uh... Overly animated? I don't know how else to put it, but most npcs move around way too much and make way too many facial expressions even when talking about something mundane.
I think the issue lies in the fact that pretty much any interactions our character has with people has a little cinematic? I did my best to talk to as many encountered npcs as possible and was surprised to see that all of them had the close-up animated sequence, even when they said a single sentence I couldn't even react to. Because of this I have a feeling animators try a bit too much to make each scene interesting by having the characters react and emphasise everything being said very... visually. Personally I find that a bit off-putting, and while all character models in the games are absolutely fantastic, having them unnaturaly move so much makes them look a bit uncanny valley-ish.

This is also visible in the way the players character react to everything. Again, this is my personal opinion so I do not know if it bothers anyone else, but in my opinion our character's reactions in conversation are shown a bit too often. I see my half-elf do the same ~raised brow smirk~ at least 3 times per interaction, which is a bit uncomfortable. And the problem is that it doesn't really bring much to the scene, I'd go as far as to say it makes what's being said more awkward. Our character only says things when we pick a reply, resulting in lots of silent reactions from them and nothing else. Especially since they tend to be very similar every time... (confused, scared and sly are the only expressions I recall)

I hope this does not come off as rude, since I deeply appreciate the hard work put into this game even at such an early point in development, I simply hope that my critique may prove helpful to the developers!

Animations are still obviously being worked on. Some characters only have a limited set of animations when you speak to them and some don't even have them all worked out yet. That lady that sells potions at the druid camp move like a animatronic.. obviously not complete yet. (but funny to watch.)

I fully and whole-heartedly disagree. I like how you may notice subtle facial expressions that your character may not. I was just talking about this with a friend I was playing with and how awesome the detailed facial animations are. Yes, they are still working on them, but I want to keep them as detailed as they are, not water it down like every other isometric game out there, just no. Facial animations and expressions are great right now!

+1

For me they are not overly animated, they stutter like the cinematics were filmed one sentence at a time and the editing was poorly made. It just breaks my immersion. I hope they fix this and make the cinematics smooth enough so I can decide whether it's overly animated or not.

Not entirely disagree with OP, sometimes facial animations got slightly over the top, but I presume they will refine them, complete animations sequences to be more fluid, and more importantly add variations and "levels" of expressions (like horror faces will hopefully range between "a bit disgusted" and "scared to death").

Besides facial features are really good (textures and shaders especially), and I love seeing my chars subtly react to what is said to them (it recalls me Mass Effect system).

I'm confident about many animations not yet added ; facial animations of companions look pretty much complete to me wich concurs to bring them lifelike. Good job on this !