According to a developer of the previous GTA games, what awaits us in GTA 6 in terms of animations could be unprecedented in the gaming landscape. (Image: Obbe Vermeij, Youtube – SanInPlay)
YouTuber SanInPlay conducted an extensive interview with former Rockstar developer Obbe Vermeij. When asked what Vermeij expected from the game based on the trailer, he highlighted one detail in particular:
The animations.
- He particularly remembers the scene on the beach. There are many characters in the picture at once, and all of them are animated in a very lifelike manner.
- Vermeij speculates that with GTA 6, Rockstar is relying heavily on AI support for the first time instead of hand-made animations.
- The use of AI could significantly reduce development effort and provide a much wider range of animations, thus ushering in a revolution in game development.
Vermeij was technical director at Rockstar from 1995 to 2009 and during that time worked on San Andreas and GTA 4, among others.
You can see the trailer below, the highlighted scene on the beach appears after about 22 seconds.
1:30
This is GTA 6! The first trailer shows Vice City in new splendor and the release
What exactly Vermeij said – and what it means
Vermeij is not involved in the development of GTA 6, so his statements are merely his subjective assessment.
In our view, however, he makes a very relevant and understandable point, especially with regard to a huge open-world game like GTA 6. His exact wording is as follows:
There are some rumors about the use of fairly new technology related to animations and AI […]It is time for a revolution where animations may no longer be done by hand, but more supported by AI […]. I think if anyone is going to take that step, it’s probably Rockstar.
The relevant part of the interview conducted in English can be found in the following YouTube video from minute 32:51:
Link to YouTube content
Why animations are so crucial for GTA 6
- GTA stands out from other open-world games because of its particularly lively and authentic world. Realistic animations can contribute a lot to this impression, especially in heavily populated areas, which are usually found in GTA.
- In addition to the quality, the quantity of different animations is also very important: If several characters move exactly the same due to too little variety in the animations, this will be at the expense of immersion.
Techniques such as motion capture have long helped to make characters in video games appear particularly lifelike.
Based on existing data of this kind (and certainly new data collected for GTA 6), an AI could be trained to produce a wide range of different, but still very realistic-looking animations in the game.
The first trailer generally shines in terms of animations
One of the many convincing animations from the first trailer for GTA 6.
The beach scene in the first GTA 6 trailer stands out in particular due to the mass of people in terms of animations. But most of the other scenes are also characterized by very realistic-looking movements of the characters.
This is especially true for animations that show less common movements. For example, consider the following scenes in the trailer:
- the woman in the convertible who raises her hands in the air while driving (0:26)
- the greeting of the two men wearing gold chains (0:30)
- the dancer on the party boat (0:40) as well as the alligator hunter and the lady on the car roof directly afterwards
- the woman celebrating in the mud, sticking her tongue out at us (0:55)
- the final entry of the door of the two main characters (1:16)
You can find out which parts of the trailer were less convincing in the article Why the first trailer for GTA 6 disappointed me several times despite all the enthusiasm
.
A very limited view that makes you want more
1:40:32
GTA 6 has to do THAT better!
So Vermeij has a point and the trailer for GTA 6 does indeed feature a striking number of very good animations. But it is still a trailer in which we only see a fraction of the characters that are in the game.
Making the relatively few characters in a short video seem particularly real is something completely different than implementing it convincingly for a complete and huge open world.
Also interesting: GTA mystery solved after 23 years – Why the moon gets bigger when you shoot at it
But even if the GTA series has not always been brilliant in terms of technology in the past (and in the recent present), we share Vermeij’s assessment:
If anyone is taking animation in games to the next level using AI, it’s Rockstar.
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