regmcfly wrote:

I'm assuming we all picked the third way right?

Yup.
Multiple endings was a major disappointment for me.

cop out

g.man

Really? It looked fairly motion-captured to me. I was good though, a lot of finesse which would have had to have been hand done. Lots of man hours of content in this.

edit: talkin' bout dat animations.

I cant imagine the face stuff not being mocapped either, some of the stuff there would just take wayyyyy too long by hand. But obv after they stripped a bunch of keys from the mocap they probably did a bunch of manual adjustment, you cant expect a mocap performance to be perfect when actors have an 'endurance' stat so makes sense that its been touched up.

Well, clever wording, it doesnt say hand animated so i guess it didnt mean that, but for a bit of an education, mocap with the real deal hardware (Rather than my kinect attempts) creates a massive number of keys every second as it records movement, usually by tracking markers placed on the face (Or in full body mocap theyre probs a bit more ping pong balls than lil white stickers). Assuming they used something like Motionbuilder for processing the capture data (And why not, motionbuilder is awesome), then it can strip a shitton of keys from the capture. Keys are like, direct recordings of a position of a marker as it relates to whatever group of polygons on a face that are controlled by that marker, if there is space of time between one key and another, the software typically interpolates between the two positions using whatever method you wish (This comes under tweening stuff i guess, a difference between two keys could be just switched halfway through, or eased in, eased out, well whatever theres a lot of control be between how one key transitions to the next)

ANYWAYS, assuming they animated it all by hand (I doubt that heavily) they would have moved a feature of the face, added a key, then moved it some place else, added a key, and each key have a suitable transition shape, and an animation be moving the facial feature from one keyed position to another. I really doubt this happened (id like to be proved wrong). I think they'd capture it using suitable facial mocap software, motionbuilder or similar strip the keys down massively because most of it is extraneous, and as this stripping can take the life out of mocap, animators would then edit the keys manually to add some vim to the data. Hence lovely animation with both the naturalism of mocap data but given an artistic touch by good animators to bring life back into the animation

Third option here.  I had the fear that one of the others would make them unavailable afterwards.

I'll be interested to see some different heists.  For the big final one, I opted for hijacking the trucks, getting the bank to hand over the gold, and escaping in the souped up cars.  The execution was really well designed, from the pacing, the length of each section, he'll even the little traffic lights mini-game.  It was a neat touch to have the scene inside the bank not just cut-scene, but controlling Michael while nothing much happens.  The glances at Trevor, who was only just controlling his own behaviour, meant I was convinced he was going to go loco and the shit would hit the fan.  I was nervous the whole time we were in there.

I need to try that.

Liveinadive wrote:

I chose the other Heist option, with the choppers. I wish I hadn't because flying a chopper through a wind farm with a cage of gold dangling off it and Lester shouting non-stop is annoying as fuck.

I think this happens regardless of which option you choose doesn't it?

Great stuff just finished it. Weird choice at the end. Can't imagine anyone choosing to kill Michael or Trevor unless they wernt interested in gta/100pcing it.

Oh monkey!

I assumed that option A or B would result in some kind of failed attempt and you'd end up with option C anyway. Glad to see that isn't the case. One for the replays.

plot is always absurd and barely holds together in gta. I personally felt no need to kill off either character and especially considering the consequences from a gameplay point of view..bizarre.

Despite all the driving involved, i found taking care of things via C very satisfying

I thought the story was pretty poor overall.  I couldn't even follow it when Trevor showed up.  It seemed to be a concern that he'd find out that Michael had been working with the FIB but then Trevor joins in FIB missions without questioning things.  I thought I must have missed something.

I dont think the plot is intended to be clever, its intended to be entertaining and dumb with it as it likes. Trevor just makes no sense, its part of his charm

3rd option for me, too. Overall I think that the plot did what was needed and didn't get in the way. I read a review somewhere that said that while the previous games were trying to be movies, this one was aping the structure of TV shows, which I thought served it well. The three protagonist thing was great, being able to run off and explore at will and then warp straight back to the city when you've wrecked your car halfway up a mountain was great. Plus, Trevor is probably the best character I've ever played in a videogame.

A final thought; I liked Michael's conversations with his shrink about feeling like he'd lose control and act out and do crazy things. It made it seem like he really existed outside of your control.

I reckon there'll eventually be three lots of DLC, one for each if the main characters, and you guys won't be allowed to purchase the Trevor one.