Face Off

Playing RE5 and the first Silent Hill back to back, i realised there are some things better left without motion-capture such as the facial expression. As you may have known Capcom applied facial motion-capture for all the cinematics in RE5, a trend they also did with the CGI production, RE: Degeneration. This gives the characters a certain degree of realism with their expression but sadly i find it distracting and not as impressive as what konami was able to achieve earlier with Silent Hill 2. Not to discredit the motion actors but expressions are something very difficult to capture as actor will have the tendency to exaggerate their expression knowing they are being captured with cameras and rubber dots on their face. The results are character expressions looking a little unnatural and over-exaggerated, even more so for the simplest gesture though i find it a little more distracting in Degeneration than i did in RE5.

Comparing with what CGI director Takayoshi Sato did in Silent Hill and 2, characters had much more subtle expression but with enough realism to make it look eerie and convincing. This was all achieved by Sato studying his own and other actors expression over the mirror and applying it to the characters as seen in the making of silent hill 2. Sadly Sato left after silent hill 2 and the series was never quite the same without key members like Sato and Toyama. RE5 had what i thought was a bit too much emphasis on cinematics, they are certainly fun to watch but i kind of expected more, considering how much time and effort were invested if you watch the making of re5.