Centered Mouth VS Side Mouth

[AstroSeedP]

I feel like it's time for them to take a note from the CG side of things(CG cutscenes or Boom) and use the technique of squash and stretch. Whatever team is in charge of in-game cutscenes keeps doing this thing where they restrict the movement of characters down to a very basic rig. This makes the animation just look stiff and boring as they don't, for some reason, allow the models to stretch and bend in order to create some dynamic movement. Why am I saying this? Well, because it's this same stubbornness that adds to the mouth problem.

The technique they use for the mouth is to just simply swap out the mouth model with another instead of finding a way to create a model of the mouth that can be rigged to be deformed and stretched to whatever side or form they need. I believe it's about time this technique is ditched. I understand that this is a very common way to change the way a model looks in video games, but it only works well with objects that either don't need to be seen at all times or don't require a lot of movement. I think it's about time that the mouth got the rigging it deserves.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Center. I had my mouth there all my life and it worked pretty well.

[Razule]

1 minute ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Center. I had my mouth there all my life and it worked pretty well.

Variety is the spice of life!

[Polkadi~☆]

49 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Center. I had my mouth there all my life and it worked pretty well.

Whaaaaaaat.

I've had a side mouth all my life. How do you manage this... Trickery?!

[molul]

Dynamic mouth, depending on the expression they want to give.

[ClassicKnuckles]

Side-mouth is better, but both work depending on the camera angle, like people have stated before...

[Mr Loopone]

In theory, it should be both depending on what expression Sonic has. Like the Ohshima example earlier in the thread where Sonic is happy = side mouth, Sonic is shocked or surprised = centered mouth. It's what I would prefer or even a moveable mouth where it has side, off-side, off-centre and centre poses but in practice and what has been shown so far.

The side mouth shows Sonic's expressions more easily and shows his personality. In 2D art it looks fine but in 3D, it can be problematic especially when Sonic/the camera is facing forward making it look a bit strange for some poses. So what about centered mouth like a lot of 3D characters? Problem is that when I think of the centered mouth Sonic, I keep thinking of the Sumo Digital grumpy look (Sega Superstars Tennis, ASR, ASRT), the unveil pic of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric or Sonic Adventure's weirdness with its expressions but its heart was in the right place. Even Sonic Riders where it was better handled with the emotions, it didn't look quite right for his personality making him look angry, annoyed or worried.

Are there any good examples of a centered mouth that were used in a game? 

[NikoS]

I personally prefer a centered mouth, but both can work really well depending on the angle, here's an example:

We have Sonic, with a side mouth, and below the werehog, with a centered mouth, both are angled and in both the mouth does not look "off", but to the anger expression conveyed by the werehog the centered mouth works better, so do sonic's expression and the side mouth.The main problem i have with the side mouth is when we are seeing a character from the front and the mouth is sideways, it generally looks odd.

[StaticMania]

The Werehog...like Vector and Big, is designed to have center mouth, it literally can't not work.

[Razule]

1 minute ago, StaticMania said:

The Werehog...like Vector and Big, is designed to have center mouth, it literally can't not work.

Never say never.

10 hours ago, Diogenes said:

Yes, but it ends up like this because he turns his head. For his mouth to be on the correct side in those pictures, it would have to be on the wrong side when his head is in a different position a second earlier or later. Either that, or have his mouth switch sides as he turns his head, which I can't imagine looks very good either.

Then.. how about his mouth be put on the side he's going to turn towards and be positioned predominantly?

[Salamander]

So surely then this is in part an issue of cutscene direction.  The development team should not be putting forward storyboards which require Sonic's mouth to do weird things when animated.

[StaticMania]

47 minutes ago, Razule said:

Never say never.

But I didn't say so...

[Razule]

1 hour ago, StaticMania said:

But I didn't say so...

I didn't say you said "so", I said you should never say "never".

[Splash the Otter]

I prefer a centered mouth on principle, but I can see how a side mouth might look better sometimes.

[superman43]

Well, up to Sonic 06 all characters in CGI cutscenes had side mouth. For Sonic 06 it changed to what we know now, with one exception - Tails. Centered mouth for Tails has been first time in CGI cutscenes only from Sonic Unleashed onwards.

[Natie]

If Sonic Team bothered to apply a more stylized look in 3D, re-positioning the mouth based on context would look fairly natural. Sonic's a very stylized character who looks best when he's treated like a drawing. Unfortunately so much awkwardness comes when Sonic Team tries to bluntly and literally translate him to 3D without bothering to make the style suit it.

Same reason people have started to get wierded out by his one-eye thing, even though its a fairly common classic cartoon eye design that implies two eyes. When you see it in literal 3D with that bulbous ridge around the edges that they like to give him, you start to think about it as a physical object and it gets gross. But whenever it's fairly flattened to his face in the classic drawings or some low-poly models, the cartoon stylization is more clear and it doesn't look strange at all.

The mouth ought to feel the same way. Hell, whatever happened to giving sonic those cool expressions where you don't even see his mouth?

[StaticMania]

1 hour ago, Natie said:

The mouth ought to feel the same way. Hell, whatever happened to giving sonic those cool expressions where you don't even see his mouth?

Maybe his mouth was on the other side of his face in those pieces of artwork?

[Wittymations]

It's interesting that Amy is the only hedgehog character to have a center mouth always.

 

I wonder what drove that decision. I, at first, thought it might have been something to help her seem more feminine, but Rouge has  a side-mouth. Guess it could be as simple as "think it looks best this way"

[StaticMania]

1 hour ago, WittyUsername said:

I wonder what drove that decision...

She's younger than Blaze and Silver...

[Tarnish]

Centered mouth without a doubt. I have no problem with the mouth moving a bit sideways but only when the character is grinning. They did that in Sonic Adventure 2 in the scene where Sonic jumps off of the helicopter in the first cutscene, and when he is running next to the president's limo. That looks fine, but the moment he starts talking with a sidemouth, it's hideous.