David Cage: LA Noire face tech a ‘dead end’

The facial motion capture technology which brings the characters of Rockstar’s upcoming crime drama LA Noire to life is an “interesting dead-end,” Heavy Rain creator David Cage has said.

“I think it’s an interesting solution to a problem for now,” Cage told CVG. “But it’s also an interesting dead end. That’s exactly what I feel. Their technique is incredibly expensive and they will never be able to shoot body and face at the same time.”

Cage added that the motion capture system currently being used at his Quantic Dream studio makes it possible to track the face and body simultaneously.

“We are doing that now, and our next games will be shot with performance capture,” he said. “We see a huge difference between shooting the face and body separately and shooting everything at the same time. Suddenly you’ve got a real sense of acting that is consistent. You can’t imagine how related what you say with your face is to what your body does. [Those using MotionScan] will never be able to do that.

“The other thing is that they can’t have real time lighting. Their technique means they can’t have lighting the way I think we should do it.”

The technology will of course continue to improve, delivering Avatar-like photo-realism within the next five years, claims Cage.

“I think L.A Noire looks good – honestly, it does – but I don’t think they’ll go much further than where they are. With the technology we use, we can improve; there is a lot of room for improvement and we hope to show very soon where we are now.

“We’ve made significant progress since Heavy Rain and will continue to make progress until we reach the stage of Avatar. That is probably three, four, five years from now.”