In an imperfect world it is rare to have a complete set of data upon which to base a conclusion therefore much of what we "know" is actually reasonable, plausible and probable conjecture i.e. a theory. If you are right than it should be easy to offer a more plausible counter-theory. You could demonstrate that an inexperienced person was hired because there is a shortage of qualified persons. You could demonstrate that there is no pressure on software companies to hire more women. You could demonstrate that level of animation quality compares favorably with most other games released within the same time span. Or you could concede you are simply offended by those who reject the misandristic agenda of feminist SJW's.
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Cosplayer with No Game Experience Was Lead Facial Animator for ME: Andromeda?
- Thread starter Megalith
- Start date
The gender of their hiring choices doesn't need to come into play at all. We don't know that there were more qualified people who applied for the job. The reality is that there is a lot of idiots out there and sometimes its slim pickings. That said, I don't think that's likely but that's not what bothered me about the quoted paragraph. This is the part that got me: "Clearly this girl was hired because she is hot and a women and a more qualified man was passed over instead." We don't know that her being hot had anything to do with anything. Being female, perhaps. Was she less qualified than the men who applied? Possibly, hell probably but again that's not necessarily what the person who hired her saw. What you fail to acknowledge is that people get hired all the time who bullshit their way into their jobs. She could genuinely have been hired because the person doing the hiring thought she was the best choice for the job.
I saw a guy get through an interview for a Linux admin position at a Fortune 500 company without knowing his ass from a hole in the ground. Why? I couldn't tell you. The woman who interviewed him is one of the sharpest Linux administrators I've ever met in my two decades in the business. She's normally very perceptive and it was a total shock that the guy got past her. Some people interview well and manage to get past the gates by knowing a little about the subject and knowing the right phrases or even having a decent conceptual understanding of what needs to be done even if they have no clue how to actually do the work. I saw a hardware technician get hired at a high volume service center who broke tabs off memory slots more than once, put RAM in backwards, broke off CPU pins, shorted power supplies and even killed a couple of hard drives. He interviewed well and seemed to know his shit. I've also seen people who were complete fucking morons survive and even thrive in their jobs without being able to do much of the work. They are well liked, personable and good enough at getting others to do certain things for them. I learned a long time ago that people rarely get fired for being stupid or even bad at their job. They mostly get fired for personality issues. You can be a complete asshole but awesome at your job and still get the axe.
There is a lot we don't know about that particular internal situation at BioWare. Conjecture, speculation and all that is fine. Its understandable to an extent but saying she was hired for being hot isn't necessarily what happened. The person who hired her could have been gay and had no interesting in her appearance or have been swayed by it in anyway. Her gender seems likely to have been part of the driving force I'll agree. Female animators are extremely rare compared to males. I've met a handful of animators over the years. Out of the total number a small percentage were female. An even smaller percentage were actually good at it. Shit, a man could have hired her because he liked the idea of giving a girl a shot at a AAA opportunity. Sometimes you hire people based on a gut feeling. That ties in with how they present themselves to the interviewer. Landing a job in an interview is as much about your resume as it is about the person doing the hiring actually liking you as a person.
The truth is, none of that shit matters. The management, project leads and quality control people never should have let those shitty animations pass. Period. This woman could indeed be responsible for the poor state of some character animations, I'll concede that point. However, she's likely only responsible as a soldier following orders is. You get picked to do a job and you do it to the best of your ability or not. It's up to those in charge to determine what's good enough or if that was acceptable. Someone clearly thought this was acceptable and let these animations go into the final product. I'll bet money it wasn't this woman who was ultimately responsible for that.
You assume the person doing the interviews was A: Male, B: Heterosexual. Those are both bigger assumptions than you might think. I'm not saying your wrong. I'm simply cautioning drawing conclusions based on the little data we have.
It has yet to be established that she worked on the animations at all. Anyone can create a profile that says they did such and such; I could create a Facebook profile and claim I am the President of the United States but it wouldn't make it true.
That's a fair point too. So far BioWare has denied that she was the lead animator on the game and her FaceSpace profile (or whatever you kids use these days) has been changed since then.
Companies aren't above flat out lying (see Ubisoft), but the fact that she's not in the credits means they certainly wanted to strike her from the record if she was involved, and in which case, the responsibility for having decent animations would have fallen on someone else's shoulders who IS in the credits.
Oh my, it just occured to me. Its not the white people Manveer Heir has something against, its the Gingers because they are evil and have no souls!
I'm not all that sure how much you can even blame the lead animator. Maybe there was an overbearing manager who wanted things done a certain way. I've had plenty of bosses that ordered me to do projects the wrong way.
It's a shame the one person in this thread who may know what's going on took off without telling the cosplayer's side of the story.
Oh absolutely, however I would think the overbearing project manager would appear somewhere in the credits as well. My point was if somebody is to blame, they're almost certainly in the credits.
M76
[H]F Junkie
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I'm still waiting on what do you base your assumption of zero experience on. Because she was a cosplayer? You can't have a hobby and still be proficient in your work? I don't get it. Just because something is possible doesn't mean it's probable.
It's just not the facial expressions that apparently stink...
The way politics and "Equality" have snaked their way into this game is pretty horrible.
It's hard to find a direct comparison of Jayde Rossi. and I've been looking at her very pictures for the last hour trying... ...for science.
Anyways, from what i've been hearing the staff for the game wasn't hired for their talent - but their gender or race. *sigh*
I think your theory is pretty stupid, but you have the pics that illustrate what I think might be going on with the default female face. I think they modeled her, and did it just fine. THEN I think they hit some stupid limitation. After seeing more pics I'm suspecting that they had to scale up the eyes and mouth to be able to re-use or not have to alter the underlying facial animation system without spending more money. Something is fucked up beyond just making her look "normal" or less hot or whatever. Not only are the proportions wrong, but it shades all unnaturally as well. Like in the pic you have there. left side edge/rim light indicates a more or less normal facial shape with meaty cheeks and somewhat high cheekbones (maybe younger Maura Tierney shaped). Shading on the right side would indicate she has massively pronounced cheek bones (kind of from the Cameron Diaz end of the gene pool). These two looks don't show up on one person at the same time.
Something is technically fucked up, and I don't think it simply boils down to a social statement. They cut some kind of corners or did something stupid.
Madoc
Gawd
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raz-0, they jacked up the female MC's face, but not the male MC's face. Why is that?
Darunion
Supreme [H]ardness
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Could be different people involved. Could be different time invested. Could be the artist never saw a real woman in person so they don't know how to create one?
Madoc
Gawd
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Certainly those are all possibilities, but are they *plausible*? I think not. Not when all the female characters show the same sort of... methodology. That one pic floating around showing the male actor and his ingame rendering, then the female actress and her ingame rendering... hard (for me, anyway) to look at the results as anything but deliberate.
lilbabycat
2[H]4U
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So you're saying all Bioware Montreal guys are gay? This thread is confusing.
Personally I think it's a little bit of everything. A little diversity-quota, a little hiring of talentless bimbos to circumvent quota, a little "we can't admit failure" pride from said diversity team/bimbos/managers, a little crunch time from EA; which all together made for failure.
In conclusion, this is why exclusively high-intelligence white/asian straight males in basements with no deadlines produce the best games.
No I am not. What I am saying is that there is a better than average degree of probability that such an assumption about the person doing the hiring would be wrong. People who work in creative fields like art, music, and even game development have certain stereo types for a reason.
Darunion
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Until we actually know what happened, it really does just all boil down to what our opinions are on the issue. Your idea isn't any more likely than mine because they are both born from our opinions. We really could sit and come up with theories all day long with little to no basis.
I do feel they will end up patching it soon, at least as much as they can at this point because it is becoming quite viral. The females do look like early 3d characters in comparison to the males, like E.T. got a facelift and a dress.
I just can't think of why it would be deliberate sabotage of 3d models. If they made them slightly more 'average' looking then maybe, but they look like something got screwed up and patched together real fast at the end.
They haven't said anything about why yet, so whatever the reason, feels like it would be worse than the speculating people are doing so they have to navigate the PR path carefully.
Madoc
Gawd
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I can understand that point of view. But when I see things like this, I can't believe that "it just happened". People had to see these visuals and sign off on them. A lot of people, most likely. If this was something that just slipped in unnoticed, I might be more willing to wait without speculating, but when I feel as if this is something that was approved of by various people, then I feel the need to speculate, because it's hard to believe it happened without some sort of intent by those who approved of it. I will, however, keep in mind that I'm dealing in speculation. I'll certainly be watching to see what Bioware/EA ends up saying about this, if anything.
Also, where does Libertarianism/Tea Party lie? They are essentially anarcism for those who have enough money and are convinced they are entirely self-sufficient. It's everyone else who is dragging them down and without anyone else, everyone would be better off. It's simultaneously super far left (anarchy) or super far right. Maybe Anarchy should just be right?
There's a name for this. It's called the Uncanny Valley.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
Interesting. I understood the phenomenon but never knew what it was called.