[04.10.26] Stylistic mismatches of cartoonish/exaggerated animations in realism, Professional mocap, K-drama actors, and scenes

Brainstorm with Kjun
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Stylistic mismatches of cartoonish/exaggerated animations in realism. Professional mocap actors

The hyperrealistic style can easily slip into the uncanny valley, and when the behavior look exaggerated (excessive clapping, smiling, stomping, twitching, mb walking half‑bent, SFX and VFX like steam out of the head) it turns into a kind of grotesque stylization and feels like sims‑style cartoonish behavior placed into a hyperrealistic setting. As a result, It often barely evokes any sense of compassion toward the subjects on a screen, or feeling of omnipotence or ruthlessness, even though many of the original animations, even if slightly theatrical, are alive, smooth, well‑paced, and clearly storyboarded.

I just wish the team would

  • consider what tends to work well in realism
  • establish consistent tolerances / guidelines
  • rely only on references from games and sources in cinematic social realism (e.g., K‑dramas)
  • bring in professional mocap actors, both for motoric and for facial animation

Examples:
DEATH STRANDING 2: ON THE BEACH Short Trailer | Performance Capture
DETROIT : BECOME HUMAN - MOCAP - MAKING OF - BEHIND THE SCENE
Behind the Scenes - Beyond: Two Souls

Links :
Discord 1

K-drama actors and scenes

Kjun mentioned that in Korea people rarely express emotions openly, so capturing emotional performance is difficult for the team, but since many of us keep emphasizing that direction would be best grounded in realism (without shortcuts or stylization), I want to share beautifully crafted romantic scenes for implementing allowed motion‑capture animations / interactions in the game using real Korean actors.

I focused on GRAC 15+ K‑drama references, such as Twenty Five Twenty One, Run On, Business Proposal, My Roommate Is a Gumiho, Love Next Door, Something In The Rain, earlier It’s Okay to Not Be Okay, Nevertheless, and so on.

While we can selectively fix comedic or exaggerated animations with mods especially in moments that are meant to be subtle, real actors are something almost no one can replicate. Without those subtle, real‑life nuances, it’s difficult for a hyper‑realistic game to feel convincing and reach the audience (audience scale) the team aims for.

Links:
Discord 2, Discord 3

References:

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Most of the videos youve uploaded seem to be romantic moments. most of the particularly exaggerated expressions are in friendly interactions (the clapping, jumping and two thumbs up). I think one of the challenges the team faces is that reactions (whether positive or negative) should be immediately obvious, regardless of where the camera is (over the shoulder, top down or from a slight distance).

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I’ll also include the thread with players’ observations going back to Aug 2025, and since then this whole layer‑cake of such animations has only kept piling up. Even if it partially solves one issue, it’s done a bit roughly. Theatricality is great (mocap for games has been recorded with theatricality in mind for the past 10–15 years), the grotesque that appears when sims‑style exaggeration is forced into a realistic setting is not. It clashes with our cognitive mechanisms that evolved to recognize our own kind, human movement and expression, and that mismatch creates discomfort and an uncanny‑valley effect, and none of the decisions really justify it.

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Autonomous behavior / needs

Romantic:

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Thank you all for contributing to this topic.

To achieve realism, we don’t need exaggerated emotions (a zoi happy because they brushed their teeth? No, I’d prefer a zoi with a “normal” emotional state for brushing their teeth) or cartoon-style gestures when a zoi interacts with another. Other more striking examples I can think of today are still the two thumbs up and applause in conversations between adults and young adults, because in fact they’re not realistic but more cabaret-like: it’s unlikely that I would applaud like that or show two thumbs up when exchanging an opinion with someone :joy:, unless I’m drunk or the context is very frivolous. To achieve a semblance of realism during interactions, the zoi needs to show expressivity consistent with their current emotion on their face, and for general realism we need the flow of emotions shown to us in the emotion panel to be rendered naturally. Today there are too many emotions in the box at the same time: enthusiastic, uncomfortable, happy, angry, and much more. It doesn’t seem like the zoi has emotional intelligence :smiling_face_with_tear:

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Reposted all our notes in the current brainstorm on Discord, thank you!

I’ll be glad for any contribution. I wrote the same things you did on Discord, but I hadn’t seen the forum threads. Let’s add more detail, more reach, and leave more in‑depth feedback.

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I applaud you and give you two thumbs up :rofl:

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I do wonder sometimes if this could be an issue of cultural differences (particularly with the clapping and the two thumbs up). I’m not very familiar with Korean culture but I’ve visited Japan a few times and I was always interested to see how much the body language differed. I noticed that they expressed themselves in ways that would be considered quite exaggerated (and at times child-like) in western cultures.

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I’m not sure…

On one hand, I understand that excessive emotional overacting in a realistic game is out of place. But at the same time, when I look at people on the street… Students, teenagers - yes, they gesture a lot and laugh when communicating. But adults barely show any emotions - their facial expressions are minimal, unless it’s related to negativity.

So if this is implemented fully - we’ll be looking at emotionless, indifferent faces and restrained movements. Most of the time we won’t even be able to tell if they’re having fun, worried, bored, or indifferent - because in reality, in most cases during a boring conversation, adults carefully maintain a polite smile and pretend to be slightly interested.

Won’t the characters end up seeming flat and emotionless as a result?

There’s a very fine line that needs to be maintained here to avoid ending up with motionless, dull mannequins.

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Theatricality is still not the same as grotesque (or, as RealmOfZoi said, cabaret). In theatricality, natural body movement and facial expression are things the human brain reads as similar to itself (the same applies to many games, movies, and TV shows). Grotesque, on the other hand, describes movements that are unnatural, jerky, overly fast and fussy, repetitive, out of sync with the context/emotion, like in bad/broken acting. As a CGI artist, I constantly feel that the presence of this in inZOI breaks the sense of immersion.

Realism seems to be both its strong point and its strict artistic constraint. This isn’t a matter of personal taste, but rather an aspect that artists treat as a written rule.

In any case, Kjun doesn’t really address this in his replies, so don’t worry, this is, let’s say, our issue, and there’s no guarantee it will ever be resolved.

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I understand what you mean. I just understand the developers too: they’re trying to make the differences absolutely clear. So that even when observing from a bird’s eye view, we can see by the movements that something is happening that catches the player’s attention.

We often see complaints that “the characters’ personalities aren’t developed, they behave the same way”. That’s also a difficult task for developers. And if we reduce the gesticulation even more, we’ll hear complaints like “They just stand there, talk about something, and then their mood changes - and that’s it. What kind of game is this?” :grin:

I really, really want an easy-to-implement custom pose editor! So that at least in our stories we could adjust everything to be as realistic as possible: from the position of a finger, to an ironic raised eyebrow and a half-smile at a specific moment.

I’m not worried about this. Moreover, I share your desire! But at the same time, I understand why developers don’t listen to this. Since it’s impossible to please everyone - they take proven behavior (proven by time and other games) that’s already exaggerated and familiar to most people.

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Unfortunately, in that case the game should’ve been stylized from the start. Just as it would be counterproductive and misguided to take an animated film and then reshoot the same shot list / storyboard with live actors, carrying over the Sims‑style comedic expressiveness into hyper realistic UE5 environment ends up looking like AI processing (like video-to-video, GTA SA in real life etc. lol), applied on top of the sims footage, not like an artistic work.

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Group photo mode in Death Stranding 2 with mocap poses and facial animations.

Behind the scenes:

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@Carnel Well, it’s obvious that developers can’t please everyone because there will always be someone who prefers different things.

I don’t agree with the “dummies” argument. As I said, I don’t like it and I don’t think it’s necessary for Zois to dance while they talk or be happy because they drank a glass of water. It’s not necessary because emotional liveliness should be read in their internal thoughts and emotions—that’s what would be truly simulative (and innovative!). InZOI absolutely doesn’t need to look to The Sims to find its own path! Adults aren’t “dummies” if they avoid bouncing around the street or if they have composed movements most of the time :joy:

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Well, it’s not all bad :grin: :wink:

If they’re that happy from a simple action - it means it was the “straw that broke the camel’s back”, causing emotions that had been building up to overflow. I’ve never had a single Zoi break into dance just from eating good food :laughing:

Try taking away the golden cat statue and gold ingot they’re sure to be carrying in their pockets. Then their mood will drop a bit, and they won’t get excited so often :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

That said, as I already mentioned, I’m also for realism. But I’m certain that if their behavior changes - there will be at least as many complaints as there are now about the excessive eccentricity.

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They don’t have nuggets or statuettes. The zois, as I wrote, dance while they talk and indeed, until a few months ago, they would applaud themselves after preparing a meal. It’s not a matter of there being something ugly or beautiful, right or wrong, whether you prefer your zoi to get excited or not over a glass of water: it’s a matter of preferences :laughing:

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Feels like we’re playing different games :joy: Mine are more reserved. Guess it all depends on the creator :rofl:

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Of course I’m not saying they dance every time they speak, but that they do it in some interactions. You misunderstood. The general and substantial meaning of my examples is that there’s something I would really like to be reviewed for consistency and realism: dancing, clapping, thumbs up, etc. The game is the same, it’s just that it’s clear we have different measurement parameters in forming our opinion of it, of what should change or not :relieved_face:

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@RealmOfZoi I suggest we approach this more responsibly. So, if an issue is considered insignificant by the players, we don’t bother the devs with it. But if it does matter, then we bring it to them collectively.

What I like is this kind of native animation style. I think it’s good dramaturgy. Against that backdrop, some animations (up to 10-20%) don’t quite fit, and we need to identify which ones and how to adjust/redo them.


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I’m curious to know, were these animations you attached the ones you’d like to see change? I don’t personally dislike either of these animations. In fact, I really like the ‘show affection’ animation. I think the facial expression is missing but I assume that will be added in future.

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