Why does Poppy get full facial animations?
I really love the visual update to Poppy, but I don't understand why they gave her so much care and attention to details in the animation that you don't see in any other champion. what gives?
17 Comments
Because Yordles have huge heads
The short answer is that her face is large enough to make out the details clearly ingame.
Because Riot removed this Masterpiece from her skins in the process.
I think there are quite a few reasons.
Facial animations in short have been something Riot has tested with for a while. IIRC the first case of it was Diana, and that's mostly due to Ironstylus being a god when he worked at Riot. Her jaw moves when she speaks basically.
After that we saw Tristana, but she very much saw a case of uncanny valley, that was fixed in her Dragon Trainer skin. So in short, Poppy isn't the only case of full facial animation in the game.
Thirdly, it's extremely cutesy to see characters like Poppy and Tristana emote the way they do in such fine detail. Cute and Creepy have a very fine line, and not putting in the full effort really puts the character into the second, I.e Lulu's classic model is a lot more creepy then cute, at least imo.
I think the last point in it was testing what was and wasn't possible in the realm of League animation, and with the massive change of direction and the size of Poppy's head, it was a good chance to test the waters.
Why this sort of thing didn't carry over to other champions like Kled or Ivern is most likely a directional choice, and that full facial animation is A LOT of work, and Poppy only received them due to experimentation.
They were testing facial animation with her rework, and her face is also really the only expressive part of her, since her body is so tiny.
Because her face is very visible. You don't see the faces of Galio or Camille much so it wouldn't make much sense to animate them. Would probably be more distracting than anything.
A modern yordle's facial animations are very easy to see. Look at Gnar. They have to put the extra work into it. If LB's face was as big, you'd be somewhat uncomfortable with her face's frozen pose at all times.
http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/UncannyValleyChart.jpg
It's a clever plan by Riot to destroy your sanity.
Because Clutter.
Poppy's model didn't take as much as other champions, thus they could invest more time and effort into her facial animations.
I kinda agree. Every new champion should get facial animations now.