Mass Effect - BioWare Interview, Part Two

GamesRadar: How do you convey believable human emotion in a videogame character?

RM: A lot of research exists on understanding emotions and the basic expressions that cross people's faces during those emotions. Our cinematic designers and animators have spent a lot of time studying that in great detail and going to training courses. You know, how do you convey skepticism? Do you raise his eyebrow? Does it have to move a certain way? It's not about words. We have dialogue, too, but it's much more about gestures, facial expressions, subtle eye movement and the slight turn of a head. That's what we're trying to capture - real characters, for the first time, in a videogame.

GZ: Obviously, when you're building it and just struggling to get pictures on the screen, that's one thing. But we've moved past that. We can concentrate on fine tuning and tweaking those little details. And the characters aren't like real actors, where you have to sit in a studio for a week... they're available 24 hours a day for us to adjust and try totally different takes.

RM: We've also got A-list, major voice talent that we haven't announced yet. We've got 3D body and face scans of the actors to form the main character models.

GamesRadar: You mentioned Knights of the Old Republic. After working for so long on the Star Wars license, what made you want to make another game set in space?

RM: There are many ways to tell a great story. We're excited by this type of futuristic setting as much as we are by a fantasy setting or a contemporary setting. They're all ripe with possibilities to tell really interesting stories.

GZ: Our company wants to work with the passion of our teams and we have a team that is extremely passionate about science fiction. They're students of science fiction; they love it. We're trying to merge their desires with the products we create. You really have to have that passion and engagement for them to make the great stuff. Our job is to make sure it's got that broad appeal, but while you can think of science fiction as hard and limiting, you can also think of it as a unique setting to tell great stories. It's fun to interact with aliens.