While Mass Effect Andromeda has some issues with a portion of its animations, which stood out for the fact that were probably straight out of the conversation system, there are certainly many that look great thanks to a much more hands-on approach from a dedicated animator, even if they didn't get as much spotlight.

Enter Senior Cinematics Animator Tal Peleg, who joined BioWare and the Mass Effect Andromeda team last year, but still had time to make an impact in quite a few of the hand-crafted scenes.

Today he published a behind-the-scenes look at his work on the game, including one of the most steamy romance scenes. You can find the video at the bottom of the post, but do consider that it lacks shaders, textures, filters, and all those elements that help making the characters look more natural. Yet, you can easily see all the work that has gone into giving the scenes weight and complexity.

Also do keep in mind that the video is fairly unsafe for work, and includes spoilers.

Peleg explains his work in the description of the video:

All work presented incorporates:

1) All hand key facial animation

2) heavy hand keyframing work on top of crude body mocap

3) Camera design and animation

4) Editing

5) Cora Romance scene exertion audio mixing

Specifically for the Cora scene, the actors on stage were very reserved and did not engage in the same manner as you can see in the animation. All the extra nuances of performances (including enhanced physical and facial actions) were animated after the motion capture shoot.

My work on MEA amounts to an incredibly small percentage. It's been a refreshing experience working with such a positive, friendly team. There are too many talented people involved making the game and the scenes above, but I'd like to thank Ken Thain and Tim Golem (Cine Director / Lead Cine Anim) for entrusting me with incredible creative rein on my tasks, even though I had joined relatively late in production.

Besides Mass Effect Andromeda, the work of Tal Peleg can be appreciated in The Last of Us and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, and he's also the man behind the  cheeky “Joel Banderas” and “Joel Nicholson” animations.

But now, without further ado, check out the video below, alongside a second recent clip with the work Peleg did for Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.

Do be warned that the Uncharted 4 video also includes spoilers.

[EMBED_VIMEO]https://player.vimeo.com/video/209697041[/EMBED_VIMEO]

[EMBED_VIMEO]https://player.vimeo.com/video/212497727[/EMBED_VIMEO]