but AAA goes for graphics way too often

(broadly speaking)

AAA goes for graphics because you can't sell gameplay on commercials

Graphics itself isn't expensive per se

it is

you kidding?

graphics is one of the more expensive parts next to marketing

the man hours involved in that is ridiculous

in the last decade or so it hasnt been about raw improvements but rather software related improvements e.g. texture shader techniques etc etc instead of raw increase in polygons as it used to go

High-res texture and models, and the tech to render them efficiently, are pretty well-known

It's just too much is done manually

or maybe less then a decade really

Although that's changing some, e.g. textures are often built with Substance these days

Which procedurally generates PBR-grade textures

Animations are still really manual

As is modeling

thats cuz you can't really generalise those things

I think you could do a lot more than is currently done

motion detection can help

but animating manually is hell

A lot of the animator's/modeler's time is not really spent on the unique flavor

motion detection only helps for humanoid actions

this is some what related, and just an interesting video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg1oOiAEDaE

well yeah

It's mostly the rote work

And then you have motion capture and voice acting.

Motion Detection = motion capture?

voice acting is easy

yea motion capture is waht i meant

Mo-cap also has a lot of manual effort

yes but it cuts time extremely cuz you can create natural movement

sure but it can help in getting more natural movements

Easy

Capture quality is usually too shitty, so a high-level animator will usually spend quite a bit of time cleaning them up to be useful

if thats what ur aiming for

but you still gotta pay thoe people.

those*

idk if it cuts time, but it does allow for much more human feel

well i mean in comparison

Yeah, my impression is the motivation is more the quality over the cost

if someone has to animate a "natural" walk vs one you recorded through motion capture