The Cinematics of 'Horizon Forbidden West'

[Music] thank you if you don't already know we made an open world third person action RPG set on Earth many centuries after a mysterious apocalyptic event destroyed human civilization and it's up to Eloy a machine Hunter to uncover the secrets of this world to restore the order and balance to it our journey is epic and ambitious and today we'll focus on the cinematics that bring this story to life my name is Ismael ore I'm the cinematics director at gorilla I've been with Guerrilla for about five years now I joined during the pre-production phase of horizon forbidden West I have about 15 years of experience

directing both live action short films and cinematics one of my short film made it to the Cannes Film Festival and that's where I met my first Contact in the gaming industry from that point on I worked and contributed to various franchises in the cinematics department of the of different games but today I'm very glad to share with you all my experience on how we made the cinematics of horizon forbidden West and to do that we have to go back on my very first day of filming performance capture it was a very large scene we had about 12 actors on this stage I was running around with the virtual camera trying to find a mark for everyone I was sweating it was intense I was a bit nervous just like the day today and uh yeah but we made it happen uh we

I was really happy with what we got on that day we went through that first week and uh that's when I realized how massive and how big the scope and the scale the scale of this game would be um and I I really I saw that we needed a process and a plan to make sure that uh we would reach our goal because as a team our goal was to make sure that we kept something consistent in terms of quality to keep the player immersed and engaged with the story through the entire game um so I've I've really digged into my filmmaking background but also uh in all of my experience of making games as well and I can tell you with confidence uh that we did our utmost best to live up to this and we've done a lot of it

so about 500 scenes 3 900 Choice nodes 17 000 shots and two 22 hours of run time total run time so I mean this is final picture so we shot way more than that um but what is this talk about the stock is about how do you keep the players engaged with the story with a game with that colossal amount of content uh how do you make every scene consistent in terms of quality my goal after this talk is that you have a good Insight on or the storytelling tools that we've used uh and also to understand our process and I'll do that by defining these tools and giving you concrete examples of the scene that we had in our game

so what are these tools uh the casting first the script analysis the storyboard in previous the performance capture and motion capture the camera and layout where that includes the cinematography and the editing and our review process because when you have like such an amount a massive amount of content like this you need to have a thorough review process but before we get into defining these tools and having examples I want to use the the visual metaphor of a theme park in massive open world like we we create uh there's sometimes the main quest cinematics will feel like a roller coaster where you have high quality uh you know exciting ride uh fully thrilling and immersive with bespoke cameras and animation they look great and sometimes you have some more

optional some more procedural content that can be represented by a more simple ride and generic ride like a a spinning teacup and uh there's a contrast between those two experience right you know the excitement the immersion of the roller coaster and the basic more functional redundant aspect of the spinning teacup and and this showcase a rift between the two experience and uh when you you create you know an open world the the reality is that you need a lot of content to fill the world with interesting stuff right so that generates a lot of spinning teacups uh and and sometimes the problem is uh you would have like a roller coaster that gets straight into a spinning teacup and and that can be felt and that can take some players out of the experience uh we

saw that a little bit when we analyzed the content in Horizon zero down so to Showcase this example uh I will use a scene from the first game uh when silence a character that is encountered by Eloy many times saves her from helis uh the villain of the game so let's have a look you'll see bespoke camera animation emotionally engaging scene to something that that feels a little bit more generic like a spinning teacup so let's watch it foreign [Applause] [Applause] ER

[Applause] so you're here really here you risked your life of course I did if he'd been killed the Norris sacred Mountain Endeavor have given up too bad you wasted your time then helis destroyed my focus and the alpha registry with it so coming from Horizon zero Dawn the first game uh we really wanted to to push the boundaries and really enhance the quality and do that like on all of the content so what we did is we upgraded the spinning teacups and we made mini roller coasters um yeah and ideally you want to go from a high-end roller coaster to a mini roller

coaster to a high-end roller coaster again so now let's have a look at a concrete example of that in uh the game Horizon forbidden West um so this is a specific scene from The Quest the Sea of Sands that ended up to be one of our Benchmark uh for the game it's a scene with Marlin and asaram who is a part of a a group of showmen he wants to dive dive into the sunken city of Las Vegas to find some treasure and put on the greatest show the world has ever seen so this sequence is a bit longer so bear with me uh because we'll use it for many other examples afterwards and this is the first time that eloys will encounter these characters let's have a look [Music] [Laughter]

oh I was so close to Drowning maybe not not to the umbers Moreland it's over well not for me it's not and you're going to die alone because we're not sticking around to fish out the corpse we're through and so the visionary's face hung in the balance would he choose life or succumb to deadly delusion hello so city under the sand flooded suddenly a Norris spear mate appears yeah okay um well she Adele first

that's for sure what's this I I call it a diving bubble this is the mark one the Mark II was better but uh it got stuck halfway down air tube snags you went down in that yeah I hardly expect a lay person to understand because that's pretty smart um I'm sorry may I remind you you got stuck inside and nearly drowned it'd have to be portable um machine kneecap maybe well you'd need a filter synthetic membrane would do it with a hose trust capsule hammer and tongue what is this what is happening here get over here she's a stranger you got a name hey boy Moreland not a stranger anymore

come on I got the original schematics over here oh um hold on just a couple of questions first fair enough partner partner don't mind him oh there's a roller coaster so what exactly happened down there it was a delve like no other a chance to follow my old Graham's footsteps beneath this structure here is an enormous Hollow a dome protected from the sands we built this elevator here to ensure easy egress and exit it's quite a Contraption actually and not so easy though right again what happened so how did we do that um how did we make sure that we sustained quality uh and how did we try to reach

that goal uh well we use our tools the storytelling tools and the process to make those scenes and we'll dive into the first one the casting process but before we do that I need to recognize the work of Judith Weston we were fortunate enough to do a workshop with her at the start of production if you want to find tools and tips to communicate with actors I would highly recommend this book and there's an amazing chapter on casting and it's pretty much in line with what we did on the project so we identified casting as something very critical in our process the first game Horizon zero Dawn was a little bit more tailored to a vo first casting process and we wanted to do way more performance capture so that influenced the way we would approach casting but there was also uh a

goal to double down on the likeness and and for the main cast of the game so as you can see here from left to right we have Alison J who plays Alva Gino siegers who plays Hikaru and um Erica lutrell who plays oh uh and and to make sure that we would reach this we had to really change our approach and use a a filmmaking approach a live-action filmmaking approach for casting so what's our main objective in casting is to establish if the actors write for the part uh to EV and and to do that we need to evaluate the talent their skills if uh if they're vocal and physical performance is right but also we had to factor in the likeness uh if it was in line with our main characters now we did a very standard step-by-step process for that where we had a casting sheet that we sent to our casting

Partners from there we received some self tapes from the actors and with those stuff they uh tapes we would sit down with the narrative team and make sure with the stakeholder that we have the right people and we made a short list to do live additions and I do think that it's in the LIVE edition that we did something different uh sorry we wanted to validate some very critical things um in in the room with the actors so the first one is their initial creative idea what is their unique take on the scene are they able to use their intuition their imagination to connect with what's on the page but also with the the character we also wanted to make sure that they were able to listen to a scene partner so during the the casting the the casting process we also hired an actor with us to evaluate the actor that was

auditioning and um that was really critical for us to make sure that this actor that was doing the audition was going to react and adjust to the performance of the other actor in the room are they able to adjust the direction is the communication working well with the actor that's also something that you want to validate there are they able to use the space in a creative way if you're doing performance capture you want to make sure that if you add a prop or if you add something different in terms of blocking that they can adjust to that in a good way now let's go back to the casting sheet because I also think that it was like a foundational thing that we had there uh the the casting sheet is a place where we sat down with the narrative team to make sure that we were aligned um we would ask typical questions like what's the character motivation what's the backstory if there's likeness involved uh which what should we look for

and also I think in the in in those casting sheet there's a sample scene that we would use for audition and this is the perfect format to dive into the next topic of the talk this script analysis because it's a a smaller version of a scene that we would typically be similar in the real production so let's dive into that process now so what are we looking for from a directing standpoint in the in the script analysis well first you want to look for Clear objectives for the characters uh what's what's their motivation what's their their goal in the scene you want to analyze the facts and the sequence of events you want to make sure that you have like those critical moments there that might influence the blocking but also they might give you a framework to approach the scene

and my favorite one is finding creative adjustments what if right what if there's a secret what if a can be an obstacle for B because that can create conflict and tension and can keep the energy of the scene what if you're to ask an actor to play the opposite of the meaning of the line there what's gonna what what is it gonna do to the the scene you can also paraphrase some of the line in your own words just to see it from your perspective because that can generate it will generate like pictures images or questions that you can then transmit to the actors on the on the stage and that's really helpful as well so let's dive into the the casting of Moreland the character that you've seen in that earlier scene uh and let's look at his objective so Moreland is doing everything in his power to dive into the sunken city and retrieve magical artifacts with them you'll finally

achieve his dream of putting the greatest show the world has ever seen so with that in mind let's look at a small excerpt of the scene so the first thing that I I read there when I received that scene is a fact there's a dismantled wreckage of his diving belt so from that fact I thought about a creative adjustments so what if there's a key component missing to solve this issue there's a part missing to fix the diving bell so let's let's take that and bring it with us Eloy enters the room so what is she what does she want what is she after of course I know from a directing standpoint that she's after something in a similar location that Marlin is is going but I need to see it from his perspective as well she points at the diving bell uh why is she interested in that can she help those are questions that I would bring with with me all of these things I would

bring with me to the LIVE edition but I would do the similar a similar process when I whenever I approach a real scene to shoot performance capture so let's have a look at the edition of TJ Tyne who was cast for the part of Berlin uh he was kind enough to let us use this in this presentation so this is the first take without any direction or adjustment let's have a look some way I just ah what's this I I call it a diving bubble that this is this is the the mark one Mark II was better but it got stuck halfway down the air tube snagged so

I always fear what they don't understand it would have to be portable though face mask Maybe to do a Compressed Air Canister hammer and tongs so you ready to build this thing partner so what I want to highlight here is from that first stake I knew that it was actually listening to a scene partner that's something really really important and I was like okay great we're gonna be able to play with the scene now uh and I'm gonna showcase and excerpt there that will show just that uh we can see it that this is this is the mark one Mark II was better but it got stuck halfway down the air tube snagged so so when she touches the diving bell you

see it see him adjust to this and that was really great to see from the First Take um and from that point on I used my missing keyboard idea so I told them okay I threw an object on the ground I said by the end of the scene your objective is to get this part in order to fix the diving belt let's see what happened with the scene be some way I just I just haven't typical Delver that's for sure oh what's this ah I uh I I call it a diving bubble it's uh it's the mark one Mark two was better but it got stuck halfway down I uh they always fear what they don't understand excuse me excuse me please

it's pretty smart not too affordable though like a a face mask maybe with a hose to a compressed air canister hammer and taunts so we're gonna build this thing partner so I mean this could be good or bad for the scene but the idea is just to explore the scene and push it left and right now the the next thing we're going to watch a smaller excerpt now but the next thing I did is I asked TJ like okay can you trust her she might be after what you're looking for she might be after those treasure and at the same time on the sideline I went and talked to the scene partner and I I told her uh okay put him on the spot scrutinize what he's doing um you know get in this space a bit and let's see how this affected the scene

but I call it a diving bubble the mark one the Mark II was better but it got stuck halfway down the air tube snags and so it just you know kind of kept me down there he went down they always fear what they don't understand it's pretty smart like a face mask Maybe with a hose to a compressor canister hammer and tongs so we're gonna build this thing partner so why is this the casting process so important to us it's important because the the actor's performance is at the foundation of every scene the actor that you're going to cast is

going to be part of your team so it's it's critical to have like a robust casting process to make sure that you end up with the best possible talent in the room with you now if you do your homework right uh it becomes easier uh because you're gonna be able to get variations of the scene and when you get to the editing room then you have choices and that's what you want choices uh and it also can give you confidence because you've approached the scene you've approached a character uh because you know that scene is pretty much what what we saw earlier uh so that will give you confidence uh to do that material when you're actually shooting it and that brings us to the next topic uh the storyboard in previous so what's our objective with storyboard and previous it's to create a visual plan for the scene that we can use as a framework to communicate and build upon

with our team and external partners but we also add other goals we wanted to establish a consistent style because consistency was key to have that that quality across all of the scenes so whatever you're going to uh do in terms of cinematography or editorial in the board process that will influence the rest of the process we also used it as a feedback tool so we did weekly reviews with our narration Art and Design leads to make sure that we all saw the same scene that we were all on the same page we also used it as a communication tool with the other departments such as audio and VFX but pretty soon everyone in the company would be exposed to the storyboards because we were placing them directly inside of the game as placeholder so whenever they anyone would play the game they would bump up

into one of those storyboards or animatic and they would see our perspective or angle on the scene it was also crucial for uh to brief our motion capture crew because that way you can showcase the major beat of the scene the blocking but also is there a need to build a specific set right briefing the actor that was also really critical there briefing external Partners about layout and animation because sometimes you know a scene might miss the Mark or might miss a beat and you can always tell someone hey can you please go back and look at the storyboard this is the key beat that we're missing here I'm not seeing it in the scene can you please address that and that really helps I mean sometimes the camera and layout phase will be better so you should just let it go and and be flexible but sometimes you have to do that right um and then we also used it in user

research for internal and external play test uh so that was really helpful we got some feedback uh that we either addressed in the storyboard phase but maybe sometimes we carry that note with us on the stage to address the the feedback but again how do you actually do storyboards um the first thing I do when I approach the storyboard process is I do a location scouting so I will go with the debug camera with a very wide lens and I will rotate and spin around the location of the scene just to inform the storyboard artists on what our objective is and then from there I I would suggest that we do an isometric process the isometric for me is like a three-quarter top-down of the scene and and it has the sort of the major beats uh of the scene there so this is still

the Merlin scene that we saw earlier um it's it's it has like everything that you need to sort of know where the the characters will lend and it's at that point that I'll start thinking about the line of action uh where we're gonna shoot the from from which side of the axis we're gonna shoot uh and and I'll have the idea of the the blocking and from that point on we go to the board process and this storyboard is interesting because at the first uh the first round of boards we didn't have that part here that you just saw when they carry Marlin out of the water uh that was part of the review process that we had where somebody suggested that we have them carry him out of the water and that was really helpful because it gave a lot of energy to the scene and it brought something very interesting there now we didn't shoot exactly what you're seeing now uh but it it was the framework it was like the sketch the

plan for the scene uh and another point of feedback that we got was that it was missing connection during this moment when they talk about the diving bubble or the diving bell and we could have addressed it in the storyboard process but we we took that note and we kept it with us and we addressed it on the stage and let's see this part again we actually solved it with um with the actors what I gave as an objective there during that moment is you need to connect together you need to engage and when you talk about the diving bell and what they did immediately is they got there together they got on the same level so what you're seeing like right here is the result of this objective and then Robert mamana who plays abedin the character with the yellow jacket was

like okay can I can I like go back and then like interject and come back and I'll take him away and uh and and you know I let him do that and it it created that nice moment here that you're seeing so of course like you want to have your plan you want to have your boards ready but you also need to be flexible when when you're doing that the process of filming the scene and now let's go into previous uh we did a couple of scene in previous about like 16 scenes uh in the in in the game uh previz I used uh for uh bigger uh action heavy scenes with complex choreograph and and and blocking um if you have the budget I would highly recommend it it's really helpful not only for your team but also all the other departments that will work on that uh so we'll take a look at the previous

of a scene from the main quest one of our game uh when Eloy needs to uh sort of have this massive uh like shuttle fall down on some snakes uh and uh yeah it was pretty complex to approach uh so I did the same process I did location scouting uh and then I did some isometrics just to brief the the company that was going to help us with previs uh so uh here uh it's an uh she needed to shoot some cables and then have we had some Rockets fall down on some the snakes below we also had to communicate the idea that she had to fall down with the entire structure uh and then uh you know survived that and create a combat Arena where one of the snake would still be alive so lots of things to communicate there but one thing that I that was key that I

tried to communicate as an objective to the previous company was okay let's make sure even though that Eloy has no control on the file that she's always smart that we always feel that she's smart that she has agency that she's always looking for a way out uh and let's have a look I I we work with the third floor on the sequence with Justin Summers and his team great great great company so on the left side you will see the previous and on the right side you will see the final scene thank you

what's up where are you and she missed the hard way so if you can do previz I suggest you do previz but sometimes you don't have the budget or you know so what I would recommend is the next big thing best thing is doing storyboards and we did storyboards for

our main main quests and most of our side quests but if sometimes you're compressed in time I would only use isometrics I would go straight to shoot with just only the isometrics and the basic blocking so you can sort of try to scale the the scope of your pre-production uh in that way if you want so now let's move on to the performance capture and motion capture performance capture is when you have the The Voice the face the body data of the actor the actors that you're going to work with and the motion capture is only the body so we had to sort of pivot at some point uh in the in the process because of kovid I'll come back to that but we tried or ambition was to do as much performance capture as possible so what so how do you prepare for performance capture motion capture uh I would break it down into two phases uh

the first one is the briefing phase and the second one is the filming phase in the briefing phase I would bring everything that I have in terms of pre-production material isometrics previous storyboards concept art a mission summary what happens just before or just after I will answer questions or ask questions if there's a scene breakdown if I'm shooting in multiple parts that's where I would inform the actors about this uh and if we're doing motion capture only then I would showcase either previous performance capture uh video reference or how the characters behave in the game just in order to keep that consistency and have the same feeling for for all of the characters and I would try to wrap that up in about 20 minutes because you want to use as much of the stage time as possible

because it's expensive uh and you would just want to try to be as clear as possible in the less amount of time as possible and then that leads us to the filming phase where I would have playable objectives and actions creative adjustments like we saw before alternate blocking I would have a great unders a good understanding of the cameras the line of actions if I'm the shut scale because if I'm if I need to do a single shot on someone I will make sure that they're grounded that they're not moving too much in the frame um and even though you have all of that preparation and that plan you need to remain flexible just for the reason that I explained before with this scene with Marlin you need to be open to new ideas uh with the cast member or your creative

Partners uh and you should have fun because that's a really nice part of the process and I'm going to now show you a uh the vidrif of a performance capture from Ashley Birch who plays Eloy and Alison J who plays Alva this is this one is from the the seed of the past or main quest this is when Eloy sees uh Alva for the first time and then I'll come back to the briefing and filming phase that I use for for this scene together I submit do as you will I didn't want to fight your friends out there they attacked me if by death alone I can atone our trespass I just want to figure out what's going on

where did you get that Focus ah I am of the chosen people the queen the ancestors left the power of the focus to us alone the eye that reveals the Legacy the Legacy truth it is in the darkness and the lost places among the ancient ashes and the bones of the before that it lies waiting you know as a diviner it is my task to seek it out for the good of my people so as you can see performance capture brings us that level of listening and reacting and you want to do as much as possible but if you have to choose I would choose character introductions uh emotional moments and try to squeeze in as much budget as you can in there because that will really help the scenes um now let's look at the briefing phase for

that scene so I showed concept Arts as you can see there's some uh quen concept art because there are seafarers I thought that it was important to communicate that to the actors uh there's another one from uh nearby a nearby location uh of the scene I would also show character concept art um Alva is a diviner and she's different than the other Quinn so she's got a a device that makes her able to see the data in the world and the soldiers are different so you know in terms of uh uh that that was an important thing to communicate to the actors so she was aware of that uh and then I showed the isometrics uh for the scene with the blocking and then let's move on to the filming phase so in the filming phase I had my objectives ready so for Eli is to get information to reach your goal which is

the sub function of Demeter there that was our mission for Alva is to find and protect crucial information the data that will help your your tribe and your family back home uh and then I add creative adjustments that I would tell the actors uh for Alva it was get her to help you as if there is no other way out of this uh also Ayla is sort of a mythical legend for the Quinn uh because you've seen her like in Holograms and stuff or a version of her in the Holograms but she also has a bow and it's pointed at your face so you know be careful uh you need to get out of the room uh maybe you need to get to the restroom that was an adjustment that we tried and it sort of helped you know to create some stress there um and for Eli it was you need to put ER on the spot you have the right to know you deserve to know force the issue as if there's no this is

the only option I mean for Ayla it's mainly those two objectives that are recurring because she needs to save the world and stuff uh but and in terms of blocking um we use the table the Legacy the book the books and the data that was there uh as as something to create conflict a little bit um so for Eloy I told her maybe you want to you know look at her stuff there her personal items and for all via was like you need to protect this this is really important and maybe you guys picked up on that when they arrive at the table there's a little bit of a of tension there uh there might be soldiers outside you know for Alva can they help for Eloy can they be against you you know those those things these are all ideas that I would bring with me on the stage to explain and try to different things for the scene but then kovid happened because we wanted to do as much performance capture as possible with our main casts at

Visual Arts uh the stone the Sony studio and we had to change and pivot to do more voice recording with the main cast with our our vo director Johan willemson who did a terrific job to keep the process going uh at Formosa group and Soho Square house studio and we shot a lot of the motion capture scene with uh with local talent in our internal studio uh so we did we had to do casting there uh in Amsterdam and we also did uh uh sometimes we ran out of space so we have a small volume and when we needed to shoot in on a larger stage we went to goodbye Kansas our partners there when we had to have a bigger volume or do stunt work and that was really helpful and a little bit of a little shout out to London Studio who also helped us with one of our side quests as well but that didn't stop us and I think that

that the the key takeaway there is we have the process we had a goal to create consistent quality across all scenes but we had a process and we really tried to protect that process as much as possible and I think that's really what helped us push true covid and and you know get over that obstacle so now let's dive into the camera and layout process [Music] um so at the start of the the production we Define a very clear style guide uh and uh that was really important for us to communicate with our internal team but also our external Partners it was something that was critical um to onboard people on the project sorry so uh I'll go through like the main principles there so Eloy story Alloys

perspective let's have a look so we always introduce aloy in the scene first we couldn't start the scene right there the reason why we want to do that is we want to make sure that we're aligning the player's perspective with eloy's perspective in the scene we also want to make sure that we're seeing this we have the same level of information that Eloy has into the scene we also Define some prime lenses our in-game camera is about a 18 millimeter so it's pretty wide and we wanted to make sure that we had consistent consistent lensing system throughout the entire production so usually we would go from 18 millimeter to 50 millimeter because you need to factor in that your first camera is that wide 18 millimeter and then you need to

get into the scene so you work your way to get to the single the close-up which is more tight with the telephoto lens you know more on the the 40 the 50 mil side of things and then you need to sort of work your way backwards to go back into the the gameplay camera because we didn't want to have like jarring transition when you go from like that 18 millimeter straight into a close-up that always you know breaks the immersion a bit so we're we're always trying to sort of do that and then uh we didn't use zoom lenses uh almost you know well maybe one sequence but uh but we we tend to move the camera so one of my filmmaking uh teacher said uh you know Engineers spend so many years to reduce the size of camera please make them move and I think like in terms of classical style of camera it's really nice to use the the motion

of the actor to justify the movements of the camera so let's let's have a look here so here we're dollying with Eloy and the camera is moving with her we're also reframing against the performance of the actors one common mistakes that I would see in layout in camera layout generally is that often we we know we in CG we know exactly where people will lend or where they will in their Mark so we can do very precise and perfect cameras but what we wanted to do is have that feeling of an operator that moves the camera and that is delayed and that is always late to sort of catch the performance and if we had like a shut that had some motion like you're about to see here we wanted to to have the same velocity across one shot to the other shot just to keep uh that that

continuity of movement of course you can sort of go from a moving shot to a static shot but you you need to tell something there there needs to be a reason you can deviate from those rules but there needs to be a storytelling purpose behind it if we establish uh the the the shots you know two shots like this we would go back to it because we've established it for the players so we try to also be economical with our setups there we also add a really nice procedural lighting system that was developed by our lead cinematics lighting artist Julian freeze where we have some lighting rig attached to the characters and that gives us a very strong Foundation of lighting to detach the character from the get-go and it gives us like that really nice base of lighting for every scene because we had like a very small unit of lighting artist that was really really helpful

again to create that consistency across all scene to have them lit in all scenes so that was really great but we were not going as fast as we should have in terms of layout and cameras so we had a breakthrough at some point when Jan Bart Van Beek or Studio head really pushed the engineering team to make sure that we could do cameras directly inside of Decima or in in-game engine and that really sped up the process because we we could start with like procedural cameras like a foundation that we could bake out the animations from and then just start tweaking all of those shots really quickly and we could onboard other team team members that were done with their part of their projects so the machine team was done the environment lighting team was done so they came in and and really helped

out the process to do camera layout with us at the critical phase of the project but if you scale the people who are doing cameras you need to scale the the people who are going to review that because 22 hours is quite long so we hired freelance Director of Photography uh and we onboarded them on the style and they helped me review all of the scenes we also had the senior marketing artists who helped out there that was really great uh to have these these people uh support the team into the review process but also I think it also really helped the the standard scene that were done in motionbuilder or Maya because sometimes when you you do the camera layout in motionbuilder or Maya you don't have the final Geo uh so it was way easier for us to tweak those shuts in game at the critical phase of the project when we needed to ship the game so that was really really important

and It sped up the process by a lot and that leads us to the review process so 22 hours it's big and you have to test it on two consoles PS4 PS5 so our engineering theme it was like a quite a bumpy road to get there but we got there eventually uh so we had like about 17 PS5 dev kit and 32 uh PS4 dev kit that were running 24 7 just to do captures uh and and daily captures and also the other critical thing that we had to review was that we had uh scenes that were at unlock time of day so you had to make sure that you saw them at like maybe three specific hours to just review the lighting condition there so it generates a lot of data and we were very fortunate to have this system in place to make sure that we

could give notes on on the scenes now this is pretty uh simple but I think that was also very helpful the burning system that we had which is uh the name of the scene that we see there or the node the frame number uh the time of day when it's captured the the shot name and the camera name the lens that we're using and the aperture just to make sure that we understand the depth of field there the date when the scene was captured and the build number because if you want to see if the change of someone got into the scene that you're reviewing you can see it right there and how it's performing in game and and then we could just take screenshot like for instance this one we had too much Dead Space on the left side of the frame uh and and give actionable notes for the artists who are working on

the sequence this one was an overlap of character that's also part of our style we don't like to overlap characters too much just to make it read better so we gave that note and that's how you make mini roller coasters uh hopefully you learn some insight about the casting process the script analysis the storyboard and previous the performance capture and motion capture the camera layout process and or review process is there a secret ingredient for this no it's a lot of hard work and I couldn't have done it without an incredible theme so I want to take all of the Cinematic steam all our creative Partners the cast and crew that we have for the motion capture but I also want to highlight specific people here so jachen willemson or vo director who gave us really good performance Daniel Sipes

cinematics animation director Jessica rigavandenberg our principal producer for cinematics James grow or lead cinematics or cinematics animation leads sorry PJ Hugh or cinematic sequence lead or technical cinematics director Julian fries or lead cinematics lighting artist janerik Cheval or Studio animation supervisor Jan Bard Van Beek one of our studio Ed and Ben Mecca or Studio narrative director if you want to reach out here's my contact information you can take a picture if you'd like I'd be happy to follow up with you and I have this final slide that I think is important to acknowledge uh we had very sad news last Friday so my deepest condolences to lens

Riddick's friend and family friends and family we will miss him uh in our game yeah so that's it [Applause] [Music] thank you