World of Warcraft Cinematics - The Road to Legion
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
  • The cinematic needed an emotional hook, so the team looked at war movies.
  • They considered starting with an Alliance footman writing letters to his family, then Orc grunt who was writing letters to her family, finishing with Varian writing to Anduin.
  • Every shot brings the ship from the cinematic closer to the Broken Isles. It was very technically challenging!
  • There were thick clouds and they wanted to use sunlight beams to light the characters.
  • The ship wasn't going to be featured in the game, so they cinematics team was able to customize it as they wished. They elongated the ship and widened the bow to make it more front heavy.
  • The gunship model was very detailed. 7 million faces, 3000 of the 4000x4000 texture maps, raytracing. It takes 4-6 hours to render each frame.
  • There were 18th century ships they used as inspiration.
  • They also looked at older planes with sheets of metal and rivets.
  • The original cabin was going to be much larger, but it felt better smaller, allowing it to just be a backdrop for the character.
  • Some of the items on the desk are reused from previous cinematics.
  • The compass is passed down from Llane Wrynn.
  • The team drew inspiration from all of the different versions of Varian art that already existed.
  • Translating the character proportions from art to the 3D model was challenging.
  • Varian texture maps were based on real people. Pictures of 40 year old white males that worked in the office were used for reference. These detailed shots are used to make Varian's skin look real.
  • Much of the variation in his skin is from the reference photos, not painted.
  • There are as many texture maps on Varian as there are on the entire gunship.
  • Varian has lots of hair!
  • Varian takes 4-6 hours per frame and 20-30 GB of memory to render.
  • The lens makes a difference to how Varian's facial features appear.
  • Later on in the process the team picks the f-stop / focal length, trying to keep the result look realistic.
  • Lens distortion and chromatic aberration help to make it look like a real lens was used. Making 3D look realistic involves adding artifacts back in to the video.
  • Lots of reference video was used to give Varian realistic facial movements. No motion capture was used!
  • There were 50+ assets on the deck in the first big shot of the deck, helping to make it look filled out and realistic.
  • The team can use a motion capture camera to walk around the 3D deck to capture the camera movement, adding the smaller shakes and sways that come with using a real camera.
  • Motion capture was used to animate some of the other characters in cinematic, such as the soldiers on the deck.
  • The effects team made some really great water by using reference footage of someone in a pool.
  • There is a small goblin tugboat in one of the shots.
  • Some of the ships were recycled from other cinematics, such as the ship being destroyed in Booty Bay or the ships in the Mists of Pandaria cinematic. More detail had to be added to the ships.
  • The reference for the Horde ship coming through the clouds was older Viking ships. It was less detailed than the Alliance ship, with most of it near Sylvanas for her closer shots.
  • Sylvanas being an Undead High Elf was something the team wanted to be reflected properly in the cinematic.
  • Sylvanas had some more armor added to her midriff.
  • It is hard to get the subtle facial detail for younger women right. The team had some photo references of women's faces, projected it on the model, and cleaned it up from there. The pore detail is from real people.
  • The team added the illusion of red bloodflow in her ears with the lighting.
  • The team worked with Anna Maltese to capture reference footage to make sure Sylvanas moved realistically.
  • The fel energy was used as a team color, appearing on all of the enemies.
  • The final fighting shot used hundreds of reference footage shots to make it great.
  • Lots of effort put in to the lighting and composition to make it amazing!

Q&A
  • The Illidan model from Burning Crusade was updated for Legion.
  • If the team does reuse assets, they usually have to update them to add more detail.
  • Orc skulls are reused in several cinematics.
  • Around 50% of environment assets are reused from previous work.
  • Cataclysm zeppelins are also in the background of the Legion cinematic.

This article was originally published in forum thread: World of Warcraft Cinematics - The Road to Legion started by chaud View original post
Comments 44 Comments
  1. Rikkof's Avatar
    ALERT ALERT FLASH NEWS
    The hype train crashed. Badly, many victims.
  1. Charo's Avatar
    Varian reminds me of an actor, but I can't quite put my thumb on it, he looks awesome in cinematic form though!
  1. Maerad's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Charo View Post
    Varian reminds me of an actor, but I can't quite put my thumb on it, he looks awesome in cinematic form though!
    Reminded me about the overwatch samurai in some scenes (with the tail). Also from somewhere else =)
  1. elvor0's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Austilias View Post
    Varian and Sylvanas; because who cares about what the latter did in Gilneas/Plaguelands/etc? Who cares that the Forsaken rely upon defiling/raising Human corpses to survive? Demons lol

    Varian's logic seems to entail teaming up with the genocidal Forsaken to fight the genocidal Legion; great plan!

    Moral of the story; when confronted with a giant douche and turd sandwich, choose neither.
    Yes "Demons lol" are coming to rape our skulls! Lets bicker over terrestrial stuff. Totally sensible to attack the enemy of my enemy that is of significantly less threat so AN INFINITE HORDE OF DEMONS can swoop in and murder us all without regard for jack.
  1. Buck-Shot's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Drewbacca View Post
    This is your opinion and I'd disagree with it. First of all, the cinematic is in completed form. The movie will likely be worked on until close to release. Second, they're two completely different art styles. The cinematic is supposed to look animated, where the movie is supposed to look real. This second process is alot more difficult, and it's really tough to make things that don't exist in real life look like they're filmed instead of animated. One tiny slip in the rendering can make a whole scene look odd, where a little slip here and there in the cinematic doesn't make much of a difference. If we're being nitpicky, I actually thought the rendering of Sylvanas was pretty bad and lacked alot of detail, especially in the face.

    Well said... Lot of person don't understand that the 2 are using different styles... I think what they meant to say is they've gotten so use to blizz cgi cinematic that they would prefer the movie in that style, than the realistic approach...

    I for one love the art style of the movie...
  1. xezar's Avatar
    Well nice to know they're wasting their time on utterly pointless shit like making Varian look good...they still can't get over the fact most Alliance players still hate him and wish Onyxia had just eaten the bastard instead.

    Not to mention Sylvanas looks remarkably less sexy, not even wearing her midriff baring armor. Renewed PC BS from Blizz is now ruining fantasy character art too I see.
  1. elvor0's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by xezar View Post
    Well nice to know they're wasting their time on utterly pointless shit like making Varian look good...they still can't get over the fact most Alliance players still hate him and wish Onyxia had just eaten the bastard instead.

    Not to mention Sylvanas looks remarkably less sexy, not even wearing her midriff baring armor. Renewed PC BS from Blizz is now ruining fantasy character art too I see.
    It's a prerendered cinematic. Of course it has to look as good as possible and the cinematic team essentially just does the cinematics. You don't think the same level of effort went into all previous cinematics? "The Cinematic looks too damn good! GOD DAMN IT BLIZZ!" Of course, you know what would happen if it didn't look good? "It looks like crap"

    And boo hoo, Sylvanas is an undead. She shouldn't be sexy to a regular ass person. Y'know, by virtue of being undead and having a corpse for a body. Also, if you read the official lore on Sylvannas, it describes her as having her skin constantly peeling off and cracking when she moves and speaks. Heck, Metzens original concept art for Sylvannas(google it) has her clearly frankensteined and stitched up all over the place. But y'know, lets cry PC, because we're so bereft of things to complain about and petty that we need to pull complaints about the cinematics looking too good and Sylvanas the undead no longer being wank bait out. Sheesh.

    Lastly, there's /plenty/ of other sexy broads in WoW, don't worry, they're not coming to take them away from you.
  1. teidden's Avatar
    This looks great. I am hoping we get a preview of teh class changes coming up tomorrow. Some people will never be satisfied especially on the internet
  1. looorg's Avatar
    I liked this cinematic (road to legion) more then the preview of the actual movie. Still some explanation why Varian and Sylvanas are now bffs in combat could use some explaining - preferably more the demons are coming to skullf*ck the world.
  1. Draculla's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Charo View Post
    Varian reminds me of an actor, but I can't quite put my thumb on it, he looks awesome in cinematic form though!
    Dylan McDermott from American Horror Story for sure
  1. mmoc456b86dddb's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Smejusak View Post
    Hmm but what render software are they using ? Renderman ? Or Maya's MentalRay ? I think it is Renderman or ?
    Renderman or Arnold most likely. But one of the pictures did show somebody with Maya and what looks like the RenderMan shelf.
  1. mmocaa8b08b6ba's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Minon View Post
    Am the only only one who would be happy if the whole movie was just done as pure CGI with the same quality as the cinematic? Tho I guess the ammount of work I'd take would be just to much to handle.
    Wanna know how much time that would take?

    Around 50 years just for rendering
  1. thedingleberry's Avatar
    What an absolute waste of resources. Think of how much more content art could have been created instead of this useless cartoon...
  1. Shilien's Avatar
    This is the first cinematic they've ever had for the game that I've felt absolutely nothing watching. It was like I wasn't watching anything at all.
  1. Logwyn's Avatar
    If undead/forsaken looked as good as Sylvanas. I'd play one.
  1. Wolfie of Medivh's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by xezar View Post
    Well nice to know they're wasting their time on utterly pointless shit like making Varian look good...they still can't get over the fact most Alliance players still hate him and wish Onyxia had just eaten the bastard instead.

    Not to mention Sylvanas looks remarkably less sexy, not even wearing her midriff baring armor. Renewed PC BS from Blizz is now ruining fantasy character art too I see.
    Piss off, I'm proud of my king. He was heroic. He also managed to swim in mail and plate. So aces on him.

    FOR THE ALLIANCE, FOR AZEROTH!
  1. Stormykitten's Avatar
    I really liked that he took off some armour (whether voluntarily or not) to swim up. I'm so tired of people always bashing lightly armoured combatants and ignoring the problems with heavy armour in all games, when it comes to effectivity comparisons. :P
  1. BadTastingPudding's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by thedingleberry View Post
    What an absolute waste of resources. Think of how much more content art could have been created instead of this useless cartoon...
    not sure if trolling or a complete idiot
  1. Cthulhu 2020's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by xezar View Post
    Well nice to know they're wasting their time on utterly pointless shit like making Varian look good...they still can't get over the fact most Alliance players still hate him and wish Onyxia had just eaten the bastard instead.

    Not to mention Sylvanas looks remarkably less sexy, not even wearing her midriff baring armor. Renewed PC BS from Blizz is now ruining fantasy character art too I see.
    Same old sore players.

    Wasting their time on a cinematic? What else would the cinematic and cut scene team be doing? What, you think they'd be working on zones or raid content?
  1. Tak3nSupr4's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shilien View Post
    This is the first cinematic they've ever had for the game that I've felt absolutely nothing watching. It was like I wasn't watching anything at all.
    QFT

    /10 char

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