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Cataclysm Classic: Leveling in a Shattered Landscape
Cataclysm Classic: Leveling in a Shattered Landscape
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Do you consider the Horde to be "the bad guys" or is it more complex?
- The in-game cinematic department has almost doubled in size over the previous year.
- The team did double the number of cinematics in Legion compared to Warlords.
- The in game cinematics use game assets and the game engine to get things done, making it much faster to create cinematics.
- The team has a custom version of the game client used to make their cinematics.
- They can generate background characters and crowds from in-game assets.
- How does the team determine which in game moments should be a cinematic?
- Some of the big ideas are very obviously in need of a cinematic, but others come from strong moments during the questing experience.
- If a moment in game is going to be remembered for years to come, it should become a cinematic.
- The death of Ysera was a huge moment in World of Warcraft.
- The team started by looking at the key characters involved, starting with Elune. The team looked at the Night Elves, their architecture, art, and objects. They have a specific color palette and designs.
- The team added some extra touches to her model and texture to capture the feeling of the moment.
- Fresh grass is left behind after Ysera is gone. The game team added this area to the game itself.
- The team really created a moment you will remember.
- Suramar was being worked on during the Broken Shore cinematic.
- The team had to fit an entire history lesson for the zone in a few minute cinematic.
- The Suramar cinematic was an exercise in efficiency. Some of the panels from the comic were created in game to help tell the story.
- There is a camera system that allows the team to take a single camera, place it at a point, and move it to another point in the world.
- They can also take an entire scene and move it to another part of the world.
- Crowd tools can also make a city look busy, with crowds going everywhere.
- Genn vs Sylvanas was a cinematic that had to be created very carefully. It needed to feel good for both factions, regardless of the outcome.
- The Broken Shore cinematic was one of the most ambitious they have ever done.
- Sylvanas already existed, so the team just had to work on making her ready for animation, including allowing her face to show emotion.
- There are also generic characters for each race that make up a library the team can use.
- The team started with the basic worgen form and then added more of a mane.
- There were four different versions of Genn created, two human and two Worgen.
- Vol'jin was created from the basic troll model and then adding additional armor. The majority of time was spent on his textures, adding bruises, fel creep, and other changes to sell the story.
- Mekkatorque was the most challenging to create.
- Varian has been created several times now for different expansions. The Legion Varian was very detailed and the team delivered a very compelling performance.
- There were 21 characters for The Broken Shore cinematic, with additional variations pushing it above 30. In Warlords the most complex cinematic had 5.
- In Legion, the team doubled the amount of facial controllers on each character, going to 100. The team has been unifying their rigging system across different animation departments.
- The animation library is getting bigger and bigger.
- The first minute of the Broken Shore cinematic differs depending on your faction. This Fog of War keeps you from seeing what exactly happened with the other faction. The team was excited to see how it would play out. The forums exploded and the Alliance and Horde were going at each other, so it worked out great. The Horde had a lot of moments occur that the Alliance didn't see.
- The team had to follow up with Vol'jin so they created the funeral cinematic, The Fate of the Horde.
- The lighting and cinematography parts of the pipeline were important for this cinematic.
- Sylvanas having a conversation with Vol'jin on its own isn't very exciting, so the lighting and cinematography was important to make it exciting and tell the story well.
- Vol'jin looks tragic, badly beaten. He got a custom lighting pass and color correction for his last few sentences.
- The Broken Shore Finale was challenging to make. They knew how it would start and what would happen to Varian, but not how. They spent weeks on a storyboard trying to figure out how it would play out. There had to be a very convincing reason that Varian would sacrifice himself. This is where the gunship came in. It created a single point where all of his men would be.
- Varian got back up and kept fighting through demons, even though the Legion is endless.
- Gul'dan had a line and tone of voice that created the most important moment.
- Varian returned in a cinematic for Heroes of the Storm. How would this hero react to appearing in the Nexus?
- For Tracer it was an amusement part, Gul'dan wanted unlimited power, and Stitches just wanted some friends.
- Varian's reaction to the Nexus was an important question. He was a hero that needed to be honored, especially after what just happened in WoW.
- Ragnaros had never been portrayed in a cinematic before, so they wanted to make sure he was a giant monster.
- Varian is kept on the defense most of the time, but he never gives up.
- The team realized they wanted something very special for this cinematic, so the pre-rendered cinematics team was utilized to increase shot complexity and level of detail.
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