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InsiderInterview
The Making of the StarCraft II CinematicTeaser The Insider recently sat down withNick Carpenter, Blizzard's cinematic creative director, for a behind-the-sceneslook at the StarCraft II cinematic teaser recently released at theWorldwide Invitational, as well as to discuss the challenges involved withcontinuing the single-player storyline from the original game... Part 1: Concept Insider:One of the things that really made StarCraft stand out when it was firstreleased was the epic scale of events unfolding over the course of the originalgame and the Brood War expansion, told in large part through the game'scut-scenes and beautifully crafted cinematics. Of all the possible scenariosfor a cinematic teaser, why did you decide to focus on the genesis of a marine? NickCarpenter: The idea of turning the creation ofa marine into a cinematic has been on my mind ever since we started working onthe cinematics for the original StarCraft. When you click on that button tobuild a marine, what does that mean? Actually showing the marine being builtgives us an exciting opportunity to show that in the StarCraft universe, evensomething that's normally very mundane can have a truly epic feeling to it. "Actuallyshowing the marine being built gives us an exciting opportunity to show that inthe StarCraft universe, even something that's normally very mundane can have atruly epic feeling to it." Whenyou see all the intricate pieces of the armor coming together, you really getto appreciate the power and the toughness of the marine unit from a whole newperspective. But this is only the most basic unit; this is your cannon fodder,your red shirts. If the creation of a mere marine is already this cool, justimagine what it must be like when a goliath or a siege tank is assembled.Essentially, we picked this scene because we felt it was a great way to returnto the StarCraft universe - open up with something small, but finish withsomething really big. Let's talk a little bit about how yourteam and the game design team for StarCraft II work together to create thecinematics. What role does each team play in coming up with ideas, and how arethey then transformed into the actual movies? There'sa great deal of collaboration going on between all the teams that work onStarCraft II. We have a lot of brainstorming sessions where people from myteam, the StarCraft design team, and our creative team sit down and throwaround story ideas, character ideas, and just general thoughts of what's goingto happen next. Forexample, as we were coming up with the concept for the teaser cinematic andfleshing out the details for the marine portrayed in it, that marine evolvedover time into a character, named Tychus Findlay, that features prominently inStarCraft II. Ultimately, the creative process involved with working Tychusinto a certain role in the plot and fleshing him out helped us give him evenmore character depth in the cinematic. Also,one of the big advantages of the cinematics team working directly with the gamedesign team is that the cinematics are completely consistent with the gamewe're making, which isn't always the case when you're hiring an externalcompany. Since we're part of the creative process, there's always a strongsense of consistency and continuity between the actual game and the cinematics. Part II: Storytelling
It's been almost a decade since StarCraftand Brood War were released. What do you think your team has learned sincethen, and in what way is that growth reflected in the way the story ofStarCraft II is told by its cinematics? "Tostand out, you can't just tell a story - you have to tell it well." There'sactually a lot of things we've learned since then, both in terms of technologyand craft. Back then, things that we consider easy now were huge obstacles. Ifwe want to have a talking character today, that's not that big of a deal. Backthen, a good-looking facial animation was really difficult to achieve. So, thisadvance in the state of the art gives us a lot of freedom to tell our story,but good-looking 3D graphics are pretty much the standard that players havecome to expect from games by now. To stand out, you can't just tell a story -you have to tell it well. Withevery game we do, we try to take the cinematics to the next level. Thecinematics of Diablo II were a huge step forward from Warcraft II, and WarcraftIII raised the bar even higher. The cinematics for World of Warcraft and TheBurning Crusade pushed the limits even further, so there are a lot ofexpectations for StarCraft II. We're improving our cinematics' quality bytaking full advantage of the latest video rendering technologies, but at theend of the day the main goal still is to put all that technology towardcrafting an epic story with a terrific cast of characters. Aside from the pre-rendered cinematics,StarCraft and Brood War also relied on the actual game engine to deliverin-game cut-scenes to advance the plot. How does StarCraft II balancecut-scenes and pre-rendered cinematics? Also, what do you think are thestrengths and weaknesses of each storytelling technique? StarCraftII will have cut-scenes just like the original StarCraft games, but one thingI'm really excited about is that this time, the controls for these scenes willbe much more intricate than before. Since our graphics engine for the gameitself can display a wide range of effects, such as normal mapping, we canactually create in-game cut-scenes of near-cinematic quality. And since we havemore control over camera movement, unit animation, and lighting, our onlylimitations here are the engine's limitations. A good part of the plot willunfold through in-game cut-scenes, but the most pivotal scenes are still beingtold through cinematics. Usingpre-rendered cinematics has the advantage of giving us almost unlimited freedomin what we want to show and how we want to execute a shot. In-game cut-scenesstill don't quite offer the full range of freedom we have with cinematics. Onthe other hand, creating art assets for pre-rendered cinematics can be atime-consuming and difficult task, and rendering a cinematic takes time aswell. So while we are able to show almost anything we want in a pre-renderedcinematic, the price we pay for that is time. The new cinematics for StarCraftII are really testing the limits of our technology, but at the same time thatlets us explore how we can still grow and overcome these limitations. Part III: Technology
What technologies did you use to createthe cinematic teaser?
"Ithink the polygon count on the marine ended up being well above five million.So when we tried to render the cinematic teaser, we actually broke ourrenderer." Traditionally,we've used off-the-shelf software to create our cinematics, but as I saidpreviously, we're reaching the outer limits of what that is capable of. Forexample, the 3D models used in the cinematic teaser are the most complex anddetailed models we've ever done. I think the polygon count on the marine endedup being well above five million. So when we tried to render the cinematicteaser, we actually broke our renderer. It refused to render the scene; it wasjust too much. In the end, we had to do separate passes to render thecinematic, but this experience showed us that we're approaching a point whereour current software might not be able to help us in all rendering tasks. Nowwe're looking at other solutions, and one solution is to switch over toRenderMan, a renderer that was developed by Pixar. Doing so means a lot ofin-house development, which is fairly unusual for a computer games company, butit's really just the next logical step for us. We have a lot of extremelytalented people on the cinematics team, and all that skill and professionalismis being put toward making sure that the cinematics of StarCraft II will meetthe players' expectations. Speaking of in-house software, canyou tell us a little about the tools you use to create the in-game cut-scenes? Ourplan is to make all the tools we use to create the in-game cut-scenes availableto the players with StarCraft II. It's always been our tradition to shiplevel-editing tools with our games, and I think that adds a lot to the successand longevity of games like Warcraft III and the original StarCraft. Even withWorld of Warcraft, there are a lot of really great fan-made machinima moviesout there. There is a desire among the players for software like our leveleditors, and we're really excited to see what they'll do with these tools. Thank you very much for your time,Nick. Is there anything else you'd like to add? Theonly things I'd like to add is that we're really excited to be working onStarCraft II and we hope players will have a great time with it once it'sfinally released. Also, I'd like to thank my whole team for their hard work andthe outstanding job they're doing. They're an amazing bunch of people, and Iappreciate everyone's dedication and energy.
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发表于 2013-7-26 16:20:22
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发表于 2013-7-26 17:18:08
发表于 2013-8-1 15:47:04
