While video game movies have been much maligned, the quality of movie sequences in games has gone up in recent years. The cinematic qualities in games like Gears of War have changed the way stories are perceived. The game's main TV promotion was also intriguing and eye-catching, matching a sequence rendered with the in-game engine and set to a cover of Mad World.
Considering the quality of these pieces, it should come as no surprise that professional move studios will be looking to do projects that boil down to very professional machinima. Using an in-game engine to produce a movie also has another benefit: being able to create a game based around that engine as well, using many of the same assets. If early experiments with this prove out, it could become a very keen alternative to both animation and live action.
It's appropriate then that one of the first such opportunities for this convergence, the new ThunderCats movie, will be helmed by Jerry O'Flaherty, the art director for Gears of War. Digital Domain will be responsible for the technology behind this new project. Not so coincidentally, they were responsible for the award winning ad for Gears of War mentioned above.
Tomorrow at GDC Kim Libreri (VP of Advanced Strategy at Digital Domain) and O'Flaherty will discuss the possibilities of making a full-length feature film using an in-game engine. Titled "Challenges of Creating Linear Content in a Game Engine," they will discuss issues that include animation systems, cinematography, editing, rendering and deterministic events within a game engine. GameDaily BIZ had a chance to speak to them before this panel to discuss the potential with in-game engine movies.
GameDaily BIZ: This sort of convergence of Hollywood and gaming is really unprecedented. Do you see this becoming more of a trend moving forward?
Kim Libreri: Definitely. Both industries are working towards delivering immersive experiences for their audiences. It's a natural extension for both businesses to reach out to each other for inspiration, but the real goal is not just to bring these industries closer together but to take the best from both and build up something new, a unified pipeline capable of producing both products (game and feature film) to the highest quality standard possible.
Modern graphics hardware can output some incredible images in full HD and at 30fps and above. That's awesome! Even given the amazing level of artistry in the current generation of games, there is more room at the ceiling in terms the overall visual quality of the output frames from this hardware. The current generation of GPUs are so powerful but they aren't necessarily being maxed out. Game engines are incredibly complicated pieces of technology but their rendering path is inherently focused on a playable frame rate output. By alleviating those frame rate constraints, the same models and texture maps could produce even more beautiful images on the same hardware. That opens up fascinating avenues for anyone looking at combining these two production processes especially since both industries already draw on similar software and similar pools of talent to build up their workforce.
It's possible to let each product develop so that it stands on its own and speaks to its respective audience while maintaining the overall artistic look and aesthetics of the overarching IP. A new hybrid process could open up new areas of expression for the creative teams. The filmmaker can reap benefits with the ability to make more creative and aesthetic decisions in context (scenes with full light and textures throughout a longer stretch of their production process) and also by seeing more iterations overall across the same period of time. Games can reap benefits with a new language of films in terms cinematography and storytelling. Both can share experiences, insights and techniques up and down the board: animation, lighting, effects, sound etc.
More of this kind of collaboration between the two industries should result in fertile new ground for expression and new levels of immersion for the audience.
BIZ: Was this initiative to use something like a game engine for moviest inspired by the fan based machinima or more by high quality in-game cut cut scenes?
Jerry O'Flaherty: The concept of using a game engine for films has been talked about for a few years but it was the success of games like Gears of War, visually, that really turned people's heads and got them looking at this as a viable option. Cut scenes, in recent years, have shown that using the game assets for the storytelling pieces can be just as viable in quality as the "rendered" pieces done in previous years.
Taken a step further, with proper tools in place, the production process using game technology can free the storyteller up to refine the visuals, story and edits for much longer than a traditional animated film pipeline would allow. Maturing the tools and process used while creating the cut scenes in Gears of War, we can look to capturing the best dramatic performance first then find the best camera angles and edits in the real-time engine, all the while making those choices with a fully rendered frame running at 30fps.
BIZ: What can be shared about the Thundercats project, which many children of the '80s are holding their breath over?
JO: We're still too early in the process to be able to reveal anything specific about the project.
BIZ: Do you think using the technology for both the game and the movie will create a greater level of continuity between the two?
Olivier Ozoux, Visual Effects/Computer Graphics Supervisor for Digital Domain Games and Animation: Sharing technology between the film and the game will help, but even more important will be to have both creative teams share a common vision. Usually the game and the film are made by different teams in different locations that don't even have access to each other. Having a single creative vision that can take into account the specific needs of gameplay or storytelling is almost more important than sharing any technology at all. This being said, a shared technology platform just reinforces that vision and will give both the game and the animated feature a common look and feel because they are built on top of the same technology.
BIZ: That said, how will you make certain that this technology will be well suited to both tasks of movie making and game making (which are very different arts)?
OO: Even though the resulting product is different, the creative process is in fact very similar. In both cases, the important part is being able to iterate quickly, so you can find out which ideas work and which do not, and make the ones that did work even better. Because both games and animated features are visual medium at their core, the role of the technology is to make sure you can give visual context to the creative team. The faster you can see your ideas on screen, and the closest you can come to the final visual quality, the easier it is to make your creative concepts work for either the game or the movie.
Of course there will be implementation differences, because squeezing content into a console is not the same as filling the big screen of a movie theater. The creative goals of the game and the animated feature are different, but they both share the same world and characters and just as the experience of playing the game and watching the movie will reinforce each other if done right, looking at the technology challenges from two different direction will make both the shared and the unique components of this hybrid production pipeline better.
BIZ: Have you received any thoughts, concerns or praise from either game developers or movie makers on this piece of technology?
KL: Sure. Everyone is always on the lookout for ways to make their process better, or easier or somehow more effective. They want the product to be better: a better game or a better movie.
From the games side, we've heard lots of encouragement. Many developers and mod communities are experimenting with creating more content with the technology outside of strict game development. However, just like game development, filmmaking is a complicated process involving lots of specialized knowledge and training. When we start pushing technologies to do things outside of their original spec, we are able to bring years of experience to bear in helping define what the next steps should be and what the tech should be.
From filmmakers, we've had enthusiastic responses to the possibilities of game technology. For those well versed in the production process of a visual effects live action feature or an animated feature, there are a number of huge decisions that are often made with minimal visual context. For example, digital animation must often be approved before full lighting and textures have been applied. For a filmmaker, it's not like looking through a lens. As we all know, lighting and shadow have a big impact on the sense of composition and framing. Everyone is excited by the possibility of using technology to help the filmmakers make these critical decisions with as much visual information available as possible.
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