Guild Chat - Episode 88

The following is an unofficial, player-written transcript of the episode. The accuracy of this transcription has not been verified by ArenaNet.
The 88th episode of Guild Chat aired on July 12, 2019. This episode of Guild Chat features six members of our Cinematics team: Chelsey Shuder, Cinematics Director; Jason Byfield, Cinematics Marketing Lead; Da-Hee Im, Cinematics Animator; Greg Bekken, Cinematics Artist; Chris Burgess, Cinematics Audio Lead; Emilio Pujades, Cinematics
Transcription[edit]

Note: The text below hasn't yet been converted from raw subtitle text into pretty print like above.
is in my eye
hi teria welcome to guild chat
happy Friday I'm your host Ruby and
today we're gonna be talking to a whole
lot of members of our cinematics team
about making these cinematics that go
into our game and our episode trailers
good to you guys so we have a whole lot
to talk about we'll get right into it
I'll let the three of you introduce
yourselves and talk about what you do
for cinematics hi well my name is
Chelsea and I am the cinematics director
it's an overview of like what my
responsibilities are so I managed the
team in both kana Kraft development and
career management also I'm a hi I'm da
hey I've been on this show before but
I'm a cinematics animator so I make our
characters and creatures and whatnot
move and I also do storyboards for the
team so I'm Greg cinematics artist do
you pretty much from previous all the
way through the end of the cinematic all
right so you guys are Group one we have
another group coming up later from our
cinematics team but there are two
categories of cinematics let's kind of
start with that in-game cinematics and
then out of game like the marketing
trailers like the episode trailers that
we give to all of you so can you kind of
focus through the difference between
those two get us started
yeah so the team develop it develops
both the in-game cinematics that support
the golden path story that we see in the
living world episodes and we also
support marketing with the episode
trailers so you'll get to talk to Jason
later who is the main point person for
the making those trailers the difference
in their development more is about what
is the outcome we want from these
cinematics so the in-game cinematics are
about you know supporting the story
making sure the whole golden path is
impactful the whole way through and the
marketing trailers is to get fans really
excited for the upcoming episode give a
little tease give that information and
it's a way to connect with
you know everyone who plays the game
yeah I can let people know what's coming
to ya all right so for this segment
we're gonna be focusing on in-game
cinematics and they're it's turning into
like a flowchart but there are two kinds
of those too right yes there are and
they even branch off further from there
so okay so stylistically there's the
painterly cinematics and then there's
the 3d cinematics I'll just call him the
3d cinematic upwards and the basic
general difference between those two at
least
it started to develop I would say in
season 2 that it was a story choice to
have the Illustrated cinematics be more
about the past or a prophecy and the 3d
cinematics were about the present so
anything happening there with the
commander was what you would experience
in that 3d because it matches what you
see in game and then from the 3d
cinematics you get branching do you let
me talk about yeah going to yeah
so because the Illustrated always has to
be pre-rendered there's not a good way
for that to be runtime because a lot of
the assets are already you know pre
baked animation sequences the 3d
cinematics can either be runtime
cinematics or pre-rendered cinematics
and I know there's some questions later
on those I I could dive into that now or
we could dive further into it later
let's go into it a little bit and if you
have more questions that we don't
address during the show you will you can
ask questions in chat at the end of each
segment we'll take some of those as many
as we have time for so yeah go ahead and
address a few of those now so the
runtime versus pre-rendered in general
runtime is a little bit more crisper
like people have noticed that visually
that it's you know it matches their
graphics because it's just pulling from
the engine and setting up the camera and
telling the characters to be in this
place it usually is a lot there's some
like downstream considerations we have
to take into factor when doing runtime
because it's more of a heavy lift on
audio it's a heavier lift on design and
especially QA
because the moment let's say one our
asset we brought into the cinematic
changes or its path has changed and it's
not caught till the ends like because it
could be a last minute thing that needed
to happen it could break the whole
cinematic and it could stop someone from
advancing in the episode okay so you
know there's a lot of those
considerations to think about when we
want to do runtime and just make sure
downstream teams are aware of this
additional time we have to kind of focus
on that versus pre-rendered you know I'm
gonna have kind of Jason explain more
about like what codecs we use and the
software involved but pretty much it is
a you know we render it out from the
engine but then we do have to kind of
compress it to make it into a video that
we put into the game but it's usually a
safer package because it doesn't have
downstream team sure scope concerns okay
all right that helps clear that up a
little bit
yep so why don't we just kind of walk
through the process of making one of
these in chronological order does that
work and you guys actually brought along
a lot of cool images and videos to kind
of explain that so I have this we can
just kind of run through those whenever
you are ready okay all right so where do
we start well let's start with the first
stage which is talking to narrative
about what is a good cinematic moment
for the episode and also coordinating
with design when is a good moment to
have that story moment play out you know
we want you want to get closer with the
character and see more of that emotional
moment versus it being a gameplay moment
so I'm usually in initial meetings with
narrative and design once we get a
little more of a solid feeling for what
the Cinematheque shall be I will either
bring in like Greg or dahi depending on
like who wants to do like storyboards or
just go right into the previz make sure
that like scope concerns are not you
know something to consider when a moment
is being developed into a cinematic sure
once we are greenlit for that script I
usually will hand off the script to you
know Greg or dahi depending if you know
storyboards or not and I'm gonna kind of
let them take it from there okay so
let's do well I get I mean I could do
the mom know talk about storyboards Oh
okay I make I don't know what you want
to know about storyboards I create them
I so usually I don't leave yeah yeah
perfect here you go oh thank you okay so
this is actually an example of Kate's
branding it is completely
incomprehensible basically I took the
script I read through the script I
decided like these are the key moments
that I really want to hit and I'll
usually go from the top of the script to
the all the way to the bottom just
scribble out like and I think this is
how the camera should be here and what
it should be here and how they would cut
into each other and what the characters
are roughly doing I'm actually
considered like trying to pitch that
initial first pass to Chelsea and the
rest of the team and then I like took a
step back and like looked at that
sketchbook page and what I can
barely read this so yeah but it starts
the process of getting your thoughts
down on paper yes absolutely because if
I start with just like this so you know
after that initial stage of just
scribbling in my sketchbook I will go
into sort of like these thumbnails it I
have tried just starting from here
before and every time it is like this
paralysis of staring at a blank canvas
and going weird
I don't even start yeah yeah exactly so
yeah after I do the sketchbook mess of
spaghetti then I'll do you thumbnails I
will go and pitch them to usually to
Chelsea and whoever else needs to be in
that meeting show could be notes I'll go
back to the drawing board do it again
and you know etc etc until we arrive at
boards that I then hand off to a layout
artist like Greg but I liked having it
in my hand
yeah so da he does storyboards and we
start planning it out in engine
basically I think we have an early kind
of prototype that just uses rough assets
assets that aren't finished and kind of
in the world so we can show that yeah
let's take a look at that to get context
it's alright speak through me
No
you
I am NOT him
so yes event that was yeah that was the
the very early previous that the purple
dragon eventually turns into a rain the
kind of silly animations on katha just
to try and get an idea of what is
happening just canned effects that are
already in the game we just throw it all
together to try and get the feel and and
be able to kind of pitch it to the other
teams to to say here's here's what we're
thinking here's where we want to go with
it I notice Kate looked a lot different
than she wound up yes yeah yes
definitely I mean it goes through
iterations character team creature team
work on all that stuff so it's it's a
very collaborative process yeah and so
we have I think we have a couple of
other of the process because you know
why don't we go ahead and let's look
through the you just want to look
through like all three or four of the
progressive ones at once and then we can
talk about it yeah sure okay sweet let's
do that
you
it's alright speak through me
okay
you
I am NOT him
yeah
you
it's alright speak through me
case
you
I am NOT him
so as you can see it progressed a lot
from the first one already there's a lot
more polished animation in there but
more animation to do the effects are
still old effects
that'll get switched out and the the
area of the map is still being worked on
at this point so there's a lot of work
that's gone into it this is probably
easily a month of work but maybe more at
this point and we probably still have a
month or so left to go I guess on this
we have that flowchart we do that yeah
yeah show that so the the videos that we
just showed goes basically all the way
through until would you say final layout
or rough layout no that I that is I mean
it blends together I would say that it's
mostly final layout there's probably
camera tweaks that still happen and that
sort of stuff right and some of the map
that comes together but it's pretty
close to like what the shots will be at
the end yeah roughly it has like this
huge whole separate flowchart yeah yeah
direction is like its own its own thing
but so let me walk through this if I can
now that we've seen some examples
there's a nice visual tie-in to kind of
like the whole production so
pre-production is yet we talked about
the script we saw the storyboards we saw
kind of like that animatic that had some
of the in-game you know animations that
Gregg just put together as a proof of
concept we have the rough layout then we
go into that mocap rehearsal we're
getting the raw mocap in and then when
can we get to the next flowchart that
has production yeah so production even
though it's sharing kind of like it
looks small this is actually the most
meaty part of the cinematic because it's
just a lot of back-and-forth iteration
so as animation is getting into its
polished and it's a constant review loop
that you know Gregg and da he can touch
on later
there's always camera adjustments
happening usually you don't do final
cameras until your body animation is
done and it's you know the LIA artist
just wants to make sure that like let's
say the animator wants more room in the
scene to lift up the character they
stand up from the chair and the camera
initially just
framed the character sitting in the
chair well then now the layout artist
and animator are going okay so I'm gonna
have the character stand up because
there's just emotional beat that makes
sense for them stand up and then the
camera is going to get adjusted to
follow that character up or you do a
second cut but usually it feels better
if it's just like a flow up go back to
the chart so that is a very lengthy
process while that's happening like our
assets are getting polished or changed
like visual effects we saw like the
model for Orion and Keith are different
those are still getting finalized and at
the same time like audio we are you know
in touch with audio we also we're back
in pre-production we have to start
scoping out any like Story sound effect
moments what the music should be and you
know Chris can speak more to that later
how that ties in so while we're in
production those are getting polished as
well and the music is you know getting
different passes to see how it fits in
there when we get to post and again this
is you know for the second group they'll
go in more detail but if we go back to
that flow chart post-production is we
get so once we have the final render and
we're going to see this when we're done
talking about the flow chart we get the
final render then it has to be localized
final audio has to be implemented and
then put into the game and then QA
testing mm-hmm and just by the way I
color-coded that so that all the red
sections all the red boxes are it's
stuff that our time our team does
specifically the cinematic scene
everything else it's not red is other
teams so like there is there's a lot
that happens that our team is not
directly responsible yeah but you're
working with other teams and it's not
just hey cinematics will just knock this
thing out we'll just like fraps it or
something right yeah it is it's a hugely
collaborative process and you know there
are a lot of cogs I have to move
together yeah all right so do you want
to look at the final render down so then
after all this time we get the final
render yes
it's alright
speak from me
[Music]
I am not so good you guys yeah obviously
it's a lot more polish the effects are
done
music sound all of that is in their
environments done so it it's looking
amazing
alright so that's that's a part of
getting it from beginning to end and
there are other directions that you guys
can go with this do you want talking
about mocap a little bit because oh yeah
we've been making use of that and he
brought some really good videos yeah I
don't know it's um the the way you know
most of the game is hand keyed and so
mocap is more of a tool let me stop you
for a second and have you talk a little
bit about what hand keying is yeah hello
for it
so when Chelsea says hand key she's
talking about kind of no more of your
what people would think of like
traditional traditionally no hold on if
I say traditionally animation people are
gonna think 2d animation and that is not
what this is obviously but it's like I
do not know how to explain this and not
technical term so I'll do my best but
it's for instance if I'm gonna like wave
hello right when we say it that's gonna
be handy do you have a pose here and
down here where my art when my hand is
just resting and then you're gonna have
a pose up here where I'm actually hit
the peak of my wave you know and then
there's all this stuff that happens in
between like how am I gonna bring my
hand up is my I'm just gonna do this is
it gonna be more like this like there's
all this stuff so when you hand key it
you know you're literally like doing a
pose here doing a pose here doing a pose
somewhere in between here and you're
messing with all these curves and it's
it's it's a whole process you're
physically you're going in there and
you're physically making every bit of
that flowing motion happen
exactly whereas with mocap you we bring
in captured data of an actor doing this
there are a lot of skills that are
shared between the two like at the end
of the day you are an animator you have
to make this animation sing and that
requires a lot of the same skills
between hand cam and mocap it's just a
different process and different like way
of thinking about it yeah I mean a lot
of times when we work with mocap it it
comes in imperfectly so there's a lot of
cleanup that has to happen there's also
it comes in fairly stiff and so us as
animators we have to really loosen up
the body and the hands and the head and
make it feel good so this is the program
that we use to capture and clean up like
completely raw data so this is not even
like on our models or anything like that
it's just like points points that's
right points in space so kind of without
getting too technical because I honestly
do not know the technical details of
this but from what I can understand we
have all these cameras and like us and
like an oval and they are blasting light
and we have these like little reflective
balls attached to various points on the
actors it's like basically a just a
Velcro suit their markers yeah yeah they
have a reflective material on the right
exactly when we talked to them to the
mocap guy who actually he works for the
company that creates all this equipment
he said that one at one of us like yeah
having fun playing around fooling around
having a good time just seeing how the
mocap works yeah exactly and
I think there's so so for people who
don't know in the audience um we our
team does all of the mocap we are our
own yeah we are the actors
exactly it's save some money it's just
kind of a nice way for us to to control
the creative process and it's just like
be easier - there's a lot there's a lot
of iteration that happens and so it's
much easier to just be able to go down
there and iterate one day and then go
down there the next day and do it again
rather than having to try and call
someone in all right because our makeup
studios here in the building it's just
yes downstairs like literally downstairs
yeah yeah but yeah anyway so I was
talking to that mocap person yeah he
says that the reflective material is
literally just like teeny teeny teeny
tiny pieces of glass suspended in like a
sort of substrate I thought it was
really cool but not eat the markers you
I mean I don't think you should have
eaten them you didn't know now we know
the glass can't eat them sure I have a
new thing I'm scared of that took such a
weird turn you got okay so we've got the
markers basically a Velcro suit right
and that's kind of a process in itself
like starting with rehearsal yes
perhaps in the hallway by the kitchen
yeah
we have video we do want to see sure you
gave it to me you can't look at me Oh
gave it okay but you approved it I was
there when you said it was okay
all right the riffs dr. Graham
[Music]
actually stay low we've got a risk
soccer on our tail
mother hop around
we can't let it be red you want her to
say it right after she comes out anyone
who gets turn around again set works
okay it's set to take them out right
so there's once you like as soon as you
come through the
very nervously checking out everything
in the background okay so where is this
just like let's just see what this might
look like I have a random bow under my
desk because reasons I do Archer Chelsea
okay yeah that doesn't explain why you
have the bow in the office it's still
there just haven't taken it home yet you
know cuz I'm another boat home that I
actually use this is anyways so that was
for heirs return and we just wanted to
yeah see like how would the scene look
you know with air coming out of the
portal some of the mechanics are like
holding the bow you know of course like
my footwork was I could but all right
your own worst critic I always but it's
good to kind of like get a sense for
like what the scene is it kind of it
saves time because like if you're going
in hand keying everything usually you
know a lot of that we have to be fleshed
out more in storyboards versus just
getting people down there and like let's
act this out let's get this you know
figured out from that kind of staging
sense right and also the the great thing
about mocap I mean so as an animator
like obviously Han key animation is very
fun and and that's what I learned in
school and whatnot at the same time like
the way that mocap should be viewed in
my opinion not to like get on a soapbox
but it really your soapbox
it really helps save time in terms of
like if a person is walking across a
screen like walk cycles take a really
like they can take a while to do
especially if you know you're changing
the pace of the walk like if someone's
slowing down just really subtly to like
look at something on the ground before
they you know maybe they start walking a
little bit faster because the thing they
saw in the ground was not something they
wanted to see you know all of that to
hand key it would take a lot of effort
but we essentially get like the timing
and some of the body mechanics of that
for for free you know free in mocap it's
not free you have to rehearse it you
have to capture it you have to go down
put on the soup but the markers on all
this stuff and then clean it and stop
eating them yes stop Chelsea from eating
the markers
I won't now cuz they're made of glass
[Music]
anyways um but yeah moco is just really
really useful it's another tool in the
toolbox exactly exactly and both of you
have been mocap actors yes yes got my
first chance with our newest thing
things that's it of a Greg yes Greg
you've been a braum yeah okay that's
extremely cool yeah it's fun I mean as
an animator myself also it's like I
prefer to act things out anyway and so I
think it's just it's a very natural
process I guess to do mocap and it's
been fun doing it so yeah you'll see
some of Greg's acting in the episode 6
trailer when the next team coming and
walks through that oh yeah I was like
yeah alright so once you've got it
captured you've got you've put the
capture suit on you've got all of that
what happens then okay okay iterations
uh well I mean no hold on we have we
have other stuffs before we even start
animating so we have the raw data the
the raw data the way that we capture the
data like I mentioned is shine a light
the little markers reflect it back and
you know the cameras will capture its
position in 3d space every now and then
markers will not be seen by enough
camera so you know if if you're clasping
your hand like this then the markers on
your wrist will not be seen by the
cameras they're velcro and they fall off
sometimes yes they're velcro and they
fall sometimes sometimes we have
characters who need to fall on the
ground and then their entire back
markers are gone
oh no that happened this is like story I
need to hear at some point yes so with
when you have gaps in the in the data
like that you need to go in and
essentially like use different kinds of
math essentially to predict or to high
pot like yeah yes
guesstimate where they might have been
at that time so it's it's really
confusing because mocap cleanup can
refer to a couple different things but
like when we're talking about raw mocap
data cleanup that is what we're talking
about we're cleaning up all these little
gaps and like little weird hitches like
every now and then if your arm is like
passing across your chest then the
cameras will think or the program will
think your wrist marker is your chest
marker for like half a second and it
looks really really really funny um so
you know that cleanup is something that
I and our one of our tech artists foul
we do that most of the time and then
afterwards we will what we say retarget
so we'll take all the little dots that
you saw in that video with the raw mocap
data and basically like line it up to a
model and then put put the data on that
rig and then take that rig and put all
that animation data into our gw2 rigs
it's a whole long process it's all I'm
trying yeah it's okay this magically
turns into brim now no no it's like this
is dots and then dots become gray dude
and then graded becomes BAM yeah yeah
but even then after it becomes brown
there's no longer work in the flowchart
when it says animation polished review
animation polished review and it has a
cycle that's I mean that's literally too
much it's like two years of that cycle
going back and forth back and forth and
back and forth it's yeah so what's that
like what's the real work the the work
that takes longer that's that's the
Hardwick Madhavi and Valdez like
cleaning up the Datsun figuring out what
dots are supposed to go where
but then the animation that da he and I
do takes months basically where we you
know if we have to have a character
point like that he was talking about
before you know then maybe someone wants
the point to be like this maybe someone
wants the point to be like this and so
we go through rounds of feedback of what
looks best and what makes sense with the
character and obviously the point is a
very simple example you think about an
entire cinematic and extrapolate that
out it becomes a very long process of
feedback what works for the character it
and and fixing things basically so
making it look pretty in the face
because that does not come in with the
mocap data right we do not do so there
is such a thing as like facial capture
but we do not do facial capture here all
of our facial animation is hand keyed
and so stuff like cloth and Tails and
like little sometimes like we have some
hair controls so if we're lucky or
unlucky depending on how you think about
it um ears for instance on Asura we all
need to hand key those because you can't
capture motion data of that of like
assert your is I would be pretty bonkers
okay I didn't think about that that is
even those tiny little things hand King
that because we don't have a literal
Asura down there with markers right tips
of their ears oh that's actually a
really nice details so we the beauty of
mocap data is that just because of the
way that we the because of the pipeline
we can take a regular-sized human being
like you or me and put that data on an
asura and it looks fairly convincing I
mean there's a lot of adjustment that we
need to do to Sura and or like we could
even put the data on our on our char and
like absolutely we there's a lot of work
that still needs to be done especially
because char I have like such long necks
and you know their posture is very
different from how just human body
posture is but the data still will get
us
like 50% there so gives us mechanics and
timing and that sort of stuff that all
needs to be adjusted but it gets us some
way right exactly exactly so who does
the adjusting is that a just a
collaborative process or is that like
you going in there and saying okay this
is what the neck is like I mean that is
like what da he and I do basic is the
adjustments of how the characters are
supposed to move and what they look
right and stuff right and sometimes
mocap data can be very janky and like do
all sorts of stuff and we'll clean that
up well I think Greg mentioned earlier
that sometimes mocap data or oftentimes
it will be very stuff especially in the
spine and human Spartans are like very
flexible and they're very expressive and
we don't always get that in our in our
mush capture data so we will add that
back in you know fingers we don't get
finger data mm-hm yeah and I don't know
just really really little thing like you
can be as big as the entire mechanics of
how the spine moves and like there's
sometimes we need to add a lot of weight
back in especially for our Norn
characters they're very big they're very
heavy and we don't have a literal like
five hundred pound
yeah like eight foot tall person in the
studio but like there is a way that a
500 pound 8 foot tall person moves that
just can't be replicated by someone for
instance like me I'm five foot three
like yeah I just can't happen so we'll
add the weight back in and and and
whatnot and that is like it's a really
long process it takes a long time and
then on top of that the face is the
cloth the tails that you know all that
yeah the facial takes a long time if you
think about we have to basically move
the lips and in the eyes and all of that
stuff individually and so every word
that you say just word itself is through
at least three different mouth shapes
that you have to do just word and then
you think about all of that through each
of the cinematics facial it becomes a
very
a big part of what we do and the
expressiveness of the eyebrows and
cheeks and all that sort of stuff right
right and our what when GW was first
created the characters were not ever
envisioned to ever need incredibly
expressive faces that was something that
we decided was something that we wanted
to do later on yeah that came later yeah
so it's been a it's been a long process
of getting our faces up rise a little
bit adding more controls so that we can
make those mouth shapes and like make
the eyes really expressive and so that
we can avoid as much like uncanny valley
as we can thank you stop no actually I'm
just sitting here thinking how many of
you were sitting at your computer just
now going and just focusing so hard on
what your face was do some of you were
doing that like literally that is
sometimes what I'll do we do just I will
I have a little like tripod thing for my
phone and I will take reference video of
myself saying like cocoanuts see how
that works all right so that's that's I
feel like I can't say that's all the
process to getting it to live because
even now you're just kind of skimming
and touching on the high level stuff
aren't you right yeah there's there's a
lot how long does all this take about
average is four months right now
something like djoko's we call it
Joker's victory win you know it was no
are we allowed to do some boilers yes
mark can do then you don't have to I
just wanna sowed three if you know
episode three or maybe someone has
played through it yeah you haven't
played through these spoilers stop
listening
Oh bark sounded okay great uh that's
okay I just want to make sure all right
you know so cinematic where Joko has the
commander tied up and then Irene comes
and eats him that was about eight to
nine months cycle we were able to hop on
that one early and it it shows like you
know the more time we can get to make
these cinematics okay it was so good
yeah part of the reason that it was so
long also was that was actually the
first cinematic that we used mocap for
yes so figuring out that new pipeline
and how how we go about doing that was
was also a part of the process but it is
very high quality cinematic and it took
a lot of you know it's two and a half
minutes right you know our average is
about a minute a half so like two and a
half minutes is it clocks it one of the
longer ones and also part of maybe a
very very small reason or part of the
reason why it took so long is because we
really wanted to have the player care
during that cinematic yes so that adds a
whole other dimension so for if I can
speak to that yeah so for that one it's
it's funny that was the first assignment
that I ever did for the cinematics team
I was still an intern on a different
team at the time on our gameplay
animation team but they wanted someone
to really quickly just have like do a
frozen pose in the air of the of each
race and gender of the commander so my
animation lead said here this seems like
a great task for an intern go
familiarize yourself with our player
character rigs it's a good learning
opportunity yeah it was good I would say
if I had to do that now it would not
have taken as long as it did but as an
intern like it took a little while and
if you can imagine like that is just a
static pose essentially yeah the
commanders just in that bubbling frozen
right exactly and there's like a little
bit of drifting and like whatever but
it's just like it's a very simple thing
compared to for instance with the last
cinematic that we had the the finale of
season 4 this probably actually deserves
a spoiler alert but whoo yeah yeah
as well and they were actually doing
stuff and moving and and whatnot no but
as you can imagine that I mean in our
game the player you can customize him or
her to be what you want basically so we
have to deal and this American you have
to deal with different heights how high
how short they are armor sizes if
they're bulky or not and so that really
affects like how the camera can be
positioned for example and over the
shoulder shot of a char won't work on an
asura it's too small yeah sorry will be
completely not right so you have to you
have to make multiple cinematics then
for each each character basically down
to like a light armor very willowy
sylvari versus a heavy armor char or
normal right part of testing the wildly
different
yeah and just imagine you know even if
you can keep the camera in the same
place how much more a frame space that
they're going to take up you know
sometimes we want the camera closer in
on the commander so they're bigger on
the screen well if we get in too close
on a chart you're the cameras gonna go
through their body but if we're too far
away on an asura they won't be this
foreboding like presence on the screen
that they want their me or that we want
them to be so and even if we don't
adjust cameras you still need to have
multiple scenes right yeah so just
player character always creates a
problem for us we try to put them in
there when we can but it's it's a lot
more work so that's where Emilio and I
come in and you guys will be Emilio here
shortly and we have to make the hard
decisions of balancing that against
delivering on time
right on time yeah because time and
workload are a thing that you always
have to consider yes and the player
character just some quick math out there
will create 10 times the animation work
10 times the audio implementation work
10 times the game design implementation
side of it and then 10 times QA Hastur
tests and smart hyperbole this is
yeah you know just like oh it's kind of
a lot it's yeah and I could go into
phases but the phases is more than ten
times but I'm not I don't want to pull
up that number so it's a lot it's a lot
if you think about it our we have so
many customization options for the face
I mean for the entire character but like
all this little slider is y'all like
it's a lot of options that we could do
on the face and yeah for instance let's
say we want a character to look like
surprise we want your commander to like
do a surprise face you know there are
some people who have characters with
eyebrows that are up here so if we eat
stretch it like any further up they're
gonna go like off their face you know so
it's it's it's a lot of things to juggle
and to think about when we're not only
scheduling but if we put this facial
animation on the commander is it is it
gonna read exactly the way we want it to
read for every single possible face that
people can make yeah which is a lot so
yeah we try to save it for really
special moments just like you know is it
Illustrated versus 3d okay well what's
the story beet moment here right and
then like when can we try to put the the
commander in against the schedule or
running and so like you know Joker's
victory it's like can we do this yes
let's do it the end of season four could
we do this yes but both of those had
early start times so like even you need
lots more time yeah what we call I don't
know we did the spoiler anyways end of
season four cinematic again that was
also about an eight month cycle if not a
nine month cycle to work on yeah
and the thing that you were saying about
you and Emilio the director and the
producer have to come in and make that
decision yes because you could
technically say okay yes we want to you
know this is the player we want to get
the commander in there and all of his or
her iterations and we want we want the
commander to be a big part of this
cutscene great that is a wonderful
decision for you to make right so what
does the rest of cinematics stop working
on in order to have time to do that what
does QA stop working on in order to have
time to QA right this new what do what
do the other teams that are involved
what does audios
working on what other parts of the game
have to be sacrificed to great because
we're not I mean arena it's philosophies
like we're not we're not about crunch
we're not gonna it it will be we are
cutting something from the game and not
you are sacrificing something in your
life like you're yeah but that is we are
allowed to go home and eat food and
sleep sometimes your families yeah
allowed to see our families and so yeah
that is the decision that gets made is
what gets cut from the game yes versus
what can we do and still make this
cinematic amazing right because I feel
like there's been an ongoing consensus
that and I'm I'm going to back Pat you
just a little bit there's been an
ongoing consensus overall through our
community that the cinematics both in
and out of game are extremely good and I
know you guys work really really hard
and it shows but there are limits to
time and workload yep all that knowledge
all that has to be balanced yeah so do
you guys want to answer some more
questions all right well I will let you
guys take whichever ones we haven't
touched here okay so the first one I
don't know let's see so on average how
much work is it to create a pre-rendered
cinematics to an in-game one which one
is easier to work with so let's you make
so I would definitely say pre-rendered
is easier to make than in-game there's
some additional things I didn't quite
touch upon other than like downstream
teams having a little bit more workload
for runtime cinematics with pre-rendered
we also can do some more animation
cheats and edit in post editing software
instead of you know having to line up
the animation perfectly an engine
otherwise you'll see a little bit of a
pop if the character is not exactly
lined up it's just nice to kind of like
rearrange the carrot
slightly to camera if necessary so we
can decisions yeah we can we can refine
compositions better with pre-rendered so
there's also like a stylistic choice
that goes with that you know it allows
us to be a little more I guess creative
on the filmography side versus runtime
and so how much let's see it says work I
think yeah you know yeah yeah
and then what factors did you consider
when deciding to use pre-rendered versus
real-time cover that well one of the one
of the big factors to with pre-rendered
versus real-time is if we ever want to
have the commander in there it has to be
real-time that's true because I mean we
can't pre-render every possible
iteration of the commander that my
Saturday that is gonna stretch infinity
hours long
yes before we get to the next one we do
I'm kind of watching the clock we have a
little bit of time if we want to take a
couple questions from chat we can do
that okay as we work through these yeah
anyway go ahead we talked about the
player-character so that's the next two
there yeah I heard any plans to
incorporate the players that's why yeah
okay how much more difficult is
apparently cinematic compared to a more
traditional cinematic using solely 3d
models I would say painterly is a more
costly cinematic to make than 3d just
because we have to outsource the concept
art or even like get time from the
concept art team here to create those
assets and then they go into you know
After Effects is the program we would
use for that and you know animate it and
it has a lot more iteration time on
average those take about eight months to
make just one illustrative cinematic
versus a 3d one could take us about four
months if it's not having that you know
play a character or like a bigger Longer
moment to it so it's definitely needs
more time it has less input coming in
though from different departments so
it's usually just like you know concept
art and in the cinematic artists working
on it versus a 3d one has
more coordination between the effects
team you know the modeling team the tech
our team for rigging so there's a little
more involvement there and like the
environment team and lighting and all
that mm-hmm
can we hit on what cinematics we are
most proud of because yes is a fun
question what cinematics are most proud
of and which were the most challenging
yeah I am really proud of jocose victory
I thought you know it was utilizing that
new kind of technology of mocap and it
just it just everything about that
worked great like you know that the
monologue of the video that came in the
animation put into the cameras lighting
everything just really like came
together and I also really liked the
episode six trailer I think I thought
that was you a challenge put on to the
team and it came out really well so
those two I am very proud of I noticed
that all six of you looked a little
broken everybody got like this little
look on their face so it just it took a
really long time it was already a very
depressing trailer to work on but just
imagine like we had the huge snowstorm
and then you know it was all in the
middle of that so that's just like
lengthened the amount of time that we
spent on it it was I want to say that
for Jason talked more about but I just
remember we came out of the
brainstorming session and I immediately
went to you dahi because I love teasing
dai-hee and going so I signed you guys
up for more animation work you're
welcome and then just walked away like
the horrible boss that I am so I was in
the think of doing the the season 4
finale at the time so you know yeah yeah
so what about you what's your what's
your favorite and what was your biggest
challenge just I would I really liked
the season 4 finale which maybe like a
superb I don't know
typical answer but it was just it was
beautiful it's also interested I
animated Orion for the entire for the
entire scene so that was like kind of a
point of pride for me it was it was it
was really the first time that I ever
did a quadrupedal animation so like I
felt very honored that
the team trusted that I would be able to
do that and pull it off it was also like
very stressful because at the time I was
like am I gonna be able to finish this
am I gonna be able to pull it off is it
gonna look good etcetera etcetera etc
but it was really fun yeah yeah I mean I
think my favorite cinematic is is
probably the joke Oh cinematic also it
was big undertaking a lot of new
technology that we used and I think like
Chelsea said just the the quality that
came out of it was really good so proud
of that one I think the most challenging
one that I've worked on has to be
probably dragon Falls what we called it
and that just as you can imagine working
with a dragon that is the size of a
continent is a very difficult task and
so that that one had a lot of technical
hurdles and was a challenging one to
work on um Wow this and I'm trying to
pick a favorite listening to all of you
I was like that they were all so good
yeah choose one no no it's my joke his
victory was probably the one that hit me
the hardest because I remember it wasn't
even like it was in one of its earlier
iterations and I still remember sitting
in my desk watching that and when Orion
came flying out of the side and just
slammed in him I jumped in my chair and
again it wasn't even done yet
it was it was that was the one that had
the biggest impact on me that moment is
actually a great example of how we
collaborate with other teams that or
Ravine animation we had to I mean Cuomo
outsource it in sources but maybe a
better term yeah looking at source yes
to the animation team we had an animator
on the in-game animation team do that
animation for us oh wow yeah yeah it was
it's it's great when we were able to
borrow time from them but you know
sometimes that's not always possible
yeah look at that time well we have
about five minutes so do you guys want
to touch on some of those and one of
them we have yeah I think we've the
lip-sync one yeah
yeah do we want to talk about which
scenes we choose to do cinematics for
yeah so nowadays with you know narrative
and design focusing a lot like on like
characters more for the story and
everything it's okay this used to be
like okay cinematics are alright this
this moment can look cool let's do it
not quite I mean you know not that cool
moments aren't cool because they are
because that's okay but now it's more
about like what is the most emotional
moment right like what really is
necessary to have that camera cut in
closer to that character because like
let's say for example there's a tower
exploding in the past that may have been
a cinematic but nowadays you could do
that in game and sometimes it just feels
more impactful to have like this big
explosion thing happening with while
your characters there watching it so you
feel like I have to react to this
somehow versus let's say you have you
know like Brahman air like his mom
returning and if they're having this
emotional moment and you know if you're
watching it just from the gameplay
camera you may miss maybe some of the
facial expressions that's happening or
some of the things that are being said
without words on brahms face and that is
now kind of more of the focus with
cinematics is like what is the more
impactful way to show these characters
stories right one kind of exception to
that was the end of episode 5 I think
was of episode 5 right is this spoilers
whatever if you haven't finished us are
fives all right we spoiled things on the
show a lot we just warned you and it's
fine and then we move on yeah when
you're walking down this long hallway to
see at the end that oh it hurts so bad
alright that was originally going to be
a cinematic moment but we the team did
not have the budget for it essentially
we didn't have the time so instead we
proposed that we create we make it more
of a cinematic moment that happens in
game like that you that the player plays
through
and it ended up being like such a great
decision that we made because it felt
more impactful for the slow walk to
happen all the way up until you know you
you see her and and the entire time
you're hearing this like haunting echo
of timely crying and yeah um that one
ended up I'm so glad it worked out that
way because having to interact and
physically make that walk happen yeah
made it so much more impactful yeah I
was actually a decision I think we made
earlier on yeah
between like Tom and I I can't my boss
was in that meeting but you know talking
about you know like cinematic versus you
know really if it was in-game yeah
having the player forcing you to go down
something in the path that is difficult
and you don't want to see that you know
I I call those sin events and that's
kind of that trade-off between you know
what is more powerful having the player
experience that with controls even if
they're limited versus alright I get to
just step back for the controller down
it's just playing for me as a movie yeah
yeah I like that moment it's so much
more power to us rather than something
that you're just watching right right
right
much like sometimes emotional moments
are better when you are just watching it
when the camera can get in really close
when we can kind of control the pacing
and the timing and and all that yeah
sometimes more impactful when when the
player gets to decide when when all that
happens no this one worked out really
well yeah and I will say there are times
a cinematic is chosen because there is
no way to show with your gameplay that
they're like dragonfall is a good
example you know you if you you know
while the player was still on spoilers
or een you know and assume all spoilers
yeah you know and you've defeated
Crockett or ik and he's falling down
through the mists you know from the
player's perspective at that point you
would just see Crockett or ik falling
through the portal and then have no idea
what else was happening and it all would
have had to come through radio chatter
and so like there's a moment even though
it's not like you know two characters
having words spoken without words on
their faces you know showing that just
to help the player understand like what
happened after
cracked or fell through the mists hmm
that's really not really good and I
think we're going to talk about that in
a second second so all right we have
time for one more if you want to or if
we're good I think like the painterly
one we I touched on briefly which was
more of even before I joined the team
like starting season two in too hard a
thorn in season three definitely buy
season three it was pain early was about
the past and visions and not about the
present so would we ever bring it back I
don't know just because like that's been
the style guide so there will be more
pain early but it's just not if it's a
present moment that makes sense yeah
okay all right we need to take a quick
break and then switch out to the next
group of cinematics devs so I will thank
you guys all so much for all of your
time the past hour has been awesome okay
thank you all for hanging out stick
around we will be back in just a couple
minutes
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all right we are back and segment two
promises to be really interesting fun
I'll let you guys go down and introduce
yourselves and talk about what you do
for cinematics oh yeah our names are not
correct on there but alright I'm Jason
but I feel I'm the the cinematic
marketing lead oh you're Chelsea so I
work on I'm yes exactly awesome
promotion I work on the just the
marketing trailers putting those
together and the main point of contact
for those okay I am Chris Burgess and I
am the cinematix audio lead I'm
technically a part of the audio team but
I'm sort of dedicated most of my time to
shipping
sound effects vo and music for these
folks and making their stuff sound good
hi I'm Amelia I am a producer catering
it I produced this Animax team and also
the audio team okay so for a segment one
we focused largely on the Cates branding
cinematic which was in game we're gonna
talk a little bit more about the out of
game the marketing kind of trailers here
which one are we using these are
examples oh the example we're using
further for today is the episode living
world for episode 6 trailer which is the
single shot kind of exploring the
moments between the end of episode 5 and
the beginning of episode 6
exactly alright well let's kind of do
like we did last segment and walk
through it and I tried to say cinematic
order and it's all cinematics all the
time in my brain in chronological order
where do you start when okay we have to
do this thing what happens first so the
first thing that kinda happens is is we
have a kickoff meeting essentially where
we bring in our narrative team we bring
in audio we bring in the lead designer
for that episode we bring in other
marketing folks and we all just kind of
brainstorm and try to figure out what it
is we want to do to market the episode
that's going to be coming
that includes tone what features we want
to show my features became kind of a big
thing I go people wanted to see like
what would be coming out with the
episode it's become a bigger part of
these of these trailers for Episode six
we it was determined that we actually
wanted to just kind of explore this
moment and the story and it's it doesn't
happen in the episode we knew that the
episode six was going to really kind of
kick off right after episode five ended
and there was this moment that we didn't
really get to explore which is like the
grief that people are feeling from do we
need to do spoilers anymore or people no
it's assumed okay so the end of episode
five Corrine dice and we wanted to
explore the grief that all these people
that have been involved in her life are
feeling at that moment and so features
kind of got less of a focus but it aside
of the features we get less of a focus
and we just kind of keep this more
exploring this moment in time right and
that's that's always an interesting
balancing act because you do want to
everybody wants to know what's coming
next what's what's part of this new
content what am I going to get but you
don't want us to want to spoil
everything I mean you're you're going to
be so mad if we show you this trailer
before it's even out and be like hey
she's back that's yeah but wait so what
can we show what can we do right and so
for this particular episode we'll be the
center to do to kind of to kind of ride
that line of like you know people who
are interested in the features still
getting some information and the people
who are interested in story getting this
moment is that instead of our usual
release schedule which is the week
before the episode launches we held on
this trailer until the end of the
previous week and then we front loaded
that with some smaller vignettes of
features that would be at happening
anymore so if everyone kind of got where
they were looking for hopefully yeah so
and we win this in this meeting that we
have a kickoff meeting with that that
kind of information is decided at that
point in time it's like how are we gonna
treat this trailer what's the tone going
to be roughly what are we gonna be
looking at who are the big players I
don't mean involved as far as the work
that's gonna be needed to prep the world
prep props affects all of us audio music
all this stuff that's gonna be happy
have to happen for this who are the main
points of contact and then hopefully if
everything goes right we leave that
meeting with an idea a rough idea of
what we want and then and then I'll go
back and usually do a couple different
treatments that people can look at and
say hey I'm feeling this more than I'm
feeling this and we just kind of refine
and then Emilio at that point time kind
of kicks off our milestone schedule for
like at this point in time I'm sure we
can that's that's the milestone so yeah
a bit it's a lot of stuff a lot of it
you want to run through this like you
were kind of instrumental on getting
this all set up
yes but can we bring that back up thank
you Thanks so I actually started here
last year as a summer intern and
everyone when I first came in we're
going through a scarab ship and actually
the Joko cinematic as well and I was
kind of just trying to get a feel for
everyone and understanding how everyone
organizes their stuff one of the answers
I got for how do you organize your TAS
and like know what's coming up it's on
mental notes and that's a problem that's
a so-called sneakernet
yes it was terrible but it was you know
they everyone had their own way of
making things happen and obviously
Cinemax were happening before but they
needed a producer so I came in and tried
to organize as as much as I can gisun
was actually pretty good about having
stuff behind his board and kind of like
checklist of like yeah this is what's
organized and in my previous job I kind
of had to produce myself quite a bit and
so I had kind of set up this initial
outline of the different things I needed
to hit in order to have a successful
piece and then Amelia was able to take
that and run with it yeah so it's like
the influence and I ran with it I have
yes okay so I had a couple things
so before at school I would do things
really physically so I made this board
where all right these are the milestones
these are the the general timelines of
when things need a hit wait that was you
yeah well yeah it means that on the
board yeah it was pretty simple just you
know color code it just to make sure we
were I had a little fun with it those
are like a certain gates and those are
the different mounts in the game to just
show like we're in the process we are
and the dates that we need to hit to
make sure that you know we're gonna
finish on time and now I was pretty
successful but I realized I was the only
one that was using the actual whiteboard
so I made everything digital and I
helped a lot I have these yeah we have
these basically these hubs for each one
of the cinematics doesn't want for
dragonfall and basically I would set
them up so it's a one-stop-shop for each
cinematic where people could go in and
figure out where they were and their
schedule have storyboards up any asset
requests were asking for other teams in
the studio just wait organized where's
organize the team and make sure that
we're doing okay could you see a
difference after you started doing that
as opposed to yeah it's just in my head
it's fine yeah I mean we haven't it's as
a producer my main goal is to make sure
that everyone's able to go home and be
satisfied with their work and see their
families and live their life and since
I've been there I feel like the team's
been able do that so yeah about what
I've been doing listen the first few
trailers that I did for little four I
didn't really we didn't I didn't have a
very strong like as detailed on the
system it's displayed here and so
occasionally things like you know
checking with world art to make sure
everything is looking proper as it
should you know in-game like that kind
of stuff didn't always happen and so
like this made it really easy to be like
at this point in time XY and Z needs to
be done and so it's just it and if and
we know that if if XY and z hasn't
happened by this time you know where can
we what can we adjust in the front of
that or in front of that to kind of get
back on track so just it's it's really
helpful it's all right so Holly I've
always worked I have to have some sort
of like checklist of things well yeah
that that absolutely makes sense and
actually something I noted on that on
that whole checklist that whole timeline
that you had which what was the time
frame that released in because it
started like December 18th oh yeah
last year I was along one Episode six
that was episode six class and I hit on
it earlier and that there was just a lot
of things that happened there and I've
heard a time to kind of extend the
production schedule on that piece so
just bring everything we were working on
at that time yeah but but yeah some of
these pieces do take quite a while and
that particular trailer was the first
time that I had really done an extended
kind of cinematic for these trailers
I've done small little ones here and
there but i but I you know the process
is basically after that kickoff meeting
then I go back and start doing a layout
for the scene and that means using our
proprietary tools and cameras in game to
kind of sell this idea that has been
percolating after that kickoff meeting
and so that was the first time that I
had really had done an extended amount
of time in this moving the camera around
adding props
adding characters using our animation
library to kind of rough approximate
well what what it is that we're looking
at I think we actually have a version of
virgins
[Music]
what we do
I don't know
[Music]
okay we should talk about that so that
was you know kind of a rough it that's
not quite the earliest version but it's
close enough to show that how things are
roughed in basically it's a very similar
camera path not quite the same the
actions are completely different that we
ended up with the final four the final
product but it does sell the idea of
like the emotion of the scene what we
were trying to go for you know the idea
of each character is going to be selling
this different moment in grief like yeah
you know how each character kind of
treats it a little bit differently so
and then using some sort of at the time
using some sort of temporary audio track
this will help sell that emotion that
version had their final version because
we don't know the rights to the track
but some things we can't do externally I
do want to touch on timing in courts
ears because you talked about we were
watching the video I thought this was
really interesting you'll see later in
the final version that dahi when she
animated time he had she had some
control and she can lift her ear up a
little bit injury and lifts her ear to
kind of uncover her face to look at Bram
which tells me there was actually a
conversation we had about whether you
know do do Azzurra have any sort of
control over their ears or they just
floppy and they swap around and we're
watching that that true their course is
commenting about how old all over the
place time years edgar assessment so now
i guess now it's canon that they have a
little bit of control don't whether
there was but there was a moment going
back to the episode six cinematic where
i think that was the I think that was
the cinematic die he and I were talking
about just the hand king of all of that
and there was one point where time he
turned around and looked up in her ears
came up and that was it's just those
little touches that you notice yeah did
they show I had to step out for a few
times we showed that at the trailer
episode 6 trailer that has the
comparison comparison between early
well-kept and final not yet okay yeah
you
[Music]
in the book of Balthazar's written
war is life
and life is brief
Death Comes
[Music]
[Music]
but deaths not death that breathes life
into others and life's not life that
never dares to risk
[Music]
the world is lost and grief and faith
and hope
[Music]
then take heart and rejoin the war
eternal
for it may be that death is not the end
but possibly the end of the beginning
[Music]
so I'm intimidated by how fancy that was
we put a little production value into
things sometimes sometimes so that piece
is nice because it shows what they were
talking about earlier about like how in
the initial mocap data kind of comes in
and then how it looks when it's been
polished and cleaned up and then you can
see each character you know had whether
it was my utilized eye needs more cab
data or that was completely hand keyed
no mocap data and were quite a few
characters that were like that that Greg
and I were able to knock out and like
really sell that emotion without
requiring on any sort of motion capture
data it's a mix of stuff yeah so that's
there's a big difference and even though
it's all little details there's like a
million of them between that initial
render and that final that final setup
and what all does that take time that
flow chart that we saw earlier where
it's like you know review and then go
back and had some stuff review like I
mean it's just back and forth a ton of
time and you know people that people
throw out ideas or suggestions if we
have meetings that are with a wider
group that include narrative that
include effects or world art or these
guys that are involved and they can make
suggestions kind of thing or you know
even utilize some of their time to help
really polish an asset so for this
particular piece there were a ton of
people that were involved we had custom
props we had custom effects obviously
custom animation you know all of us err
in a mocap suit getting that stuff done
that map is was was utilized for episode
six
but it's a custom version of that map
that has something elements removed or
moved around added I'm adding props from
our prompts library yeah this it's a lot
of a lot of different disciplines that
go into making these things in time that
requires I mean obviously audio and
production not Dannette you know herding
cats yes that is that is the best
production description I have heard so
what happens next in the process then
then where do you go so
we fed our kicker from eating I've done
a layout we've had a bunch of reviews to
kind of identify like what we want to do
as far as the motion that information is
fed to our animators and we do with
mocap sessions we do to help nail the
body animation but obviously there's a
lot of facial animation and that's all
hand keyed we don't include there's no
mocap for facial we do so we've
identified what character needs to hit
what emotion we try to identify what
that action should be and then that it
gets rough dinner we just they just go
ahead and start knocking now passes on
the animation to to get that in and then
it's just a ton of review Chris you know
we'll start working on score so Chris
was heavily involved in that he can talk
about that if you want you sure
well when it comes to the music process
for marketing versus ingame is very
different and Jason makes it pretty easy
with marketing because you usually have
a very strong holistic creative vision
and you're coming to me saying here's a
piece of music here's the emotion and I
just have to say ok and we go from there
and yeah thumbs up or thumbs down yeah
in the case of this trailer you had a
piece of music that McClane had a piece
of music that was already pretty similar
to it didn't quite hit some of the
emotional beats that we wanted to in
this in this trailer which was more
about the stages of grief and sort of
this sense of loss the original music
was the so in in the music we did for
this trailer so I don't know if we want
to talk high level or just about the
music for this trailer I would love to
hear high level yeah I mean it pretty
much comes down to when I when I started
working with this team a couple years
ago most of the music direction was like
I like this Michael Bay track from
Transformers
and that happens a lot of time to
musicians where you go on a gig and they
say we want gel de Chrono Trigger and
menage go and it just doesn't mean
anything I'd like to hear that that
sounds like me too yeah yeah it's very
it's very confusing and what that means
is that the composer usually has to do a
lot of throwaway revisions to sort of
like guess what they client wants and
then they submit something and they say
oh we actually don't want that so what I
started doing is working closely with
each cinematic artist on their piece and
saying can you describe what is
happening in this scene whose point of
view is it from what is the emotion the
audience is supposed to feel and we get
much more dramatic and emotional about
it so that way we can go to a composer
who is a trained musician to do all this
stuff and say it needs to be said then
it needs to be happy then it needs to be
funny at all these different time
markers and yeah occasionally we'll have
a reference track that we'll pull up and
say and we like if we pulled up Mad Max
and we said we like the drums in this
song so can you hit these emotional
beats and do it sort of in the style of
this piece we like and that tries to
nail down a very clear direction of
again what emotional beats we need to
hit and if there are any visual cues
this felt more like a tone poem to me
where we just had the music kind of blow
through until until we get to the player
character at the end where we have these
block chords that I think really kind of
strike out the emotional connection
between the player character in Irene in
that moment what was nice about those
particular moments is that you had some
flexibility that we could you know delay
this windows kicked off to a specific
point and we kind of went back and forth
on adjusting cameras and adjusting when
those would come in to really sell this
mood of look what the commander is
feeling at that point
and again part of marketing that makes
it very easy with with Jason is that a
lot of times it is about the music
drives the edit and so you are always
adjusting the Edit to the picture so the
music is it has a little more Liberty to
be whatever it wants to be we're in a in
game cinematic if you think about like a
star wars john williams thing it's just
so intricately married to each adit and
cut and a lot of times the picture will
not change to conform to the music so
the musician has to carefully time the
music to work to picture so that becomes
a lot more intricate and can be a lot
more work I won't they both have their
difficult areas so on a high level there
is a planning document that we go
through get the scene description the
emotional beats any any actual time two
beats that the music needs to hit and
then we go from there and again it's
it's all about revisions getting things
in seeing how it feels sometimes we
realize we got it totally wrong but the
fun part about that discussion speaking
about it dramatically as it allows for
you know capes branding was a favor for
me that we got to normally it's we're
it's a fantasy game and we're talking
about you know other fantasy references
if it's Lord of the Rings or or our own
library and in that moment I think there
was a word coming from Greg or Chelsea
or someone that it was a feeling of
being overwhelmed we were very unsure of
what was happening to keith whether this
was good or bad
and I was listening to I think the
latest season of stranger things had
come out and I was listening to a lot of
synthesizers and m83 is this French
electronic band that just does these
overwhelming walls of synthesizers and I
put that against the picture just to
joke around and I was actually I
messaged Greg I said hey come here I
want you to listen to something and he's
like you're crazy but yes but listen to
this but like actually something here is
working and then we took that McLain to
the music for that scene and we're like
look obviously it can't be
m83 and stranger things but we like the
feel
that this just dronin thing so the music
really drove that scene as Keith is
floating up in the air he had this
beautiful like a searing tone but
sometimes that goofing around is where
we get really some of the great ideas
for like oh we're so that actually can
work we can take this seriously or like
on the episode six trailer I think at
one time I looked up New Orleans funeral
music and put that to picture and it was
it was hilarious
totally know so but even if stuff like
that doesn't get used it does kind of
create this cascading effect of these
guys are doing something really awesome
and creative and then while we may not
be able to use it we can at least feel
inspired and the creative off of that
and have maybe and maybe some different
ideas will pop up that actually make it
to the final cut so if you're having fun
making what you're making people are
gonna have fun yeah doing it yeah that's
something I I started saying years ago
you can tell when the creators are
having fun you can tell when they're
having a good time and it's a joy to see
going back to just the emotional beats
and like using and the music the some of
those meetings that we had them back and
forth when we're finding is we were
trying to figure out what exactly each
emotion for each character should be and
utilizing you know the vast knowledge of
people who have been here since the
beginning of the game and have been here
since then you know these characters
were created and introduced in game and
relying on them to be like well I feel
like time II would feel like this or
bran would be acting like this based on
you know these events and we did flip a
few around you know and I did kind of an
initial treatment that we saw earlier
with the text and not all those ended up
in the final product final product and
some characters were sharing miss based
on I wanted to have there's a who've
heard the five stages of grief there's
actually another extended model called
the seven stages of grief and I wanted
to hit each one of those in this trailer
that was the idea from kind of the
beginning and so what we had eight
characters so two of them had to share I
wrote luck and Logan and end up sharing
but I think we ended up nailing it at
the end it gets thought if some of them
are a little more vague than others but
someone did bring up I think in one of
the one of the channels one of the
forums about oh hey I think these guys
are going through different stages of
grief here and it was awesome to see
because it's like that was the goal was
to try to at least kind of express that
that was always they the kind of
underlying outline we were going for
yeah watching someone get it yeah feels
really good
so do 100 iterations yes so 10
iterations eventually we say either
we're out of time or it's it's good to
go and then that gets and that gets
kicked over to Chris and they start they
get their kind of final passes in like
we've already had either early drafts of
score sound effects vo in this case
there is no vo and there's very limited
sound effects that were utilizing it's
mostly being driven by the music and so
and then Chris gets some time to work on
that and finalize all that content by
that time all the stakeholders have
hopefully had their eyes on and make
sure there's no bugs there's no you know
we're not utilizing effects that can't
be used it wouldn't make sense in this
map or something like that and then
after they're after Audio is done with
their pass I get a final mix from them
and I apply it to the Edit previous to
that time there have been alternates
that have been created for our for
localization so we look wise and we look
wise the vo in French and German and
then we do Spanish subtitles yeah and
then we also have cut downs that are
also localized so cut downs meaning it's
a shorter version now you see that all
the time with movie trailers sake
there'll be a shorter version of the
Edit or some services only allow for a
certain amount of time to play on a
video so there's usually a 30-second or
and a 15-second cut down in this case
for Episode six we really couldn't find
a way to to sell the story we were
selling for the full version and so
there actually wasn't any cut downs this
is this these were each we localized for
the slates that never you're seeing now
but there was no vo so we didn't
worry about that but the full
full-length place for for this piece
only no cut bounds I was having this
internal panic moment over there cut
tons that I missed no no not for episode
6 no this was because of just the
uniqueness of this piece and there
wasn't really a way Wow where would you
cut that down yeah yeah and if you did
cut it down to just wouldn't you
wouldn't get the impact that you got and
so does it make any sense yeah
absolutely so well do you guys have some
more things you want to show or touch or
do you want to answer some questions we
can go back to a play that we didn't
ever played the full version yeah oh
that's right I need you to find so uh
yeah we can for those who who didn't get
to see it when it was alive that
spoilers yeah
[Music]
in the book of Balthazar's written
war is life
[Music]
and life is brief
Death Comes
[Music]
but deaths not death that breathes life
into others and life's not life that
never dares to risk
[Music]
the world is lost and grief and faith
and out
[Music]
then take heart and rejoin the war
eternal for it may be that death is not
the end but possibly the end of the
beginning
[Music]
well done well it works out pretty well
I do need to make a correction uh I said
earlier there wasn't any vo and I was
wrong what I was thinking was diegetic
non-diegetic but what I was thinking was
no diegetic you're not seeing anybody
talk nobody had to work on lip flap red
yeah it was easy vo yes ya didn't have
to be synced anything it's my favorite
kind and because we didn't really it was
very Santa fix light and we didn't
really get a chance to talk well there's
the one there's the whoosh there's the
whoosh it was really a manner whoosh
about the player-character walks by the
screen I was like there's got to be a
big whoosh there how empty the space is
it's like a little bit like unsure like
should there be a whoosh if there's no
other sound effects but I did like it
did I think it's celled the soul the
departure of the commander a lot better
right yeah we're laughing but that is a
it's a good illustration of the fine
details that you put in there we obsess
we go nuts I mean if we talk about
previous trailers like was it episode 5
where the player character gives the
speech and punch yes oh my god so my
first version of the Hat I just like put
the biggest like explosion it was huge
it's time I might obey kinda yeah it was
like it was like if the whole kid done
it right yeah and it was like no you
can't do that and then I think I did a
joke version with like a rubber duckie
like but when we seriously got into it
it's like trying to tune that to have
this umph but also just feel right and
the same thing with the music in episode
6 I mean we we it was sound effects
light which was another major
conversation and we I think we ended up
it when you completely eliminate an
element speaking to the soundtrack for
audio and my experience it it's
intimidating it's like take some
confidence to do that and so we watched
a few reference videos of
other media that had done something
similar and there was just no sound
effects just the music and we were like
okay you know what I think we can let
this moment ride with the music and not
feel like we have to detail every little
thing which would would have distracted
from just this total headspace that we
wanted the characters in the play the
viewer to be in yeah so I forget where I
was going with that you're just talking
about what you do and yeah it was
brought up while we were watching that
clip about Story sound effects which is
sort of a newer term I think that we
came up with internally because there
have been times where audio a lot of
times if we talk about the whole process
and not just the music as soon as an
animatic or storyboards are done
depending on what's needed
sound effects will jump in and do a
first sound effects pass and I'll throw
in I get on an audio finder search tool
and the first thing I find I just throw
in there so I spend a quick thirty
minutes throwing in sound effects
sometimes they're not great but it sells
the moment hopefully better for review
when when non-cinematic sticky members
are watching this and then there's a
long period sometimes where I go away
and work on in-game content and then I
come back in the last month and really
do a fine polish pass where we record
custom audio for everything but what we
found with that is sometimes you know
and cinematics has those block diagrams
or graphs where things get locked down
so now it's animation lock and if I come
in a month after that and say oh I'd be
really great if our eeen did this with
their wings for just a little longer
it's like what we can't it's too late so
at the planning stage we have been
trying to be better about identifying
hey this is a moment where maybe we want
somebody's mouth to be closely animated
to the sound and we have to do that in
pre-production rather than waiting till
the very end so that animators are
willing to work back and forth rather
than saying like well we
it's too late so again a lot of
cross-discipline collaboration and
communication there just to make sure
that we can ship as high a quality
product on every discipline as possible
I just can't stress enough how important
that production schedule is like it's
it's such an easy like cheat sheet at
this stage at this point in time based
on when we started or when when we're
shipping we need to be here and
sometimes you have to you have to you
know I think most artists would say that
they can continue working on things
forever there's always gonna be a little
things that can be tweaked and at some
point you just have to draw the line you
know we have to be done because this is
going to affect other things down the
pipe not only that on that project but
future projects yeah you know vacuum all
right and it hopes so much too because
on on that on that list it also be
points where it's like great made your
feedback you need to cut it off here why
in a feedback we have to cut it off here
you're basically just watching them in
reviews right because that's exactly
right it's gonna it's gonna affect the
whole process right if you're gonna
change the entire feel of cinematic way
down way down at the end of the pipeline
it's gonna hurt and that goes back to we
were talking about they're like four to
eight month pipelines on here so if you
suddenly decide hey we're gonna do a 180
think about what that's doing right
what's a good cause yeah yeah a lot I
think it comes down to
Emilio knows he has to come talk to me
at the end of the pipeline and he knows
I like to complain a lot so and he comes
in with bad I'm sorry but yeah so after
audio has done their pass on these
trailers that gets kicked to me and I
render out the final versions I could
talked about those all get sent to the
marketing team Marc usually Marc
specifically and and then he blows those
up on the various social media platforms
and when the day hits then the net go
live and you would think that would be
the end of it but it's not there's more
but wait there's more for me
specifically at that point in time once
things have gone live then I can I can
archive the project which there are some
steps involved in that to make
that we have a fully orc I've tried
Shiva I can go back to if needed for
content or if this there was a let's say
there was a bug that gots that got
through we needed to do a really quick
replace my shot fingers crossed it
hasn't happened yet but who knows it
could happen someday I want to be able
to open up that project with knowing
that nothing is lost I have everything I
need to just replace a quick shot or
grab whatever I need and and then put it
back away
that's my involvement I know there are
some future production steps that happen
after yeah we don't just like shoot it
at the door now we've forgotten about it
until the end of time yeah so we have to
learn from what we've gone through right
there's a lot of lessons that the that
are to be learned from every single
cinematic because they're all they're
all unique all unique problems so we'll
finish off a whole cinematic pipeline
with a retrospective retrospective I
think perspective this is a really early
one and uh but yeah basically we kind of
come together at a team get a room
preferably I like to do rooms that we
usually don't mean it because it's kind
of like our leg this is a space where
you could just say everything and like
all of the vibes you know good or bad
could stay in that room and not in
anywhere else I typically try to do that
but something doesn't work but yeah it's
it's a safe space to people to just be
honest about the process what did we do
really well what did you know what went
not so well tried doing a new one
actually this last time that was pretty
I thought it was pretty successful was
the goods band the ugly and the first
people to get that actually was audio
but they come in and I had some like
western music fantastic it was really
good yeah I was like the good like what
good things happened help each other out
bad what what went poorly that we had
control of and the ugly
what external forces caused mishaps on
our team right because those are gonna
happen and then to wrap that all up you
know what are we gonna learn from this
and what how are we gonna move forward
and it's it's a it's really helpful
honest look at ourselves so that we can
keep improving yeah defies a lot of you
know like what what we should continue
and what it's a problematic and
hopefully we can address and change and
nobody will have to worry about it for
the next version so how can we eliminate
that issue and make it better for me and
I didn't mention you that at that
production schedule that the milestone
schedule that I think that is in flux
that I could based on you know what
changes like other teams could change
like you know maybe the animation team
are outside animation team as suddenly
wants to you know be working on content
a month earlier and now we have to
adjust for that so like there it's
constantly a constantly changing thing
but if we didn't have it like that would
be a nightmare to try to keep track
absolutely they're all living documents
right because nothing's worse than
somebody like Jamie something down your
throat and being like this what you need
to do because it's good for you it's
it's all these tools are there to help
everybody else out so I keep them as as
flexible as possible and let them know
like this is a tool for you like how are
we gonna get how are we gonna get you
clear of mine and be able to get get the
your best work out on time I have to say
I love this so much because I have
talked to producers who are like oh I
don't really do anything
so I was like you do everything it's
just a ball I it's hard it's hard to
find it cuz it's like pan Lake every
single day looks so drastically
different what I have to do right
connect can I show a picture sometimes
I'll jump into the mocap space which I
love a lot and this was a so I'm
Krakatoa Krakatoa and da he's I mean and
that was a preview cinematic all right
so we had on the floor but amazing yeah
we have we have fun with it you know and
it's it's cool I'll do like I like to
say that I'm the I'm a digital stuntman
sometimes for for the trailers like if
we're gonna show off like I remember the
roller beetle was the first one I did I
had to learn how to drive the water
beetle so that we could show it off in
the like announced trailer that we're
gonna have a rolling cool so I just
practice M&S; League but you've been in
the mocap you had to oh that's right
yeah that actually tricycle dude have
one in the basement it's pretty great
we're launching ourselves over the place
yeah yeah Amy Lee goes my go-to if I
need to do any sort of in-game captures
and I need to really know somebody who's
knows the game well enough to be like
will to quickly iterate because I mean
for anyone who's done and getting
captured before for anybody YouTube or
whatever it is a process even if you
have the tools that we'd have at our
disposal it still is the process
absolutely all right well oh you guys
let's start with the first question that
group one had to answer sure so the
first question is what cinematics are
you cinematic or cinematics are you most
proud of which were most challenging man
personally I think I am most proud of
episode six just there was a lot of
firsts and that for me personally and it
came out really well what is the most
challenging
there were a lot of technical things and
for episode two that were required and
which one was that that was the split
split tone where we started with kind of
a high ste field and then we went into
the more creepy like Joko world
afterwards that new version world worse
yeah you know you like or not and at the
end you're awakened yes perfect there
were some definitely some technical kind
of challenges there on that one to get
that working properly and to make that
feel feel cohesive while you know being
basically two separate trailers yeah
that was that was honestly one of our
most popular trailers so I'm not going
to speak for you and that it was awkward
it was very I was prior to Episode six I
would have said that was my most proud
cinema trailer but it was proud it's my
favorite how about you Chris I feel like
every cinematic brings its unique
challenges but something I struggled
with over the course of season four was
the fact that these scenes just kept
getting bigger and bigger and so like
the dragons the dragon versus Crockett
or ik where they have that dragon breath
battle back and forth and they just
wanted it to feel very visceral and
violent and and I you know I was like
blowing straight into microphones which
sounds terrible if you've ever done it
but I made these sounds as big as I
could and then we got to the next
episode and we had drag and fall and I
was letting there's a bigger one and I'm
like I don't know where to go from I
can't and we figured it out we did some
we did some fun stuff and as far as
favorites go I mean I think we all where
there are unique challenges we find
unique solutions to every cinematic and
record fun content for each one to make
it work but if I had to choose a
favorite I could say joke oh but
everybody already said that I do really
like what we did with the music
it's branding yeah so I'll say capes
branding I want to point out here that
somebody had a comment about our Joker
world oh I've heard they're dying to get
into that Park that's great
good job uh firm myself so the one I'm
most proud of have to be the last
trailer like man it was just like the
emotional rollercoaster that everything
was happening in the studio and
everything uh I don't know it was just
it felt it felt like it felt more than
just the episode it fell more than just
the season finale it felt like where we
all were in a headspace oh yeah big time
it was really powerful like if there was
if there was one cinematic that I felt
like we're putting ourselves into was
that one and I'm really proud of the
work you should be um most challenging
man I think it was a probably read
versus crock like there's just a lot of
like like interesting pieces and there
was first time we did like first-person
mocap and then we'd had the sin event
right after it was just like there's
just so many different challenges and so
many different like players and runs to
do they had to come together to make
this to sell this moment it was it was
it was it was crazy but when it came out
I remember watching it like on
livestream I was a off somebody's
finishing the episode it was just like
oh right there like I know was gonna
happen it was just watching them go
through their like emotional
rollercoaster as we laid it out and
having to walk up and you see a ring the
way she is starts crying and I'm like
yes I cried never be done loving
watching player reactions to the work
that we do it is it is fantastic and I
love it that's why we do what we do yeah
I mean we were all so many of us in the
studio were waiting for people to finish
that episode and just like we're tabbing
back and forth between live streams or
everything over there yeah yeah it was a
huge studio moment of finally getting
that in front of the players yeah that
was absolutely incredibly gratifying
think you've got the next Chris this is
you is all the music synthetic with a
capital S or something actually work I I
like it work with an orchestra when
recording music for the cinematics so
that depends on time and money mostly
for expansions they've done a lot of
live recording for living world seasons
we typically don't do a lot of live
music because it again in the way that
the cinematics team has talked about the
whole mocap capture cleanup hand Keane
like there's just that there's just as
much work on the music side to get to a
live session with live players you have
to take if I because it it all starts
with synthetic instruments in 2019 for
the most part unless you're John
Williams I assume and then if you are
choosing to go live you have to extract
that data into a a sheet music program
so the musicians can read it and that
data has to be cleaned up and conform
because a lot of times we have to fake
things that aren't real musical values
to actually be readable that has to go
to a copyist who prints all that and
tapes the pages so it's easy to - for
the musicians to turn then you have to
hire a contractor to hire all the
musicians booked the space hire the
engineers and the mixing engineer in a
dub stage to mix and then against a
producer huh if you considered a
producer I'm overwhelmed
well the the music contractor would
handle most of that you've that they're
like the hey we need to do this and they
say I'll you have X amount of money I'll
take care of it that's why it's
expensive yeah yeah well in those stages
to have lot players sitting there are
expensive so to make a short story long
in season four for the final cinematic
and they did an overture after that
cinematic where you're spoilers on the
airship having a chat with everybody
they did get to do some live music for
that which which was really I think a
really nice touch for such an important
moment
wrapping up the season and again that
came from a place where we don't
normally do live music for a living
world release but it was a special
moment and we basically pitched that I
think to Mike Z you know we really want
to do this this is important this is
gonna add a lot and they said okay
here's the money but something like the
the other challenge is when we don't
have the money to do that it still has
to sound real the mock-ups as we call
them which is all the synthetic
instruments have to be shipped quality
so like the living world 6 trailer I
performed and recorded all that and it
was all it was three synthetic pianos
layered together and really like it was
really important for me to feel when
you're sitting at a real piano you can
mic it a million different ways and if
you stick a microphone underneath the
body you get this really woody thottie
oaky sound and I didn't have a real
piano to go record on and I'm not that
great of a piano player so I had to sort
of do some editing so again that is a
case of where we do use synthetic
instruments but we really obsessed to
make it sound as believable as we can so
it's a bit of both just depends on when
we have the time and money I don't
remember if it made it into the final
version but at some point one point in
time for the episode six trailer you had
a sound you could actually hear the
pedal coming as the pedal that was
coming off yeah and it was awesome
because it's just like you give that you
get that texture of what this is
actually like to listen to live and
personal well I mean like if I can I
don't know how much time we have I can
talk about that for half a second yeah
you're okay there was a lot of so when
you do audio stuff I get reference mixes
so I gathered like 30 different audio
tracks with pianos and saying what do we
want it to sound like and what I found
out is that again you can make a piano
sound a lot of different ways and I
think what we ended up wanting it to
feel was just very intimate very
dampened because that's kind of the
place the characters we were seeing
we're in and part of that intimacy for
me it's not just about getting the
microphone really close it's about
hearing the human sounds around the
piano you're hearing the
bench creak you're hearing the the
physical mechanics of a piano when
you're pressing the pedal there are big
things that are happening inside like a
grand piano so I wanted to make sure
that those human sounds it's like the
musician was in the room with you I
didn't want it to be this overproduced
polished thing I wanted him to be
bleeding on the on the keys a little bit
so yeah we go nuts thinking about how we
can what is the intent what is the
emotional intent of the scene and how
can the sound effects and music work
together in a way to just like drive
that home for the viewer yeah
for the prerendered not in game
cinematics I would really love to know
what kind of software is used to achieve
similar cinematics so we'll use a
combination of a lot of different things
for a limit of the lifting we're using
our proprietary tools are attached to
our engine and that's for cameos for
working for sorry for cameras and for
bringing in character characters and
bringing in animation all my stuff is
done in this tool Maya is you know
before prior to that Maya is being used
MotionBuilder for post-production stuff
we're using Adobe tools so Premiere
After Effects Photoshop Illustrator or
Media encoder yeah and then find the
final product before we actually goes
into the engine is we use a tool called
Bink to basically turn it into a video
format that the engine can read mr. use
pretty commonly used across a lot of
different projects so all different
games and then that gets checked in and
that's what you get see that's just for
the visual side do you want to go audio
you guys have your own tools as well all
right what - what software's to use yeah
we use a DAW a digital audio workstation
called new window and that's pretty much
our editor processor we occasionally use
to track
like iZotope rx or what's Adobe's Audio
one audition audition yeah we've got and
then we have plugins for these programs
that are just I couldn't list them all
if I tried but little proprietary
programs like there's Paul stretch if
anybody's heard of that and then we get
it into our game engine and do all the
implementation on that side yeah yeah
[Laughter]
but I'm saying you know like Word and
Excel of common office tools for that
kind of stuff too yeah for sure like so
Coughlin's Andrew I like confluence a
lot cuz I don't know it's I feel less
that I'm like office monkey like Excel
could feel very like that's very helpful
it feels like alright man like I'm
curating a page for them to work through
and doing a thing yeah and recently for
internal review video reviews we've been
using a service called microsoft's dream
which is that allows us just to have
like once a one-stop-shop what we can
throw things that people can review
across the company
so without it's very similar to I guess
YouTube kind of streaming streaming
video at what resolution do you guys
render these pre-rendered cutscenes and
what video codec do you guys use
excellent question the resolution is
kind of depending on if we are utilizing
our cinematic aspect ratio which is the
letter bars you see the black bar on top
and bottom or if we're going full frame
for full frame stuff we're rendering at
1080p standard standard resolution and
then for the for the cinematic aspect
ratio videos we are rendering still
1080p ish it's just where we're not
rendering the black bars essentially
we're just rendering only the video
content to try to save space we are
limited on how big these video files can
be just just due to limitations of the
engine and so we have to make sure we're
trying to cram as much data as much
video video data into that as possible
so when we go to actually bank we know
that sometimes it's a back-and-forth
process to try to get as close to that
limit as possible without breaking
things so that's the resolution and the
video codec we're using a variety of
intermediary codecs so we're using Pro
res we're using DNxHD we're using image
sequences it just kind of depends on
what's supported at the time Adobe an
apple like to kind of switch things up
sometimes so we have to be we have to be
a little flexible there but and then the
Bink has its own its own codec that it's
using for for the Bing file okay any
chance that we will ever get okay
in-game cinematics be it in-game or
downloadable outside of the game very
unlikely just due to this those size
constraints that I was talking about it
doesn't make sense really for us to be
going through the extra steps to get 4k
and then putting in and squeezing it
down into a 1080p window for for the
game so good luck with it for that to
happen
we've time for one more okay let's see
we got here how long does it take to
finish the whole process of a cinematic
creation putting dialogues sounds music
and art together do you want to tackle
that it varies it varies quite a lot and
those kickoff meetings where we're very
clear about like hey this is exactly how
much is well this is a projection using
empirical data and what we have up to
before this is what we project it to and
that's insane so we shouldn't do this
we should probably break it down Prosser
hat yeah yeah I can only advise them but
yeah they can take like six months some
of the longest ones before just like
eight months like they get they get
really big right now we're at we're at a
pretty nice regular pace you're supposed
to be taking about like four months but
trailers like a little bit a little bit
yeah the trailers are probably averaging
about three months for living world for
but something again it depends on what
you know what's going on with the
episode
hands-on you know how many different
Drive different factions of art need to
go into it you know so it done as short
as two months I've gone as long as I
think episode six it was like five
months two months sounds terrifying and
short to me yeah it's very short and
those are yeah typically what we'll do
for those those will be very much
feature heavy because those are a little
easier to put together you're not
relying on having to create these
intricate cinematic moments so yeah but
it's like it's it's a lot of work like
these like two minute pieces of video
but like a lot of work goes into it so
much yeah yeah all right well we are
kind of at time so is there anything
else that you guys want to add before we
wrap up thanks for thanks for your
questions like really good questions and
thanks for watching the stream I guess
always thank you for it's interesting it
was definitely alright thank you guys I
will let you get back to work I will let
you guys get back to the game thanks for
hanging out with this we will see you
excuse my car
External links[edit]

Guild Chat Episode 88 - Cinematics on ArenaNet's official channel on YouTube
Guild Chat - Episode 88

Transcription[edit]

External links[edit]

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