00:03Il primo avuto il primo avuto di QTSS
00:03Over the past 6 weeks, we've been focusing our efforts on moving Hellblade's combat
00:07along the path to completion, and in this diary we're very happy to be sharing our progress with you so
00:13far.
00:13You will walk into the lair of the beast, look it in the eye, and fight for his soul.
00:23This is your mission. This is your quest.
00:34We had just finished the Senua trailer, and we picked one scene, and we used that scene to really focus
00:40us on finalizing the Senua model.
00:43Her character, her performance, the mood, everything that defined her.
00:50I'll find you, my love. I promise.
00:53Now we wanted to repeat that same trick, but for combat, and so we picked an area of the game
00:58that was very combat heavy, and we went for it.
01:08Senua is smaller and physically weaker than the Vikings.
01:10It was important for us to make her feel vulnerable and not a superhero.
01:22Because she's physically weaker, she needs to rely on speed and technical ability to overcome her enemies.
01:38Light heavy and melee attacks along with blocking and evading are our core abilities.
01:42Understanding the nuance of this and how they flow between each other gives you a speed advantage in combat.
01:47In order to make this feel fast, smooth and responsive, we have to set up hundreds of parameters in the
01:53combat editor that Mel created.
01:55The combat editor allows us to build, edit and control every aspect of the combat system in real time.
02:01With it, Juan, Chris and others on the team can bring together animations, effects, transitions, sounds and gameplay to get
02:09the effect that they want.
02:13The motion capture shoot gave us a ton of information to work with, but it's really only the start of
02:18the process.
02:30Both Jitik and I then had to go through all of the data and edit and polish it by hand
02:36to get exactly what we needed.
02:40Afterwards, we then added animated cameras and facial expressions to cinema to emphasize her reactions in combat.
02:51A goal and a challenge for Hellblade was to give the player all feedback without the use of an on
02:56-screen HUD.
02:57So, taking cues from action movies, everything had to be communicated visually and with sound.
03:11Every attack has a strength, damage and effects associated with it.
03:15We've built an effects table that allows us to specify what particle effects, post effects etc. get associated with each
03:23strike.
03:34We show enemy health with visible cuts and bleeding, and we show Senua's health with a combination of post-process
03:41effects.
03:43If I let Senua get hit here, you will see blood splats appearing to the screen, and then as you
03:49get more wounded, we bring in a bit of net and slowly desaturate the screen as well.
03:56We also added a new multi-opponent system, allowing the players to switch effortlessly between multiple enemies at the same
04:03time.
04:04These fights are very challenging, as enemies surround you from all sides.
04:07Rather than pulling back the camera or adding wide-stripping moves, we instead wanted to reinforce the idea that how
04:14you position yourself in combat is very, very important.
04:31Everything was staged so that we had a good series of combat encounters, a good visual progression throughout the level,
04:37and a story through line that weaved it all together.
05:02So, the majority of this level is made out of individual kit parts, which allows me to iterate and change
05:09and set dress,
05:10with speed. There are some areas which are bespoke, like the Helheim Tower over here in the background.
05:19Using real-world reference, we set up the lighting and atmospherics.
05:25These can be dynamically changed in gameplay to portray Senua's mood.
05:29Then we heightened the effects of these to give the final look.
05:45Sound is very important for understanding combat. Every attack type has a unique sound effect and vocal quality.
05:58We also use 3D positional sound so that you can know where an attack comes from, even when they are
06:03attacking from behind.
06:09For the music, we use one of Andy LaPlega's combat tracks and split it into sections.
06:16Then, I will tie the music system to gameplay to dynamically follow the action.
06:29combat development doesn't end here, and everything you've seen is still work in progress.
06:33We've got plenty more to do, but we do feel like we've made some big strides forward.
06:37Now, we move on to our new challenge with renewed confidence.
