00:00In Hellblade we wanted to create a combat system that was more immediate and more grounded than in our previous
00:06games.
00:07One that didn't require the player to memorise combo strings and skill trees,
00:11but at the same time required skill and mastery.
00:20In previous diaries we've talked about how our camera and controls have a very different feel,
00:26more intimate and subjective than the usual distant third-person cameras we normally have in our games.
00:32With this viewpoint came an opportunity to pursue a directional combat system
00:36where attacking and blocking could be done in one or four different directions.
00:41Like so many areas of game development, promising paths can lead to dead ends,
00:45and in this case it was becoming clear that directional combat was limiting gameplay.
00:50There were several issues. For one, directional combat limited the kind of animations that we could create.
00:55It also made multi-opponent combat very awkward because you couldn't use the movement stick to switch between enemies.
01:01And while directional combat was mechanically sound, it just didn't feel satisfying
01:06and no matter how much we pushed it, it always just felt mechanical.
01:11It was time to change tack. Juan joined the design team to focus on combat and with him brought a
01:16fresh perspective.
01:17My approach was to focus on simple but tight core actions like fast and slow attacks, blocking and evading,
01:24but work on making them flow really responsibly and intuitively.
01:29Our combat system asks the player to make tactical choices,
01:33instead of relying on memorizing and executing complex combos,
01:36although there's still a fair amount of depth to the moves that you can perform.
01:40With the movement stick no longer used for directional enemies at the same time,
01:45and how the player would flow between them.
01:48While Juan was making great progress, development time was running out,
01:52and as we only have two animators covering all of Senua and all of the enemies,
01:56we could see trouble ahead.
01:58Nevertheless, we felt there was an opportunity to take a different approach,
02:02and we wanted to test this out.
02:03So we reached out to a skilled stuntwoman who could perform the types of moves that we imagined Senua were
02:09capable of.
02:22We asked Chloe Bruce, who recently played Daisy Ridley's stunt double in Force Awakens,
02:27to come to the studio for a test.
02:28Using the game as a reference, we wanted to see if Chloe could match the timings and flow of Senua,
02:34rather than doing it the other way around, which is how it's normally done.
02:40After half a day of capturing, we went to work to see if we could translate this back into the
02:44game.
02:45So we tested a couple of combat strings out to see how quick the workflow was,
02:50and also what quality we could achieve in the time.
02:53How to make tweaks to the general timing and also poses.
02:57We managed to create two playable combos in pretty much a day.
03:01This would have taken a lot longer traditionally.
03:04The great thing about that is that I can then focus on the things that we can't really motion capture,
03:07like some of the more outlandish actions in the game.
03:10With the help of Chloe, we proved that we could make combat work for Senua,
03:14but we still needed to find someone to represent all of the enemies in the game.
03:19And we found that with Kali Nell.
03:41With our combat mode cap test complete, and with Chloe and Kali on board, we had everything in place to
03:47make it work.
03:47We couldn't use our internal studio because the ceiling was too low and the space too small.
03:53So we booked the Imaginarium studios in London to capture the rest of the combat.
03:58And over the next two days at Imaginarium, we captured as much as we could for both Senua and all
04:04of the enemies.
04:04Öl Fiocca in the rain.
04:09Do not frame the sight of the��의 imp ship's Grandm Uni.
04:12Thank you very much your second FR.
04:15I'll show you all the way.
04:17What's the sign language?
04:19Point 6.
04:26Point 7.
04:30Point 6.
04:33So does not tame our time.
04:51The direction we're heading in seems to be paying off, with mocap we have a better base
04:55of realism, without directional combat we have more freedom to explore styles and moves,
05:00and so we're working on this hard right now and we hope to show you the results pretty soon.
05:30Thank you.
06:03Grazie a tutti
Commenti