00:00Peggy 18
00:30The ambition with the cutscenes is to make every single scene interesting enough, in itself, as something that the player
00:37would want to see.
00:38You can watch them, you get like an introduction to the level, you understand the characters a little bit more
00:42and then you go on with the game.
00:44In a game like Hitman, where there is so much gameplay, there's so much within the game mechanics to challenge
00:51the players,
00:53the cutscenes also becomes a break between those kind of challenging gameplay moments.
00:59Dammit, Mr. Dexter is not someone that you want to mess with.
01:04I think cutscenes are getting better and better. They are actually much, much better at using the language of cinematography
01:09and movie storytelling
01:11and making compelling stories and characters. And this is just a natural evolution in games to lean on what we've
01:19learned from cinema.
01:20We're actually treating it like a classical movie. We're trying always to have these really slow dolly moves
01:26and shooting from outside the doorway into the room and trying to have this subtle treatment of it.
01:32And it actually works really well. We have like an awesome team of animators and environment artists and lighting and
01:38combing
01:39and the composers and sound designers. I mean a lot of people are working really hard on making them.
01:44Alright, what is it worth to you? Name your price.
01:48If they convey a sense of motivation to play the game, and we've taken a lot of care to add
01:56that to Hitman Absolution,
01:59it's all well and good to be given a task to go when you have to take out a certain
02:02target,
02:03but if you can apply an emotional reason or a really solid motivation to do that, it just makes it
02:09more enjoyable and a lot more fun to play.
02:12Now listen to the city. If anyone mentions a girl, you know what to do.
02:19I'll call you.
02:21We started out wanting to do motion capture and then do voice acting separately,
02:27and I kind of combined this as a classical way, at least for us to produce cutscenes,
02:31but we were allowed to hire real professional Hollywood actors and do the performance capture.
02:37We're basically doing motion capture, facial capture, and voice at the same time.
02:42Mr. Travis, you know this is my prayer time.
02:46This definitely reminded me of making literally a motion picture, and that it's like very beautiful, very clear,
02:55and I think that it's a wonderful aspect that they've added to the video game.
02:58The basics of motion capture is that we have a series of cameras placed around a room,
03:04and they record optically these little markers that are placed on actors,
03:09and it triangulates the data in the space and records movement,
03:13and we cover the actors with all of these, and we can tell where their arms and legs and torsos
03:18are in space,
03:19and that gets applied to the skeletons of the characters.
03:22Where performance capture comes in is similar, but on a far more subtle level.
03:26We had a helmet-mounted camera and used that as reference for keyframing.
03:31If you have to marker up the face, there's a lot of micro-movements that get captured,
03:35and that goes through a similar process, but it usually requires far more cameras to pick up the smaller dots
03:42and the smaller ranges of movement.
03:44Also with ours, it required a soundproof studio, which Giant had, where we shot,
03:49so we could have the actors' voices synced up with their movement
03:53and just get a more believable performance out of them. That was really important to us.
03:56Well, I always describe motion capture to people as the most natural performance an actor will ever have
04:02in the most unnatural environment, because you're never having to cheat to camera,
04:07you're never having to cheat to a light, you're never having to worry about a camera over the shoulder,
04:10they don't have to worry about hair, makeup, lighting, wardrobe, nothing.
04:15All they're having to worry about is true performance.
04:18We found him.
04:21Okay, people, listen up.
04:24I'm giving a green light on this operation.
04:27I want 47's head on a platter in front of me ASAP!
04:31The only way I can describe it is, yeah, you got the 360 because the cameras are everywhere,
04:36but you also have this monkey suit on and this silly hat
04:41with a camera sitting in front of your face,
04:44and so the focus level that it takes is unique within itself,
04:49playing a lot of technology that you're pretending is not there.
04:55So it's a whole other thing that takes some adjusting to get to.
05:00For example, just a simple thing, like, see this thing right in front of your face?
05:05It's very hard to focus on the other actor if that's there, and like this character smokes.
05:10So just technically you can't bring a cigarette up because you smack into that camera,
05:14so you have to find a way that looks cool and goes in there and does it.
05:18So it was challenging.
05:19The actors did have a lot of good suggestions and they would say,
05:22this feels like out of character, and we'd be like, that's true,
05:25and we had a lot of back and forth.
05:26So we spent quite a bit of time on working with their voices
05:28and getting, like, getting a little deeper into the characters,
05:32like giving them some layers to the performances.
05:34The physicality and the origin of it is very much on the actor's shoulders,
05:39but from that point on the animator's involvement in it shouldn't be really sold short.
05:43where they add a huge amount of emotion and of physicality and everything to the scene.
05:49Wait.
05:51Hmm.
05:52I heard you.
05:53You want me to snatch some chick?
05:56The man's gonna call you and tell you how to find her.
05:59There's a convergence where the line between cutscene and gameplay is blurring,
06:04and it's a major goal for a lot of AAA games is to have it as one fluid experience
06:11and not take the user out of the gameplay and really immerse them in the story
06:15and the characters and the universe that we've created.
06:20We'll be right back.
