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00:21I'm Todd Pappy, Game Director at God of War Ascension.
00:24What you're about to see is I'm making a video that we've been shooting over about two plus years.
00:28It gives you a good idea of the inception of an idea all the way through to the final product.
00:33Keep in mind that this is a work in progress. Enjoy.
00:38With the Manticore, the whole idea behind it was almost like the Chimera where we had different stages to the
00:44fight.
00:44It's a completely new experience.
00:46How you doing, Os?
00:47I've been changing them a bit.
00:49The wrist is still really thick and for some reason that irks me.
00:52I don't know why. I can't really put my finger on it.
00:55But I think the biggest thing for me was just getting that kind of taper feel where it goes from
01:00the elbow to the wrist.
01:01We'll go back and forth with a lot of iterations, trying to get something that feels cool.
01:05It has to work for animation. It has to feel fun and interesting.
01:08We're going for, you know, the ultimate look.
01:12So the thing has to be huge, you know, cool.
01:16Like that feels more natural to me, I guess.
01:18In the case of the Manticore, we come in and take a look at the early concept stages and just
01:22kind of give our little input to make sure that by the time it gets to modeling and it gets
01:27rigged, everything is well thought out.
01:30So, but you don't mind the longer tunnel?
01:33No, that's fine.
01:34I think it actually will help when the character's flying also.
01:38So you just need like a final three-quarter now?
01:41Yeah.
01:44God War 3 is kind of a learning curve project, I think, for a lot of the guys.
01:47And now everybody's just kind of up to speed and running.
01:49So it's, uh, the characters will be a lot better in this game, actually.
01:53The Manticore is essentially part scorpion, which is his tail, is the body of a lion, the arms of a
01:59man, the wings of a bat, and the jaw of a shark, which will unhinge and completely open like a
02:05shark jaw.
02:06It opens very far so that he can spit these large fireballs.
02:10In the concept, they really like this big oval that you got from a shark.
02:14So that's kind of what I did.
02:15So these bottom teeth are more shark-like.
02:17These upper teeth, same thing.
02:19Very shark-like.
02:20These will actually be redone.
02:21We don't like them.
02:22And he also has the chest of a human.
02:24You can see this is all human, and it leads down into these kind of very scorpion-like plates.
02:29A lot of this is based on scorpion.
02:30These big hard plates and these other plates with flesh in between.
02:33And these inset plates with flesh in between it.
02:37So all of this will move very fluidly, but it's still a plate.
02:42The hardest part were the wings.
02:43The rest of it's all fairly straightforward.
02:45The wings essentially fold up and he walks on these two knuckles.
02:48We went back and forth quite a bit on the wings.
02:50Wings are very difficult.
02:52We actually went to Sony Imageworks last game, trying to ask them how they did wings, if there's any ideas
02:57they had.
02:57And they just create two versions, a folded version and an open version.
03:00It's very hard to do.
03:01The big discrepancy was in how this works.
03:05Is the transition off fingers?
03:06Are they a hinge?
03:07We needed them to be able to fold up so the character could swipe.
03:10And this is what we came up with.
03:12There were always spikes here, but there was also a mane.
03:14There wasn't hair on him anywhere else.
03:16And it really didn't make any sense to me that he would have a mane of hair and no hair
03:20anywhere else.
03:21So I kind of pitched Todd on the idea of just spikes.
03:24He tentatively agreed.
03:25He hasn't cut it so far, so, so far so good.
03:28All of the textures for this character were painted in Z-Versh, where I paint little cracks.
03:33There's actually a normal map detail on those cracks.
03:36So you're really supporting the sculpt and driving home and accentuating the detail that you have in the sculpt.
03:41That all works together just to look nicer.
03:44It looks more natural.
03:54MetaCore's arms are human arms.
03:57But they're also a pet wings.
04:00So I was working with an animator who had an idea of how he wants this thing to work.
04:05And my job was to actually make the rig work in the way he wanted it to work.
04:11And the solution was I want to have one control that basically makes it look good.
04:15So this is a prototype of the wing rig.
04:18So here's the main control, and it sort of allows you to move the whole character around.
04:21This would be sort of half the body of the MetaCore here.
04:24And the wing starts with this human-like arm.
04:27We could make lots and lots of controls to animate this wing.
04:31But animator really wanted to have a single control that would just do exactly what they want.
04:35And this control became this guy, this large control in the middle of the wing.
04:39So I'll show you a little bit what it can do.
04:41So this control can basically mimic the building of the wing itself.
04:45This animation itself, just to be able to pull this up and down and move it around it any way
04:50you want,
04:50drives secondary controls that allows animators to do more precise animations.
04:56So that was the really big breakthrough for us,
04:58to create something that allows animators to animate it without having to break it
05:02or struggle with mini-mini-fk controls.
05:04And so we're planning to use this rig for pretty much every creature we have that uses bat-like wings.
05:11So hopefully going forward, you know, this rig will work for many years to come.
05:17When I first saw the concept art, I thought,
05:19holy ****, I thought I was going to have a lot of trouble making this guy move.
05:23Izzy's probably one of the best draftsmen I've ever seen,
05:26and so he had all these beautiful drawings.
05:29And of course we went with the most challenging design, as we knew.
05:33Probably the most complicated rig I've seen here, outside of the Poseidon fight.
05:37The manticore, he's got all of these tail joints that move around.
05:41He's also got this stretchy little pelvis here.
05:44We can move up and down.
05:46On top of that, he's got all of these wing controls right here.
05:50You can see there's these diamond shapes.
05:52What they do is kind of control where this thing flexes.
05:57But, for extra control, we've also got these other joints that come in here,
06:01and they can actually rotate just to finesse it a little bit.
06:04So, all of those things included.
06:06It's probably three or four times the complex experience of rig.
06:10It's such a strange design.
06:12I've really had a hard time wrapping my head around it.
06:14It's not until we actually start to break the guy down in the herd,
06:18and that I started to enjoy animating.
06:21He's got two states in the beginning.
06:23He can fly around and avoid you.
06:24And he's also got a projectile that he can do,
06:27where he will ignite the ground on fire.
06:30He's got a big sweeping attack,
06:33where he flies across the entire environment and ignites everything.
06:36Once he's on the ground,
06:37folds up those wings.
06:39We had to do a lot of trickery with the wings,
06:41just to get them to work.
06:42You can see the size of these.
06:43Right now, it's actually a lot smaller than when we're in the air,
06:46because we're actually scaling the joints down.
06:48When we had wings bigger, they were way out of your shell,
06:50so you couldn't quite read what was going on.
06:52It's still hard.
06:53It's so unique and it's so foreign.
06:55People tend to recognize things through silhouette,
06:57and this is just completely alienating.
06:59When he's on the ground,
07:00he's got another tail strike.
07:01Tail looks good.
07:02He's got another move where he goes to the air,
07:04and clasps his wings,
07:05and then knocks the player back.
07:07And now he's in this herd state,
07:09where he's sort of lipping around.
07:10He's got a lot of the same things.
07:11He's got a projectile attack.
07:13He's got a tail attack.
07:14He's also got this wing attack.
07:17This thing is just ridiculous,
07:18because you can see how far it moves.
07:20It's like twice the length of his body.
07:21But it reads all right,
07:22and I think it's kind of interesting.
07:24I also like how he hops back.
07:25It's probably one of my favorite moves.
07:27One of the best and worst parts
07:29about working on the Outer Wars series
07:30is that our creature designs are nuts.
07:33As an anime,
07:34you're constantly challenged
07:35to kind of find ways
07:36to make this stuff look good.
07:38when we get to make Kratos kill
07:40the stuff that you're not that into.
07:42It's equally as fun.
07:56But in the mini-boss,
07:57we really want to make it really formidable
07:59for the player
08:00when he plays through it.
08:02So we do this in a number of ways.
08:04We stage out the character,
08:05and we want to sell that sense of progression.
08:08So the Manacor is the same way,
08:09where he has two different stages
08:11that you have to get through.
08:12The first is that he can be both in the air
08:14as well as in the ground.
08:15He has a second stage,
08:17where you actually rip off his wing,
08:19and now he's injured,
08:20now he's more desperate.
08:21And that's what leads to the climax of the fight.
08:23In addition to our mini-bosses,
08:25one of the tricks that we use
08:26is to kind of tease a character
08:29over a period of time.
08:30So with the Manacor,
08:31you see him throughout a number of stages
08:33in Delphi,
08:35where he'll make appearances.
08:36And then when you actually get to the fight,
08:38it's just that much bigger
08:39because you've seen this guy,
08:41he's mauling you the whole time.
08:43And now you've actually put
08:44a personality to the character.
08:46He's a huge creature.
08:47He's flying.
08:48We haven't had a character
08:49this large before in the air.
08:51And also that he'll transfer to the ground,
08:52just like he did there.
08:53In comparison to Kratos,
08:55he's a really large character,
08:56so he takes up a lot of the space in the arena.
08:58And when he does hit Kratos,
09:00you can see that Kratos really moves back far.
09:03So that, you know,
09:04he displaces Kratos, basically.
09:06One new thing that Manacor has
09:08is that we're doing away with prompts
09:09that are on the screen
09:10for the CS moves.
09:12So this makes it more cinematic.
09:14There's no buttons that appear on the screen
09:15that cover up any action that's going on.
09:18This is one of those buttonless mini-games.
09:20So you can see the giant tells
09:22that he does on the attacks
09:23that's very clear for the player to read
09:25so that they can evade out of the way
09:27and then retaliate with their blades.
09:29So there's no buttons on the screen,
09:30nothing that tells the player
09:32what they're doing.
09:32What we've seen when we playtest this
09:34is the player's, you know,
09:35naturally seeing these things
09:36and are paying attention
09:37to what the character is doing
09:38and then responding.
09:40And this is one of our other
09:41funness mini-games.
09:42We came up with the concept
09:43that his weakest side
09:45was his belly and his neck.
09:48Basically, to kill this character,
09:49Kratos had to somehow get in there.
09:51He's basically chained up
09:53by Kratos' chain here.
09:55He's struggling to get out.
09:56At this point,
09:57I mean, the only weapon
09:58that he really has
09:58at his disposal is his tail.
10:00So he attacks with his tail,
10:02Kratos dodges,
10:04and he comes back
10:05and kicks Manticore in the face
10:07to sort of show
10:08who the boss is here.
10:09And he's dominating at this point.
10:11So we really wanted to show
10:12that, you know,
10:13Manticore can't really do anything
10:15to Kratos
10:16while he is on top of his belly.
10:18And the player can evade
10:20out of the way of the tail.
10:21Your giant tells on the tail
10:22strikes so the player knows
10:23when to evade out of the way
10:25and the counterattack with his blades.
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