Blizzard's CG team talks about making those epic cinematics
by Mike Schramm 
Jan 21st 2009 at 6:00PM
Blizzplanet's got the tip on a great interview over at CG Channel with the Blizzard CGI team, responsible for, among many other great cinematics, putting together the Wrath intro trailer. We heard from this team back at BlizzCon, and here they give a little more insight into the thinking behind their process, rather than the process itself.One of the first questions that comes up is one that everyone would like to ask: Why haven't we seen a longer feature from these guys? But they say that, as always, their first priority is making great games, not great features, and as much as people would want to see a 60 or 90 minute cinematic from this team, they work for a game company. They also talk about something they've been working more on lately: in-game cinematics. I saw this at work in Starcraft II back at BlizzCon -- while most of Blizzard's cinematics so far have been completely separate from the in-game art, Starcraft II introduces models that are high-quality enough to be rendered cinematically, so much of the actual cutscenes are in-game rather than in separately rendered CGI. But as the team points out, their goal is to make them no less awesome.
Finally, they do get into the nitty-gritty of designing their cinematics, and 3D animators will enjoy the ins and outs of how Blizzard made Arthas summon that Frostwyrm. We're just in awe of how much great work this team does -- hopefully we'll be seeing lots more of it in the future.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Machinima, Odds and ends, Blizzard, NPCs, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rhornez Jan 21st 2009 6:14PM
ritchie u get a big slap from my arcanite reaper
about the article interesting more awsome Cg stuff
Mognet T Jan 21st 2009 6:13PM
They should pull the guys off the CG team, and teach then how to fix bugs.
Taepro Jan 21st 2009 6:16PM
woops, mistakened the CG for "GC"... I'll move along now.
Kymri Jan 21st 2009 6:16PM
One thing to keep in mind is that a production house like Dreamworks Animation or Pixar will spend 2-4 years working on 90 minutes (or less!) of CG for a feature.
The team at Blizzard working on this stuff will spend 6 months working on five minutes of (totally awesome) CGI for their cinematics.
Alexe Jan 21st 2009 6:28PM
I'm all for cinematics and was realy happy they managed to put one in at the end of dragonblight - that one was totaly awesome .. I'd love to see more though! World of Warcraft 2 (if there will ever be one) I hope will be packed with cinematics and have more character involvment (pick a reply to a quest giver and wat not)
Kaylek Jan 22nd 2009 9:08AM
God I hope not.
Chan Jan 21st 2009 11:38PM
I'm still waiting for that movie trailer..
Illnara is a douche Jan 21st 2009 7:52PM
My comment, along with a few others in this post, was offensive and now they've all been edited by Mike. Everybody have a nice day! :)
syberghost Jan 21st 2009 8:09PM
What I want to know from the cinematics team is, when are you going to hire Percula?
Keyra Jan 21st 2009 11:19PM
Indeed! People can QQ all they want about his music choice, but the fact remains - the animation was top notch!
mrluohua Jan 22nd 2009 12:01PM
I've gotta second this ... Percula's "blind" was amazing. Please inject more of this into Blizzard's games. I really enjoy seeing cinematic views into World of Warcraft.
Percula, if you're reading this, please make more WoW related movies! And Blizzard, if you're reading this, you really need to hire Percula!
Urza Jan 21st 2009 10:39PM
This team should make the WoW Movie. F@#K live action. CG action all the way.
Cabrilla Jan 22nd 2009 10:54AM
I'd much rather have in-game events play out in real-time in the world, not as here's-the shiny-3D-movie intersertions (a la Final Fantasy). I don't mind it in console RPGS, but it feels really out of place in an MMO.
I love love love the work the team does, though! One thing I'd like to see would be them work on shorts (5-20 mins) that extended either world events or lore. Webisodes? WoWTV?