Halo Wars Update 01.30.07
A lot of you may be familiar with the fine art of motion capture (mocap), as it has been used in the movie and game industry for a number of years now. It is the process by which real world movements are recorded and used to make 3D models move in a fluid and realistic way. Like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings movies, who was a 3D model except for the occasional time he spat when he said his lines. The spit was all Andy Serkis who was the actor providing the voice and movement for Gollum.
Shortly before Christmas, Ensemble Studios Producer Bill Jackson and Artist Woody Smith went to the House of Moves in Los Angeles to run through a variety of motion capture tests to see where it could be used in Halo Wars. As part of the tests, actors performed scenes from a game cinematic. It’s intentionally kept dark in the House of Moves for these sessions, so it makes taking pictures a little difficult, but here are some shots from the session inside the House of Moves taken by Billy Jack:
Image 1: This is one of the actors who performed a number of different roles during the Mocap session, everything from Marine to Elite. The camera’s flash reflects off of the ping pong like balls on his suit that are used to record his movements. It is not at all related to any newly captured covenant technology…at least that we can tell you about.
Image 2: These are the funky leg extensions that the performers strap on when they turn into bad ass Elites, and not a crazy back scratcher.
Image 3: ES Artist Woody Smith sits in the director’s chair and does his best impression of Spielberg, instructing the actors on the scene they are performing.
Image 4: This is a Mocap Warthog. It doesn’t look like much but this plywood and wheel could rock back and forth, movement that was also recorded in addition to the actors, so the 3D model of the Warthog would also rock in real time.
Image 5: This is the real time display that showed the movement of the models inside the Warthog as they performed.
