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Speaking With the Blizzard Cinematics Team
TheFrunj writes "Blizzard's games, such as World of Warcraft and StarCraft, are perhaps known for their breathtaking cinematics as much as for their gameplay. The process behind these cinematics is complex, involving an entire modeling and coding team — they even needed to make their own physics engine! AtomicMPC has the full story behind these incredible videos. Quoting: 'Storyboards become animated storyboards (thanks to a storyboard team who are also trained animators) complete with temporary music to help set the tone and get the pacing right. Then the animators and modeling team get involved, creating a rough 3D version of the final animation. While the modeling team works on characters and environments, the animators work with very low polygon characters and as the models are refined and updated the animations are refined. This is also where production technicians get involved, supporting the more technical developments like hair and skeletal systems for the characters. And then the effects team kicks into gear. '"
> Am I the only one who could care less about cinematics in video games?
If you mean "could NOT care less" - that is, there is nothing you are less concerned with - then I agree with you. I just punch the fire button/left mouse until the shiny nonsense goes away and I can play the game. They're like the adverts of the games world, aren't they.
Take Open Arena - I can click on the menu item, have the title screen appear in 1 second, and be playing in 5 seconds. How would the experience possible be improved by having a 100meg file playing some cliched nonsense for 15 seconds before each game? I don't get it.
I play video games to be entertained.
Short little video clips as a reward for finishing levels fall into that category. Have games from other companies abused it in the past, yes.
Does Blizzard get the play/watch ratio right? Hell yes.
* We dance where angels fear to tread *
Generally, I agree with you. However, the cinematic interludes in Diablo II were so good, they made a rather entertaining (if smallish) movie in and of themselves.
The effect made them kind of like a reward for successfully completing a stage. Which is exactly what they are supposed to be.
Anyway, Blizzard knows there are people like you, which is why every one of those interludes is skippable.