In recent times, sport trailers have generated nearly the identical stage of pleasure because the video games they promote. They’re usually thought of artworks in themselves, with their very own distinctive storylines and inventive approaches.
With such a brief run time, cinematic sport trailers should captivate and immerse audiences within the sport’s universe shortly with high-end visuals and music.
At Goodbye Kansas Studios, we’ve created profitable cinematic trailers for notable video games similar to CD Mission Purple’s Cyberpunk 2077, Murderer’s Creed: Valhalla, and Ubisoft’s Cranium and Bones.
Extra lately, we have been approached by AKQA to create the cinematic trailer for Sony and Santa Monica Studios’ newly launched action-adventure sport, God of Warfare Ragnarök.
This was an thrilling alternative for us, and we have been eager to discover the epic journey for the sport’s viewers, telling the story of its protagonist, Kratos, and his son, Atreus, as they embark on a journey to meet Atreus’ mom’s final want.
We created breathtaking environments, from snow-covered mountains to intense motion scenes. All of those contribute to the compelling narrative instructed in a brief, twenty-three-second sequence comprising simply six pictures.
It was a possibility to display the complete potential of our newly developed pipeline primarily based on Common Scene Description (USD), using a mixture of cutting-edge applied sciences, together with developments in 3D, facial animation, and movement seize, to carry cinematic life to the God of Warfare universe.
Written by:
Alexis Andersson, CG Supervisor
Henrik Eklundh, VFX Supervisor
Concepting
All of it begins with an thought. We have been approached by AKQA with an idea for the trailer and requested to assist carry it to life. Beginning off with the preliminary idea, the Goodbye Kansas crew, led by director Fredrik Löfberg, created a storyboard to behave as our information – one thing to point out key pictures that may be replicated within the trailer together with moments and tone to meet.
We turned that right into a 3D previz to offer larger readability of what the ultimate narrative would appear like. In the meantime, our Artwork Division, guided by Artwork Director Gustaf Holmsten, labored to create stylistic ideas which might be visually like-for-like to what you’ll count on to see within the closing image. These preliminary fashion frames have been signed off by the shopper and have become a helpful basis for the crew to reference all through the venture.
Movement seize
With the previz signed-off, our subsequent step was to plan and execute a movement seize shoot. Mocap know-how offers a unbelievable methodology for producing character actions quickly – actually capturing the efficiency of an actor fairly than hand animating a sequence body by body. We have been in a position to make use of particular person strikes, sections, or set items inside our animation software program.
We shot this part through the pandemic, which posed an apparent problem. Often, the shoot would happen in Stockholm on our in-house movement seize stage. However, resulting from difficulties flying the actors over, half the crew headed to Sony’s Santa Monica Studio stage whereas the remainder dialed in remotely. It meant we may go the place the actors have been and make sure the security of our solid and crew, all of the whereas realizing that Sony was arrange for high-fidelity movement seize that may work in our animation course of.
Regardless of the challenges, the shoot went easily, with priceless enter from Santa Monica’s animation director, Bruno Velazquez, who gave steerage on how Kratos ought to swing his axe and transfer in battle. This allowed us to work carefully with skills to breathe life into the characters.
For this shoot, we have been lucky to have the ability to work with Tremendous Alloy, the identical crew that additionally did numerous mocap for the sport itself. This diminished the time wanted to grasp the characters, and we may concentrate on what we wanted for the trailer particularly.
Following the session, the mocap knowledge was reviewed, and a spherical of picks was chosen. The administrators picked what motion they needed to be included, which was then inputted into movement modifying and animation software program in order that there was a cohesive timeline to begin with.
Character, setting, and asset constructing
One of many largest challenges of the venture was guaranteeing that Kratos and Atreus matched the likeness to the sport characters. We had the unique sport belongings and sculpts from Santa Monica Studios, which we transformed and used as a base from which the crew may create refined cinematic variations.
Our facial rigs are of the best normal, and we preserve pushing their improvement to make sure we keep forward of the competitors for digital people.
To make sure the characters resembled those from the sport however with greater high quality, we have been meticulous concerning the particulars. We underwent a number of rounds of suggestions to make sure that they seemed precisely like the sport characters and that they matched and remained true to the sport.
We needed to make sure that followers of the sport have been happy with the end result, and we went to nice lengths to guarantee that the Santa Monica Studios was pleased with the ultimate end result.
Utilizing Maya, Blender, and ZBrush, the crew constructed our 3D fashions. These have been then rigged utilizing Maya and our proprietary facial animation toolset. The characters’ our bodies have been animated in MotionBuilder, with the movement seize knowledge being pulled in.
Facial animation on a venture like that is essential. It must be plausible as an individual whereas sustaining the sense of the world they’re in. Our facial animation crew labored meticulously to match Kratos’ distinctive look in all features of animation by finding out the movement actor’s efficiency, tweaking and perfecting in Maya, and utilizing Substance Painter to use textures.
That is additionally the place the flexibility of the USD pipeline comes into play. We have been in a position to iterate faster within the crew, and everybody may observe the progress in a brand new method, which empowered possession and strengthened inventive output and pace.
As soon as finalized, the belongings have been revealed as a USD file and opened in and opened in Solaris, which is the context inside Houdini for constructing, structure, lighting, and rendering primarily based on the USD framework. It’s right here {that a} look improvement artist took the revealed characters and utilized groom and textures.
We additionally used V-Ray shader for the look dev of the sequences, which have been then layered on high of the characters. These components, mixed with the rig and a simulation FX mesh, have been layered on high of one another to create a personality package deal.
Digital camera data and animation have been additionally revealed into USD as an animation cache. And, due to USD, we’re in a position to edit any facet of this stack with out having to remodel subsequent sections.
FX, lighting, and compositing
Lighting is what units the temper of the shot, whereas FX provides a fantastical factor to the scene. Compositing takes the 3D output and makes certain a scene seems to be as lifelike and exquisite as it may be. Our lighting artists have been supplied with a template, referred to as a ‘node tree’ in Solaris, and labored on completely different components that have been break up out into render passes.
These passes have been then despatched to the farm to create a sequence of 2D photographs. Earlier than lighting, simulations for character and creature results have been carried out on the animation cache, and all of the ensuing results have been layered over the animation to create a closing output.
USD primarily treats every edit or part as a layer with overrides – one on high of one other till you’ve your closing end result.
The trailer’s opening shot proved to be one of many extra technically difficult features, with a number of transferring elements. From Norse creatures (draugrs) lined in lava to smoke and snow, it was essential to seize all features of the scene to convey what was occurring.
For example, the crew paid consideration to element in exhibiting footprints within the snow. Although most viewers might not discover this, it was important to make sure that all components labored collectively. It’s the artwork of together with refined particulars that actually promote a shot – you may not discover that footprints are there, however you positively would if it wasn’t. Explosions, hearth, smoke, snow within the air, and embers from the draugrs, have been all created in Houdini with the identical consideration to element.
Lighting is the final step earlier than 3D will get remodeled and rendered right into a 2D picture. The work from all departments will get mixed right into a single usd file which the lighting division then splits up into completely different renders. Then they get despatched to the farm or cloudfarm the place 3D photographs get remodeled right into a 2D exr picture for the compositing crew to select up.
God of Warfare has some heavy pictures to work with, together with characters, snow, smoke, and hearth, multi function place, which might have been intense to render. We would have liked to make sure that these completely different components have been break up up into separate outputs and layered like items of a puzzle.
The compositing crew did a tremendous job of guaranteeing that every one rendered elements labored collectively seamlessly, particularly in tweaking the completely different elements to realize the heavy snowstorm impact.
Rendering and grading go
Solaris in Houdini is our chosen device to create belongings and scenes, and we render these out from Solaris utilizing V-Ray.
Initially of a venture, we at all times focus on the constancy goal and function of the trailer. As a part of this, real-time rendering or not is without doubt one of the huge decisions. We’re specialised in each paths and perceive the challenges and completely different workflows that must be utilized for every, but in addition to have the ability to talk relating to the ultimate constancy bar.
We would have liked each body to be good, which is why we use offline rendering – on this case, Chaos’ V-Ray.
Lastly, our colourists do a grading go in DaVinci Resolve to realize the specified really feel for the ultimate sequence. As soon as the grading go is full, the footage is exported to be used and delivered to the shopper for the world to see.
In realizing the cinematic trailer for God of Warfare Ragnarök, the Goodbye Kansas crew used a variety of various applied sciences, together with 3D, facial animation, and movement seize, to create breathtaking environments and a compelling narrative sequence.
Whereas we’ve created quite a few sport trailers previously, it was a difficult process to inform a compelling story and embrace all of the important components in a brief timeframe.
Nevertheless, from a technical standpoint, the method was easy. The usage of superior software program instruments in our newly-developed USD pipeline, together with Houdini’s Solaris and V-Ray, enabled the crew to create beautiful 3D scenes and render them effectively. The compositing work utilizing Nuke then seamlessly built-in completely different components to realize a cohesive and dramatic visible expertise.
Total, the trailer is a testomony to what’s potential with a well-thought-out pipeline alongside our crew’s experience and inventive route. We’re proud to have delivered a visually beautiful and emotionally partaking trailer that captivates the viewers.
Behind the Scenes
About Goodbye Kansas Studios
Goodbye Kansas Studios gives award-winning and uniquely built-in companies for characteristic movies, TV sequence, commercials, video games and sport trailers. Experience consists of VFX, FX, CG productions, 3D face & physique scanning, digital people, creature & character design, efficiency seize, animation and real-time strategies. The corporate, with a workers of 250+ is a part of Goodbye Kansas Group AB (publ), listed on the Nasdaq First North Progress Market and with studios and places of work in Stockholm, London, Helsinki, Vilnius, Belgrade, Beijing, and Los Angeles.
