PREVIS greatly contributed to "Ace Combat Assault Horizon" production technique, which destroyed the series's theory

Since its first series release in 1995, the latest work of the world's most popular flight shooting game "Ace Combat" series, which has sold more than 11 million copies since its release in the series "Ace Combat Assault Horizon"Will be released on October 13th.

In many cases, the latest work of the popular game series follows the conventional series, but the same work incorporates a system that is conscious of users who are playing FPS and TPS which are now popular, while targeting the conventional series fans We incorporate new attempts such as.

Such production staff of this work is Japan's largest conference for game developers "Computer Entertainment Developer's Conference 2011 (CEDEC 2011)","Bird's eye view of "Ace Combat Assault Horizon" visual work"I will deliver the entire contents and slides together because I made a lecture with the title.

Kan
I would appreciate your favor of today. CEDEC Three days, the last session will be "I will begin" "Ace Combat Assault Horizon" Overhead of Visual Work ". I will proceed with three people today.


I will explain from the content of the lecture today ahead of time. First of all speakers. After that I will briefly explain the product contents. Next is the reform of the visual expression, which is a little diverse about this, but I will explain about "destruction expression and shading".


In addition, the transformation of the production flow, this is because "Ace Combat Assault Horizon" changes greatly from the series work so far, I made a big change about the production method and the production flow, so I will explain that point. Finally I will summarize.


Then, introduce the speaker. Shall I go out a while ago? Happy new year, good evening. My name is Masato Sugano. It belongs to Visual Art Division at Bandai Namco Games. About Assault Horizon, I was in charge of art direction. From the time I was in college at the Ace Combat series, I was in charge from the first work, it was 16 to 17 years. I am in charge for a long time. Thanking you in advance. Next, from Sorimachi.


Anti:
Everyone, thank you for coming. It is anti-Town. At Assault Horizon I was designing shaders with programmers while supporting the background of the cut scene and supporting drawing expressions in general from the artist's point of view. Thanking you in advance.


Kan
Well then Mami Mi kun, please

yarn:
Yes, it is thread looking. Thanking you in advance. I am doing picture director who is in charge of directing in general, such as the camera of the in-game person, the production of the cut scene, the composition of the campaign, the composition of the story etc. generally. Thanking you in advance.


Kan
Today I will speak with these three people. Thanking you in advance.


It is the purpose of this performance. Developers themselves have destroyed the theory of series work. "Ace Combat Assault Horizon" is somewhat different from the series work so far. Assault Horizon who changed to a new visual expression, will be released on October 13.


From the beginning of development to now, various drawing techniques and production flow have been verified. In this session, we will briefly explore these efforts and introduce from the visual point of view the attempt to develop the world aimed at by Japanese game developers.

Apart from this, although it is not wrong as an image, (laugh), Ace Combat Assault Horizon has a character named Nagase Kei, but I think I should go out, "Nagase blogIt seems that you are doing something like "I definitely want to go out with this CEDEC too", it appeared.


It is product overview. To say who you intended for, I directed it to action game fans like FPS and TPS like battle and destruction. Of course, there are quite a lot of AC series fans, but these series fans are of course also targeted.


Although it is "the first person", it is said that you have continued series work for a long time, there are people who think "I want to start new, but it is hard to pick up" I tried changing various contents of the product thought that I wanted people interested also for a moment.

What kind of product contents? In terms of words, you can taste "dog fight competing fightingly for defense and an exhilarating feeling of destroying enemies to the edge of the edge in front of you.The real war drama set in the real world allows you to experience immersive feeling Not only fighter aircraft but also flying around with various air weapons such as attack helicopters and bombers and enjoying the exhilaration of destruction by individual fire rich fire power "will be the product contents.

Besides this, there are things such as enriching the online and so on, but what I want to emphasize this time is here. "Supersonic and large destruction shootingAs new, I was born again. Please see the video of the product.

ACE COMBAT ASSAULT HORIZON - YouTube


Yes, it is over. I think that one who knows the Ace Combat series up to now, I think whether it has changed quite a lot of impression. As I thought, "Nabida, Tada and Aikawa explained us that" I put power in destruction "and how to handle cameras in the game the other day" in-game camera production example " It is made solid by the intention to greatly change "management itself".

Continue, change rendering expression. I will explain here only from destruction expression.


First of all, we changed the direction of product about destruction expression. Until now I was putting the theme "to fly the battlefield with an airplane" as the "flight thing" on the subject of the first game, but from a moment I changed the axis foot and then focused on destruction expression It was. This is a taboo in terms of licensing, and aircraft manufacturers are extremely sensitive to such places, such as being aircraft being hurt by themselves or thrusting into buildings.

As it is, of course, memories are still new September 11, 2001 that the terrorism that occurred in the United States is still remembered in memory, there is a very tough check. I felt like trying to challenge such taboo boldly. Because it judged that the direction to soften the series is a shooting game when looking at the big frame.

It was necessary to decide and prepare with Licensor. It is also cooperation of licensor and adjustment with various rating agencies was obviously necessary. I thought about everything as "I want to be a shooting game".

In recent years more games including destruction expression such as "Battlefield (battlefield)" has increased. I think that it is unlikely that we have not adopted destructive expressions in recent shooter games, but what kind of position should I express "Ace Combat" in such situations? While incorporating the trend of present generation destructive expression, we decided that it is necessary to sublimate ourselves, and challenged the concept of "Steele Carnage".


Regarding the destruction of fighter aircraft, in case of destroying fighter aircraft appearing during game, the division granularity of "how many aircraft are to be divided" is of course a problem. This naturally affects the memory and CPU load, but it is also proportional to the workload. The more work you get, the more work you get and the more CPU load is required.


We assume that the number of aircraft attacked by players simultaneously in one frame is 4 to 5 aircraft at most. This is a relatively early stage. Actually it was actually more than actually, though it was originally supposed to be 4 to 5 aircraft. Approximately 10 parts per one fuselage, small parts which simplified computation accuracy are also divided into about 30 parts.


Originally, is not it?Mr. Yoshiji NishikawaSomehow, it was speculated by the web, but I was studying whether I should do non - linear destruction according to the impact point, but when I tried it it looked strange. Structures promoted as fighter aircraft, aircraft that flies with fuel with the fuel loaded, will continue to fly all the time while becoming disjointed ... .... It became a low degree of conviction by looking and it is repeatedly verified It became as follows.


One thing may not be known when a strike mark or a small missile occurs when a machine gun or a missile is landed, or a person who is not familiar with the aircraft for the second time, but the point such as a flap and an aileron seems to be a small wing that generates lift Things will fall off rapidly. The third is the wind that destroys the main wing, nose, and body separately when damage becomes maximum.

As expected, those with a bigger aircraft and wings are closer to non - linear destruction. If you keep shooting the right wing all the time, it will be broken briefly, the center will tilt and explode ... we are doing the movement.


And about "Baked animation combined use". Those that appear during the game include not only fighter planes and bombers, but also tanks and other vehicles, large ships, targeted buildings and so on. Simulating all of them all in real time has become a big issue between programmers and visuals.


Although there were twists and turns, as a result, those with large scale of destruction such as ships and large buildings are animated baking using Maya's dynamics. Here, we use physical computation to isolate it from destruction representation, and work sharing restrains the load of memory and CPU. The most important thing at that time is to "find the optimal solution on a diverse scale with one physical engine".

It worked on the physical engine for the first time at in-house Ace Combat, but actually it is the optimum value of such parameters, thinking in the wind that it is very difficult to find the optimal solution, I squeezed it down to the point where I focused and focused.

Entering so far, the producer said, "Is not it normal?" Tsukkom entered. Actually playing the game, the fighters are falling apart or the buildings are broken is usually done also in other games, "Well, something a little bit lazy or torn, a mechanical splatter Okay!


The word "splatter of mecha" was laughed at a foreigner by a foreigner, but when I thought that "I'm trying to anthropomorphize an airplane's fuselage like an FPS like a moss or a torn," from Nakamura programmer, Even if you do not have a bone structure, you may be able to blow like zombie's leashing arm ".


So, the effect designer Fujii-kun said, "Let's do something like oil or blood like blood! Beware of CERO's 18 forbidden!" He gave me great momentum and worked hard.


I decided to "break" the object by putting the way of thinking together. Although it is the word of rupture, how many people use the word rupture routinely at this venue? Perhaps I think that there is a place that is included in general destruction expression, but I thought that we are different. The phrase "Rupture" refers to "a structure such as a metal is destroyed by cause of shock, fatigue, etc.".

I decided to say "break" expression rather than "destruction" expression or "destruction" expression of the object. Actually it seems that those who saw the actual documentary picture as if the aircraft were shot down by missiles and fall apart will not be coming so much, but these things actually exist. If the aircraft traveling at high speed is damaged, it will burst explosion and damage with missiles and machine guns, and the wings will break up due to air resistance and twisting of the airframe.

"When the iron is threaded", how is it possible to realize the fracture behavior when an object having some degree of hardness is threaded? This is the most troubling place among the destructive expression of Ace Combat Assault Horizon.

We have no experience with plastic deformation simulation such as finite element method and we could see that it would take too much computational load to actually do so so we can express the behavior of this iron's thread cutting more easily I tried to find out if it could not be done.


At that time, it was Nakamura-kun and Iwakiri-san, I decided to discuss with programmers who were at Bandai Namco, but in short it's divided beforehand so that fighter planes will fall apart I've set up a joint with such a green point.


If it hits directly, if the center of gravity has moved and three, one out of three will be taken. That's why posture changes steadily, but as it changes, it will rotate at the same time and a twist will also come in. And then what will happen after taking off? Then from there the form of a baton touch to ordinary rigid body physics, practicing the movement like "wings take off by lift and fly when they come and receive air resistance" I went by.



In fact it is not only saying "No" whether this is physically correct or not. I think that there were a lot of sessions on physics simulation at this CEDEC too, but what I often hear about it is "it is easy to handle like a convenient game, eventually being changed". That is the same for Assault Horizon. What is dependent on what I mean is a camera. Adjust with parameters as convenient as the camera can grasp.


The most important thing in this work is "What to communicate to players"I thought. I do not see the traditional Ace Combat anymore if you hit the enemy. I will go somewhere. Since I'm going to find another enemy before hitting a missile, the enemies are not shown against the screen, and I can not see the appearance of being destroyed.

But then let's think about it as a shooter, thinking that there is nothing like a reaction, so I will show it with a camera. It is about 3 seconds to reflect the pattern that is being destroyed. During that short time I adjusted the parameters so that I could feel like I felt like "I destroyed this aircraft, fighter plane apart!"


It is the advantage of using this method, is not it having a complicated bone structure, it can reproduce a very aircraft-like fracture expression?


Although it is a handsome morning story, when I saw "Battlefield 3" recently in the movie, when the enemy aircraft was torn down, I was able to see movement like feeling like scattering like a pan and glass as usual as entrusted to rigid body physics, "Oh, Ace Combat is still proud of going ahead with such an interesting expression", but I think whether it could reproduce such "How to break like aircraft" like that.

Although it was Mr. Fujii who was in charge of this effect, although it became easy to become what they wanted as a drawback, because it became possible to adjust tweaks, turning angle, time etc. with parameters finely, accidentality It is said that it is thin.

In physics simulation, there is such "enjoyment of accidental place", but I think that it was only a little problem that it was thin. Nonetheless, this made it possible to achieve steel-like destructive representation that is characteristic of aircraft, from destructive expressions that merely explode brittle materials such as glass. This is the end of my work, and then the shader talks about "transformation of drawing expression". Introduction of proximity expression and fusion to broad-area expression. Well then, Sorimachi.

Anti:
Yes, thanks for your effort.
Let's talk about the introduction of proximity expression and fusion to broad-area expression by saying "Change in rendering expression 2". It is a tomboy of NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc., thank you.



First of all, as you know, the ace of the past centered on the middle view scenery, the near view was a weak point. There were places where we set our own limit even in the development, and because the game and the demonstration are expressionally different through the series, there was also a problem that "the drama in the game and on the surface of the earth can not be felt as the world of the land". It was a challenge to represent games and demonstrations as events of the same world without discomfort.

As a solution, we introduced approaching fight this time, we developed a shader for proximity which corresponds to approaching battle and expressing game and demo as the world of the land and integrated it into the wide area expression. As a flow, we build a basic shader that can be shared with neighborhoods, wide areas, games, demos and everything, expand it according to the use and texture, and then derive it if necessary, In addition to resource control, we realized efficient quality improvement at each place. This time I will talk about that.


First of all, it is the setting of reference lighting. Existing lighting tasks have lighting that has weak points depending on the angle, such as the existence of space and the stereoscopic effect of the object, but we verified and built a method to solve them. By doing so, we have created a regulation (rule) that reduces sensory adjustments and unifies the world view.


AndImage Based Lighting (IBL)Three-dimensional feeling was strengthened by the general lighting by. Regarding the method, we have also verified how to use a light that expresses luminance easily, but the method we tried had some problems in quality.

After that, I have to put as many lights as I can function as IBL, but the load was quite expensive. As a result, I decided to use a cube map with sufficient quality and low load. I use a programmer to make a tool that can shoot a cube map on real machine data and create it up to the blurring process with semi-automatic processing.


Next is sunlight and shadow. Because we want to clear control by sunlight rather than sensation, we are making RGB intensity 1.0 as a base, making it possible to make it strong up to a maximum of 2.0.


Regarding shadows, until now, techniques were mixed in the style of "shadow volume for games and shadow map for demos", but this time we unified them into shadow maps due to their high scalability. Although I named it arbitrarily, I am using the "environmental light shadow map" in which the shadow inside is hidden by the ambient light by plotting the shadow map generated by the depth calculation at the time of bright and drawn drawing. When ambient light IBLI, IBL image is applied to the shadow.

Next, about texture regulation and HDR Bloom. I decided the brightness of the intrinsic color of the texture as upper limit RGB 210, lower limit RGB 40. This value is a value before post-processing of black and white for various post-processing as well as various final processing including shadow processing as well as post processing.


Regarding correction of gamma of original material of color texture or monitor gamma, we ignored it to make effective use of existing texture material. Rather than data precision, we focus on making it function as an artist's standard. The place where the light got on the color of the fixed texture bloomed from the pixel from the value exceeding RGB 210 there. I am making such arrangements.

Next, by setting element settings of the basic material, we have constructed a general-purpose material as a reference. Inside of this, it gives the stereoscopic effect necessary for proximity expression and incorporates the elements necessary for making more edge-effected pictures. I have not written it here, but the basic material is basicCook-Torrance (cook trance)So, the diffuse value of the specular or the intensity of the specular is included. What is written here is other noteworthy points.


It is Fresnel and Rimright, but as you all know, it is a calculation of the physical phenomenon that as the angle of the actual camera direction, the mesh, and the ray opens more and more, the reflectance becomes higher, but this is I thought like. First is Fresnel. I think this as an element of stereoscopic expression. So when you add IBL which is ambient light, it becomes visually bright.


Rimlight thought as aid for specular effect. It is supplementary to the edge by light, is light aid. So this is to add sunlight together.


Finally, is the Ambient Occlusion Map. This is a combination with ambient light shadow map to support the stereoscopic effect inside the shadow. With only the ambient light shadow map, the inside of the shadow will inevitably become flat, but by having this it can produce a stereoscopic effect. Screen Space Since it has higher performance and lower load than Ambient Occlusion, it is adopted following the previous work.


By building these basic lighting and basic materials, we were able to increase the realism and the three-dimensional feeling in the space, and we were able to formulate a regulation that can build a unified world view.


Even more, we extended the basic shader functions further to accommodate all these cases, such as proximity, wide area, mission characteristics, demonstration etc.


Although it is talk about how we expanded to enlarge the texture variation, each material can first select two kinds of environment maps. One is an environment map of sharp images, and the other is a map of blurred images. The cube map of the picture of the sphere in front, the sphere on the right was just sharp, cube map of the image blurred in the middle. The ball at the far end is IBL. Cube map of blurred image is used as IBLI.


Next, Fresnel and Rim Lite can select shadow and rendering order change. As for what this means, it is a system that allows you to choose whether to draw shadows on Fresnel, rimlight, whether to draw shadows under Fresnel, rimlight.


Since the basic Fresnel is used for stereoscopic representation, it is drawn on the shadow. Rimlight is used as specular support, so draw it under the shadow. Although basic is like this, I am trying to change it for a while. The programmer told me to be able to adjust the parameters like middle or slightly above rather than up or down. You can also change the variation of texture. However, the basic is this street.

Next is the story that I optimized for wide area and proximity by extending the shadow function. We also named this "Cascaded Separation Shadow Map" without permission, but I will skip the detailed explanation about Cascaded Shadow Map.


What we did customized to keep distance of the cascaded shadow map away. By typing values ​​at the start and end points of each shadow map, you can separate them arbitrarily. And not only in the shadow map but also in the form that I can release the first shadow map which starts from the camera.

This made it possible to efficiently use the shadow resolution applied to a long distance in a cut scene using a cockpit viewpoint or a telephoto lens. In this image, the right side visualizes the shadow map in an easy-to-understand manner. Red is the forefront, green is the second piece with medium scene, blue is the third piece.


Red is a viewpoint facing left from the cockpit viewpoint of A - 10, but first you use one in the cockpit. Red seems to be somewhat visible. The second piece of green, medium scenery is not coming next, and the next wing is already abandoned. From the distance that the wing ended, it will take a second piece, third piece.
Thanks to this, you can extend the coverage by the amount of wings, so you can earn the resolution for that distance. I made it possible to make such adjustments.

Next on the shadow method, but with just the resolution, Light Space Perspective Shadow Maps was the best, but jaggi is outstanding. There are various methods, such as applying double pressure to fix jaggies, but I decided on these two methods while doing various things, such as when I put it on by applying the pressure and get something wrong again .


One is "Exact". Although this is low resolution, jaggies and flickers do not appear at all in camera movement. When you move the camera you can properly complement the pixel when creating the shadow map properly for camera movement. It complements that position, but it does not blur at all. So it is effective when you grasp the background greatly. Although it does not come out by camera movement, it will come out when moving the light or the object moves. Another is "Apporoximate". This is because the resolution is quite high, so it's upwards of the character and the direction of the screen with motion. Here are some shaders derived from these basic shaders.

It is a skin shader. Naturally the basic material has specular spread value and intensity, but I have another one. Do you spread it like a skin film? By combining it with Fresnel or Rimlight, we have substituted SubSurface Scattering. I believe this was quite effective, as it has low load and quality.


The rest is Wrinkle Map, wrinkle shader. This helped the expression effect of the character. I think that it became easier to empathize. After that, recalculation of normals accompanying bone movement. This also covered the expression effect.

Next is a cross-sheater. This is a basic material plus a detail map.
The details of the detail map are those which are multiplied by the repeat color texture on the repeat normal map. If you do not multiply repeat color texture, but repeat normal map only, I do not get a detailed feeling by putting a detailed map in the shadow.


By multiplying the repeat color texture, I will put this irregularly dented place. With this, you can always keep a detailed feeling in both bright and dark places.
Have the repeat number and fade distance as parameters, such as "How much repeat texture will be erased if distance goes away?"

In addition, the black-and-white guy on the bottom right of this image is a mask that masks 'Do you wear a detail map?' It is loading the alpha channel of the specular map.

As a summary, I think that the scale range was wide and the quality you wanted was high and it was like creating close proximity and wide area two kinds of games. As the type, elements and parameters of shaders increase, among limited resources, how do you control? The problem was born.


Naturally the painting will become distracted and the shader resource will explode if you make local coping for proximity, wide area, mission characteristics, demo, all cases. However, if control of individual artists is kept to the utmost, if we do it like weather parameter, time parameter, humidity parameter, etc., just select the kind of material, and then all are hidden by programmer, we will have an orderly rendering expression Although it is possible, in reality it is difficult to realize that high quality shaders equally for all cases such as proximity or wide area like this time. The flexibility is lost.

Firstly, when problems and demands came out, I thought back to regulation. Regardless of whether the shader side or the artist side corresponds, we will first examine whether it is regulation adjustment or local adjustment. When I'd like to brighten up a bit, I wonder if it is better to take a shot again with IBLI, there is no need to reconsider the Fresnel calculations of the basic material, or just a little more, I wonder if I should increase the shader anymore, is not it?


For elements that should not be dispersed, change the parameter fixation and regulation as necessary. Leave room for adjustment and expansion in the regulation, leaving room for the characteristics of each case. I'm leaving the growth margin. I will do it only as much as possible. Still it will increase shader if necessary. This is the flow.


It is an example of shadow, but the basic is a cascade ambient light shadow map. The shadow density parameter is now fixed, 1.0 (100%). When you want to make the shadow concentration, shadow a little thinner, you should never change that parameter. If I wanted to make the shadow thinner, I would decide the shade of the shadow if I checked the IBL or the regulation of the texture under it is going crazy. I do not know about parameters. The branching point is the separation distance of each cascade. It is good that I can do this freely. It is OK to choose freely whether it is Exact or Approximate.


Difference in soft shadow processing by hardware. This is largely due to load. Because it is multi target this time, 360 uses PCF, but PS3 uses SSAA (Super - Sampling Anti - Aliasing) for soft shadow processing.

We change the processing of the third piece of cascade in the game and demo. This is the third in the game, we are fading the cascade. Naturally the camera in the game is interactive, so if you want the shadow to always adapt to the background, you fade the third piece, and you are familiar with it.

Regarding the demo, as for the fact that the camera is decided and fading afterwards, the third shadow will inevitably become thin. Do not let it hate it, fade it where you want to spend the third ones as well. I am doing such carving.

With these balances, we were able to reduce unnecessary branches for every case where the scale range is wide, and we were able to improve quality at each place efficiently, as well as oversee expression and resource control. Last but not least, the regulation change is still very broad due to the change of the original.

We can not say that we are completely successful. Although it is also written here, there were many regulation changes after mass production, and there were things I cooperated in various places. It is ideal that the basic shader should be fully confirmed before mass production. That's why it would be better to think carefully what kind of cloak is done. Well then I will finish my presentation. I will replace Mr. Tomi.


yarn:
Continued, I will talk about the change of direction flow. Excuse me. Time pressed quite a bit. It may be a little fee but I think that you can get involved. Thanking you in advance.



I think that we introduced the product from the beginning of Kanno, but Ace Combat Assault Horizon began with a place to be reborn, unlike the previous series. This is the line that the Kono producer first said, "It will revitalize the Ace Combat franchise." It is a revitalization, but it is a product intended for both domestic and overseas destinations for world wide, and creating a new flight shooting game that can compete equally in TPS and FPS markets that are sweeping right now is pretty big The title was given.


So development started to start, but first of all it is core system development. I think that I saw the video earlier, but there was a core system called dog fight mode, I was promoting the development and planning of it, but the progress of the plan has been difficult after all. The schedule became tight overall and the project itself was going to run over the reef. It was a crisis of project progress.


There were various reasons such as a large number of people and a periodic problem, but the most concerned among them was "We could not share sensibility images among staff." "In the first place you see realization methods It was a part called "It is not."

As for what resulted, it was a desk topic just because there were only a few proposals. I think it is a common story in the game industry, but "Idea is supposed to be interesting, but what is it that does not convey to other people?" So I thought that visuals would make something with a complementary function that can imagine the final image from the project plan.

That will be the introduction of "PREVIS (pre-visualization)". As I will explain later, PREVIS is a video presentation used at shooting flow of movies, commercials, etc. in image sharing, verification flow at low cost. The introduction of this PREVIS workflow is a key.


In a little more detailed explanation, at the early stages of the production of complex scenes, it was created at low cost in order to identify the necessary production process / problems and share the final image among the staff, to improve the efficiency of production production It is defined as a simple image image or an image. I think that the definition is different for each person, but I define it in this way.


Well then I'd like to show you what the picture is like. This image was created in the early development stage. The production environment is created by the responsibility of the real time demo environment of Ace Combat 6.

Ace Combat Assault Horizon Initial Image Picture - YouTube




As for production, it is about a month for five visuals. I think that it was about four proposals. Then I woke up a story and made discussions with the director about what kind of image to play and what game to play. As you can see, there are some parts that are quite different from the current game, but I think that the content of the core system is totally the same with regard to the part of the core system.

I think that this content is what was shed even by the in-game camera session in particular. In fact I put a lot of ideas that are not in the project proposal, and the tracking camera etc also talked with the camera designer at this stage "You better put in such a place" or "Such a function, those who pushed with the button and become like this It is interesting, is not it? "Or proposed from the visual and put out for planning.


This is PREVIS, but there are points of production. It is a staff of production, but the actual director is me. And camera designer. I think that it is important for these two people to progress the creation of PREVIS. In addition to being able to understand man-hours and problems, etc. at the stage of making it, you already know the problem at the implementation stage. The advantage is that you can do it smoothly when talking to it with a programmer. Also, since we can also get a consensus from director and camera designer, we will not conflict in opinion when we actually make camera designer "Please ask camera here."

Next, this will be mission image art. It is like an image version of PREVIS. As for concept art, I think that everyone is well drawn, but this is also one that I made to facilitate the scenario conference smoothly.


It is possible to say both to image and image art, but this point is where we are instructing to produce angle, composition as close to the play screen as possible. I really want to choose a cool screen, but since I am also a visual artist, I think "this one is cool looking", but then the final image of the final staff will be misaligned, so as much as possible I try to make it in the form close to the play screen, the play image.


Continued is a collaborative work with foreign writers and overseas studios. This is one of the big measures. Since we mentioned that this time it is "a product for the global market", we first needed scenarios and character visuals that are not unnatural to western users as well.


Although it was made only by the Japanese staff at the beginning, after all it was continuing in a state without understanding whether it is delicately matched or not matched, although culture and race, which is characteristic of each country and race, fine race, and language are also done . Besides, regarding plots of scenarios and stories as well, for example, the US military and the Russian army come out with the real world set aside, but it seems that there are more cases to find out whether this setting really matches or not.

Americans, ~ American Americans, Cuban American Americans, African Americans, and French Russians, I want to put out various national characters, "How can I make a difference in visuals I was worried very much as "Deaf".

There was also an easy solution for this, but even if we are investigating by ourselves, it is necessary to know clearly. When I asked people in the country, I started asking if I asked the artists of the country. But it is also a difficult part to do directly. I can not speak English at all.


As a solution, I asked the in-house American staff who was a producer of ENSLAVED, first appointed him as a global development producer. We will also be in charge of supervisors of character visuals and scenarios. I made him a window and collaborated with foreign writers and overseas studios.


Regarding scenario production, I am working with American military novelist Jim DeFelice for scenario production. There are amazing cool photos, but Mr. Jim is also a military advisor to participate. Regarding scenario production, I will explain the flow after this, but I am going to lead the team to the last rather than leaving everything to Mr. Jim.


This is the flow. I will explain it because it is a bit hard to understand, but the orange part on the left becomes the work of the team. The blue part is Jim's work. First of all the team did a breast (brainstorming) idea of ​​situations in the in-game.

For example, I will present you the all-you-can-eat Brest like "I will slip through the buildings and hit the enemy" or "I want to try to fight against the hurricane by plunging into the hurricane". At the same time, please tell Jim about several concepts and contents of the game from here and write a few plots. I put it together and I will make a temporary plot in the team, "Brest and Plot" to prepare a temporary mission configuration "This kind of game enters ... with this configuration from the 1st to the end ... ...".
In general, it became a story that it was interesting if I entered as much as an idea, then I did a scenario meeting. This is a four-day training camp in San Francisco. I have been meeting from morning everyday every day. Here we talk with Jim about the simplified plot and temporary mission composition we made earlier, and we will decide all that "this is good or bad".

It's from mission 1 to the end. I will decide the entire story here as well. Where to put this character out, for example, cut scenes will decide the connection and whether to connect here as well. I am busy because it is 4 days. I will take it home, then it will become a detailed story with the composition table of the campaign mode, the cut scene, the preparation of the provisional contest of each mission, the production of the outline of each mission. At this stage we have not yet done the script.

There is a mission image art that I showed you earlier at this stage, and there is a container to show you after this, but there is no scenario as to whether the scene of the cut scene is part of an important scene of each mission, I quickly wrote that "I want to advance like this".

I write about the container for about 1 month, alone. I handed it over to Jim and I will shoot image sharing here. It is a place that hits PREVIS. I made it as tight as possible, and I did a terrible interaction several times. I will hand it in Excel format, so Jim will write it directly to the container. Jim says, "If the clothing is different, Jim says" This soldier is not wearing such clothes ", Petapeta stuck the reference image It will be. This is quite useful.

I finished it, then it is a mission conference. It will become a story of a fine mission. This was done with Skype. Although it is written as one month, I think that he probably was doing about three months about. It's a story of "super fast" because the time is not right.

Here I will tell you a detailed story including arrangement, including detailed mission summary, what kind of mission will be. Also keep a detailed stuff in here about the story line. There are many cases where a story is in the mission, so I will pack it here.

It is divided into each work again by this, for example a wireless script. Because the ace is in fighter plane, dialogue flows steadily on the radio and conversation and story progresses. I make it inside. Then Jim is advancing the main script. This is a state of mutual show. As much as possible, Mr. Jim is checking all the radio scripts as military advisors. This will be combined and the whole script will be completed.

This is the storyboard used to interact with Jim. This is a little Jim's comment is not put in. There is a logo of NAMCO BANDAI Games, the title of Ace Combat came out, the game began with, and I write such a kind of story.







This is not a cut scene but a game. I draw a game contest. What happens and what sequence is pinched, what happens, goes into battle and cut scenes ... All this is done seamlessly and I draw a storyboard with these contents. In the meantime Jim will be adding it.

After all, even if you do it in the domestic "scenario production tailored to the game sequence" is extremely difficult and it is a place to suffer every time. I have to understand the content of the game by the scenario writer and I think that it is not easy to tell a good story.


I also need an interesting story, but I think that "how to make the experience in the game interesting" and "how to incorporate the story in the experience during the game" will be important, so I think that also in the word processor As it was, it is important to share the configuration image of the sequence inside and outside the team using the PREVIS material before entering the script creation.

"Inside and outside the team" is quite important, and if you forget the human beings of the team when you interact with the scenario writer, it will be "I have not heard such a story", so if there is such a contest, Japanese English There are both versions, but I will both tell the story that I'm sending it to both and saying "This is what I want" to "I want to do this". By doing this, the imprinting between each person in charge is fairly well, so it is now possible to construct a story line while emphasizing the experience in in-game.

Continued on character design. I'm asking the company in San Francisco that Massive Black is the character design. Coro Kaufman is the one who took charge of the art direction of production. It is a person who is handling the design of inFAMOUS.


Regarding the final output, characters with racial and nationalities falling apart came out like this, but I got them to incorporate detailed designs like this. And then I asked James of the global development producer of the previous time to check the visuals and I had the James check the model while making the model.

Next is performance capture. Regarding the cut scene this time, I have performed performance capture in Los Angeles for all motion capture. Regarding directing director Kris Zimmerman and Gordon Hunt are asking two people. Regarding Gordon, he was also directing the cut scenes of Uncharted.


The reason for doing performance capture overseas is that it was important for our company for the first time, that is, it is part of the cultural difference. As I thought it was impossible to make everything with the movement part, the talking part, the expression, or the Japanese staff, so that the neighborhood is doing so that the neighborhood looks natural.

It is James who stood up (in the middle) when you look at the picture. There is a big monitor before that, PREVIS of the scene to capture from now made with animation contest and simple CG is shed. I think that this neighborhood is perhaps quite basic in warfaro manner.


While shedding this, I will decide a fine performance plan with director and actor. If necessary, we will change the dialogue and action on the spot. Because it did not do quite a bit, I will give instructions from here for the situations and movements, but basically I took the word "to fix speech on the spot".


This is to avoid discomfort due to cultural differences as well as to take natural acting. There are actually other military advisors here, and they are asked to do things like soldiers and soldiers as well as work on verbal behavior. There was one difference in culture here. There are scenes that the characters say "joked and talk", but the scene of Tsukkomi was hitting his head. This is why Chris has a bad face. I was told "Sonnakot Hashinai!" Tsukkomi of Japan did not pass.

Although the story changes, I have introduced virtual cameras in the cut scene. Actually I had Mr. Imagica introduce the production system of PREVIS used for CM production and it was a little interesting so I used that system in cooperation with Mr. Imagica. I will show you a bit of a picture.

Ace Combat Assault Horizon's virtual camera - YouTube


Imaging the data captured with motion capture on the viewfinder and matching the position information with the camera, when you take animation data with the camera. The motion of the camera of the photographer who is there is reflected in the movement of CG as it is.

It does not work a bit. In this way I use Vcam, so ask a professional photographer.
This is also one form of PREVIS. Originally it seems that it is doing to make CM for simplicity. Well, it is time consuming if you are making camera animation, so with this you can take a picture with a single shot.

I will enter a summary. Regarding new product development and collaborative work with overseas, it is time to thoroughly verify the schedule and communication sufficiently, it is time to take enough, after all it is natural language skill. It is necessary, but the development period is still limited. So what to do is "Speedy communication tool to strengthen image sharing as much as possible and exchange active opinions on the spotIt becomes necessary.


It is PREVIS that we adopted. This workflow shows a very high effect, I think that application and application method are quite various places. Moreover, since I think that there are each site, personnel, etc., I believe that discovering a communication tool that matches not only PREVIS but also the site will become a key to efficiency improvement. I think that it is the best to find by techniques that make use of each specialty field.

Our team used a method called PREVIS this time because there were many people who will design fade cameras. Another thing I saw was that when comic artists were inside the team, there was a comic drawing. When you show it to my book. That was a little funny. When there is no such technology afterwards, when I actually make an action game I was doing that "Someone runs and jumps and photographs it from behind and shows it as a video image of the game". Still it is transmitted.

And I'm going to collaborate with overseas artists and other industries this time, but there is also sometimes towards overseas markets, but I think that "there is something that can not be done by the team staff alone" I guess. I also aim for excavation of new ideas and technical exchanges. So, if you create with just this intention, the meaning of collaborative production will be lost, so important points are indicated with PREVIS, and other than that, a band width is required to get ideas freely. In the motion capture just before, you can change the speech "and" You can change the action "is the place. Although it is difficult to moderate this, it is difficult.


When you first compact the specifications and directing to the ruckus, you will not be able to keep up when you go crazy. However, if you get to know the intention of that you will be "what to do", so it will take time, so you have to clarify "where you can change" and "where you can not change" as much as possible. So, it's time to make it as flexible as possible.

Then I think that new ideas will emerge while drawing up on each other's ideas. When it comes to PREVIS and it comes to talk about "Is not it interesting like this?", It also incorporates it into PREVIS, always updating it, new ideas came out ...... that kind of thing Because it is an interesting place, I think how about using PREVIS by all means. My presentation will be over. Please summarize from Kanno at the end.

Kan
Thank you very much for seeing us for a long time. In the end, there is something I want to tell you, but "Ace Combat Assault Horizon", development is finished a little more, but in the meantime, it was very attracted to the series theory of series work.

I thought that they wanted to change and that is all the same, but rules, conventions that the Ace Combat series has built up so far, this is not limited to Ace Combat, but people who are coming to the venue right now I think that everyone thinks the same way of thinking, but the "theory of series work" is a very strong gravity, is not it?

"What to do with these specifications" "It's a detailed specification but what shall I do" "It's as good as it was before, because it's done pretty well." That is really strong, is not it? I am very prepared for thinking to break through it. Of course, there are people who have different opinions even in the development, and I am very pleased if you find a friend.

With this preparedness we wanted to develop and we would like you to decide your preparedness when you step forward. A little care should be taken that what customers expect is never the same experiences as before.

I tend to say "How do you change the way" inside the development? "It was like this before but this time it makes it like this" inside the development, as it is repeated gradually it tends to think "it is better to change this way from the beginning" It is easy to make mistakes, such as a pitfall.

The most important thing is to clarify what kind of product it is. This may be a method by PREVIS or a method using a container, but what kind of product will it be? It is not "I change it like this compared to before" but I wish to clarify what kind of product it is. If possible, at an early stage.

In the development of the current generation of games, there was also a story from the thread viewer, but efforts towards world countries are necessary. When I think that "I want to step into the world" with the reality that the domestic market is shrinking, people from various countries gratefully give their opinions. This is not just our company, but I think that it is the same situation that there are development companies with multiple foreign staff members.

"I want to make it like this," then "Good, good good, please listen to my opinion, because I am very familiar with this area," I said, Yeah, thank you. Well then I will gradually incorporate that opinion. "If you do it like a wind, it will become a product that can not be seen by anyone anyway.

Who is this product for? Rather than for people in any country, there are such targets, a group of these customers. There are people who like shooting. Some people like destruction even in shooting. I will clarify that it is a product targeted to those people.

As a result, I think that it is good to choose it, thinking that technology, drawing technology, flow of production, they will change as well. At the end, though, this is my strong thought I was thinking to advance development this time, but there were many young developers in my twenties in the team, but they did a wonderful success.

People in their twenties are here and there are also students, but the lightness of your foot work is longing for developers in their thirties and forties now. The lightness of footwork, the idea power not bound by common sense. It tends to fall pretty well if repeating series work. In the past, this kind of wind rule was functioning normally, so it is likely to become "It will be OK this time, let's go with this", but when you are thinking about changing it, it will be a fool.

I think that the idea of ​​young developers in their twenties is very important for the current development. I am a veteran, please give my work to them and including them, please give me a suggestion. I hope to improve the power of the organization.


It will be the last time, but I will finish this today. As I gave the title "Bird's eye view of visual work", it may have been thought that I might talk about the production of a map that occupies the largest screen in the game, but sorry, I am in balance of time I will skip this time.

However, from now on, please take a moment to look at the picture in the form of speaking for the feelings of everyone who is going to leap by advancing game development. This is something called "Tokyo Map" scheduled to be released after the product launch, but we use satellite photos this time as well as the previous series, but we used 50% satellite photograph with 1 meter resolution I'm having it made.

Ace Combat Assault Horizon's "Tokyo Map" - YouTube


So, it is very labor intensive to produce these many buildings, but we are doing new challenges this time about the most troublesome places, the arrangement of buildings and such.

Although we had placed the layout of the building based on the pixel data as the focus so far, this time I tried to examine the arrangement of buildings using vector data. The number of buildings is also dramatically increasing compared to the past, but I think that the persuasive power of "there is a real building in that place" is the unique charm of this work.

It has been over for a long time, but I will finish today's presentation. Thank you for your kind attention until the end.