Lights, Camera, Beards!

Now we step into the strange land of live-action performances for 3D game play.  I know it doesn't seem intuitive to dive back into 2D for character performances.  It started as a weird limitation imposed upon us by a client and ended up making a lot of sense for a "camera-on-rails" style game play.

So now it's lights, camera, beards!  That's right a big scruffy beard.  I actually get in the mix on this one and play a pair of brothers.  It took me about three months to grow out this bush and I'm glad to be done with it.

We've attempted to be as authentic to the era as possible.  For this western we've targeted the 1860's or so.  This included researching bottle types and shapes, using guns that matched (I honestly never knew there was a ram rod revolver) and creating costumes from scratch when needed.  We've certainly paid our visits to the antique shops around.  Hey, when you're living in the land of western keepsakes (i.e.-Colorado) it's not that hard.

So it's several shoots on the green screen for Jed, Lucky, Casey and others.  These performances will be composited and then assembled in a kind of state machine for interaction in 3D.  It's a lot like how motion capture performances would be handled only we're using video instead of animation data.

Probably the most enjoyable part is plotting the many ways that a character can die and the prat falls to make it believable.  We try to make the deaths seem as responsive as possible by playing out different death sequences triggered by where a character is shot.  But be careful that you don't shoot too early or you'll be hanged for murder.  To the left you can see a test composite.

Another favorite feature is the opportunity to escape hanging by shooting the hangman's rope before you die.  Accidentally or intentionally murder anyone in the game and you'll go to a hanging cut scene.  You only get a few moments after the rope yanks taut to save yourself with a skilled, or lucky shot.  But make it count because if you nip the rope without cutting it clean, you'll still get to visit Boot Hill.

And just in case you missed our almost complete trailer for the game, here it is in all of its western glory.