![]() hand-made) animation including for facial animation, which is a big departure from some of the time-saving tools and tech we were able to use for our Episode Three development. Instead, they used home-based capture suits and a lot of keyframed (i.e. The whole team has done a great job despite the challenges of COVID, but I’m particularly proud what the animation team has managed to pull off in Episode Four, despite not having access to our motion-capture equipment (due to COVID and it not being safe to travel to the studio). Things have not improved for Mackenzie since then. We met Mathis in Carter Dam at the end of Episode Two, when he threatened Mackenzie within an inch of his life. We’re tightening up some objective text, adding collectibles here and there where they are needed, and layering some secondary “side mission” content to reward you players who like to explore off the beaten path a bit. All the cinematics are complete and have had multiple passes with full voice-over, so we’re now moving into the lighting phase on most of them, and audio (sound-effects and music) which is the last phase. After that we’ll roll into the polish phase for environment content. In terms of overall progress, I can say that the episode environments themselves are mostly finished, apart from a few small areas that are getting completed right now. ![]() It’s a bit late in the process to be doing this, but we just feel the episode needs a bit more of a “punch” in some areas so we’re testing things out to see how they feel, and hopeful that we can make it all work and feel intriguing. In the specific case of Episode Four, this includes adding a new section of gameplay and a new mechanic we’re experimenting with. It might be something as minor as a single line of dialogue or editing some objective text, all the way to cutting a section of a mission or adding an entirely new piece of narrative (as we did throughout Episodes One and Two when we released the “Redux” versions in 2019). This is the period of episode development where we usually change (or remove) things that aren’t working, and add moments or content here and there where we feel the experience needs to be shored up a bit. When you can experience the full flow of the episode from start to finish, you can get a sense of the overall pacing, the relationship between narrative and gameplay, clarity around objectives and motivations, peaks and troughs in the player’s activities, and generally a sense of how the whole thing fits together. This is an important stage as it shows us what we have as a contiguous experience (this is different from how we build and test during development, which is often more in chunks that are out of order), and therefore highlights what is working and what isn’t. ![]() We’re at the stage of episode development where I’ve been able to complete a couple of full run-throughs of the entire episode from start to finish. Episode Four Progress The aurora illuminates Blackrock Penitentiary, Great Bear’s maximum security fortress and the main location in Episode Four. It’s time for an update on Episode Four progress, which I’m sure is the topic at the top of all your minds right now.
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