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CHALLENGE EVERYTHING
How Animators Breathed Life Into the World of Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault
By Christopher Oakley - Lead Animator
THE EVER-RAISING BAR
If you're reading this article chances are you've recently played a video game or two. You don't need anyone to tell you that games are becoming almost filmic in their "look." Indeed, the line separating the film and game industries gets thinner with every new game. Because of constant technological advances the look of games is improving so quickly that it has become quite a challenge for game developers to stay ahead of the curve.
I had been an animator and director in the film and television industry for almost twenty years when Electronic Arts recruited me. The company wanted to make sure that the quality of the animation produced for our titles kept up with the ever-richer quality of the game environments. As it turned out, this was no easy task.
EA's motto is to "Challenge Everything" and for animators there have been a series of challenges that had to be overcome to bring successful, believable and entertaining animation to our game, Medal of Honor Pacific Assault.
KEY FRAMING vs MOCAP
One of the most common questions I'm asked is whether or not we use "Mocap" (motion capture) for our animation. For the Medal of Honor franchise the answer is no. This does not mean we will never use it. Mocap has its place. But I tend to believe more interesting animation is achieved by key framing -- good old animation created by animators -- one frame at a time.
But because the world of Medal of Honor is closer to reality than the cartoon zaniness of a film like Toy Story, the challenge of creating realistic movement that is at once believable and engaging is significant.
One of an animator's most important skills is the gift of observation. Tiny ticks and gestures that make up someone's personality may go unnoticed by the average person, but to an animator they are the very core of what makes that individual unique.
Just like the veteran animators who created Snow White almost 70 years ago, the animators on Medal of Honor Pacific Assault studied live-action reference footage to create more realistic animation. But instead of studying deer and rabbits and evil step-mothers, our animators studied archival footage of real Marines and Japanese soldiers in World War II. And when we couldn't find the footage we needed we filmed our military advisors and ourselves performing the actions.
The result is a game full of individual characters, not just some clone telling you to "move out!"
PUMP UP THE VOLUME
Early on in the production of Medal of Honor Pacific Assault it was determined that we would need to completely replace our existing AI animation assets. The legacy animation assets from Medal of Honor Allied Assault were good but we needed a new system that would work for the next generation of our game engine. It was decided to start from scratch, and that meant we would need to create somewhere in the vicinity of 2,500 new animations. Each one of these assets, whether it was a character idling in cover or drawing a sword or banzai charging across an open field needed to be created by an animator.
In addition to those AI assets we also had the story-telling aspect of our game to animate -- those scripted moments that advance the gameplay which we call "Gags." An example of a typical Gag is a moment during the game when the Raider Sergeant gathers the squad around him and tells the men something like "There's a supply depot just on the other side of this hill. I need you guys to split into two groups and flank the enemy.
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The animation process for a Gag like this is similar to that of film because the player should be sticking around to hear the important information being passed on. So we don't have to worry about the animation being interrupted by a sudden attack from the enemy. Yet even in this more predictable scenario there is a challenge for the animators. Because each player may make different choices as the chain of events is set in motion by each player often requires the animators to create several versions of the Gags in order to conform to the player's experience. What action the player takes dictates which version of the Gag gets played.
As you can imagine, adding this variety to the core gameplay animation set requires a lot of additional animation assets. So when you combine the AI and the Gag animation we now have well over 3,000 assets that need to be created.
MICROWAVE SOME POPCORN
What game experience would be complete without the cinematics -- those filmic moments that occur at the beginning and ending of almost every level? A successful cinematic should be entertaining, advance the story, show how the characters are developing, put the action in context and above all keep the player in the world of the game.
The processes of creating animation for cinematics is most like those employed for CG (computer generated) films like Finding Nemo or Shrek. We begin with the script, where just as in a film the characters and the actions that advance our story are laid out. Some productions then create storyboards to better visualize how those story points will look in the game. On our production however I felt more comfortable blocking in the camera work myself and roughing in animation to create "animatics" -- think of them as moving storyboards. Using this method allowed us to use our sets and our characters in an environment that we knew would be accurate to our world rather than rely on an artist's conceptualization of that environment. It was a technique I learned well while working on the production of Disney's CG film Dinosaur.
Because so much of our animation performance is based on the content and the timing of the dialogue delivery our Audio Department recorded of our fellow team members reading the lines of the script. This gave us temporary ("temp") dialogue assets that aided us in building rough animations. While we continued to rough in animation the final casting decisions were made by the producers and the real actors recorded all our dialogue for the game. The final sound assets were added to our "animatics," the cinematic camera master files that included the rough animation. All that was needed now was for the animators to draw on their skills to bring the characters and action fully to life and for our animation integrator to get the animation playing properly in the game, which in itself was quite a challenge!
Because we believe Medal of Honor should have a strong and engaging story we've invested a great deal of time and talent in our cinematics. Fans of cinematics will certainly be pleased to know that we have over 20 minutes of cinematics in Medal of Honor Pacific Assault.
WE'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOAT
As you can see, the mountain of animation required to bring Medal of Honor Pacific Assault to life was quite imposing -- over 3,000 animation assets plus over twenty minutes of cinematics. And just like when Roy Scheider got his first glimpse of the great white shark in Jaws and said "We're gonna need a bigger boat," a year ago I saw the enormous task before us and muttered to myself "We're gonna need a bigger crew." The animation crew for Medal of Honor Pacific Assault quickly grew from 5 animators to (at our peak) 18 animators! For the game industry, that is huge.
The challenge of recruiting and training and managing such a fast-growing crew of thoroughbred animators was one of the most complex challenges of all. Because of our emphasis on story-telling we felt the ideal team would be comprised of seasoned animators from the game industry and veteran animators from the film industry. But even that posed one heck of a challenge!
REMBRANDT OR RODIN?
Think of the difference between an animator who has primarily worked in the film industry and one who has worked in the game industry this way-one is a painter and the other is a sculptor. Just like a painter, "traditional" and CG film animators have their work seen as a 2D image on a screen. Whether the screen is as big as your fancy new flat-screen monitor or a 90-foot theater screen the image is like a painting on a canvas. But the work of game animators can be seen from the player's point of view, which can often be from any angle.
Whether the animation is your buddy tagging alongside you out on the battlefield or the Gunny Sergeant ordering you to get your butt up that hill, in a game the player usually has the ability to see that performance from all angles. Traditionally animators try to have their characters strike strong poses, called a "silhouette," that in one simple gesture telegraphs the mood and personality of the character to the viewer. But when the viewer could be anywhere around that character, the challenge of creating a strong silhouette can be downright maddening at times.
Film animators are accustomed to "cheating" the poses of characters so that they look good from the one angle from which they will be seen. But to successfully create a silhouette that works in 3D game space animators must take the time to look at their poses and performance from all angles and make tiny or sweeping adjustments until the action plays with impact from each angle.
GAME vs FILM
One of my chief concerns when I first arrived at EA was that there might be some resistance to us "film guys" coming on board. The animators who were already here had taken the titles they had worked on to impressive heights and knew the system and techniques required to create functioning -- and fun -- animation for those titles. And yet here were these new animators who had no earthly clue about creating animation for a game.
The tension I feared never materialized. Instead, there was a wonderful melding of the minds. The game animators taught the film animators the technical requirements required to get their animations into the game and the film animators have helped to raise the quality of everyone's animation by demonstrating performance techniques that game animators knew but never had much chance to put into practice.
This melding of minds will be seen in full force in Medal of Honor Pacific Assault. The bar is on the rise.
IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS THAT COUNT
The final and arguably the most important challenge facing the animators (engineer Jason Gregory and animation development director Joseph McGuffin have already discussed in previous articles the challenges of integrating the animation into the game) is simply getting it right. By "it" I mean the history, the behaviors, the traditions, and the honor of the men and women who fought and who died for their country.
While creating our new AI set we had animated marines wielding pistols like Don Johnson on the show Miami Vice. They had both hands on the gun, were the very model of "stealthy," and looked downright cool. One of our military advisors took one look at our work and just about had a heart attack. "Think John Wayne," we were told, because back in World War II pistols were held in one hand only. So we reanimated well over 100 pistol assets. Why? Because we care. We want to get it right. And for me the most important aspect to get right was the Japanese soldiers' behavior.
One of the things that made fighting in the Pacific so different from fighting in Europe was that, unlike the Germans and the Italians, the Japanese did not act, move, think or fight like the Allies. Our challenge here was to understand and create an entire set of Japanese-specific animations. Of particular interest to us were the Japanese Banzai and melee attacks, which if you are unlucky enough to be on the receiving end will drain your health in an instant.
When Japanese soldiers ran from foxhole to foxhole or across an open field they ran somewhat flat-footed with stiff upper backs and carried their rifles in one hand at their sides. We call it the "Run with Purpose." When the Japanese crawled or took cover (according to many historians) they were not allowed to let their Arisaka rifles touch the ground because it was a gift from the Emperor. Indeed, each weapon bore the mark of the Emperor -- the Chrysanthemum. Because of this restriction the soldier had to crawl in an uncomfortable sideways posture, resting the butt of his rifle on one of his feet, and the result was that his head was raised just enough to make him more of an easy target. I'm sure in the heat of the battle more than one Japanese soldier thought, "Hey, the Emperor is not here" and let the weapon touch the ground. But we tried to stay true to their training -- and also to their sense of honor.
It took the Allies quite some time to figure out just what the heck this enemy was up to. I felt that if the player could see just the silhouette of the enemy running across the distant ridge and he or she would know at a glance that it was the enemy then we had done our jobs correctly.
GAME OVER
As we wrap up well over a year of animation work on Medal of Honor Pacific Assault, we feel confident that we have met the many challenges that recreating this unique period in the history of the world presented.
Of course, as you accept the challenge to enter this world, we realize that the final judge on whether or not we succeeded will be you, the player.
Are you up to the challenge?
- Christopher Oakley
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Past Insiders:
06.02.04
Making Linear Shooters Replayable -
by Dave Nash - Lead Designer
06.07.04
Multiplayer Design Overview -
by Ed Moore - Multiplayer Design Lead
06.16.04
Research and Game Design - The Making of Pearl Harbor -
by Kevin Mack - Game Designer
06.23.04
Making Weapons for Medal of Honor Pacific Assault -
by Jim Dargie - Lead CG Artist
06.30.04
Visual Effects in the Gaming Industry -
by Paul William Jury - Lead Visual Effects Artist
07.09.04
The Tech Behind Medal Of Honor Pacific Assault's Water -
by Luis Sempe - Software Engineer
07.26.04
Medal Of Honor Pacific Assault Character Art -
by Peter S. Choe - Lead Character Artist
07.28.04
Animation for AI Characters Part I: Nuts and Bolts -
by Jason Gregory - Software Engineer
08.05.04
Managing the Animation Process for MOHPA
Part II: You Want What? When? -
by Joseph McGuffin - Animation Development Director
08.11.04
How Animators Breathed Life Into the World of Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault -
by Christopher Oakley - Lead Animator
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11.02.04
Video Update
Check out the latest video for Medal of Honor Pacific Assault featuring explosive multiplayer action.
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11.01.04
Pacific Assault Multiplayer Guide Available
Take an in-depth look at Medal of Honor Pacific Assault with this Multiplayer Guide discussing gameplay tips and performance.
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11.01.04
Developer Diary Update
Game Designer Benson Russell gives a follow up to "The Carrot" in his final Developer Diary.
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10.29.04
Pacific Assault Multiplayer Demo - Now Available
The multiplayer demo for Medal of Honor Pacific Assault is now available. Get it Now!
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