January 14, 2010

Catching A Blur

Hi everybody! I'm Ben Ward from Bizarre Creations, here to tell you about our latest powered-up racing game: Blur!

As you know, Blur is a radical departure from the style of racing game Bizarre Creations has worked on before. As a studio we're best known for slower-paced, more simulation-style racing games. Blur, on the other hand, is all about high-speed, balls-to-the-wall, super-intense racing action!

I've written previous blog posts on how the team have risen to this new challenge in terms of technology (rendering 20 cars on track simultaneously is no easy feat!), design (keeping the game fun and fair, whilst always exciting), and licensing (how do you convince car manufacturers to let us wreck their cars?). One area which often gets overlooked, however, is that of presentation. Taking screenshots and creating movie trailers is not an easy task, and we've had to revisit our techniques for this important process.

For our previous titles, a lot of visual emphasis was placed on the cars. If it wasn't the cars, then it was the environments. When you're trying to replicate realism as closely as possible, it pays dividends to try to recreate this realism in your screenshots.

To accomplish this, our camera coder has provided several tools for our screenshot team to make use of. Many of these tools replicate how a real-life camera works, so that the end result will be similar to real-life. For example, aperture length and focal point (the same as you might find on a modern SLR camera) can be adjusted manually using our in-house tools to discover the perfect shot.

This let's our artists focus on a particular angle, so that dramatic scenes can be achieved. They can also mess with the level of motion blur (something that a real-life photographer can't really change without a whole bunch of trickery) in order to give a greater (or lesser) impression of speed. You can experience it hands on with our in-game photo mode. This feature allows you to capture your very own screenshots, however crazy and from whatever angle you like!

Of course, these tools were created over a number of years to meet a number of different requirements. However, the general aim was always the same: to reproduce realism.

When we moved to the action-packed, fast-paced world of Blur we found that realism wasn't the key ingredient any more. Blur is much more about the pursuit of fun and intense racing, rather than making sure every single nut and bolt is modelled correctly to real-life.

This left us with some new aims to achieve with our screenshots. Whereas before we might have simply parked up a supercar in a well-lit area of track and snapped away, now we need to show multiple cars racing against each other in a highly energetic race. One of the biggest challenges we face is finding the correct balance of car and environment _ shots and taking shots that capture the fun and intensity of Blur. Given that there's only usually one artist taking screenshots at a time, this means that he either needs to race against the AI and hover one finger over the "take screenshot" button, or play back a previously captured replay.

The latter approach is normally the better one - it works especially well for movie capture also. The artist will race normally against a whole bunch of AI opponents, but he'll have set the game up to record every movement he makes. Not only his movements, but also that of his opponents, dynamic objects in the level (crates, cones, etc.), power-ups, and everything really.

Once he's captured the perfect replay, the artist will play the game back. Using special debug controls, he'll detach the camera from behind the car, and zoom around the environment using his controller. The cars will move themselves (as it's a replay), leaving the artist free to worry about just the camera itself. This method let's him line up the perfect screenshot, just as if he were actually running around the game world looking through the viewfinder of a physical camera.

Our programming team at Bizarre have once again provided some very helpful Blur-specific tools to aid the presentation team when they are capturing. Not only does the replay tool need to work flawlessly and deterministically for every single object in the world (this isn't normally a requirement), but several other debug functions are required. For example, being able to pause/unpause the game at any moment is vital, as is the ability to step-through frames one at a time. Oh, and stepping backwards too. When you're capturing a game like Blur, in which the visual landscape changes so frequently, it's easy to miss the perfect shot as everything flies past. Stepping backward one frame at a time is vital.

The programming team have also provided several different camera tools, including fly cam, orbit cam, fixed cam, waypoint cam, and chase cam. This let's the presentation team do all sorts of cool stuff, including slow pans around cars, and also pre-programming the camera to follow a set of waypoints. Next time you watch any of the Blur trailers, you'll witness the kind of camera trickery that's necessary to pull off the kind of shots we need.

Once the final batch of screenshots/movie is put together, they start going through an internal vetting process at Bizarre. Our senior artists look through the shots, and ensure that every single pixel of every image is as good as it can be. If the shot isn't good enough, then it's ditched. This is a VERY strict filter.

When the Bizarre team have filtered the shots, we send them to our friends at Activision - the Brand and PR departments. They have their own requirements which need to be filled (Does the game look exciting enough? Are we showing enough power-ups?), and they'll cut some screenshots as appropriate. We take a variety of shots to specification and also extra shots to artistic talent. PR and Marketing provide a specification for what they need and we take a cool creative angle to provide more shots still. Sometimes our artistic shots are not approved but they don’t go to waste! They usually get put to some good use, whether its box art, advertising or simply something nice to brighten up the studio!

THEN the screenshots get sent to the relevant car manufacturers for their approval. You'll typically see some of the stricter manufacturers cut shots which show their cars in an inappropriate light. Some don't like flapping doors. Some don't like cracked windows. Some don't like their cars in the air, upside down, on fire. Can't please everyone!

Eventually the initial batch of screenshots is cut down to the final group for release. From a raw batch of 300 screens, we might get 10-20 in the final group. Then the shots are given to the PR department so that they can be released through the correct channels (Are they for a magazine? A website? Direct release from ATVI?).

After many weeks of work, eventually the screenshots will make their way directly into your eyes. Hopefully you'll like them. :-)