Assassin's Creed Unity

 

PROJECT PROCESS:


I started this project with the base cinematic setup already done. Placeholder characters and props were already setup in the world at the scene location. With that said, my starting point on this project allowed for a different kind of experience then what I had during the development of Splinter Cell. For this reason, I was trained in a whole new set of crucial skills.

I took a week at the start of the project to familiarize myself with the new tools and pipeline we would be using. Once I was up to speed I began setting up placeholder scenes for my two cinematics (I later inherited a third cinematic). Right from the start, this project allowed me to have more freedom as it was entirely pre-rendered. I will talk about these freedoms a bit later. Once the scenes had placeholder cameras and could function in game I then coordinated with my level designers in Montreal to integrate them with their game flow.

Once the cut-scene was functioning in game, things like animations, character updates, prop updates, and sets started to become available to me. I would start assisting the animators in getting the characters and props they needed for each scene. If some of the final assets were not ready, I needed to provide them with placeholders and update them as time went on. They would in turn provide me with their more polished motion capture animations and I would make sure they were working in game frame by frame. I also worked with modelers to create the extra sets we needed for certain scenes. Sets were for spaces not accessible in the game world. Meaning if a character starts on the street and ends up in someones office then a separate instance of that office needed to be created elsewhere for capturing. At first these sets were created underneath the game world, but I later moved them and the scene attached to them into a different map entirely. This was to save on memory costs since the cut-scenes were to be pre-rendered anyway.

The animations would improve over time and I continually changed and reorganized the sets to fit the needs of the scene. At this point in the project I would start to see a lot more freedom in my own work. It was my job to start adding extra characters, props, background noise, animations, and VFX to all my scenes. This process was called scene dressing. All of these assets would be created for me but it was my role to add them and script them in such a way to bring life to my scenes. A lot of this work was done through crowd life and animation stations. I would find specific animations I thought worked well with a scene (a man smoking a pipe for instance) and place them where I thought it could benefit from camera angles and improve the framing. I would also be able to assign custom characters to these animations in order to get the proper look. I setup custom AI pathing for other characters to have them patrol or riot through the streets. These were all scripted and timed to create a sense of busyness and motion that goes along with Paris. The same process would apply to VFX. I would place, trigger and modify a lot of the VFX that came my way. Some scenes would require me to create entirely new custom VFX to get the shots looking just right.

I scripted and dressed these scenes for the majority of the project until everything started coming to life. As for other implementations like lighting, SFX and dialog, I had my hand in supporting other teams with these setups. Integrating and timing these three things was my main role but I would also make changes to them upon request or if I noticed any abnormalities. Once all the cut-scenes were in their final state I began the rendering process. This involved myself using high detail render settings to create video files which would be sent off to the video editor. Once the final videos were provided I would then integrate them into my script and begin cleaning up and removing all real-time aspects of the scene that were no longer needed.