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Splinter Cell: Blacklist

EMPLOYER: Ubisoft Toronto
POSITION: Level Scripter

RESPONSIBILITIES:

  • Scripted real time, in-game events (Cutscenes) for three separate missions of the game.

  • Setup triggering for cinematic lighting, VFX, SFX, and dialog.

Built sequences and event triggers to accommodate exotic gameplay.

  • Modified character and prop animations when required.

  • Collaborated with other departments to complete daily tasks.

PROJECT PROCESS:
The cinematic process for this project was done using real-time cut-scenes. This meant that the process began as soon as the respective level designer had completed a basic white boxing of the area. Once that was complete I started adding the setup for a scene. At first this would include bringing in all characters and props that would be featured. Although the characters and props would often change as the process continued.

While waiting for mo-cap animations, the scenes still needed to function in game for testing and game flow purposes. To make sure the game flow was intact, I would setup the characters in a T-Pose with a basic camera that would act as a scene placeholder until further assets were ready. This made sure that while the level was being built, the player could still trigger a placeholder for the scene as well as skip that scene and continue playing. The placeholder would evolve over time into video captures of the motion capture shoot, raw motion capture animation and finally the animators more polished animation. The setups for each of these steps was built and maintained by myself.

Later into the project things like SFX, VFX, lights, and dialog would start to become available. It was my job to make sure that all of these things were setup and working accordingly in game. Setting up the timing and triggering of SFX and dialog was a regular thing that required constant tweaking depending on script changes and director decisions. VFX would be even more involved since it was my job to coordinate with the VFX artists in order to get the look and feel we needed for specific shots in a cinematic. This would often require myself to go in and create a custom effect based off the original if the cinematic required something a bit different. These effects were then added to the scene, placed, rigged, and triggered by myself. This would include things like explosions, bullet trails, muzzle flares, blood splatters and textures, rain, dust, and technology (scanners, projections, etc).

Lighting was finalized later in the project. After a lighting artist had finished their setup for a scene, their work would be handed to myself so that I could set up the triggering of every light specific to each camera shot in a cinematic. This process allowed us to achieve a very cinematic feeling throughout. Unfortunately cinematic lighting in real-time can take quite a toll on game performance. Another step to the lighting process was added later in order to resolve this. This required going frame by frame through each cut-scene in order to determine which shots had the lowest frames per second. I would then take data from those shots and input it into a separate program that listed which lights were on screen at that exact time. It would be possible to have one continuous shot with 10 lights active, but that doesn't mean they are all on screen at the same time. Step by step I would further tweak which lights were active on individual frames thus further improving performance.

Lastly, further scene optimizations are added as well as other cinematic effects such as support character video cut ins. Transitions from gameplay to cinematic and vice versa were also refined by myself and the respective level designer. Things like "black boxing" characters were added to enhance the performance further. This was actually an extra step I took upon myself because I was assigned the longest and heaviest scene in the game. This process involved me going through every shot and key framing unused characters into a volume beneath the level map. This volume would then temporarily unload the characters from memory until I needed to key frame them back into another shot.

 

WHAT I LEARNED:


Splinter Cell is the first AAA title I worked on, and with that experience comes a great wealth of knowledge. I think the most important piece of knowledge I came away with was the understanding of a production pipeline. Learning the specifics of each team and how they contribute to the overall project did not only help my own work flow and pipeline but provide me with the knowledge I will need in order to obtain a leadership role within a studio.

This project helped me understand just how important working with a team is. I learned that my team and myself are there to not only complete our assigned tasks, but support each other to the best of our abilities throughout the project. This ensures that all deadlines are met no matter who has the biggest workload. I also found that building a strong relationship with your team members is crucial to creating something you are all satisfied with.

Throughout the project I became better and better at communicating goals, achievements, tasks, and issues with team members, bosses, directors, and producers. This skill was absolutely critical in staying on top of my work and making sure that I had the right support when needed. Not only that, but keeping track of all the information passed to the team and myself, responding appropriately and relaying that information on a constant basis might have been the most important part of my job.

Other obtained skills can be seen below.

1. Level and cinematic scripting knowledge (loops, logic flow, organization, problem solving)
2. Animation tools (Motion Builder, manipulating rigs, parent / child setups, animation optimizations)
3. Furthered cinematic knowledge (cameras, lighting, sound)
4. Improved time management
5. Edit and render production quality videos 

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