"Do you want me to do it like a tactic? Do you want me to do it like a countryman? Do you want me to come in like an amateur?"
Noshir Dalal stood in a motion capture studio playing video games and was asked to break into a room. But he needs more background information. He is a trained professional, will he pile up and inspect corners? Or is he the guy who hits buildings while spraying guns?
Mocap professionals are not only people who know how to move, but people who know how to move purposefully. It is someone who studies how others move and can imitate these movements. Someone who understands how the Mocap process translates into in-game animation, and how technical limitations fit into the process.
Dalal is one of the most outstanding people in the industry. Although he is also known for VO (Sekiro) and complete acting skills (Charles Smith, Red Dead Redemption 2), if you want someone who can take a gun, he Also the person you are looking for. When I spoke to him, he was doing seven games. "If Sony needs a gunman, it's usually me, it's a good time," he said. He was trained in Shotokan Karate, Isshin-ryu Karate, Luohan Kung Fu, Shaolin Kung Fu, and "Capoeira Mess" And he may also shake your head.
As a person working on a variety of video game performances, including sound at work, pat and full performance capture, he has bird's eye views of the entire industry and all different disciplines. But there is a problem with video games: improper actors are not properly recognized.
In the movie, in addition to the stunt performers, the actors also perform a complete performance. This is the same deal as games such as "Red Dead Redemption 2" and "The Last of Us", in which the actors play scenes as if they were drama. However, this is not always the case in games. Sometimes the person who speaks is not their body.
Tom Keegan, performance director of German Headquarters: The New Order, recalled his collaboration with BJ Blazkowicz: "The final scene in the game is when he finally kills the bad guy and dies his skull. At that moment. He just said goodbye to his loved ones in a scene, and then he boarded the elevator and loaded the guns-just like the way he loaded the guns, the specific movements were the same. He was very familiar with guns-determination, strength, Control and anger. It's great. I'm very grateful that we have him. He is an actor who can do this in a realistic way. "
Initially, the creative director of the game was thinking about playing another role, but they never reached an agreement. At that time Keegan started pushing Bloom, who planned to play a smaller role in MachineGames FPS. In the end, I can't imagine anyone else like Brazkovic, much of which depends on his physical condition. Now imagine if Bloom was just doing action, rather than capturing the body and sound completely. Will he get the same honor?
"Unfortunately, for now, the way it works is, at least in my experience, that the main character's motion capture actor ends up being listed in a trap, and most of the names are not distinguished or delineated," Dalal explained. "It's too bad, and I hope that will change in the future. When you adopt some of these iconic characters, especially in video games, what do they say?" Ninety percent of the communication is body language, or body Language? "This is an important part of storytelling.
"For example, if I were to perform actions and movements for a character while the actor was making a sound, they would also capture his face for that. When I was there, I would provide the full performance. What I said It's lines, even if I have to say to myself, it depends on whether they are recording audio or something else. I'm going through every emotion that character has. Because if I don't, my body will betray me. Not there. "
Mocap professionals often have technical knowledge that traditional actors may not play a role. When Dalal did motion capture for Marvel's Spider-Man, he knew he needed to exaggerate Rhino's movements, otherwise his arms would pinch his body. Rhino is a clumsy character, and Dalal's task is to find a way to make him move convincingly without making it look ridiculous, while still retaining his powerful and sinister gait. He must also ensure that the thighs of heavy characters do not rub together.
"The horn he owns, I think of it as a rattlesnake missile, so he moves almost like a shark weighing 2,000 pounds towards you, or like a rattlesnake missile meandering towards you, which allows him to take the weight Legs side by side, keeping the legs tight, while still looking scary, "Dalal recalled. "Finding moments like this can produce an unintuitive movement, such as just above your head, which makes the character look powerful."
This insight makes motion capture experts an important part of modern game development and a key element of the character.
Dalal explained: "Usually you will have a performance director and you will have a technical director." "It is often the case for technical directors, 'We can't do it. And you can't actually move that way. That's the limitation , That's the limit. '
"I think it can be a frustrating experience for some actors. It may be that when you are doing your best, you find that you have taken too many steps to the left and cut off the closet door, which means If the player decides to enter the closet, you will lock me now. It feels ridiculous at the moment. But the technical director's job is very hard, and (depending on the actors) needs their needs, needs, no need And have a better understanding of how much it will cost.
"If your character has hair and you do something wrong, it costs money. Soft fabrics or materials such as paper-if I interact with it, it costs money. In many shows, they don't Money to make these little things. So, it takes time to understand what can be told and what can't be told, the props that can interact with it, and the props that should really leave as scenery. But I think that understanding these things can make You become a better storyteller in that media. "
You often hear the actors in the movie improvise live, working with screenwriters and directors to get the best performance. In games, this collaborative process results in a larger network. This is also what Roger Clark (Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2) has experienced during the five years of Rockstar's western production work.
"I think the biggest learning curve is not only working alongside the director every day, but also alongside the animator," Clark explained. "I learned that, like the director, their portrayal of my work is also indispensable. They understand the technical requirements required, especially when transitioning from cutscenes to games. They know what poses I need to play, So that they can seamlessly blend these two things together and make it look good and tight for the player.
"In the beginning, I found it difficult to try to understand this, but over time I learned and worked a lot, so I started to better understand their needs and vice versa; they understood my needs and were building Trust. I was very worried from the beginning, "I'm doing all this work, and I know this animator might change it in six months from now, or even two years from now, because they may not understand why I am Do that ".
Once, Clark was asked to drink water from a moonlight pot. Prior to that, he had been studying this era and delving deeper into his character during the preparation process, and he found that the country guy had a special way to drink from these huge containers. They wrapped their thumbs in a rope, put them in the holes, put the jug against their thumbs, and let them drink with one hand. For whatever reason, perhaps for technical reasons, this special scene was replaced with drinking water from the kettle with both hands.
Even Dalal, who has more experience with Mocap, sometimes encounters things he might not have considered. "You've been seeing similar things, for example, the way weapons are stored in reality makes no sense. Did you know, the axe? I won't hang it, so it can hang the blade down, now it can Scissors cut back and forth there and could cut my knee. And sometimes I try to change it secretly, and they think, "No, no, no, that has to be the opposite. "
"The reason they do this is because if I put away the axe the right way, it would be more complicated to put the axe back in place and draw the animation, right? I have to think barely," Well, this It ’s the magic of the devil. ”Sometimes it ’s the case, you wo n’t win all these battles, but from time to time, if the beat of the story is worth the moment, I think sometimes they are willing to put in extra effort to do that. When this happens It was cool. "
From the beginning, people may not realize many problems when considering mobile work. For example, if there are two actors performing a scene and one of them is Halo's host chief (a character over 7 feet tall), the opposite actor must look up at the sub-actor, and the host lead actor must stare at his own abdomen Press the button during a call. In an open world game, if you see two people arguing in the window of an apartment, it is likely that a full-motion scene is played in the motion capture volume, with two actors improvising and action.
Just recently, Dalal was brought into a project to perform weapon reloading for hero characters. Dalal told me: "I think we ended up using more than a dozen weapons for six days to reload." "And I mean, you can think of all kinds of firearms. And, I have to start with what you can imagine. Operate in all positions-completely flat on your stomach, back, squat down this side of the wall, stand this side of the wall, stand, you know. Restless. And they are friendly and brought me advice Help because they know I'm bringing something and I'm helping make the character look proficient.
Capturing fast but still seemingly desperate reloads is very difficult. I have to distinguish between a tactically very capable character and another character that looks more like a local production. I mean, these things are tiring. In one hour, my reloads exceeded the number of reloads in that range throughout the day. My fingers are bleeding every day. By the time I finished, I had been torn to pieces.
"In rare cases, you'll get someone who doesn't really think about the physical activity you are engaged in, so they will do the same brutal physical movements 19, 20, 47 times while determining what they want . That's really hard. And they almost never intended to break us-they just didn't consider what they asked of us. Usually, motion capture supervisors are good at speaking for performers, but this can be a difficult road. "
If you've watched Scorsese's latest gangster movie, The Irish, on Netflix, you may have noticed what kind of imbalance it can cause when a character moves abnormally. CGI may reduce the age of actors, but no matter how good their core performance is, they still behave like older men in certain scenes and stand out. That's why these experts are introduced in video games. Why can't these actors-because that's acting-acting-be praised in their voices for their role, rather than being drawn to technical roles?
Dalal acknowledged: "Of course, in terms of obstacles in the motorcycle industry, I certainly want to see credit given in due credit." "I think that's great. For example, the actor who played Peter Parker for Marvel's Spider-Man Yuri Lowenthal is very keen to yell at Ross and Seth (the two main characters who do the work of Spider-Man in a suit). And you don't always see this, you know It ’s not uncommon for actors to get credit in places where maybe they should n’t be owed. And I think that people like Yuri are helping ordinary people understand that there is still much to do. That is Yuri ’s identity , But this is not the norm, he is an amazing example. "
Yuri Lowenthal told me in an email: "I do think this part of the industry is confusing to others." "I don't really know how to fix it, but I'm still often told, & # 39; yes, but you Only made the voice of Spider-Man, those who do n’t know me are also the characters in the movie. I mean, I obviously have an excellent stunt doubles team, especially Ross Kohnstam and Seth Austin, they owe at least half of their performance, because they did put the spider on the man. I am too old to move around … and then the animator according to us Give them the information to get everything done. Can we give them a third of credit? "
Everyone I spoke to in the past few months has shared this perspective, and all of them agree that tapping is an important part of the show. All we need is for game studios to recognize this as well, by appropriately highlighting the work these actors do and crediting them with sound and performance capture talent.
"I think the credit problem comes from many people, rather than thinking about using Mocap's" performance, "because most game motion capture is the process of recording thousands of individual actions for each character to cover each action that the character is about to take, Mocap expert and martial arts player Marta Svetek explained. "This is also called a sports shooting or a trap in a game. Compared to a full movie performance shooting scene, these actions take a few seconds, so watching an actor's work doesn't necessarily read like a traditional performance. But it's just a performance . The way a character stands, turns, walks, or moves in general is an important part of our experience with characters. If you think about it, we spend more time watching animations in games than any other part of the animation work on characters. "
Dalal said: "It's great to see that when an actor is specifically recognized as a character, the action guys are recorded below." "Because it's a collaborative process. Frankly, the actors we work with are very talented. , But many of them ca n’t do it, especially the violence we had there. We are talking about video games. They are not games about peace negotiations.
"Those battles tell their own story, that sport tells their own story. For example, when watching" Spider-Man, "he was hit hard and was thrown across the room and showed his physical pain. And how he Get up, but he still gets up? That ’s a story, no sound at all. But I immediately learned that it is a hero. The hero is not an indomitable, nothing, always looks like a bad guy. The hero is kicking butt but still People who have found a way to stand. There are a lot of storytelling and no words, and those promoters do this, I hope they can get more props. "
