One of Europe’s motion-capture studios, Audiomotion, has announced that their work will be featured on Far Cry 3 and Forza Horizon. Audiomotion has lent their motion capture work to multiple movie, video game, and television franchises, including Spec Ops: The Line and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.
Audiomotion’s work on Far Cry 3 sounds to be both complicated and expensive, like most things in gaming, “Audiomotion set up a 70 camera location system from its 162 camera inventory, on a soundstage to record 2 days worth of full performance capture for Far Cry 3’s multiplayer campaign. The narrative driven, in-game cutscene production is integral to the game’s co-op mode. As part of the campaign, an explosive cinematic trailer was also cast and captured by Audiomotion, this time on its impressive 15 x 15 metre stage located in Oxford. Working with a top stunt coordinator and team of world class stunt performers, the team set up a production rig complete with wire work, weapon work and high action combat sequences.”
Forza Horizon is about pretty cars, but there are actual human beings in the game which require motion capture: “The in-game animation featured a number of crowd sequences, background characters and driver moves.” If you ever find yourself wondering why your favorite games are so goshdarned expensive, it is because players want realism in every aspect of the game. Minecraft might not look terribly realistic, but that’s because they didn’t use a motion capture studio. For all the money the industry has, they still haven’t perfected a way to get the squarishness out of the characters they create, and that is where motion capture comes in. Without studios like Audiomotion, we would all be playing games that look like a cubist’s dream.
More about Audiomotion.
