#like mocap or music or both

[not-your-bro]

things i didn't like about the until dawn remake prologue (in no particular order)

the note change

the original note to hannah is overtly sexual - "you look so damn hot in that shirt, but i bet you're even hotter out of it." the new one is a substantial tone change - "it's been fun hanging out with you... no one gets me like you do. come find me later." the vibe is shifting from "i want to hook up with you" to "i might want to confess my feelings to you," and hannah basically says as much in her new diary entry: "is it too much to hope that he'll confess his feelings about me?" but the prologue does NOT change hannah taking her shirt off asap, which now feels ridiculous. there's no reason for her to do that when the note is so low-key. we're feeding the "hannah reacts too strongly" people and i'm not into it.

the prank setup montage

my initial guess with the note change was that they wanted to make the prank seem more like a bad, insensitive joke that escalates too quickly, rather than a group of people intending to film someone taking their clothes off (which is absolutely the vibe of the original). but if that was the intent, it's completely undercut by this prolonged prank setup. it literally has the energy of people prepping for a cool heist or something. pop song bopping in the background, dramatic shots as everyone gets into position. they're all relishing in it, particularly emily, whose mocap actor gives her some evil fucking gestures and expressions. all of this totally contrasts the new note and makes everyone look seriously diabolical.

sam's passivity

while i definitely joked about how sam couldn't seem to find hannah in the original, man, at least she tried! she voiced her concern and then immediately acted on it - a very sam move, imo. in the remake, the extra padding sees her sitting in silence for too long. and even after everyone leaves her on her own, she STILL just sits there and gives this irritated eye-roll - like she's annoyed with them, but not particularly concerned for hannah. and then her searching for hannah is cut. like. homegirl does not care, apparently! imo these changes are so out of character for sam, and i can't figure why they did this. is it to ""answer"" the question of why josh targets sam - by making her more culpable now? idk, but none of it works for me.

beth's dialogue makes less sense

in the original, she glimpsed flamethrower guy, made her "did you see that?" comment, then said "josh?", THEN we see that josh is passed out.

now the order of dialogue is nonsensical. she doesn't even see flamethrower guy, first of all - we the audience get a glimpse of him while she's taking out the trash, and there's a fake-out where you think she saw him, too. but what she actually sees is a deer. so she notices nothing amiss, goes inside, sees josh passed out, and moves him to the couch. then, later, she can go to the window, see NOTHING but snow falling off a branch...and say her usual, "did you see that? i thought dad said it'd just be us this weekend." HUH? GIRL? IT WAS NOTHING? and then she still goes "josh??" as though she didn't just haul his ass to the couch without him waking up. like, he is CONKED out and you know this. why are you saying his name like you're surprised he isn't answering you?

i don't mean to nitpick, but to demonstrate that they should've been more careful about how they changed the prologue, given they couldn't change the dialogue. and speaking of that...

the pacing

i understand that they couldn't add new dialogue because of logistical or budgetary reasons or both, but extending the prologue without being able to add dialogue leads to long stretches where the characters are noticeably not talking. it's awkward to watch, despite the music trying to cover for it, and it makes the pacing really uneven.

-

in general, i appreciate the desire to add a little extra for the existing fanbase, but if ballistic moon had their hands tied and couldn't do it properly, i kind of wish they hadn't done it at all, especially because i think they're doing more harm than good here. i love hannah and beth and it's nice to just see them for a bit longer, but it comes at a cost, and at the end of the day i much prefer the original prologue.

[ranticore]

if you had to choose between one or the other, which stbh characters would prefer cats (original stage production) and which would prefer cats (cgi movie adaptation)

Having seen both productions multiple times I'm uniquely suited to answering this question

Ok straight up, the easy ones:

Félix prefers the stage play because he loves the theatre full stop and also as a big fan of musicals, the stronger vocals in the stage play would appeal to him. Favourite song: Moonlight (he finds it relatable). Favourite cat: Mister Mistoffelees (projects onto him hard as an aspirational figure, a hot cat man is clearly into him and gassing him up etc)

Bowman: it all depends on which Rum Tum Tugger he thinks is hottest and I think Jason Derulo might win that one, and I don't Bowman has much appreciation for art in the first place so the flaws will go over his head. Prefers the movie. Favourite song: Rum Tum Tugger obviously.

Islin: it's all equally horrible to him but I think the stronger vocals of Stage Old Deuteronomy would win him over to it. The theme of blood sacrifice is relatable and he thinks he would probably want to go to the heavyside lair. Favourite song: Cats (the first song), because everything after that is just another torment to suffer through. Favourite cat: Mister Mistoffelees (thinks he's kinda cute and magic is a sin so that makes him a sort of psychosexual forbidden fruit)

Jean: prefers the movie. He thinks it's hideous but he's the type of person who's fascinated with the cutting edge cat mocap cgi. He'd watch a behind the scenes documentary about the film's technological aspects. Favourite song: Skimbleshanks, ditto for favourite cat. He likes trains.

Erica: obsessed with the movie but like ironically you guys seriously it's just so bad it's good you gotta watch this and laugh with him it's hideous!! The type of person truly pushing the boundaries of irony because if they truly thought it sucked they wouldn't be singing along. Also a Skimbleshanks fan

Léa: sorry it's the movie again, she can't stand the goofy make-up and costumes from the stage play and she believes that the cgi cats are a step up actually. Favourite song: Beautiful Ghosts. Favourite cat: Taylor Swift

Senca: the play. She appreciates the way it explains absolutely nothing and finds that the movie telegraphs its plot just a bit too much to hold her interest, and adds too much unnecessary context. She likes telling people after they all wall out of the theatre that she understood it all and nobody else picked up on the deeper themes. Favourite cat: Jemima (her staunch defence of Grizabella is heartwarming). Favourite song: didn't like any

Cain: kills himself. Favourite cat: Munkustrap

[ask-a-w]

Watched Nick Apostolides play Separate Ways and wrote down stuff that caught my attention.

Guests on the stream: Craig (Wesker’s VA) & Andre (Luis’ VA). Andre joins for a short while mid-way through the stream.

- Nick was there when he watched Andre film the cutscene of Luis doing the flamenco. Apparently Andre nailed it in one take.

- Nick says Andre spent months researching the Spanish culture. (Andre talks a little bit more about it later.)

- Craig went to Vancouver three times in 2022 to film RE4R & SW. The main game & DLC were shot together. He couldn’t say he went to Vancouver more than once or else he would give away that there were extra content like SW & Mercenaries.

- Nick was not aware how Ada got infected.

- Craig played RE5 co-op years ago and is trying to play it solo but acknowledged it’s not that fun to play solo.

- Craig’s download for SW took 7 minutes and he was very amused by that.

- Craig can only talk about games that have come out so don’t ask him if there’s gonna be a remake for CV or RE5.

- Craig was not aware who or what he was auditioning for and only knew he was playing Wesker when he was flown to the studio. He asked them if he should play Wesker like previous incarnations or like what he did in his audition. They told him to play Wesker like his audition.

- Craig said when he filmed for RE: Outbreak 20 years ago, the actors only saw stick figures on the screen but now, as you stand in front of the mocap cameras, you can see your entire character model on the screen rightaway and he’s quite impressed how far technology has advanced.

- Craig said he did mocap for Outbreak for 6 months. He did not book a part in Outbreak initially but Alyson Court (Claire’s original VA) actually brought him to work on the game.

- Craig filmed all his scenes together with Lily and only saw Nick 3 times during filming since Wesker & Leon don’t have any scenes together.

- Craig has been a fan of RE for a long time. He played RE1 with his acting classmates and they were happy for him when he booked a part in Outbreak.

- Craig says he has never gotten a copy of any game he has worked on as the people he works with don’t work in game distribution. He only managed to get a copy of the RE4R deluxe edition thanks to an ex-girlfriend who works in game distribution.

- Craig & Nick know both Wesker & Leon are very beloved characters in the franchise and have given it their all for their portrayals.

- Both of them squeed when Wesker says “complete local saturation” and Craig has been waiting for a whole year wondering how fans would react to that line.

- Nick had no idea what would happen in SW since he didn’t get the script for it.

- Craig also had no idea Wesker would be in Mercenaries but put two and two together when he recorded lines for Merc.

- Scenes are filmed out of order. Craig didn’t know if he was filming for the main game or SW. He had to wait till the main game came out to see what scenes were shown in RE4R. Nick also has no idea if he filmed anything for SW.

- While the VAs have their own general idea on how to play their character as they walk into the studio, how they express their lines are based on a combination of what’s requested by Capcom’s Japanese team, how the translator translates Capcom’s requests, and Steve Kniebihly’s (cinematics director) direction.

- Someone asked Craig if he thought when Wesker was a child, would he shine a magnifying glass on ants. Craig said probably yeah and maybe pulling the wings of flies too. (Side note: The Ashford twins did that in Code Veronica)

- Craig was a musician first before he got into acting. In high school, everyone was into music and he made some music with his friends. His then-girlfriend asked him to audition in a school musical and he loved the acting expect of it. He then auditioned in plays before he went to acting school for college.

- Craig applied to both music & acting programmes for college. He always wanted to be a performer.

- Andre joins halfway through the stream. He enjoyed filming the opening flamenco scene even though it took a while to get the steps right. He doesn’t think he can do the dance any more since it’s been a while.

- Andre mimed the reaction to being pulled by a rope in chapter 1. He didn’t have confidence to pull it off and the team also agreed. He doesn’t have stunt training anyway.

- Craig on the other hand, recounted when he was filming being grabbed by a monster for RE Outbreak. He had a rope on his head while filming for that and he didn’t get stunt pay. But things were different years ago.

- Andre said the team took safety really seriously and even for simple things like pretending to fall over, Steve Kniebihly would tell the VAs not to do it and let the stunt team do it instead.

- When Craig auditioned for Wesker, the description was “Villain in a video game”. That was it. All the audition scripts were fake so actors who don’t book the part won’t leak that the game is being made.

- Andre lived & breathed Castellan Spanish culture for months while he filmed RE4R and it drove his family a little crazy. He even spoke with a Castellan Spanish accent for a while too. His family is of Mexican descent and Mexican Spanish pronunciation is different from European/Castellan Spanish.

- Nick was friends with Paul Haddad (OG RE2 Leon VA) before he passed away. He also took some voice lessons from Paul Mercier (OG RE4 Leon VA).

- Craig has not spoken to any previous Wesker VAs. He is long time friends with Alyson and she was his director on one project he worked in before. He has met OG Brad Vicker’s VA before.

- Andre has only met Neil Newbon (RE8 Heisenberg & RE3R Nikolai) in person.

- Craig enjoys playing bad guys since it’s fun to do something he can’t do in real life.

- Nick had to lower his voice for RE4R Leon since Leon in 2004 is a bit “sick of the same shit happening repeatedly” instead of being a newbie cop surprised at everything.

- Craig’s favourite scene to film was the Wesker & Ada confrontation at the beginning of the Island. He had to do the Wesker smirk at the end a few times as the team had to ensure it looked right on the Wesker model.

- Craig has a Guinness World Record for playing in the longest concert which lasted for 19 days, around 437 hours. He was in the planning committee for it and he played 5 times during the concert. To qualify for the record, there were a lot of rules. For example: at least 10 people in the audience had to be awake at all times, each song had to last at least 2 mins, and there can only be a maximum 30 seconds pause between each song.

- Nick got electrocuted in science class when he touched a capacitor with his bare hands. He mentioned that it really freaking hurt and it was almost impossible to let go. He had to force himself to open his hands.

- During the recording of the injury effort sounds for when Leon got electrocuted, Nick clenched his fists and shook them while grunting through gritted teeth.

- For Wesker’s injury effort sounds during Mercenaries mode, the team had to tell Craig to dial back as Wesker responds to injuries in a calmer manner.

- Nick had a lot of fun filming the part where Saddler transforms into his final form.

- Nick mocapped the pilot flying Ada’s chopper.

- Nick was completely mind blown by the stinger at the end.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #650

Top Ten Songs by Ex-Beatles

Have you heard of this sweet band called The Beatles? Turns out they were really big a few years ago. They had a bunch of hits and then broke up and then were never heard of again.

I kid, I kid. I do wonder sometimes what it must be like to be a Beatle. If you’re like, Paul McCartney; you must walk around with this knowledge that, on balance, you’ve probably had more direct influence on Western popular culture than anyone else currently alive. Who else is there? George Lucas? In terms of sheer number of people touched (not like that). You can absolutely draw a dividing line in music between “before the Beatles” and “after the Beatles”, and whilst I’m sure that does a huge disservice to all the influences the Beatles had, and similar bands that came both before and after, let’s face it – it’s true. They’re, like, the band, just like Wolverine is the X-Man (I don’t think George Lucas is the director, to be fair, but Star Wars is probably the blockbuster; Spielberg is probably the director, if you’re talking about mass appeal, but he’s “just” a guy who’s top of his game and redefined Hollywood moviemaking fifty years ago, but there are other phenomenally successful and talented directors, just as there are other phenomenally successful and talented musicians and writers and artists and, I dunno, pastry chefs. But right now we’re talking about the Beatles).

Because the Beatles were around as a proper group for a surprisingly short amount of time, and because all four of them were Very Good, they’ve had quite a while to build up a collection of solo hits. And that’s what I’m celebrating this week, for no particular reason: the various post-Beatles Beatles songs. I’m gonna come right out the gate and say, I don’t think – generally speaking – any of their solo efforts eclipsed the best of the group’s output; but still, there are some proper bangers here as I’m sure you’re aware. Soulful ballads, love songs, hymns to peace, arguably the best Bond theme, and some frogs. What more do you want out of a legacy?

Now, I’m calling these “solo” songs, when some of these are technically from post-Beatles bands – specifically I’ve got a couple of Wings songs on the list (“the band the Beatles could have been”, A. Partridge). But let’s be honest, Wings is basically Paul and his mates. As, I suppose, the Beatles was, to be fair; but for the sake of this list, as much as it may unfairly underestimate the contributions of his bandmates, I’m just calling Wings songs “Paul McCartney” songs for the time being.

I said there’s no real reason why this list is happening this week – it’s one of those that I’ve been meaning to get around to for a while – but funnily enough I did see something recently that I’ve never seen before. You may or may not be aware, but about a decade or so ago, Robert Zemeckis was going to remake Yellow Submarine. This was when he was deep in his mocap phase; you remember, when the Oscar-winning writer and director of Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit decided to sack off live action and just make those freakishly uncanny mannequin movies like The Polar Express. Anyway, he’d assembled a cast and got to work, and then the film was cancelled – probably because these performance capture movies are very expensive to make, generally turned poorly, and more often than not bombed at the box office. As much as I’m not really a fan of the photo-real approach Zemeckis usually went for (like I said, it gives the characters an odd, uncanny look; the same is true, I’d argue, of the human characters in the Shrek movies, which have dated a lot more than, say, the cartoonish Incredibles), I’ve always thought this was a bit of a shame. Zemeckis is a huge Beatles fan, the guys playing the band were really good, and the wackiness of Yellow Submarine meant he might have been able to do some funky shit. And lo and behold, some test footage has emerged. Yes, it’s still a bit weird and uncanny, but it’s also exaggerated and strange; it would have been nice to see if it had held up across an entire film. C’est la vie.

Anyway! Where were we? Oh yeah. A list. Here you go: have at it.

My Sweet Lord (George Harrison, 1970): Harrison wrote a number of songs that are really spiritualistic peans to peace, and this is the greatest. An evocation to the almighty, a striving quest for spiritual understanding, but also something that feels greater, feels allegorical, feels like it’s about more than just God. The Hindi chorus and other eastern influences add flavour and complexity to the sixties-style folk rock, and Harrison’s voice is beautiful. There’s a sadness to it, too, like it’s someone reaching for something they know they can never possess.

Live and Let Die (Paul McCartney, 1973): surely a shoe-in for best Bond song, this is a multifaceted number that I adore for its eccentricities. From the vaguely seventies-folk-rock stylings of the opening, to the almost disco-flavoured instrumental section, to the weird jaunty bits (“When you’ve got a job to do,” sounds like it could be the title song from “Oh James!”, a cheesy sixties sitcom about James Bond), it really runs the gamut. It’s strange, it’s funny, it’s cool, it’s badass. Perfect Bond.

Jealous Guy (John Lennon, 1971): there are, funnily enough, a couple of songs here that seem to express a similar sentiment: a bloke who’s in love with someone and sort of feels he doesn’t deserve them. This is an interesting and complex song, a man apologising for his misdeeds, but presented as an absolute love song. Lennon – arguably the best voice of the band? What do we think? – is on top form here, with a pained, haunted, but ultimately beautiful vocal.

What is Life (George Harrison, 1971): an incredibly upbeat, propulsive love song, and – vaguely similar to Jealous Guy and Maybe I’m Amazed – another one that sees a bloke basically saying he’s nothing without his love. What is life without you by my side? Whether this question is passionate or even metaphysical, the song itself is so beautifully cheery, so optimistic, so jaunty, it makes you feel only good things.

Maybe I’m Amazed (Paul McCartney, 1970): here’s McCartney circling similar topics to his mates; a tender song of a man just flabbergasted that he’s got this woman in his life, attributing all these good things to this one other person. There's a fantastic juxtaposition, too, between the beautiful piano ballad and the throaty, stadium rock register in which McCartney sings; like the love is bursting out in explosive fashion, even in a tender love song.

Band on the Run (Paul McCartney, 1973): this is just so delightfully weird; a bonkers hymn to, well, I don’t really know what. The number of different styles and genres it explores, the multiple types of musicality, the different vocals and instrumentations, all telling a story that frankly defies explanation. There’s a touch of the Seargent Pepper to it, but with the oddness dialled all the way up to nearly Walrus proportions.

Gimme Some Truth (John Lennon, 1971): Lennon is perhaps most famous, post-Beatles, for his songs about peace and love. This, though, is an angry tirade at “short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics”; a howl of fury at The Man and all he has wrought. It’s also got some fantastic wordplay and stunning lyrical work – “son of Tricky Dicky”, the use of “Mother Hubbard” as a euphemism. Plus Harrison making magic on guitar.

Give Me Love (George Harrison, 1973): another one of Harrison’s songs of love, peace, and tranquillity that can either be seen as resolutely spiritual – asking god for love – or just, well, a song about someone he fancies, wanting love with this one person. It's beautiful and optimistic, a quest for eternal happiness, with some great lyrics. He just made you feel happy, by George.

We All Stand Together (Paul McCartney, 1984): I’m being deadly serious. Macca comes in for some stick for some of his, er, weirder songs – Mull of Kintyre also nearly made the list – but outside of me flat-out loving this song as a kid, it’s a very well-constructed harmony and is a masterpiece for its target audience. The dude’s got range is what I’m saying.

It Don’t Come Easy (Ringo Starr, 1971): now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’ve just stuck this sole Ringo song here at the end of the list because I felt bad that the star of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends didn’t write anything as good as his former bandmates. To which I say: what’s that over there?! Seriously, though, whilst I don’t think anyone would try to claim that Mr. Starkey is quite the solo artist his fab friends are, this song is still a nice chunky bop that sounds like something from the Beatles’ heyday and also has an appealing bit of edge to it.

So this list, right; this was incredibly hard. In fact, it’s basically arbitrary; there were at least another five or six songs (Beautiful Boy, Silly Love Songs, All Things Must Pass) that could have been on this list – just as good, really, as the songs I’ve chosen. And the placements of most of the songs could easily be swapped almost entirely. It turns out that the Beatles are very good at music. Who knew? Cilla, probably.

Something else I’m just going to say quickly, is whilst the achievements of the Beatles are phenomenal in and of themselves, I can never get over how George Harrison more or less did the same thing all over again by effectively saving the British film industry in the 1980s. Honestly, the guy wrote While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and got everything from Life of Brian to Withnail and I to Mona Lisa made. Genius.

[scribbleboxfox]

Some thoughts about the use of Unreal assets in the new season of Red vs. Blue.

This wound up being longer than I meant for it to be, so I’m putting it under a cut for courtesy bc I don’t wanna clog up anyone’s dash :’D

It’s just genuinely so funny to me that ppl are upset that they used Unreal assets for RvB:Zero. Like you’re going to call them lazy for using free stock assets in the middle of a pandemic? Okay. So I guess that means I’m lazy for licensing a photo from Adobe Stock for my company to use instead of filling out a request form for a professional camera, waiting for the next budget meeting to make my case about why I need it, learn how to use it, gather props, hire models, book a location for the shoot, gather costumes, learn how to use Lightroom, spend 4-6 hours shooting photos and directing the models, and edit the photos.

I’ve seen the argument that RvB has always stuck close to Halo as a reason for why the Unreal assets are bad. But this isn’t true. The closest RvB’s ever gotten to real Halo lore was with Project Freelancer*, and it barely scratched the surface. Yes they have references to it scattered throughout the show on occasion, but their whole arrangement with Microsoft makes it so that they can’t overlap too much.

Also, we’re really going to get mad about that, and not the really shitty snowmen in Season 12?

Those don’t look like Halo assets to me.

I just think it’s so silly. The argument that they should have only used assets from Halo is ridiculous because there’s plenty of times where they straight up haven’t done that. Like the knights in Season 16. Which were also free assets that they grabbed from somewhere.

3D models take time to make. You have to come up with an idea, make concept art for that idea, review the concept art and pick a direction to go in, sit down and make the 3D model (which can take hours and hours depending on what you’re making,) take down the poly count after creating a normal map so you don’t have a million faces that will slow down your render time, make sure the UV’s are all laid out properly so the model can be textured, pass it off to the people who texture the UV’s or do it yourself, test the textures to make sure the seams aren’t too visible on the model, do render tests to make sure the textures and normals and bump maps all look the way you want them to, and THEN you have to rig it yourself or pass it off to the coworker in charge of that sort of thing, apply constraints and controls, skinweight it, and apply physics (depending on the model.) And once you’re done with all of that, then you can give it to an animator to add it to a scene and animate it. And bear in mind that people have to do this while also keeping up with their meeting schedules, breaks, mealtimes, childcare, pet care, grocery runs, doctor’s appointments, etc.

I’m definitely missing a few steps/mis-naming a few things, but it’s been literally 3 years since I’ve created a full 3D asset from start to finish so...take it with a grain of salt.

The point is that creating one model is a lot of work. Top it off with the fact that we’re in a pandemic, and it gets even more strenuous. Things like ad-hoc design reviews may be harder to do because people might have their notifications for Slack/Teams/Discord/etc. off so they can get work done. And that can mean the difference between getting an asset finished in the middle of the day today, or waiting until early morning tomorrow when the rest of your team is online.

It’s much more cost-efficient to just buy/download pre-made assets. And frankly, in the middle of a pandemic, it’s a lot more ethical too.

I just wish that ppl would step back and ask themselves why they might be using Unreal assets for this season. Companies use stock assets all the time. Rooster Teeth is a company. I worry that people forget that sometimes.

Anyways, that’s just my two cents on it. As someone whose done the whole 3D animation process multiple times (albeit mostly for college,) it’s frustrating that people are making arguments against the use of stock assets without having an understanding of the amount of work that goes into making them yourself.

---

*The use of AI’s and the Huragok in Project Freelancer were two very direct references to canon Halo lore.

** Also worth noting that they DO use canon Halo guns in the first episode. I can’t speak for the other episodes because I haven’t seen them yet as of today (11/9/20) but I personally doubt they’re getting rid of them entirely.

Edit://

I mixed up Unity with Unreal. They’re Unreal Marketplace assets. Thanks @banditsheath​ for pointing that out.

[sushiisiu]

Hello~ 🙋🏽‍♀️ Your art is really, really cool and beautiful, tysm for sharing it with us! 💕💕💕 I saw you mention that you would like more asks so I wanted to ask you, what's your favorite phase and why?

Hi! thank you so much for liking my art T__T and as for your question it's hard to decide since i like most of the phases a lot...

I'd say style-wise my favorite would be phase 2? I love that it's way more grungy and nasty looking, esp with the new greyer palettes and soft shading. it's in that perfect sweet spot of being more realistic but still having the stylized shapes and anatomy of phase 1, which is great because i get to see jamie's lineart. also big fan of the way he drew everyone's hair kinda choppy here it's soooo cute. most of my favorite gorillaz art all come from this phase

Story-wise tho then obviously phase 3. like plastic beach might've been a hot mess while it was releasing and a lot of things just never got followed through but fuck if it doesn't feel cinematic as hell and the most fleshed out out of all the phases. like the web game ??? and obviously the emotional weight of the story, murdoc alone ruling over a literal pile of garbage and the only people he has with him is a soulless copy of his daughter that HE killed and someone he's holding captive, his only outlet being songwriting and broadcasting a radio show that he knows no one will hear all while being chased down by all those he's crossed both demonic and mortal. like i could really go on it makes me so emo I dont even care if the lost chord doesn't make that much sense. it fucks me up either ways to see it wrapped up like that.

although music wise (and just general marketing and promotions) i LOVEEE phase 1 so much. EVERY song on that album is so memorable and i love the amount of weird noises and falsettos 2d did. love the hologram concerts and the ones with their vas up, 4 whole music videos and an animatic (AND THE GBITEZ!!!!) and a whole interactable website of their studio... INSANE like the dedication to making them seem real is insane i wish we still had that instead of them being glorified mascots. . .

that's honestly not to say i don't like the others as hell tho like humanz had a great art direction too with the photobashing and lineless style and personally i love realistic proportions soooo and the mocap interviews were funny as hell even if i hate kevin bishop. the now now was soooo crazy too im a big fan of spiral imagery and just.. the pink/blue thing is great Fav album art love the emotional complexity it gives 2d (never recovered from souk eye) and honestly song machine is amazing too i adore the "episodic" formula of the music videos and like personally i don't even mind keyframe 2d that bad since i barely noticed it within the videos themselves its the endless marketing that reuses that same pic that drives me insane (billboard near my college STILL has keyframe fred perry 2d on rotation and it ambushes me every time)

ANYWAYS i kind of rambled on but!!!! basically phase 1-3 i love those the most. Thank you for enabling me

[robogart]

*points THAT'S MY FRIEND*

I've been watching calico play BG3 while I've been playing on my switch and while I'm not even playing the game - it has been a second-hand frustration experience. There is honestly so little I enjoy in this game, the few things being the acting and mocap (for some, not all of the characters), some of the music tracks and, most importantly, the Speak To Animals feature. But nothing about the actual gameplay or the design of the game (both in interface and story) feels thought out At All.

And to see the amount of praise - and I mean, ABSOLUTE praise, with NARY A QUALM - has been so incredibly frustrating that calico and I look to each and are constantly screaming the aforementioned statement: "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!!!"

How can a game, with SO many predecessors to look back on for structure, mechanics and story-telling (the most glaringly obvious being Dragon Age, but literally any fantasy RPG can do) literally ignore ANY good decisions and create something like this? It honestly makes me feel like the developers intentionally avoided or were Ordered to ignore actually implementing any sort of gameplay mechanic that could be derived from outside their studio. I was sitting and watching and just thinking to myself "if they want to have a map setup and keep it turn-based, WHY don't they just make the battle mechanics similar to Fire Emblem? Why not implement a grid system? Why the fuck is movement SO tedious? Why is that hotbar design SO unnecessarily complicated?"

And while the game is BEAUTIFUL and technically gorgeous to look at (the mocap acting and animation is lovely and some of the creature designs are really fun), the actual visual design choices of the game are really not good. There is just TOO MUCH on the screen. There is NO visual hierarchy. Directive composition is generally lacking (Where Should I Go Next? Couldn't Tell You It All LOOKS THE SAME). And another thing - there is simultaneously NO environmental storytelling and yet there is so much Stuff that you pick up (letters, items, etc) that literally do nothing and add nothing. No sidequest, no interest, absolutely nothing. Why does every single person I talk to need their own dialogue cutscene? What does that add? NOTHING.

Calico put this SO right when saying this is a maximalist behemoth (which feels like the state with SO many of these AAA/adjacent games) and for a game that loves to brag about it's 17,000 endings, it's ability to give the players so much choice - it does Nothing. There's absolutely no follow through, reward or consequence to any decision in this. It's just maybe an instantaneous outcome, if anything, and then it moves on to whatever it (the studio) wants you to do next.

Doesn't matter if you helped these guys, they're still going to get fucked up! "Well sometimes life isn't fair" NO! This is lazy writing!! It's shallow! So much of this game just feels like you're asking "but what does this actually add though?" and their response would be "but is has 17,000 ENDINGS what other game does THAT FOR YOU?" It's one-pump-chump energy. It reeks of no foreplay. If you need 17,000 endings to mark as a selling point of your game, it tells me you couldn't even write One Good Ending.

I feel like for any game with multiple choices, you can have 3-5 endings (even LESS) and that would be PLENTY. 17,000 is just EMBARRASSING. Maybe they should've taken all the time and actually committed it to writing out ACTUALLY fleshed out and developed characters. Everyone is SO flatlined, and the only reason these characters stand out at all is because of the actor's performance behind them. Their actual story? Their actual personalities? Paper thin. Disintegrating in the rain. The strongest character story in my opinion was Astarion - but again, so much of that is Neil Newbon's performance. But the story arc is tight, it's succinct and it's well delivered. Gale is also a pretty solid storyline (he doesn't feel as well integrated though at the moment here in Act 3, but there's also just TOO MUCH of nothing going on) and Wyll was set up to be So SOLID but I feel like he's just not given enough space? Drama for his story to unfold?? He should be SO much more involved in this game given his background at Baldur's Gate but there's just no setup for him. Why??? And I hate that I didn't include any of the women in here - but frankly their stories and personalities were just not well done. Shadowheart feels she's definitely given the most time, but she is still boring, unlikeable (and not even in a fun way), and her story is somehow overdeveloped and underdeveloped at the same time? And everyone else just feels tacked on and flat as paper!

Man, I definitely know there's more to yell about here but BOY is this game lauded WAY too much. I have to wonder if it's people who are being paid, gamer bros who just wanting to gatekeep and tell you it's a skill issue, or people who just simply haven't played another rpg yet to know what a good one is? I don't know. But anyways - yelling about this game! If you also feel like your taking crazy pills - you're in good company here! 👏✨✨✨

I can't be only one, right...?

I wanted to finish the game and then write this post but I gave up. I put in 100 plus hours and just could not go on once I got into act three. Maybe no one will hear my pitiful cry from the void, but I must scream for the sake of my sanity.

I was completely and utterly disappointed by Baldur's Gate 3. 

It had huge maps like an open world game yet I had no desire to explore the settings despite their beauty. It had hours of dialogue as an RPG would and yet I found myself skipping characters' responses. The game mechanic structure was inspired by DnD, a story-telling game dictated by some rules, lucky rolls and the extent of players' imagination, yet I was strong-armed into fighting impossibly stacked battles. A story-telling game dependent on the players’ attachment to their and their teammates' characters and yet this game lacked any kind of narrative consistency or depth of feeling. 

Larian wanted to make an open world RPG, based off of DND mechanics and somehow did the worst version of all three. The studio touts that Baldur’s Gate 3 has 17,000 possible endings and 2 million words, but to what end? What did this game have to say about what happens when people rise to the challenge and become heroes despite their circumstances or fall into the dark and become the monsters they were supposed to fight? What did it suggest might happen when fate deals you a bad hand but in doing so also helps you find true friends or love with the other? Ultimately, nothing. 

BG3 is so large that it ends up being incoherent. No writing or game structure decisions were made to keep the narrative tight and on theme. It urges players to choose a moral alignment, but most decisions, good or bad, seem to end up having little effect in the end. To play the game at all you have to resort to save scumming and that in turn deflates the possible impact of so many plot points of the narrative overall. 

Forcing players to save scum in order to progress through the game is terrible design in general. Statistically speaking the bosses make impossible critical hits again and again. I was playing in the game’s “casual mode” and found myself struggling to get through confrontations with bosses that were at a lower level than my own. If you are reading and thinking oh well you are probably not using tactics or spells well, etc., let’s do a little experiment…

Take your d20 (https://rolladie.net/roll-a-d20-die if you don’t have one in person). In the third act of BG3 I had an AC of 13 as a sorcerer with 100 plus HP. Roll your d20 ten times or more. How many times out of ten would your character have gotten to hit mine successfully? Unless an enemy is extremely lucky it should be unlikely that an enemy could hit my character every turn they get. And even if they do they would have to roll for damage which is only a single d6, d8, d10 or d12 plus a modifier at lower levels depending on your class. Again an enemy would have to have an extremely lucky roll to hit me every turn AND deal significant damage. During an in person DnD session that is just a bad night for my character. In a video game on casual mode that is significantly suspicious. 

So what you might say. You've made and enjoyed the fanart, memes and etc. You got your $61 worth of playtime. So many other people were fine with the game, what is your problem? 

I love video games. They blend so many artforms and tell stories in ways never done before. It is a medium unique to our current century and when historians look back they will view video games as an insight to our culture. 

It frustrates me to no end that Baldur’s Gate 3 is considered the next gold standard. Too many games have done open world and RPGs in a fantasy setting far better for Larian (Swen Vincke) to have made the design and writing choices they did with BG3. There are so many podcasts and shows that have written better stories through the DnD format. I am embarrassed for the medium as an artist and frustrated as a player. Players and the industry deserve better than to have artists, actors, engineers etc. burn themselves out creating maximalist behemoths like this game. A game that is beautiful but basically unplayable, narratively, nihilistic and incoherent. 

[tenebrius-excellium]

James Cameron’s personal thinking and the decisions he made about Avatar 2 are one completely inexplicable mystery to me.

On one hand, here is a capable director who is clearly passionate and reflective about what he’s doing. He can talk intelligently and articulate about the movie’s technology, the actors, the shooting, and he is even sensible and sophisticated enough to take into account The Numinous which he has accidentally captured within the first movie’s experience. The man patiently waited 13 years to again present audiences with the absolute best he had to give. He gained our trust, we waited with him and for him and took him for his word, and the guy had time, money, a star cast, mocap, the reviews from the first movie, fresh creative details about the world of Pandora like e.g. the eclipse or the songcord, everything.

And then somehow, with all that amazing material on hand, he actively dismissed everything else beside the visuals that would have made this second movie a masterpiece like the first: Great storytelling, strong and believable character arcs, the refinement of the previous movie’s flaws, compelling music. Do not get me wrong on this: Cameron chose this. Yes he had enough time to develop this film, in fact no one had more time than him. Yes his composer died, but he died in 2015, and Cameron probably had Simon Franglen lined up from pretty early on since he was a close co-worker of Horner. Yes he knew that most of his tropes were stereotypically bad, boring and even possibly harmful. He heard the audience responses!!! His writer’s room wanted to create new stuff, and he literally forcibly shut them down. I don’t get it. He limited the sequel in almost every way except for his beloved visual technology, and he doesn’t even seem to care much. How someone who is supposedly a sensible person, very in love with filmmaking, plus has every means to achieve what he wants..., who on top of that got to enjoy his audience’s decade-long patience, ...manages to neglect the very basics of sound film creation, like the importance of script, is beyond me. Cameron opened up another world, one that we waited 13 years for, and then gave no message. I mean, I know I didn’t expect profound, but there quite literally was no message. It was a beautiful documentary of Pandoran wildlife at best. It didn’t change a thing for me irl, except for the realization that Cameron won’t be able to pull off another movie like that or I’ll rapidly lose interest. I won’t be the only one.

And that’s how Avatar The Way Of Water is both a very good and a very very bad movie, and the reason we can’t even decide what to say in reviews. Should we recommend, or not? Should we rewatch, or criticize the heck out of it?

No one knows. Lol.

[shirubae]

Silvaze ‘06: Part 6 - Becoming a Hero

Previously: Silver and Blaze decided to save Elise.

After Silver carefully escorts Anna, the assistant to Elise, Silver must complete three trials to reach Sonic in Kingdom Valley. These trials are reflections of everything Silver has learned on his adventure.

The first is the Trial of Friendship, which makes Silver rescue Blaze from a horde of Iblis spawn. This obviously shows his renewed devotion to Blaze.

The second is the Trial of Memory, making Silver reflect on his journey so far with a quiz. The answers are "mission" (his initial determination), "Princess Elise" (his discovery of the truth), and "teamwork" (his learning to trust Sonic). Afterwards, the priest notes that Silver has newfound clarity.

The third is the Trial of Heart, which has Silver fight a squad of Eggman robots without any props for his psychokinesis. The priest says: “This is about battling the fears deep inside you.” Completing the trial shows Silver’s growing independence, overcoming his fear of feeling helpless, and reflects his choice to finally take on Eggman. It appears Silver is becoming a hero.

To Rescue Elise

Silver, Blaze, and Sonic pursue the Egg Carrier through Kingdom Valley. The ancient castles and noble music evoke a mythical, heroic atmosphere. Despite their efforts, however, the aircraft malfunctions and crashes, killing Elise and dooming the world. Sonic is broken by this freak accident, while Silver and Blaze mourn silently.

However, Silver maintains hope. He proposes they go back in time to save her before the Egg Carrier’s crash, now using time travel to preserve a life rather than to end one. I can’t help but notice Blaze fidgeting on the left; it’s like Silver’s forward thinking excites her, but she stops herself and tries to play it cool.

Speculation: Maybe Blaze is proud to see how far Silver's come, but still not ready to share her feelings yet? (Or maybe her mocap actor didn't know what to do LOL)

To time travel, Silver initiates Dual Chaos Control with Sonic - not by getting warped by Mephiles, not by accident with Shadow, but of his own volition for the first time. Blaze is framed under the two Emeralds, foreshadowing her approaching fate.

Sonic promises to rescue Elise, allowing the duo to work on fixing their future. Though nervous, Silver now trusts Sonic enough to leave this precarious past in his hands - the blue blur is the world’s salvation, not its downfall. He tosses Silver his cyan Chaos Emerald, which represents joy. Sonic is joy, not destruction!

Silver takes the lead and enters the time portal with Blaze, their thoughts returning them to the future where their journey began.

To Save the Future

The duo prepare to face Iblis for the last time. Silver is done trying to brute force or cheat Iblis out of existence. He’s determined to fix the future rather than tamper with the past, planning something dire with the two Chaos Emeralds he holds. When Blaze asks if he has a plan, he simply nods, and she chooses to trust his judgment (it’s insane how loyal these two are).

However! The way they set off is quite a departure from their established pattern, where Silver zooms ahead and Blaze follows. This time Silver walks with purpose and clarity. And while Blaze does still wait for his start, she walks with him rather than behind him. This shows how much their respect for each other has grown, compared to their interaction in the opening cutscene, and also that the two are both determined to do whatever it takes to cinch victory. They are completely aligned.

Facing Iblis

The action stage, Flame Core, looks as if it's made of Iblis itself. There are some charred trees, showing signs of Silver's hope for nature. Silver takes control for the entire stage; I appreciate his cocky taunts to Iblis along the way, but I feel it was a missed opportunity to give Blaze one last hurrah. Regardless, they cross the wasteland and provoke Iblis for the final battle.

As usual, the fight is all up to Silver due to the distance. He pulls off some impressive feats, like blasting Iblis' head point-blank and catching a giant meteor. Silver has grown so much since the first boss fight.

Note: Sonic 06′s internal files have unused voice clips for Blaze ordering Silver to throw her at Iblis. This implies that the fight would have involved teamwork between the two, but it never made it through development. That would have been so neat!

Next up: Silver and Blaze in the grand finale of Episode Silver!

[Back to the masterpost]

[beladeprived]

The Dimitrescus + Donna & Angie with an S/O Who Is Finally Working !! HCs

some HCs dedicated to my dear friend @donnasdimples !! also Daniela in this HC is kind of a singer since like her MoCap actress and VA (Nicole Tompkins) loves to sing on her own streams so I was like...Dani...Singing...😭

ANYWAY! Here you go

Alcina

When she found out that you were successfully hired, she couldnt be any more happier for you!

"Draga mea, that's amazing! I am so happy for you!"

Then she follows with a kiss

She throws a celebration for you; only the finest food made from quality ingredients

The first few weeks of you working had her completely missing you

But she is fine with it since you go get that bread!

Calls you during your breaks

She has a lot of questions regarding your work and your work environment

You could see her pouting whenever you have to hang up

And because you are always away, she makes sure to prepare a huge meal for you on the weekends!

Bela

She was a mixture of happiness and anxiety

She's happy you finally got a job!

But shes also afraid that you might meet someone else "better" than her

But she trusts you so she doesn't dwell on it too much

Before you leave, she would always demand a cuddle session with you

On days where you are at work, she would be cooped up in the library

Flipping over book pages because she is just restless

She would call you! Asking for updates on how you are

On the weekends, she would jump into your arms and pepper your face with tiny lil kisses

Cassandra

She will ask you why you need a job when she could provide you with anything you need

But she respects your choice

and she is a lil grumpy about it

Everytime before you leave, she would make sure that she will get a chance to kiss you

And it'll take ages to pry her off of your lips

She becomes so touch starved while you're away

In the dungeons, she would brag about you to her victims

It helps her cope!

"So I know i'm pretty, but I belong to the BEST human in the entire fucking world! So y'all better not get any ideas"

When you arrive back home, she may or may not be feeling a bit of spice for you...

OR she may or may not dive into your arms, eager to tell you about her day

(it's up to you, dear reader!!)

Daniela

She is overjoyed!!

"Will you buy me the new romance novels? Will you???"

And you will!

She invites you to the opera room to celebrate and the both of you sing your heart out as she plays the piano

while you're there, she makes an impromptu song for you

And the song talks about how proud she is and how much she loves you

When you first leave, she's a pouty mess

She even had tears

Her arms were wrapped tightly around you, refusing to let go

All it takes is you, promising that you will be back

When you're away, she goes to try and make new songs she could sing to you when you get back on the weekends

And when weekends arrive, she sings away her heart at you. Even singing you to sleep

Donna & Angie

You have work now? She will feel an immediate rush of anxiety.

No...you wont leave her right?

You won't, and it's a little teary when you tell her

So Angie demands a lot of tea parties!!

Before you leave, you will take Donna to the living room and have her head rest on your shoulder, your arms wrapped around her waist as the two of you sway to slow dancing music

It's Angie's turn to ballroom dance afterwards!

Because they both just love spending time with you :((

They're proud of you though!

You always carry one of Donna's handmade plush dolls with you

Whenever you're gone, she spends time cooped up in her workshop, tailoring new clothes for you to wear on your work

When you arrive home, she makes tea and prepares the bed for you...she knows you're tired

Expect that Donna is glued to you on weekends! Asking for cuddles and quality time with you

[cryptidmads]

good evening nsr community, i went through the ama from today and came back with an armful or two of lore. there’s a bunch more than last time, and i included bbj as well as the npcs. cozy up, check under the cut, and prepare for a long read. enjoy!

today's ama featured wan hazmer and daim dziauddin again, as well as concept artist ellie and animator ben fong.

BUNK BED JUNCTION (FT. DK WEST)

- mayday and zuke live in the sewers because they're an underground band. it's a pun - there were originally two variations of bbj leaving the sewers - one with mayday hi-fiving gigi (which had a 95% chance of happening), and one with zuke awkwardly fumbling and attempting to hi-five gigi (which had a 5% chance) - one of the inspirations for mayday and zuke were the two main characters of samurai champloo (zuke was jin, mayday was mugen) - someone asked about if the rest of the cast had their own shadow puppets. ben suggested a lemur for mayday, while ellie suggested a zucchini for zuke. she may have been joking. - mayday's guitar solos were done by different people, but zuke's drum solos were all done by bruno valverde. - zuke was the one who implemented the canister thing into mayday's guitar. - someone asked who of the cast are the introverts and who are the extroverts. mayday is an extrovert, zuke is an introvert. - the team does have a bit of lore for mayday and zuke and how they met, but they want to save it in case of a future project. - mayday was inspired by both genevieve from company of thieves and the unbreakable kimmy schmidt. - ben did the animation for mayday swinging the hammer in the workshop. - haz recalls seeing some fanart of mayday being brought up as a rich girl. he doesn't remember the artist, but he does like the idea. - the japanese version has zuke say he has a phd rather than a master's degree. this is apparently a mistake. - the pattern on zuke's pants was inspired by jolyne cujoh and prosciutto from jojo's bizarre adventure. - zuke's toilet seat collection came partially from a story from one of the environmental artists where one of their high school friends pranked another friend with a toilet seat. - zuke does a lot of reading and is naturally inquisitive about things like tech and mechanics. - dk west's shadow puppet abilities might run in the family, and zuke may have it as well. - both zuke and dk west are connected by percussion (zuke with the drums, west with the hand claps) - zuke and west weren't always designed to be related -- west was originally designed as "some guy who comes and goes," but was made into zuke's brother later on in production - dk west is an extrovert.

DJ SUBATOMIC SUPERNOVA

- djss' dj name is obviously a stage name, but the team didn't have a real name for him in the script or anything. - haz joked that his name is bob salad. that's not canon but from what i seen the chat loved it lol - haz brings up the symbolism of djss spinning the planets around himself and how it represents that he thinks of himself as the center of the universe. - ellie helped design the districts, and something she noted about dj's is that it's supposed to look the "slummiest" because he cares more about himself and less about things like blackouts. - dj had some lines cut from his boss fight. those lines? mini lectures towards bbj during every phase. they were cut because the team felt like they were too much for the game, but they want to share them one day. - daim says that dj could be either introverted or extroverted becuase of how much time he spends alone looking at the stars. - dj was never planned to have an approach segment, but funk fiction wasn't told that, so he made him an approach theme anyway. - dodo ice pops are traffic light flavoured, which is a popular ice cream in malaysia. it's strawberry, pineapple, and lime flavored.

SAYU AND THE NERD SQUAD

- three of sayu's creators were based on staff members at metronomik. remi (voiced by ben) was based on one of the programmers and one of the environmental artists (ellie calls him "the lovechild of two dudes"), tila was based on (and voiced by) ellie herself, and dodo was based on danish mak (another environmental artist who also voices him). - sofa wasn't based on anyone in particular, he was more of a "general otaku guy" according to ellie (though haz joked that ellie could just say he was based on him). - dodo is daim's favorite npc -- he also designed him! - sayu was ellie's favorite character to design. she loves drawing mermaids. - the progression in sayu's fight where you go deeper into the "ocean" is supposed to be a metaphor for going deeper into the internet/the deep web. - ellie suggested that if sayu were to have a shadow puppet, it would be a cat. - as for the introvert/extrovert debate, daim says sayu is technically comprised of 4 introverts. sayu herself is the extrovert mask they wear. - sayu's ahoge is a submarine periscope. remi looks through it in one of the cutscenes. - sayu's not a mech. she's remotely controlled by her creators from their computer room. - the backstory between remi and tila is meant to show that artists can come from all sorts of backgrounds.

YINU AND MAMA

- yinu's promotional video was one of the first ones done before they brought in lzbros, so it originally looked different from how it looks in the game now. - yinu's mother's eyes are yellow because she spends most of the fight focusing on yinu (who is mainly yellow). when her eyes go blank white, it represents that she's momentarily forgotten what she loves the most. when her eyes become yellow again after the fight, it means she's remembered yinu and her piano playing. - the way ellie describes natura is that yinu is a plant and her mother is very protective of her, and one of the distinctive features is that there are a lot of domes with plants inside, particularly on the roofs of the houses. - yinu's commercial was not intended to reference little miss fortune. the commercial was shown in 2018, while LMF came out a year later. - yinu's mom turning into a giant tree monster isn't exclusive to her just being angry at bbj. apparently the whole plant thing runs in the yinu family.

1010

- 1010's concept as a boy band had been around since before the team started production, but they were the last to be fully designed -- their designs weren't finalized until way later on. - 1010 were ellie’s least favorite characters to design. she doesn't like drawing guys OR robots. - 1010's early designs had them wearing tuxedos. - 1010 do have memories. - the inspiration for the butt plates came from one of ben's gundam figures from his collection in the metronomik office. thanks ben. - ellie's favorite member of 1010 is purl-hew/blue. - eloni/green is apparently the rapper of the group. - the jingle you hear from the carousel in metro division is a carnival remix of 1010's boss theme. - the numbers underneath 1010's names on the autographs are completely random.

NEON J

- neon j is a dancer. daim explains that in addition to being in the navy, dance has always been his true passion. - in the final phase of 1010's fight, he was originally supposed to control the dance moves of the factory as he was fighting you, but it was cut due to limited resources. - daim designed neon j based on ellie's designs for 1010. - neon j's factory's dance moves were all animated by ben -- no mocap needed. the factory was also his favorite thing to animate. - daim says that "neon j is to tatiana as soundwave is to megatron." basically he is extremely loyal to tatiana. - neon j was one of earliest members of nsr. - neon j seeing 1010 as his sons wasn't planned, but daim loves the concept so much that he could see it being canon. - daim says neon j's brain is "probably" still inside the monitor head. somehow. - neon j is an extrovert. - haz likes the idea of neon j being blind and using his sonar to "see" things. ben joked that the screen worked like giant glasses. - neon j originally had red dots that would pop up on his face when the sonar moved by that were meant to represent acne, and that would've been the reason why he's mostly behind the scenes.

EVE

- in mayday's side of the room when eve splits up bbj, the hands all over the walls are meant to be there to show how eve is angrier at mayday than she is at zuke. - the time signature for the music in mayday's room during the fight is 6/8, whereas in zuke's room it's 4/4. - ellie suggested a platypus shadow puppet for eve. the rest of the team seems to be on board. - eve was ben's least favorite character to animate. he said he struggled with animating her dance moves because it was something he'd never done before, and he still doesn't think he did a good enough job. - eve was born with her split skin tone. - apparently eve's near scrapping had something to do with costs. haz was the one who stopped it from happening. - eve's outfit was partly inspired by beyonce, while her jacket was partly inspired by ariana grande. the team took some inspiration from bjork, as well. - the sleeves on eve's jacket were apparently limbs at one point. - eve is an introvert.

NPCS/OTHER CHARACTERS

- part of tatiana's symbolism is how she used to be a rock star, but her flame/passion slowly burned away, and now she's just a rock, referencing how she was literally on fire as the rock star kul fyra, but now looks burnt out. - daim thinks kliff is older than tatiana, probably over 50. - in addition to the neon j dance lore mentioned above, kayane rambling about neon j after the 1010 fight was supposed to be connected to her watching neon j dance. - ben and haz's favorite npc is mia, and ellie's is dj zam. - dj zam was inspired by one of ellie's college friends, who she says "makes you feel comfortable to be around". - ellie thinks dj zam's neck tattoo says "i love mom". - amal the unicorn was inspired by lady amalthea from the 80's animated film "the last unicorn". he was originally written to be a real talking unicorn, but it was changed partially because his horn wasn't in the right spot on his head. - zed was based on game designer dzaid and has hyperacusis, a hearing disorder that makes it difficult to deal with everyday sounds. - yiruk's name is an anagram of kiryu, the protagonist of the yakuza games. - chef sunshine's design is a homage to julia child. she originally had a bigger physique, but was changed to match lylia's bubbly performance.

[an-aussie-button-masher]

The Rise of “Movie Games”

   To say that video game storytelling has come a long way is a tremendous understatement. Remember back thirty or so years ago when the “plot” of a game was just an excuse to give the player an objective? Nowadays, the writing and presentation of a game’s story is often taken just as seriously as the actual gameplay, if not more so. Cinematic games are on the rise, and advancements in technology like motion-capture are causing the differences between game and film development to be outnumbered by similarities. Video games are such a unique medium, able to accomplish things that others cannot, and combining them with the medium of film creation and storytelling is a fascinating and increasingly popular concept. I’ve found a few excellent examples of “movie games” that each showcase ways that games are becoming part of cinema in their own right, and together prove just how far games have really come.

   Every now and then, movies will feature scenes shot in a single, long camera take. For a full minute or even longer, the camera moves around the set without being interrupted by cuts, for a difficult yet spectacular final result. It’s arguably even more difficult to pull off in animation, considering the animators all have to work together on the entire scene at the same time. Now, take that idea and extend it to an entire 50-hour-long scene - that’s God of War: Ragnarök. The full game has the most impressive cinematography I’ve ever seen in a game, which might even be more noteworthy than any long take in a live-action film because of how seamless the camera moves between cutscenes and gameplay. When the camera is often controlled by the player, keeping it consistently uninterrupted and smooth takes incredible talent from both the game’s programmers and director. To add to the cinematic feel of the game, every character is animated entirely by motion-capture, making the characters feel more like actors on a stage rather than just hand-animated character models.

   Taking the idea of motion-capture even further, Detroit: Become Human is about as close as it gets to a full live-action game without actually being live-action, largely thanks to mocap magic. Every character is modelled to look exactly like their voice actors, who also perform the motion-capture for a complete live-action feel. On top of the realistic graphics and excellent acting, the choice-based nature of the game makes D:BH closer to an interactive movie than a video game. Many choose-your-own adventure games can feel clunky and inconsistent due to allowing the player to control certain character decisions that clash with the rest of the writing, but D:BH is impressively consistent with any choice made by the player thanks to incredibly intricate programming and quality writing. Watching this game makes it easy to see why there is a growing overlap between game writers and film writers - the screenplay of this game could be mistaken for a film, and could very well be adapted to film with almost no modifications.

   Is the screenshot above taken from a game, or a new Pixar movie? The fact that it’s nearly impossible to tell will never not impress me, and that’s just the beginning. Despite what some might say, animation has just as much of a place in cinema as live action - animated films can tell some of the most emotional and moving stories ever in a short few hours (and if anyone disagrees, they haven’t watched Toy Story 3), and Kena: Bridge of Spirits does exactly that. The only difference is, instead of a bucket of popcorn, you’ve got a controller in your hands. Kena has an incredibly touching story told through a cute, charming and downright gorgeous artstyle, combined with whimsical orchestral music and adorable sound effects that make the game feel as close to a playable Pixar movie as it gets. You could pop a walkthrough of this game in front of a theatre audience and it would probably be a while before they realised they were even watching a video game!

   Looking at these games and all the technology and tricks that go into making them, it’s fascinating to see how far things have come in the past 50 years or so. Advanced cinematography, motion-capture and incredible animation, all held up by genuinely emotional and engaging writing that puts plenty of best-selling films to shame, makes me honestly believe video games are just as important to cinema as any movie or series. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this - do you agree, or do you think games aren’t quite there yet? Feedback is greatly appreciated, alongside reblogs and likes!   Thanks for reading!

[pega-chan]

for what BPA is worth, the plot might've had a lot of holes, but i am absolutely OBSESSED with the animation in this movie. sure the mocap makes the dancing during the musical numbers jangky, but i love every other aspect of this movie's art.

please look at the hair renders. particularly of Amelia's/Amelia's wig. LOOK AT HOW FINE IT IS. i like how it's animated too, how it swishes when they move.

i also tend to replay scenes simply bc i love the little movements the characters do that really makes them feel alive. for example:

the way Amelia points to herself with both hands when she says "When are you going to let me make my own decisions?". usually i expect just a tilt of the head when asking questions, but like. the body language. it's animated so fluidly too.

and then there's the scene where Barbie stands up to Rose Ross, one of my personal favourites bc it was a turning point that lead to the reprise of "(Not) A Picture Perfect Girl":

i love love LOVE how she brings down her fist and stomps one foot on the ground when she exclaims "I don't!". LITERALLY putting her foot down! it adds something extra to the scene and illustrates just how furious she was. this is CINEMA.

Johan's design is my favourite out of everybody in the movie, and not just because he's cute.

especially when you realise the height difference between him and Barbie/Amelia is downright comical bc they're a full head taller than him.

my favourite scene in the entire movie is the one where Johan and Barbie were practising the coronation dance all the way to the "King of the Kingdom" reprise. the animation in that makes me feel alive. the dancing. the swish of Barbie's skirt. Barbie fumbling to keep up with Johan so her dance moves are not as well-oiled as his. the voice acting. the rock-paper-scissors at the end. the part where Barbie has to release Johan's grasp from hers with both hands. the song itself afterwards. this one scene lives in my mind RENT FREE.

also, tiny tidbit but i love how Barbie always wipes her hand every time after Johan holds it and then agrees with Amelia later on that yes, his palms are so sweaty. that was funny.

[silver-wield]

Can you tell me which of the SE staff ships cloti? I know Nojima is a Cloti shipper and I admire him for that 💕

Nojima - King of Cloti Kitase - Likes the lifestream scene best Nomura - Literally created Tifa to be Cloud’s ideal woman. Nobuo - prefers Cloud and Tifa and the composition of their music Cloti’s mocap actors - both like a lot of Cloti tweets both together and separately. Sakurai - prefers Tifa  Cody - prefers Tifa

There’s probably a lot more. The other people on the development team don’t really get asked their opinions. Or even treated like they’re a part of the team since some people are so obsessed with what cut scenes are in the credits than looking at the huge list of people who put the game together. 

[luigiblood]

Mario Artist Talent Studio

This is developed by Nintendo internally this time. The second in the suite, it was bundled with the Capture Cassette and a microphone. These are not required by the software.

There is something I didn't say about how to play Mario Artist, I would actually recommend plugging both a controller and a mouse. Using both at the same time can be very efficient when editing stuff for any title of the Mario Artist suite.

This one is more akin to Mii Maker, in which you can create a character. The word Talent, also referred as "Tarento", describes a celebrity of pretty much any kind who regularly appears in media.

There are 3 modes:

Make a Talent, in it is the main character editor.

Make a Movie, which is actually a full fledged movie maker.

Gallery, to show off talents and movies.

Make a Talent

When it comes to make a character... oh boy where do I begin. It's one of the most fully featured character editor I have ever seen, it's filled with love, it's no joke. You can edit the face, the head, the body, the voice (sort of), and details about the character itself.

The face is technically a single texture that you edit, so you have a lot of choice on how to do it: You can make a face using sample parts included with the editor, in which you can do honestly a lot of styles and the skin color you want.

You can capture a face from the Capture Cassette or the Game Boy Camera, which works the same way as Paint Studio, or even just import a picture that you have made with Paint Studio if you want to.

After that, you can actually apply make up on top if you want some additional details that you cannot add otherwise. And then the expressions, which is nothing but a distortion of the face texture. You can do a lot or simply go wild and do some absurd faces...

I only talked about the face editor. The head & body editor works in a similar fashion and some features are shared between both. You basically just select between a HUGE amount of parts, unfortunately you cannot import 3D models for this.

The head editor allows you to select the hair, nose, mustache, hats and much more. You can even sort of reshape parts by moving, rotating or scaling them back & forth. Nothing prevents you to use parts in ways not intended by the devs.

The body editor is a little more limited because the clothing available entirely depends on the body type (Male, Female and Other) of your talent. But there's still a lot of choice. You can change some features of the body, even DK style.

But there's one major feature that's shared between both editors and that's the color selection and patterns. Almost every part for the head or body can have their colors changed or even apply a pattern. You can also change the texture feel.

The patterns can either be captured via Capture Pak or Game Boy Camera, or taken from a Paint Studio image, or simply making it directly via the pattern editor, which may remind you of Animal Crossing... without the 16 color limitation. You can even save your own patterns.

This alone is a feature that shouldn't be underestimated with combined with all the parts that you can customize. You can even have a reflected pattern and have a metal feel.

Then there's the voice editor which is just sample male or female voices with pitch changes. That's it.

You can still have a custom voice to your talent, and that's with the microphone (plugged into the Capture Pak). The talent will just parrot your voice and save it.

The info details editor is pretty simple, you can edit the talent's name, job, birthday, catchphrase, gender, and some free space that you can put anything into.

There's literally 10 gender choices, but technically speaking they're all male & female alternating. You can put N/A and ??? as genders if you desire, it's still technically male/female in manners, but still cool to have such options.

You can also have your talent in what's called "Show Time". Basically it's all light hearted mocapped animations of varying situations, ranging from unfortunate moods to pretty funny, it's just for show. :)

Make a Movie

This about covers the Talent Studio, now let's talk about the Movie Studio. This mode could have been really popular if this came out to the west back then.

A movie can only have 3 actors, and 4 background pictures, and only one actor can appear at a time on the screen. You might have to stretch your creativity with these limitations, but they made up for it by having insane customization.

First of all, the actors can be talents, of course, but you can also use 3D models, either samples, or your own from Polygon Studio. That's already pretty cool.

For the backgrounds, either you select from the wide range of sample backgrounds, or you capture one, or you can just import a picture from Paint Studio. The movie editor also offers solid color backgrounds that do not count here.

Here's a tip: Since 2D images is a common format, you can take screenshots of your movie and reuse them. Same deal for pictures taken in 3D World or of your stage from Polygon Studio (more details when I'll talk about Polygon Studio).

The movie editor is where it gets insane. A scene contains a single actor and background, and from there, you can do anything. The actor can use an animation, for which you can repeat a certain amount, and a camera setup for the scene.

The amount of sample animations is insane, and if that was not enough, you can make your own one using up to 8 keyframes. The camera can be customized, and treats the background and actor seperately, and it's what you use to move actors / background from point A to B.

And even then, that's just the basics of the scene. Then there's the full editing mode, which appears more like a video editor. That's where you can setup the actor's mood, lighting, special effects, transitions, captions, drawings...

All of them comes with samples... and you can still customize most of them the way you want. There's also music and sounds, of course.

You can record up to 3 custom sounds for a movie. You also have a sound vault to keep up to 8 recorded sounds.

Unfortunately there's no Sound Studio, so no real custom music possible. Gotta deal with samples most of the time. At least there's a high quality version of Baby Mario's crying sound from Yoshi's Island (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNcWqRhLxiE)

There's actually a bunch of movies that were uploaded to the Internet, here's a compilation of some of them:

Rambling about Talent Studio

This should be about it for the Movie Studio.

Mario Artist Talent Studio was shown as early as 1997 during the 64DD Showreel for Spaceworld 1997, as "Talent Maker", alongside "Picture Maker" and "Polygon Maker". "Sound Maker" would be also announced around that time.

We know it was one of Miyamoto's pet projects, where he really wanted some kind of character creation, an idea that he had experimented since the Famicom Disk System. He really kept going with it, he was obsessed with it, again on 64DD, then GameCube, then the Wii.

Heck, Miyamoto even pushed the project during his keynote at GDC 1999, with some humor to add.

One of the cut contents of Talent Studio is also a minigame which is sort of like Super Monkey Ball, it was shown in 1997. And then just like Paint Studio, seemed to have been removed in the last year of development.

Talent Studio has some importance in Nintendo's development history, outside of the Miis.

The Show Time mode is full of motion captured animations, directed by Shinya Takahashi (yes, that person in recent Nintendo Directs!) & Tsuyoshi Watanabe. I have recently uncovered a Show Time Edit mode, check out this video that showcases it:

You can also find cheat codes to access it in the Talent Studio page from @CuttingRoomWiki.

During development of its successor, Stage Debut for the GameCube, they reused Talent Studio assets. It also required the use of the "GameEye", the camera for the GBA. This was a time when Nintendo was very experimental.

Which then another project took its place, called "Ningen Copy Manebito", and the GBA camera would be called "Manebito Camera". Outside of the trademarked logos, all we know is that they used Stage Debut's engine as a base according to Iwata Asks.

And that should be about it for this Talent Studio thread. Next one will be about Mario Artist Polygon Studio.

[jackdawyt]

ICYMI: As my last video/post for 2019, I figured we should have a reflection on Dragon Age 4’s major news updates and uncover what we know about Dragon Age 4 throughout this year and beyond!  So, we can go into 2020 with the right expectations and understanding of the game’s development!

The Dread Wolf Rises:

To boot of this year - we had the most exciting announcement from The Game Awards in December - the official confirmation of the next Dragon Age project with the current given title: #TheDreadWolfRises.

The trailer, while enigmatic, showcased the next Dragon Age centring on the Solas’s plan to rise up and destroy the veil, fulfilling the Dread Wolf’s prophecy. At least that’s one interpretation of it.

The trailer seemingly was made for the fanbase of Dragon Age with the given title, because if you didn’t know what Dragon Age was, or anything about The Dread Wolf, you could totally pass up that trailer as a different game entirely. So, it was more of an ode to the fans that the next Dragon Age game is in the works.

Alongside the release of the trailer, the Dragon Age website was updated for #TheDreadWolfRises with Mark Darrah, Executive Producer & Matthew Goldman, Creative Director sharing a few words on the production of the next Dragon Age.

TLDR: Mark is excited to show more and Matthew states that this is the strongest team yet and they’re venturing forth on the most epic quest ever.

In a September blog post, Casey Hudson wrote that ‘I can confirm that indeed the Dread Wolf rises,’ alluding to the narrative and production of Dragon Age 4. Before we delve into the current development of Dragon Age 4, we’ve got to talk about the two initial iterations of Dragon Age 4.

Project Joplin:

Based on Jason Schreier’s expose’ into the past and present developments of Dragon Age 4 - the previous iteration of Dragon Age 4 was known as ‘Joplin’, like Janis Joplin.

Janis Joplin was one of the biggest female rock stars of her era, she revolutionized her genre of music for the next generation – clearly, this is something the devs were going for with the original Dragon Age 4 project – to revolutionize the Role-Playing Game genre.

The developers on Joplin were committed to avoiding the mistakes they’d made on Dragon Age: Inquisition. Veteran Mike Laidlaw was the creative director of ‘Joplin’ until the project was canned and reworked so ‘live service elements’ could be added. After the decided rework of Dragon Age 4, Mike left the studio in late 2017.

Project Joplin’s initial concept followed the next protagonist ‘playing as a group of spies in Tevinter, a large chunk of the narrative centred on heists. The goal was to focus as much as possible on choice and consequence.’

There was an emphasis on this ‘hugely reactive game, smaller in scope than Dragon Age: Inquisition but much larger in player choice, followers, reactivity, and depth.’

The developers talked about building systemic narrative mechanics, allowing the player to perform actions like persuading or extorting guards without the writers having to hand-craft every scene.

It was very ambitious and plenty of the developers were excited, stating that they put some of their best work into this project.

However, Anthem was in real trouble, and there was a concern that it might never be finished unless the studio did something drastic. EA and BioWare took that drastic action, cancelling Joplin and moving the bulk of its staff, including executive producer Mark Darrah, onto Anthem.

Project Joplin was reworked into Project Morrison with a skeleton team building the very foundations of the next Dragon Age.

Project Morrison:

The latest iteration of Dragon Age 4 that is currently in the works is known as ‘Morrison’, like ‘James Morrison’ – the lead singer of the rock band ‘The Doors’.

Jim Morrison is regarded by music critics and fans as one of the most iconic and influential frontmen in rock history. (Wikipedia).

Morrison is being built on Anthem’s tools and codebase of the Frostbite Engine, this will save time as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Dragon Age: Inquisition and Anthem were each built from scratch. With a pre-set already there, Morrison’s development can save a lot of time.

This new version of the fourth Dragon Age is planned with a live service component, built for long-term gameplay and revenue. It’s not clear how much of Joplin’s vision will shape Morrison.

Matt Goldman, art director on Dragon Age: Inquisition and then Joplin, took over as creative director for Morrison.

Many of the BioWare developers “know it’s going to change like five times in the next two years.”

Morrison will change its shape multiple times. However, “Dragon Age games shift more than other games.” So, it’s not uncanny for a Dragon Age project to undergo drastic changes in its development.

Live Service/Multiplayer:

It has been confirmed on LinkedIn that BioWare has hired a software engineer to work on a multiplayer component for Dragon Age 4, however, it’s unsure what exactly this multiplayer could look like.

Jason Schreier stated that “he heard some ideas for Morrison’s multiplayer include companions that can be controlled by multiple players via drop-in/drop-out co-op, similar to old-school BioWare RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, and quests that could change based not just on one player’s decisions, but on the choices of players across the globe.”

In 2018, Casey Hudson tweeted a statement on live service: “Reading lots of feedback regarding Dragon Age, and I think you’ll be relieved to see what the team is working on,” he wrote on Twitter. “Story & character-focused. Too early to talk details, but when we talk about ‘live’ it just means designing a game for continued storytelling after the main story.”

It’s still unclear how much of this game will focus on live-service elements and multiplayer, it could follow something as simple as Dragon Age: Inquisition’s separate multiplayer mode, or it could transform the game completely. Take note that Morrison is still early in the works and it will change multiple times until release. That is for sure.

Production:

Now we get to the tea - The past and present developments of Dragon Age 4’s new iteration.

So, Project Joplin was canned in late 2017, with Project Morrison rebooting sometime after that with an essential, small team. The rest of the Dragon Age team that worked on Joplin, went to fix Anthem during its troubled development. Even Mark Darrah, the Executive Producer of Dragon Age was shuffled to Anthem’s production. All the while, Morrison lay low in very early pre-production stages.

In 2018, the majority of the news we got on Dragon Age 4 came out in January, with Joplin’s initial codename and Anthem’s reshuffling. However, with Morrison in deep pre-production, nothing substantial - production-wise - was heard on this project until The Dread Wolf Rises teaser launched at The Game Awards eleven months later in December. Of course, this trailer was hype hype hype!

In early 2019, BioWare resumed their focus on Anthem and its release date. After Anthem was released in February 2019 - according to comicbook.com - the core Edmonton team working on Anthem, returned to work on Dragon Age 4 in full-scale development following the reworks of Morrison.

Built on Anthem’s codebase and its pre-sets of the Frostbite engine, following a very enigmatic live service model – Dragon Age 4 entered its pre-production stages with a full-team. As Casey Hudson later confirmed in September:

“We have several other big projects in the works.  I wish I could tell you more about them, but they’re mostly super-secret right now.  I can say however that one of our projects has a large and growing team in Edmonton working through pre-production, and based on the progress I’m seeing, I can confirm that indeed the Dread Wolf rises.”

Key processes during the pre-production stages include:

Concept Art

Storyboarding

Level Design

Mechanic Design

Around June, an IGN Greece article resurfaced again, according to said article ‘an anonymous BioWare employee had given clues Dragon Age 4. Stating that the game will be released in 2020 and that the voices of the characters are already being recorded, which indicates an advanced stage of development.’

This article initially launched in 2018 and has many rebuttals, the first being the release date.

This 2020 expected release date has been debunked because according to EA’s 2019 earnings call, the new release window for Dragon Age 4 is at least April 2022, and any time after that. Perhaps Joplin’s initial release window was 2020, and the developer may have shared that, but as far as Morrison is concerned, the project is 3 years away.

However, voice work being in the works could be plausible at this stage. Alix Wilton Reagan has teased a few seasons of her in full mocap mentioning NDA’s and #dragonage and #inquisitor, this could just Alix teasing us, or using social media to its full advantage, or it could be something Dragon Age-related.

Surely the Inquisitor will make a cameo appearance and that could justify why Alix could be doing VO?

On top of both Alix’s tease and IGN Greece’s article, very recently Jo Berry, a writer at BioWare tweeted about voice over work coming in and it being fantastic, however, they have to remove the goofy robot text to speech which is awkward and funny to listen to.  

“When VO is coming in and it’s fan-tastic, but it means saying goodbye to that goofy robot text-to-speech that makes you all laugh.”

So, indeed voice work does seem to be going on for Dragon Age 4’s development at this stage.

In jest, BioWare hasn’t replied to my request for voice acting a character in Dragon Age 4, so I think because of that, we can assume that they haven’t started the majority of the main character’s voice work just yet, right?

Moving on…Throughout the months of August and September, BioWare moved to a new office space in downtown Edmonton. Once they had settled in, a few very interesting Dragon Age 4 titbits came to light.

Emily (Domino) Taylor posted a picture on Twitter, showcasing a post artboard for Dragon Age 4, as we can assume it’s Dragon Age! There’s a Grey Warden and their Griffon-friend showcased in the picture.

Griffons and Grey Warden’s confirmed for Dragon Age 4? It’s not too much of a stretch considering the drama at Weisshaupt and Last Flight’s ending, but alas, as we can see BioWare’s art division are getting ready to line up concept artwork for further production and development. Probably for 3D model creation and animation stages.

Regardless, it’s very exciting to see the start of official artwork developing for Dragon Age 4, I’ll be keeping an eye out to see how this board develops further.  

Another huge titbit that was revealed with BioWare’s office move, was when the mayor of Edmonton decided to visit and congratulate BioWare at their new offices. On one of the photos the mayor and his team took, there was a shot of an HD version of Solas on a TV Screen.

I personally believe that this is a shot from Dragon Age 4 or the prototype version of Morrison showing off Solas. There’s been no confirmation of where this shot comes from, and I’ve spent an entire video dissecting it. However, my point is, I don’t think this comes from Dragon Age: Inquisition, it’s way to HD, look at his face, the fur on his outfit, the outside environment. It’s very distinct, and I believe it’s the first shot of Dragon Age 4 revealed.

I’ve not seen any rebuttals to this, and I’ve openly asked multiple times online, however, no one has come up with anything. So, even towards the end of 2019, it remains a mystery. I think this is a Dragon Age 4 shot, let me know if you think otherwise!

Around the same time, Matt Rhodes, an Art Director, posted a short story on his Instagram stating that he’s “more excited working on Dragon Age 4 than any other project so far.”

Just after BioWare moved offices, Fernando Melo, a senior producer on The Dread Wolf Rises left the studio after 12 years.

As stated on his LinkedIn profile, a lot of Fernando’s job on Dragon Age 4 surrounded “help[ing] establish the vision for the game. Guid[ing] the team through EA’s concept and early production phases. Prov[ing] out the core concept and key innovations of the game”.

He signed off with an email sent to everyone on the Dragon Age team, stating that he left at the “least disruptive timing as it would likely get.”

Considering that Fernando’s job was ensuring the pre-production stages were completed efficiently, and with his departure being at a time where it’d be least hectic for the development of Dragon Age 4, it’s safe to say that the pre-production processes are wrapping up and the team can begin to enter full production.

Fernando said that “with a great game leadership team in place, a fantastic creative vision, and some of the best devs in the world. Morrison is well underway to becoming the definitive Dragon Age experience - and I’m incredibly proud and honored to have played a part in that. I’ll be eagerly awaiting the opportunity to experience the next DA as a fan this time around.”

So, with Fernando’s send off via email, the entire Dragon Age team has moved on from the initial pre-production stages to the main development of the project with an estimated release window of any time after April 2022.

Mark Darrah Major Hints & Teases:

Now we get to the most divisive news topics - the teases from Executive Producer Mark Darrah!

Mark has actually been teasing us since the beginning of 2017, when he dropped a video of an artbook that collated a plethora of Dragon Age concept characters, with many mysterious and ominous photos showcasing potential concept art and character designs.

A logo of a wolf, on fire encased in a tower, was all we had on Dragon Age 4 at the time. However, considering Project Joplin was canned at the end of that same year, I think it’s safe to assume this work went alongside that project, whether it will remain, we’ll uncover in-time.

At E3 2018, in a video interview with Game Informer, Mark Darrah said that Dragon Age 4 was going ‘swell’ with a cheeky grin.

At Pax West 2018, Dragon Age 4 was officially confirmed again since it’s reboot in development, the Triforce Quartet played Dragon Age: Inquisition’s theme as Mark Darrah confirmed that the next instalment is in the works… again.

Towards the end of November, Mark Darrah teased the entirety of Twitter with his Dragon Age remarks. Having tweeted the single words “Dragon Age”, he had PC Gamer and many other onion articles writing up on his huge Dragon Age 4 tease.

However, to be fair, Mark dropped an image that resembles Dragon Age, only we’ve never seen anything quite like it before.

Midnight snow, rocks, forests, a completely different landscape to any of the maps in Dragon Age: Inquisition, yet very familiar with its Frostbite Engine aesthetic… is this a shot of Tevinter, more than likely taken on Mark Darrah’s phone?

Well, I think so. It doesn’t resemble any location I can recall in Dragon Age: Inquisition… But you might say “there’s snow in Tevinter, which is the opposite end of Thedas’s Equator, that doesn’t make sense lore-wise.”  

Well, Mark Darrah replied to someone questioning if and why there would be snow in Tevinter, he sent them a link to this article that explains how there can be snow on the equator, meaning that Tevinter can have snow.

So, is this our second or first look of Dragon Age 4? Well, depending on if the Solas shot is viable, I’d say definitely, but I’ll let you make your own mind up on that. Speaking of Tevinter, Mark Darrah also teased that the working plot title of Dragon Age 4 is titled “Tevinter of Our Discontent”, which is a huge story reference that I’ll touch upon in a separate category.

However, back to the picture teases, and Mark Darrah also posted another photo…

A sun blinding a knight, very ominous, I don’t even know where to start with this one… I mean it could have some subliminal message about how Solas may destroy the veil, or it could have a rather obscure context that fits to Dragon Age 4’s narrative, but I honestly just don’t even know what this is…

On Dragon Age Day, Again, Mark Darrah posted another screenshot of Dragon Age 4 with everything redacted other than a pixel in the corner.

And, erm, yep. That’s super. Thanks for that, Mark.

If you’d like to see more Dragon Age 4 teases that may or may not make sense and will most likely leave you frustrated and clueless, why not give Mark Darrah a follow-on Twitter. He’s one to keep an eye out.

Story:

The next narrative surrounds the Dread Wolf rising and attempting to destroy the veil, it’ll most likely be our next protagonist’s goal to stop Solas from achieving this.

We will have a new protagonist, like every other Dragon Age game. It’s been confirmed copious times by many developers old and new that the Hero of Ferelden will never return in the future, so stop asking. And even if they did return, Patrick Weekes is in charge now.

Dragon Age 4 will be set in the Tevinter Imperium, if Trespasser’s ending wasn’t a good enough clue for you, Project Joplin was also set in Tevinter. Alternatively, according to PC Gamer, it was the newly announced Tevinter Nights book that confirmed Tevinter to be Dragon Age 4’s setting.

Mark Darrah confirmed and teased on Twitter that the working plot title of Dragon Age 4 is Tevinter of our Discontent, derived from Shakespeare’s “The Winter of our Discontent” which is the opening lines from the play - Richard III (3rd).

As a TLDR: the words lay the groundwork for the portrayal of Richard as a discontented man who is unhappy in a world that hates him. However, since his family were victorious in the war, they reign the nation once more, and so as winter dies, glorious summer is upon them.

There are plenty of references we can make to Solas and his scheme to destroy the veil, he’s woken up to a world that despises his name and people that revoke his actions as evil. He wants to correct this world and restore his ‘family’ so to speak. Perhaps, like Richard the 3rd, Solas’s glorious summer is what awaits him in the next game.

So, we have plenty of plot potential with this given title and I do have a separate video for even more thorough speculation on this topic. However, based on Shakespeare’s work being the main inspiration for Dragon Age 4’s narrative, we should expect tragedy to be one of the main themes of the plot.

According to Video Gamer, in 2017, Alexis Kennedy was writing freelance for BioWare, ‘working on a whole chunk of lore and backstory for the faction in the game that you would think of if you were thinking big old goth. You know, if you were interested in death.’

Instantly what comes to mind is Nevarra’s Mortalitasi – Death Mages that’s responsible for the mummification process of the dead in Nevarran culture. However, we’re not sure how much of his work went into the cancelled Joplin, considering the timing at which he worked on Dragon Age 4.  

According to Alexis’s LinkedIn page, he worked freelance at BioWare from February – August 2017. The end of 2017 was the same time Joplin was canned, and Mike Laidlaw left the company, so there’s a huge possibility that Alexis’s work has been shelved.

Even if Alexis’s work wasn’t shelved at the time, given his recent allegations and controversy, Mark Darrah confirmed on Twitter that BioWare no longer has a working relationship with him, so his work seemingly has been scrapped.

According to Dark Horse writers Nunzio DeFilippis & Christina Weir who’re creating the comics. In a comicbook.com interview, they shared the collaboration with the BioWare writers, it’s a case of sharing notes on where the narrative is going, and how the comics can help reach that point for Dragon Age 4’s narrative.

So, if you want to see where Dragon Age 4’s narrative may go, or which characters could turn up, read the comics as they’re pushing the narrative forward.

According to Chelsea Fariello, Assistant Animator at BioWare, it seems we could have a Mabari War Hound companion, or at least NPC in Dragon Age 4, as she stated on Twitter that she was interested in what interactions people would want to see for a dog-like creature in a video game. With the hashtag Dragon Age. Perhaps Mabari War Hound, or even a Griffon? “What interactions would people want to be able to do with a dog like creature in a video game? I need to know…for reasons… #DragonAge “

The “creature” part in that tweet is what makes me think it could be a small griffon? If it’s a Mabari then it’s just a dog, however, if it’s a small griffon then that could make sense. That’s just my hot take.

On Dragon Age Day, Arby’s expressed their interest in opening a new branch in Thedas, could we see a new type of cuisine in Tevinter? It’s hard to say, other than the fact that John Epler loves Arby’s, not Wendy’s though. Don’t mention Wendy’s!

Weekes’s Tweets:

Adding to the story category, we have plenty of tweets by Patrick Weekes that hint at future elements for Dragon Age 4.

Patrick Weekes responded to Autumn Witch when asked on Twitter ‘to pick one character from Dragon Age that has never been a companion or advisor that you would like to see as a companion in DA-4? (For the sake of this post, Lace Harding is also not available.)’

Patrick said: “Oh that’s obvious, I’d go with (Reads parenthetical) THIS IS RIGGED.”

So, Scout Harding as a Dragon Age 4 Companion teased? I freaking hope so.

Patrick Weekes posted on Twitter that they just teared up reading a scene, so unless they’re cutting onions while writing, we should expect tears to be shed in Dragon Age 4. If I were to guess, I mean Solas is walking the Din’anshiral. Which means there is only death on this journey…

Weekes was asked about non-binary lingo & representation and if the players would have the option to not identify as a male or female in the next Dragon Age. They replied saying:

“No guarantees (it’s something that is very difficult in romance languages we get translated into), but our team is always looking for better ways to let players see themselves in our games.”

Other Dragon Age Projects:

According to EA’s 2019 Earnings Call, “there are plans for not only Dragon Age 4, but other Dragon Age products too.”

At a guess, this ‘other product’ could simply be a mobile companion app to coincide with Dragon Age 4’s launch. Or it could be the rumoured tactics game that we haven’t heard about since Mark Darrah’s tease in 2017.

On top of that, at a guess, it could also be an extension to the Dragon Age Keep.

Expectations:

There’s still a couple of years yet with an expected release window at any point after April 2022. However, that doesn’t mean the news will not be coming, just look at all the tidbits I’ve uncovered from developer tweets on the side.

Not to mention that BioWare generally start the marketing phases of their upcoming games two years prior to release, so if Dragon Age 4 were to release in 2022, we could actually see something in 2020. I’m not banking on that, but just for the doubters out there, we’ll easily hear something regarding this game in 2020, whether that’s a trailer or small tweet trials of news, we’ll be sure to get something, and I’ll be sure to stay on track of that.

if you have anyone saying there’s no news for Dragon Age 4, just gently send them my way and share this video in their dm’s!