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CGI Mag: DR PS2    

 
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Max Ink Café creates game cinematics for Playstation2


28 March 2002

Effects studio Max Ink Café has recently completed the game cinematics for Dragon Rage, the newly released PlayStation2 game console for The 3DO Company.


MIC created seven movies totalling 10 minutes of animation. Live action digital video footage of ocean, sunset and fire was integrated with pure CG environments and matte paintings that appear in the cinematics.

The company modelled, textured, and animated the characters and the environments employing a mix of key frame animation and motion capture. The mo-cap sequences were then completed at motion capture facility House of Moves.

rage

MIC used a variety of tools, including, Discreet's 3ds max and Character Studio, Right Hemisphere's Deep Paint, and three Digimation plugins: Shag Hair, Stitch, and Bones Pro 2.

Production on the Dragon Rage cinematics was 12 weeks long and involved a team of approximately 35 artists. Todd Sheridan Perry was the Animation Director, while Duane Stinnett, who is a former art director at Irvine, California game developing company Blizzard Entertainment, handled the CG Supervisor duties.

In addition to the animation and video sequences, Max Ink Café also created dragon fire with a mix of analogue effects -- via hair spray lit on fire as well as a sequence of the ocean waves swelling below a sunset, all shot with a Canon XL1 DV camera. The elements were then melded the final scenes with the CG Elements.

Previous game work includes Warriors of Might & Magic (June 2000), WDL Thunder Tanks (August 2000), and WDL War Jets (September 2000), all for the 3DO company.

www.maxinkcafe.com
 
source: www.cgimag.com