World of Warcraft Cinematic Interview

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Written by BuckGB on March 5th, 2004

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Q: What's the overall process for making a video like this? Do you start with a linear story or do you just string together key moments of action? Who decides what's included? How many people are involved in a project like this?

A: Whether we're doing a story-driven piece like Diablo II, or a more visceral piece like the World of Warcraft Intro, the process is pretty much the same. We create a written screenplay, and then work up storyboards, which are then scanned and made into our "animatic," or animated storyboard. From that point, we jump into 3D and start to flesh out rough animated versions of the shots, using low-poly versions of the characters and sets.

Our modelers will then start in on the full-res models, and our animators continue to work on refining the animation. As our characters get closer to being finished, we start dropping them into the shots, and refine lighting and textures. We finish off the whole thing with a whole lot of compositing. Then sleep for a straight week.

We always collaborate closely with the game team to come up with content that works well to complement the game.

Our cinematics team is about 25 strong, and usually everyone gets involved with every project at some point in the process.

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