Posted by Mike on October 16, 19102 at 09:22:31:
In Reply to: Is the intro a real place? posted by Jens on October 16, 19102 at 07:10:40:
: Hi! Glad you're still hanging on in there. Could you tell me how the intro was made? A real filmshot from an original forest? And how much is CAD, then? Only the Obsidian structure, or the entire plain it is built on? The walk from the tent to Obsidian is concealed - you look to the ground - so I guess that's a good spot for pasting reality and computer.
Hi to you too!
I recall from an interview I read with one of the
game's developers that the Obsidian structure is
CAD, and perhaps the tent. The "Forest Realm"
was shot at a locale in the Pacific northwest.
I believe the Obsidian structure site is either
actual footage from Sentinel Dome at Yosemite, or
was inspired by Sentinel Dome and created with
CAD.
Wait.....wait.....processing.....
I just had a thought--I'll take a look at my
Obsidian Secrets and Strategies book.......
Ah...yes...on page 172, Chapter 8, in the section
titled "Developing The Forest Realm":
"The first realm of Obsidian, the Forest, was
actually created last. From a production point
of view, it was the most experimental. Rather
than creating a forest in the computer, the
design team and a specially assembled film crew
trekked out to a real forest, in Yosemite, shot a
number of video sequences, and then cut them
together to make a 3D environment. What
compounded the difficulty of the process was the
fact that the pieces of video had to come from
different parts of the forest. Therefore, the
real forest and the game forest comprise the same
elements, and yet they look nothing at all alike."
"Once the forest was fully rendered, the designers
still faced a giant hurdle. The team had to
import the giant, crystalline Obsidian structure,
made totally with computer graphics, into the
realistic scenery. This necessitated inclusion
of both a 2D matte painting of the structure (such
as the ones used in action movies), and also a 3D
close-up version."
So there it is.
And now you know the rest of the story......