Archive notice: This article was originally published on March 17, 2015. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Ubisoft Montreal has released the first-person shooter game “Far Cry 3” with an open game world; the fourth part of the series was released last year in November.
Ubisoft explained to us how the game was created with the fascinating journey into a living natural environment and gave us an insight into the world of madness, which in “Far Cry 3” is largely determined by the character Vaas.
The “filmmaker” Uwe Boll already saw a great film story in the first-person shooter “Far Cry” (see also DP issue 01/15). He tried his hand at adapting the game in 2008 with Til Schweiger in the lead role – which, in contrast to the high quality of the game, ended in a big pile of trash – and not just because of Til Schweiger’s performance.
Engine development
Nine years have passed since the release of the first instalment of “Far Cry”, which was developed by Crytek using the Cry engine and published by Ubisoft. Ubisoft Montreal took over the development of the console version of this instalment, entitled “Far Cry Instinct”, which was a stand-alone game with additional new features and an online mode. finally, in 2008, Ubisoft Montreal developed all platform versions of “Far Cry 2” completely on its own with the Dunia and Havok physics engines. Four years later, Ubisoft is now releasing the sequel “Far Cry 3”, again based on the same engines, but with a story that is independent of the previous games. Problems that are said to have occurred in “Far Cry 2”, such as difficulties saving game saves, sudden disappearance of characters and a frozen image, are no longer to be found in the third instalment.
Location “Far Cry 3”
“Far Cry 3” is set on the Rook Islands, which are located somewhere in Indonesia. Gamers can expect an impressive CGI world with beautiful nature on two different island groups – as well as lawlessness, drugs, pirates and a lack of humanity. In order to make this island landscape as realistic and lively as possible, the PC version of the game uses the latest graphics performance, for which Ubisoft has entered into a cooperation with AMD, so that the latest features and optimisations could be integrated on the graphics side. For example, the feature of the global lighting system for environments, which is able to calculate indirect or reflective light to enable the rendering of a visually coherent and realistic world. The same applies to the physics-based shading model, which is intended to provide complete day and night cycles with physically correct sky lighting. In total, the development process took just over three years, during which all cinematics and in-game scenes were filmed in the Montreal studio with actors in performance capture suits.
Before the game’s release, the storyline was introduced with the elaborately produced cinematic trailer “Stranded”, for which Blur Studio from Venice in California was responsible in collaboration with Ubisoft. The trailer shows how the main protagonist, Jason Brody, his brother Grant and three other friends are captured by pirates after a boozy holiday night on the island in question. This is also the first moment in which Jason meets his psychopathic and charismatic antagonist Vaas Montenegro, played by actor Michael Mando.
Villain Vaas
The villain character Vaas is embodied by the actor Michael Mando, who appears to be the spitting image of the digital Vaas in his mask and costume. According to Ubisoft, Michael Mando played a decisive role in the development of the role of Vaas. After the audition, which Mando attended with his fingers wrapped in tape, wearing a tank top, boots and a Mohawk hairstyle, the development team was inspired by his look and decided to tailor the character of Vaas to his body. The theme of madness is a recurring theme in the game, with Vaas explaining his Albert Einstein-inspired definition of madness to the player in a pre-released extract from the game: “Do you know what madness is? When someone does the same thing over and over again and always expects different results.”
After Jason and his brother manage to escape from Vaa’s troops at the end of the trailer, but his brother does not survive, it is clear that the player will take Jason’s position in the game. At the beginning of the game, Jason is initially taken in by the Raykat, a native tribe. On the condition that he helps them fight the pirates, he is given a wide range of weapons. So he sets off in search of his friends and goes into battle against his enemies. The player moves through the open game world and influences the course of the game through his decisions.
By climbing high radio towers, the player can unlock parts of the map and enjoy a view over the graphically outstanding world of “Far Cry 3”. The game’s complex storyline takes place on different levels. The game functions as a first-person shooter, role-playing game and also as a social instance, because the more enemies Jason kills, the more his personality changes from his actual self to a killing machine.
“Far Cry 3” has been available for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC since November 2012 and has been given an 18+ rating. In an interview, Ubisoft Montreal gave us an insight into the creation of the CGI world of “Far Cry 3” and the cinematic trailer “Stranded”.
Associate Producer Anne Gibault, Level Designer Vincent Ouellette and Brand Manager Henri-Philippe Guay answered our questions.
DP: How many days of filming in the performance capture studio in Montreal with the actors were necessary?
Anne Gibault: For the cinematics of “Far Cry 3” alone, we needed a total of 22 shooting days, including two days that were exclusively for stunts. The results of the shoot are cinematics with a running time of two hours. The entire cast consisted of 15 actors.
DP: How is the performance capture studio in Montreal equipped?
Anne Gibault: The volume of the recording area in the studio is eleven by six metres with over 65 Vicon cameras all around. For “Far Cry 3”, it’s important to know that performance capture has now replaced classic motion capture. We refer to the work there as performance capture because we not only capture the body movements, but also the facial and facial expression data as well as the voice at the same time. And if necessary, we can even do this with several actors on set at the same time. This way, the actors have the freedom to improvise more, so we can even capture the mood felt on set. I would never want to go back to classic motion capture after seeing the results for “Far Cry3”.
DP: Were only the cinematics and cut scenes realised with actors and directors? Or the complete gameplay?
Anne Gibault: We had different teams for the in-game scenes and the cinematics. For the cinematics, which came from the main script, it was important for us to cast the best actors for each role. This means we wanted them to add their own personal touch and vision to the role. For this part of the process, we hired Alain Desrochers, a well-known film director in Quebec, who directs all of our cinematics. The motion capture for the artificial intelligence in the game, for example, was done over a long period of time because we have to develop the kind of systemic behaviour long before the game is ready to ship.
DP: Is the data from the actors’ facial capturing fully integrated into the game or was an elaborate keyframe animation still necessary?
Anne Gibault: I would say it was a middle ground. We used an in-house technology called MoCam: We capture the actors’ facial movements with a camera attached to a helmet. From this video feed, the animation can be created more quickly. We save a lot of time thanks to an automatic process based on the repetition of certain expressions that our animators select. However, they still have to give the material a lot of input and polishing afterwards. It is well known that the human face and its expressions contain very specific details and recognisable movements: We are therefore very grateful to the talented animators, who have certainly delivered a top performance for the game.
DP: There are a lot of animals in “Far Cry 3”, did you also mocap them?
Anne Gibault: No, we didn’t do anything like that and I can say that our animators were very happy about this decision. Animating animals is always fun and at the same time a nice and difficult challenge. Although I would love to see a real tiger in motion capture.
DP: What tools did you use to edit the animals? Was there a special hair tool?
Anne Gibault: We use in-house hair tools, but only for humans, as we achieved a high quality with our great animation team. The hair shading in “Far Cry 3” looks so realistic thanks to a special directional lighting model. In addition, the physics-based shading model is combined with sub-surface scattering and rim lighting to render natural-looking skin.
DP: The first part of the game trilogy “Far Cry” was characterised in particular by its innovative water rendering. What has happened in this area since then?
Vincent Ouellette: I think games in general have made a big technological leap since the first instalment of “Far Cry”. But gamers demand more than just great technology, they want to invest their time in fantasy that exists beyond the ordinary world and have new experiences. Of course, an incredible amount of effort has been put into realistic water, fire spread and vegetation, but above all we wanted our world to tell a story. From the big vistas to the small details, we wanted this place to have a strong personality and convey the fantasy that the player is a survivor on an island full of stories of danger and promise.
DP: What tools were used to create the vegetation?
Vincent Ouellette: We created an in-house technology called Real-Trees for the procedural design. Think of this technology as every tree, bush and flower is an ingredient. We use recipes called collection systems that allow you to quickly populate areas with different types of vegetation. For example: you draw an area on the ground, assign a Dense Jungle Collection System to it and then the entire area is filled with trees, plants, bushes and rocks based on various rules. For example, we use rules such as, this flower only grows next to this one tree, this bush only exists on the border of the jungle, etcetera. Basically, it simulates how vegetation actually grows in reality. This was used to colonise the land, the roads and even the rivers and the oceans. Then the vegetation and rocks were placed by hand in the specific location where we can use them specifically for gameplay or visual composition.
DP: What development has happened in the Dunia Engine since “Far Cry 2”?
Vincent Ouellette : There were many things in Far Cry 2 that worked well and a few others that needed some work based on player feedback. I could go on forever about the differences between the two games, but I’ll limit myself to the two most important ones: Firstly, the draw distance. Sometimes travelling in Far Cry 2 had a claustrophobic feeling with a lot of hard boundaries, even though the world was gigantic. So we’ve significantly advanced the technology of the engine so that Jason now enters a world that feels alive everywhere he goes or looks. So all the places he could go are visible for miles and from the observation towers he feels like the king of the world. Secondly, the impact on the world: in Far Cry 2, everyone you met was an enemy, which made sense in the context of a global conflict. In Far Cry 3, we wanted the world to feel alive, like an ecosystem. So all the animals interact with each other, the different camps and the random encounters you make are not only alive, but the actions the player chooses to take have a lasting consequence on the world. For example, if you capture an outpost and secure that part of the island for the Rakiat people.
DP: What other challenges did the “Far Cry 3” project have and how were they overcome?
Vincent Ouellette: One of the biggest challenges is of course that “Far Cry” is one of the few first person shooters in an open world on the market. In linear shooters, it’s very easy to control the player’s path through the level design and guide them through a precise experience. But in an open world, the player can approach and attack in a scenario the way they want to. So how do you manage that when everything you know about the classic level design of a first person shooter doesn’t work in an open world context? On the one hand, you have to respect the beauty of systemic gameplay, but on the other hand we also wanted to create memorable moments so that the game has that special appeal. So we had to be very inventive to find solutions that would energise the player. And I think that worked very well.
DP: Which three games on the market do you currently consider to be the most successful and why?
Vincent Ouellette: Firstly, I really like games like “Journey” and “Heavy Rain” because they push the boundaries of how stories are told and what we expect from games. Secondly, games as big as “Dishonored” but as simple as “Hot Line Miami” let the player express their own style through gameplay. These types of games are really rewarding. Thirdly, I love games like “Red Dead Redemption” and “The Elder Scroll V: Skyrim”, where the game world is immersive, authentic and believable. I also think we’ve achieved something great with Far Cry 3 because we’ve got some of all these elements that make a great game.
DP: Who made the “Stranded” cinematic trailer?
Henri-Philippe Guay: We worked very closely with the talented Blur Studio (www. blur.com) to bring out the “Stranded” CGI trailer. The original concept was brainstormed over breakfast one morning in Montreal and then fleshed out by the production team. The concept was then handed over to Blur Studio so they could work with it and enchant us. They put together a very interesting rip-o-matic (a mood reel inspired by other films) and then sent us the first renders of the shots in progress shortly afterwards. At each subsequent stage of the trailer’s development, the Ubisoft team was blown away by what we received from Blur Studio. They did an exceptional job of adding things to our concept that seemed very strong to us even at first glance.
DP: What difficulties and challenges did the trailer have?
Henri-Philippe Guay: No trailer or game is created flawlessly on the first attempt. From a creative point of view, these projects initially follow a certain direction, only to realise that we need a push in a different direction. Originally, the trailer was more like a feature film with long shots and extended takes. However, we quickly realised that the story was only a small part of what we wanted to show. It was very important that people clearly understood that “Far Cry 3” is about a fight for survival – and about firearms. The setting with Jason, his friends, Vaas and the whole situation, they’re all in an extreme predicament that needs a strong conclusion. One that hints at how the rest of the game will play out. I hope we’ve achieved that. As a side note, since we were talking about creative changes: Did anyone remember the name of Jason’s girlfriend? She’s also in the game – but there was a change in the time that the trailer was made and the final game was made. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of the challenges you can run into on a project like this.
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The interview first appeared in DP issue 02/13.
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