Creating Guild Wars 2 Cinematics

The Creating Guild Wars 2 Cinematics behind-the-scenes video premiered on 18 August 2010.

Dialogue

Horia Dociu: "Oh, hi! I'm Horia Dociu, the Cinematics Lead here at ArenaNet. We've got something super special to show you. We're going to share with you guys the very first Guild Wars 2 cinematic. But first, let's take a look at how we make this stuff."

Horia Dociu: "Our studio has a really strong art department. We love the idea of taking this amazing art, all these gorgeous paintings, and using them to tell the story of Guild Wars 2."

Horia Dociu: "To start, I work with the writers to translate their scripts into a rough story board. This becomes sort of the blueprint for the final cinematic. Then, we compose the boards into a rough animatic. This will help us figure out the timing beats, transitions and voiceover stuff. Once the story board is approved, the illustrator takes it from the sketch and turns it into the awesome hand-painted illustrations you see in game."

Horia Dociu: "Once the painting is finished, we load the layers into our proprietary editor. It was custom designed to let us animate and edit 2D and 3D assets. Something that's pretty cool about our cinematics is none of them are pre-rendered. That means we have the ability to show your player character in our painted cinematics. So from here, our motion graphics artists start animating the pictures and creating the cool parallax effect that gives the illustrations depth."

Richard Anderson: "So I take the storyboards and I add a certain amount of mood and life to them. When I paint, I keep in mind to keep all the elements seperate on layers so it's easier for all the animators to animate."

Vicki Ebberts: "We can use 3D models and characters, and custom lighting, and particle effects, and it's our job to really incorporate all these different elements and make sure that they work well together."

Matthew Oswald: "What we try and do is take concept art, illustrations, anything the artists give us, and just bring it to life."

Horia Dociu: "When we need custom character animation, the animators utilize both mocap and traditional hand animation, depending on what the character needs. Once the cinematic is complete, we give it to the sound guys. They mix some music, sound effects, and really bring the whole thing together. It takes a lot of time to really fine-tune all these different aspects. But when it all comes together, it really brings the cinematics to the next level, and we're super excited about them."

Horia Dociu: "Alright, we got something pretty cool, I think. It's pretty unique, and we're all really proud of our work. We're gonna show you guys right now the very first cinematic from Guild Wars 2, so we hope you enjoy it."

*an in game cinematic begins*

Narrator: "The human race once ruled Tyria."

Narrator: "Now, we struggle to hold our ground."

Narrator: "We've been defeated, driven back, broken. But we will not surrender."

Narrator: "So many nations have fallen, only Kryta still stands."

Narrator: "Our faith is strong despite the silence of the Six Gods."

Narrator: "With courage, we'll make our stand in Divinity's Reach."

See also

• Creating Guild Wars 2 Cinematics on YouTube

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