MVN的游戏制作应用《他的碎片》
Sassybot is a young indie game development studio that aims to create unique entertainment games. The company was founded in 2012 and currently consists of Elwin Verploegen and Tino van der Kraan. Together with Prof. Mata Haggis, Sassybot has developed and published the award winning title “Fragments of Him” for PC and Xbox One with a PS4 release currently in development.
Sassybot游戏公司致力于生产独树一帜的游戏，公司自2012年成立以来，已开发出获奖电脑游戏《他的碎片》，其PS4版正在研发中。
Fragments of Him 游戏《他的碎片》
Fragments of Him is an interactive narrative about love, loss, and hope. It tells a story about Will, a regular guy whose life is cut short by a tragic car accident. Who this man was and what he means to those he leaves behind is seen from the perspectives of his ex-girlfriend, his grandmother, and his partner in life. The player is present, not as a physical character, but rather as an invisible director who dictates the pacing as you experience the thoughts and views of these characters. Fragments of Him has been lauded and widely covered with Playboy calling it “… one of the smartest depictions of death in video games …” and Polygon writing “… I’m so thankful that Fragments of Him is coming into my life right now”.
游戏《他的碎片》是一款互动型故事游戏，讲述了一个关于爱情、得失与希望的故事。主人公因车祸离开人世，游戏就是关于他去世后与前女友、祖母和朋友的事。游戏的角色没有肉身，而是由无形的导演支配游戏的进程、人物体验、观念与看法。游戏深受玩家的好评。
Xsens
One of our production challenges was to find a cost effective solution to pose and/or animate our characters. During pre-production we looked at several suitable and affordable solutions for motion capture and after trying several time consuming and sometimes frustrating solutions Sassybot got our hands on an Xsens MVN suit. A single suit allowed to record over 250 motions for 5 key character types and various filler characters over the course of 3 working days after a very brief learning curve. A special thanks goes out to Ralph Palmer and NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences for their support in the recording sessions.
制作游戏难点之一：找到捕捉和模拟角色的经济型解决方案。在预生产阶段，我们考察了一些经济上可以负担并且适合我们的动捕解决方案。有些解决方案很费时间，也不容易使用，最后我们选择了Xsens公司的MVN动捕服。一件MVN动捕服可以为五个主角录制二百五十个动作，并在三个工作日内完成其他配角的动捕工作。感谢荷兰布雷达应用科技大学推荐我们使用Xsens公司的产品。
The recording sessions came with challenges of their own. One challenge in particular was using a single suit and actor to record a diverse character cast composed of males and females of varying heights and ages that sometimes even have to act which each other. That actor ended up being Tino van der Kraan from Sassybot. Fortunately, with Mata being the director, the resulting data was convincing enough to represent the entire cast.
录制过程充满艰辛，难点之一是用唯一的一件动捕服和唯一的一名演员录制不同的角色，这些角色有男有女，身高和年龄也不同，他们之间还要进行互动。庆幸的是录制结果令人满意。
There was one case in Fragments of Him where an adult had to playfully swing a child around. This was an interesting challenge with a single suit. The solution was to first record the adult, swinging around a backpack filled with enough weight to resemble a small child. This would emulate the shifting center of gravity. Then Tino would act as the child by hanging from a ledge and swinging the torso and legs as if he was being swung around. Finally, they would merge the results using Autodesk MotionBuilder by attaching the root of the child to the shoulder of the adult and attaching the hands together using an IK system.
有一场游戏是一个大人和一个孩子在一起玩秋千，大人推秋千，孩子做秋千。但是用一个演员制作这一场景是很有难度的。解决方案是先录制大人推秋千的动作，在秋千上放置重物模拟小孩的重心。然后再录制演员荡秋千时的动作，双脚离地，躯干摆动，就好像他在荡秋千一样。我们使用软件《Autodesk Motion Builder》最终将二者整合在一起，通过“IK”系统将二者的肩部、手臂融合在一起。
Another interesting challenge was doing a group hug of three characters with a single suit. The solution was to mocap each of the characters and have supporting actors acting the other parts. Because of the size differences of the characters the support actors had to adjust their acting height. The interns Kaylee Mulder and Maik Bentlage could help, out here.
制作时还有一个难点：使用一件动捕服做出三个角色一起拥抱的动画。解决方案是分别制作每一个角色的动捕，其他配角扮演另外两个角色。由于游戏里角色的身高不同，作为实习生的配角需要调整自己的身高来模拟游戏中角色的身高，他们起了帮助作用。