LeystTV Cinematic and Storytelling interview with Terran Gregory

Machinima to Cinematics

• As Cinematic Narrative Director, Gregory has worked on the cinematics, stories, trailers for almost 17 years. He started as a video editor, after impressing developers with his work on the machinima Return.

• Machinima today is wildly different in terms of software and readily accessible 3D tools. It’s very empowering for new people wanting to get in, and there are thousands of hours of video tutorials on Youtube.

• The Wrathgate was a defining moment in which the team realized that in-game cinematics were going to be a thing going forward. Personal favorites include
• Taran Zhu facing Garrosh in the Siege of Orgrimmar trailer, which really pushed what they were able to do with animation.

• The Battle for Shattrath in Warlords of Draenor was structurally interesting due to repeatedly cycling between three different viewpoints.

• Ysera’s passing in the Val’sharah Epilogue was so visually powerful that it was done entirely without any dialogue.

• Jaina in the Realm of Torment revisiting several moments from Warcraft III was also a very personal one in which Gregory had the opportunity to write the screenplay.

Types of Cinematics

• Sometimes 3D assets aren’t ready while working on cinematics, leading to the use of older assets as stand-in placeholders. While working on Opening the Way, there was a cut where the Centaur guard was replaced with Lord Herne, leader of the Wild Hunt in Ardenweald, which really impressed and confused some early viewers despite not being the intended final model.

• It’s exciting to have several different types of cinematic tools to tell the story of Warcraft. Each has their usefulness and place, with varying levels of complexity. Although he’s had the opportunity to work directly on several types, he prefers in-game cinematics because he likes to work on more pieces of content that touch several different parts of the game, whereas full CGI cinematics are much more complex projects that take a great deal longer to finish.
• CGI cinematics like Old Soldier are the tip of the spear – meant to really get out and expose the wider world to what’s going on in World of Warcraft.

• In-game cinematics like Opening the Way, tend to play within the content, closer to a “previously on World of Warcraft” reel.

• There are now several varying types of in-game cutscenes, from classic cutscenes to support gameplay, FMV’s like Secrets of the Reach, to entirely new animated realtime cinematics playing within the game engine – no longer no longer constrained by FMV wrappers, the first of which was Anduin Holding the Line in the Maw.

• Generally they all start with the in-game model, and depending on which type of cinematic they’re doing, the artists will create an appropriate up-res to convert it to the correct type. So largely, they all start with the same in-game model which is then brought to the level of fidelity or complexity needed to support closer viewing cameras.

New Technology

• It sounds silly, because it’s something people don’t think of, but they gained the ability to blur the background (adding Depth of Field) in real-time animated cutscenes. Most people won’t even notice, since its so common in media, but they didn’t have that tech until Dragonflight.

• It’s so simple, yet so massive, as it draws the viewer’s attention to the character, rather than the environmental detail. It’s simple, minor, and almost subliminal, but makes a significant difference in the cinematic feel of these scenes.

• It’s natural for an artist to look back on their previous work and think about how they’d like to redo them, but they’re all a reflection of the thinking, capability, and tools of the time. Cinematics are a complex art for that requires a lot of time and effort, which Terran believes is better spent making more new content, rather than looking backwards.

Replaying Cinematics

• The idea of adding a cinematic library to the game, allowing cinematics to be replayed directly in-game, has been an evolving discussion and challenge for the team.

• They’ve tried a few different things, including Chronicler Zataara from the WoD Garrison and the Memory Cube from Legion, but the challenge is finding the right solution of over 100 different moments throughout the game.

Storytelling

• World of Warcraft is a large collaborative effort between quest designers, narrative designers, world designers, artists, and more. They have all have brilliant ideas, and as a result even small features like the Trading Post end up with a lot of little story touches, like Flynn adopting a pet for Shaw or Maximillian looking for a sword, that make the world feel more alive.

• Bigger zones can generally be broken down into three parts: there’s the big overarching plotline with the big power player characters and the plot, then the middle is made up of what’s taking us through the zone and what we see while traversing it, and then down at the bottom floor is what they call “local stories” – an initiative driven by quest designers to make the world feel lived in.

• It’s the team’s utmost goal to make the world feel real, authentic, lived in, and alive. All of those crews collaborate together to try to find those hooks to make something as simple as the Trading Post feel like more than just another vendor – that’s what makes the world so vibrant.

• There are some lessons to be learned from tying story moments to renown. It can be difficult to gauge exactly how it’ll play out when millions of players are progressing at different rates and in different ways, but looking back there are times where it’s valuable to have space between two story beats, but there may have been too many levels of renown spread required to unlock some of them. As with everything, the team tries something, looks at the feedback, and adjusts accordingly – as we’ve seen in Embers of Neltharion.

Patch 10.0.7 Prologue

The prologue in 10.0.7 was the beginning of a new seasonal update cadence for World of Warcraft, as seen on the roadmap. Not all patches are going to be the same size, but as storytellers they have the opportunity to use these smaller moments as prologues or epiloges – creating a little bit of space between the bigger story moments in full sized content patches.

• This helps put the spotlight on different characters and storybeats, such as the cutscene between Ebyssian and Emberthal. Maria Hamilton initially referred to it as the start of 10.1. It’s been really exciting, and the team is pleased with the way it’s turned out, looking forward to similar updates to come later this year.

• From a storyteller perspective, having these beats play out more episodically gives these moments time to shine and resonate with the player, putting a pin on events which might otherwise get lost in the noise of a larger update where one story beat is quickly followed by the next. Instead, it gives the community a chance to see that story play out progressively and discuss it as it’s unfolding.

PTR Spoilers

• It’s always a challenge, since they want to keep the story unspoiled in order to surprise players, but they also want to make sure the PTR is being used effectively to refine the content as much as possible. They think they’ve done well with Dragonflight – some things have been hidden because the content needs to play out sequentially and they don’t want the end to get spoiled before the beginning even happens.

• There are always a couple things that slip through, but for the most part, they think it’s been fairly successful.

Incarnate Visage Forms

• Raszageth was the most impetuous of the Primalists, absolutely zealous for their cause. Of the four, she was the most brash and out in the open, she wasn’t a subtle character and didn’t spend a lot of time trying to not being a dragon – she unabashedly flaunted everything she was about, while the other Incarnates are being a little more tactical about playing to all their strengths, including shifting to humanoid forms when they need to be a little less conspicuous.

• So it’s almost a matter of character that we never saw her visage form. As to whether we might ever see it… well Terran can’t say anything about the future, but who knows?