Creating First Person Movement for MIRROR'S EDGE

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Creating First Person Movement for MIRROR'S EDGE

• Tobias Dahl, Lead Animator
• Mikael Lagré, Programmer

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Agenda
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• Located in Stockholm, Sweden
• Owned by Electronic Arts since 2006
• 260 employees
• Battlefield and Mirrors Edge

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Agenda
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The Vision
The KAOFs
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Through the character experience
The Vision

• Redefine 1st person
• True immersion
• Became a mantra on the team

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The Vision
First person free running

• More like a 3P adventure game, translated to 1P
  perspective
• Parkour-like moves
• Allow the things you always wanted to be able to
  do in your ordinary FPS

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The Vision
The chase Fight or flight

• Momentum is rewarded
• Assess the situation
• When the odds are against you the chase begins

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The Vision
Heightened senses

• How Faith percieves the world
• Focus on whats relevant, the rest become
  peripheral
• Clean and fresh

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Agenda
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Team structure
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Team Structure

• 5-6 people
• Team seated together
• Always one designer, one animator and one
  engineer assigned to a feature at the same time
• Agile development, using scrum
• The movement team was a perfect fit for the scrum
  format
• 2 Week cycles, 2-3 moves
• Allowed for fast iterations, design adjustments
  etc.

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Agenda
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Prototyping

• Initial concepts
• First pre-visualization
• Animate perception
• First Person Mesh
• The Whiteroom

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Initial Concepts
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Previsualisation
First Iteration
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Previsualisation
Second Iteration
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Previsualisation
Final Version
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Animate First Person Perception
First idea, do some mocap, parent the camera to
the head, done!
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Animate First Person Perception
Second idea, put some aim constraint on the
camera.
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Animate First Person Perception
Third idea, animate it by hand and make it look
cool and believable!
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Animate First Person Perception
Same goes for all 1p animations
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First Person Mesh

• Realistic appealing First Person mesh
• No volume loss
• Muscle and tendons
• Something happening under the skin

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First Person Mesh
Comparison
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First Person Mesh
Final Version
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The White Room
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Agenda
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The Tools

• Support all projects on DICE
• Support different engines like Frostbite, BF2 and
  Unreal3
• Scaleable rigs
• Created for Maya in MEL and API

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The Tools

• Design to fit first/third person animations
• Both realistic and stylized animations
• Deal with many characters for cut scenes
• High frame rate (no playblasts)
• No Maya referencing

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Agenda
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Iteration

• Movement was a key area of focus
• Most moves iterated on 5-6 times
• Attention to detail
• Motion sickness

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Jumping

• Context sensitive animations
• Layered landing animations
• Heavy landings / skill rolls

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Wall runs

• Impact animation
• Guided camera
• Aiming
• Dynamically triggered

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Vaulting

• Fixed metrics at first
• Became fully dynamic
• Choose animation based on height, speed and
  obstacle shape

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Agenda
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Final Thoughts

• Successful production methodology
• Strong belief in the game concept from the
  beginning to the end
• First person restrictions sometimes very
  challenging
• The whole production a learning experience

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Questions?