Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Featured
Featured (20)
Assassin's Creed I
- 1. ASSASSIN’S CREED Taming the Mob: Creating believablecrowds
- 2. Intro Assassin’sCreed • Sylvain Bernard, Animation Director NPC & Cinematics • James Therien, Technical Lead for crowd gameplay
- 3. Agenda Assassin’sCreed • Direction • Rigging the Characters • Making them move • Navigation • Crowd density • Creating variety • Interaction with the crowd • Performance • Conclusion • Q&A
- 4. Direction Assassin’sCreed • Measuring ourexpectations – Looking at other games – Getting reference from real life footage
- 5. GeneralDirection Assassin’sCreed • Expectations – Recreate a realistic crowd atmosphere – Be able to movein tight area – Realistic contact between them – Have proper reaction to theenvironment – Incorporate the crowd into the game play
- 6. Implementation Direction Assassin’sCreed • Rich NPCs – Every NPC is an individual. – Emergent crowd.
- 7. Art Direction Assassin’sCreed • Level design and Art direction in real life human scale
- 9. Animation Direction Assassin’sCreed • Cheatonlywhenreallyneeded 66 feets 23 feets
- 10. Animation Direction Assassin’sCreed • Animation style – Keyframing editing
- 11. Animation Direction Assassin’sCreed • Animation style – Motion capture editing
- 12. Animation Direction Assassin’sCreed Animation Style Key frame Motion Capture Realistic Cartoon Stylised realistic • Animation style – Stylized realistic
- 13. Riggingthe characters Assassin’sCreed • Skeleton sharedbetween all characters – Give the opportunity to replace the animations Civilain Male Civilain Female Assassin Military normal Fight animation Ground movement Climbing Free running Fight animation Ground movement Ground movement Ground movement Free Running ETC... Fight animation Ground movement Climbing Free running Base Hurt Unbalance Unbalance Hurt Unbalance Unbalance Unbalance Military aware Ground movement Layering animation
- 14. Riggingthe characters Assassin’sCreed • Lots of bones! – Main skeleton ~55 – Head ~35 – Procedural ~ 40-80 – Pigeons: 36
- 15. Riggingthe characters Assassin’sCreed • Hinge Bones • Simple physics: wind, gravity, momentum. • No collisions. Uses constraints. • For hair and robes.
- 16. Riggingthe characters Assassin’sCreed • Look at – 3 independent targets: Torso, Head, and Eyes – Eye blink – We also control the eyelids when the character looks up
- 17. Makingthem move Assassin’sCreed • Movement system first pass – More realistic animation = controls not responsive – Really complex = too much impact on other systems
- 18. Makingthem move Assassin’sCreed • Movement system – Simplified version, keeping maximum fluidity
- 19. Makingthem move Assassin’sCreed • Movement system – NPC and Assassin share same animation system
- 20. Makingthem move Assassin’sCreed • Movement system – 122 movement and transition animations – 168 animations total related to ground movement Other Transitions Movement Walk Slow Walk Normal Jog &Run Start straight Sprint Side Walk L&R Stop Run turns Wait & Idles Cycle breakers Walk breaker Walk stop Oriented move Wait High R Wait Low R 10 108 14 12 24 Wait High L Wait Low L Banking L&R Start Turn Turn on spot Stealth 168 Total animations Idles
- 21. Assassin’sCreed Makingthem move • Movement system – Displacement node
- 22. Assassin’sCreed Makingthem move • Movement system – Crowd swimming, Cycles Breakers and walk stop
- 23. Assassin’sCreed Makingthem move • Movement system – Oriented move
- 24. Interaction with environment Assassin’sCreed • Arbitraryenvironment. – Not on a grid. • Large – Navigationis notconstrainedtothe groundplane.
- 25. Interaction with environment Assassin’sCreed • Generated data from collisions
- 26. Interaction with environment Assassin’sCreed • 2 layers in AI: – Behavioranddecision • Behavior environment data – Guidances • Justlines really. • Interpretedatrun-time.
- 27. Interaction with environment Assassin’sCreed • AI decision environment data – Navmesh • 2 ½ dtrianglemesh. • Localplanningandtests.
- 28. Interaction with environment Assassin’sCreed • AI decision environment data – Waypoints network • Connectivitynetworkfor A*pathfinding.
- 29. Interaction with environment Assassin’sCreed • AI decision environment data – Objects waypoints and Metalinks • Object waypoints are simple connectivity info. • Metalinks encodes more complex connectivity (for jumps,ladders, beams, etc)
- 30. Interaction with environment Assassin’sCreed • Steering – Continuous small corrections to speed and direction to get to our next target position – Path validation to remove waypoint placement artefacts. – Communication with the decision layer when we’re in trouble.
- 31. Interaction with environment Assassin’sCreed • Level-designandnavigation. - Crowdflows • Navigationhighways. • Makeswanderingverycheap. • Veryuseful alsoforflee.
- 32. • Unbalance system/Environmental hurt – Completely animated system – Rag doll activated at the last moment Assassin’sCreed Interaction with environment
- 33. Crowddensity Assassin’sCreed • Spawning in cities – You need to see the NPCs.
- 34. Crowddensity Assassin’sCreed • Spawning in cities – long avenues
- 35. Crowddensity Assassin’sCreed • Solution: The blob – Pick closest triangle on a 2d mesh and do a flood fill
- 36. Creating variety Assassin’sCreed • Entity builder – Mixing attributes on spawning – Endless possibilities • Head structure, facial texture, skin color, body texture, male, female, military, thin, fat, tall, short, accessories, AI reactions, voice tone…
- 37. Creating variety Assassin’sCreed • Crowd composition – Game play crowd • Base walking crowds • Bench • Monks • Beggars • Military patrols • Off duties • Guard post • Tugs • Trouble makers • Jar carriers • Archers – Duties • Kiosk • Orators
- 38. • Physicalinteraction – Soft push – Grab and throw – Collision – Fight – Assassination Interacting with the crowd Assassin’sCreed
- 39. • Reactionsystem – Communicating design to programmers • Using fakefootageofthe differentreactionscenario – Reaction are composed of: • Individual reaction • Soundactuallycoming outofaspecific NPC • Bodygesture chosentomatchvoice; over100possibilities • Differentreactionintensity • Biglist of event possibilities • Fakecommentsharingbetween NPC Interacting with the crowd Assassin’sCreed
- 40. • Reaction system – More than a visual system. • Basedon responsetoevents. • Datadriven. Designersset responses. • Alertwasused forchasestodrawguardsinto fight. • Guardawarenesslevels. Assassin’sCreed Interacting with the crowd
- 41. Performance Assassin’sCreed • HowdoyougetlotsofNPCsat30fps? – Not easy with no LOD on decision or Behavior layers. – Lots of LOD on the animation • Bonecountsdropfast,No moreIK, Simplerlook-at,Simplerproceduralrigs,etc – Focus on making common NPCs as cheap as possible. • Cheappathfinding,environment tests,steering, etc.
- 42. Performance Assassin’sCreed Rendering Engine Begin Frame End Frame • Concurrency – Lotsof multithreading. – Workedwell onPC and360. – As much SPUas wecouldon PS3. Rendering Begin Engine Frame Animation Finish Engine Frame Animation Animation Animation Begin Frame End Frame
- 43. Conclusion Assassin’sCreed • We met our goals ofcreating a believable crowd. – Quality-focussedteamwithgoodsupportfrommanagement. – Gooddiversity, quality,andquantity. • Harderthan we planned to incorporategameplay – Emergent crowdinteractionshardtomanage. – Difficultyfortheplayertousethe crowdasa tool.