CaesarZX：
对于RTS游戏《横扫千军》的制作，Geoffrey Keighley的文章已经不足以全面讲述那段历史，而加入一个亲自参与此游戏制作的人物的视角，我们就可以看到一个更完整的横扫千军诞生史。 这篇连载作者是《横扫千军》美工总监Clayton Kauzlaric，他从去年9月开始在他自己的Blog上连载自己在Cavedog参与制作《横扫千军》 的经历。本连载由我与游戏编年史的主人无声畅游合作翻译推出。
第八章：小心地毁掉
无声畅游 译
这里本来是youtube的TA序幕，可惜没法转过来。
横扫千军的实际序幕，点击三角形播放。
TA的序幕是我们工作的一大重点。由于Cavedog的展位被安排在GT战区一个毫不起眼的角落里，因此这唯一能给玩家留下第一印象的宣传视频就显得非常重要了。
这场序幕由Kevin Pun主持开发。一开始，他只能在我胡乱堆砌的那个粗略框架下展开工作。但很快，他便为影片加入了规模惊人的戏剧效果与管弦音乐。他还将许多由单位美工师制作的模型动画也整合进来。我们还特意为他增派了一个过场影像小组。由于大家的效率是如此之高，宣传片的内容竟在完工前的最后一刻扩充了三分之一，其内容大部分出自 Rebecca Coffman之手。Cavedog是我与Kevin，Rebecca共事的第三站，我很高兴他们这么牛。
这是Kevin编撰的过场电影故事板中的第一页
以当时条件而言，能完成这样的视频实属奇迹。虽然影片是用相当简，低廉的工具开发的，却产生了一流的效果。
再看两张故事板中的片段
当最终动画渲染完成后，我们又用Adobe Premiere对其进行了一定的淡化。声音效果是由Frank Byr加入的，他将TA的一段早期主题曲(当然是由Jeremy Soule作曲)用来作宣传片的背景乐。
当前最大的问题是:专供E3的这段宣传视频，究竟该用什么格式的媒介来装载呢?由于当时DVD尚不流行，大部分E3宣传视频还在采用五花八门的磁式录影带，其缺点显而易见，就是需要经常倒带，这样，做得再出色的影片，其宣传效果也不免要打些折扣。为了避免这一缺陷，我提议是否能将影片刻在一张激光视盘上 (laser videodisc)，这不仅解决了媒介的容量与磨损问题，还能使影片不间断地反复播放。
这类视盘我有不少，但我还不清楚能否将所有宣传资料都集中在一盘碟片中。虽然这不算什么难事，却需要一些异常繁琐的步骤。首先，我们需要按顺序渲染/排列影片的每一帧画面。由于缺乏预算，我们当时还没有CD烧录机，我只好将所有这些画面存放在一大堆Zip软盘中。然后，我将这对软盘连同一份装有配乐的。AIFF立体声文件，一齐交给西雅图的一家视频后期制作中心(名叫Pinnacle Post)，由他们负责将画面与声音整合在一起后，装进一盘betacam格式的影带里。接下来，再通过FedEx将带子快递到位于新英格兰的光盘制作公司，最终烧录成我们所需要的激光视盘。
这份宣传片视盘一共制作了两张。等我入手后才发现:这玩意与普通的光盘完全不同。一般规格的CD，DVD或其它光盘，大多以铝和多碳酸塑料为原料。而我们收到的盘片却是由异常光滑且易碎的玻璃体制成的。我对此很不安:要知道，把这碟片运往亚特兰大，一路上不知要历经多少颠簸，而在展前布置摊位的过程中，也不知道会遇到什么混乱状况。直觉告诉我，这几个可用来当镜子照的"圆玻璃"一定会出么事。
这就是让人提心吊胆的E3播放碟片
我的预感灵验了:一个负责布置展位的家伙居然一屁股坐在一张盘片上……
需要指出的是，E3上播出的影片与正式版中稍有不同。而且当时我们还没有完成全部管弦乐的录制，因此宣传片采用的配乐还是早期的一个合成版。它也许能"糊弄"住一般听众，但一定骗不过资深乐迷的耳朵。此外，解说旁白也尚未录制，我们只好权且采用字幕代替画外音。
话接前言……幸好我们事先准备了两张宣传片。幸存的那张不负众望地带来了完美的演出，而且我们还少了倒带的麻烦。除了展台宝贝（Booth Baby）之外，最能吸引"视觉动物"们前来本方展摊参观的，莫过于一段能"唬"住大家的视听大餐了。尽管我们播片的屏幕很小，声音也几乎听不到，可这张TA宣传片却圆满完成了它的使命。我不知看过多少商界人士扛着他们的摄像机，专心致志地拍摄着那些大屏幕上的大魄力视频——可他们却从来不会去亲自试玩一下。
没关系，反正许多人都想玩《横扫千军》。
待续
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Part 8: Destroy With Care
The intro movie for Total Annihilation was a pretty important piece of work. This was the first impression we made when players launched the game and it was the only piece of snazzy video we would display at the humble little Cavedog corner of GT Interactive’s booth at E3 that year.
The cut scenes were headed up by Kevin Pun. He started with a rough framework centered on a long, continuous pullback I tossed together, but added an amazing amount of drama and wonderfully orchestrated motion to the final sequence. Kevin created a huge chunk of the assets used in the introduction. He also incorporated models and animations From the unit artists, and a small team we added specifically to help out with the cut scenes. The movies came together so quickly the intro was extended by about one third at the last minute, incorporating new shots largely created by Rebecca Coffman. Cavedog was the third job I’d been at with Kevin and Rebecca, and it was a pleasure to see them kicking so much ass.
Page one of Kevin’s storyboard for the final intro movie.
It’s amazing how well most of this sequence holds up today. The movie was made by a handful of folks using relatively simple, inexpensive tools, but it delivers a great sense of action and anticipation.
Two excerpts From the original storyboard.
Once the final animation was rendered, a few dissolves were added using Adobe Premiere. The sound effects were added by Frank Bry, using an early pass of the theme music for Total Annihilation (by Jeremy Soule, of course) as a backdrop.
The question at this point was about what sort of media to use for E3. This was before DVD’s came along. Plenty of video displays at E3 were still played off various formats of magnetic video tape, which necessitated rewinding your cool eye-catching movie every so often. To avoid that I asked if we could burn the intro sequence to a laser videodisc. I figured this would avoid the risk of jamming or wearing out and the movie could just be set to repeat all day.
I owned quite a few laserdiscs, but had no idea how to go about getting a single one-off disk made. It wasn’t hard, but there were lots of little steps. First, I had all the individual frames for the movie rendered and numbered sequentially. We didn’t have a CD burner in the office (we were that low budget) so I had to transport the frames on a stack of Zip disks. I took these, along with a stereo .AIFF file of the soundtrack to video post facility in Seattle, called Pinnacle Post. They combined the frames with the soundtrack and recorded the assembled movie to a betacam tape. This was FedExed to a facility in New England Where they burned a single laser disc, containing the intro movie.
Make that two disks. I found out that unlike regular laser discs, a one-off was burned onto glass. Instead of the typical aluminum and polycarbonate plastic used for CD’s, DVD’s and regular laser discs, we would receive a disk made of perfectly flat, brittle glass. I had a bad feeling about that. Between getting shipped back and forth across the country, sent to E3 and the chaotic process of setting up the booth in Atlanta, I just knew something would happen to that lovely circular mirror containing our movie.
The shockingly reflective intro movie disk.
I was right. A teamster sat on one of the disks while the booth was under construction.
The version of the movie shown at E3 was slightly different than the one that shipped with the game. We hadn’t done the full orchestral recording of the soundtrack yet, so the music was an earlier synthesizer-based version. It sounded pretty convincing to any casual listener, but lacked the punch of a real orchestra. We also hadn’t recorded the narration, so the introductory voice over was accomplished with on-screen text.
Back to the story… The surviving disk played perfectly and we didn’t have to worry about looking up to see if a tape needed rewinding. Next to booth babes, the most common way to lure dazed attendees into your booth at E3 is a mind-numbing display of sound and video. We had a fairly small screen, and the audio was almost impossible to hear, but the little TA intro movie did it’s job. I couldn’t believe how many businessmen would walk up to the big screen and dutifully record the intro movie on their camcorders — and never once turn around to actually play the game itself.
That was fine, since lots of people wanted to play Total Annihilation anyway.
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[ 本帖最后由 caesarzx 于 2007-6-19 19:35 编辑 ]