WoW Cinematic making

[Timberpig]

hey guys, i have a question about this:
So i want to make like a top quality cinematic of WoW for my demo reel,
but i have no idea how i would embark on this quest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCr7y4SLhck

now i know there's a newer warcraft, but this one has the cinematic quality im going for.
everything looks really nice and clear, but how do they do this?
i watched the making of and stuff and just saw some stuff.
pretty much, is it just high poly modeling? like model wise, i know that isn't a low poly model, but maybe they use a mid poly model with good detail instead going upon millions of polys.
basically, they model the character and scene, animate, render and composite.
i just dont know what the basic things are, like poly count. how high detail should my model be?

[Bigley]

well... It sort of sound like you are new to this type of 3d stuff... So I might suggest starting with something smaller. This cinematic wasn't made by one person, not saying someone couldn't do it alone (Freespace is a good example of a person who could), but if you are having to ask where to start I might suggest working on something a bit more in your grasp. Yeah... who doesn't want to make a cinematic like blizzard But it wouldn't hurt to practice the things first. Make sure you modeling is up to par, your rigging, your animation, your lighting and texturing, your compositing, your particle effects... all of this stuff you should have a really nice understanding of before you embark on a quest like this. If not you probably won't make it past modeling.

I am glad you are excited! I am too! I love 3d! But this isn't a small task.
Maybe start off with a single shot of something before going into a full cinematic. That would be my best advice. Then you would get to see first hand what details were necessary that you modeled, and what got washed out by compositing, and what could have been done in textures.

[tsabszy]

Bigley is right.. as i see in the 3d industry most people ruin their 3d knowledge when they don't learn the basics well..
if you have passion, patience and persistence you'll be able to do anything but step by step

[Novak]

Agreed with posts above.

Start with something smaller and easyer..

Greetz,
Novak

[paulius-st]

dont want to kill you enthusiasm, but this kind of video clip requires a massive amount of knowlage and talent. the most important is scenario,then you have to get some concepts of the models and enviroments you'll have, then model it then make all maps (for the detailed models they use mid poly models with displacement anr normal maps and bump.....) , then render all that sh*** to peaces and pases and this step rquires lots of skill, than you have to compose everything to one peace. but when rendering you will have to find more pc's than one cause if you're going to render that kind of qualitie with one pc you'll render forever.
so my advise is to start a project, find some friends that are wow enthusiasts and can do cg. its best to find some with diferent scills and divide the work. than do your stuff and in the end after a year or less or more you'll have a clip of wow as you want. ofcourse it wont be as good as this but you'll be proud of it , and you'll get a massive amount of practise doing it . and dont forget to consider what bigley said. these are wise words.
hope you understand, and all the best wishes to this project of your's

[rocneasta]

may i ask for your computer spec. it is the easiest way of telling will you be able to pull it of, talent or no talent

[Timberpig]

well i have access to a massive render farm, 100+ pc's. my tech teacher will let me use all of the schools computers for a network render.
i mean i know the whole concept, just dont know the level of work to put in,
the workflow i chose goes something like this
1. obviously concepting
2. character model (including all stages, highpoly, retopo, lower poly and textures)
3.rigging
4.environment (matte painting and all that jazz)
5.animating
6.effects (basic passes, and interactive effects (like character/world effects))
7.effects (final passes)
8.composing
9.finishing


that should take about 4-8 months for a nice Blizzard like cinematic.
i just dont know the amount of detail that should be actually character model or normal maps. i think bigleys right on, trial and error is the best teacher.
i wanna do this because im tired of doing just images

[Nukie]

Well, not to ruin your fun but:

Take a look at this: http://vimeo.com/12657879

It is my graduation project. It took me one year to complete. Off course that was including the documentation the teachers desired of me. But this documentation was only my concept and took me roughly 4 months. The 3D work itself took me about 6 months. And I do have experience with 3D. Consider though, that I tried a lot of new things where I wasn't familiar with.

So it took me about a year to complete a one minute movie. And as you can see it has only two scenes. My concept was an entire 3 to 5 min movie. It took me this long because I lacked some knowledge on some parts.

So, if you want to do something like the WotLK movie, and you don't have much experience with 3D, it will take you a lot (and I mean a LOT) of time.

[Timberpig]

oh come on, im not 'new' to 3d, i've been doing it for like a year and a half.. i have to say though, one of the more difficult things is getting good lighting -.-

the main reason things take longer is planning. i mean im going to like plan this and no life it for like 8 months haha
but thanks for your advice! its all appreciated. i'll certainly do some scenes of what im trying to go for before i jump straight into full fledged work in aimation

[Freespace-3DT]

Could you show some examples of your previous work, please?

[Perversonality]

To address some of your questions...

- everything looks really nice and clear, but how do they do this?

They have teams of people with different skill sets working on each component; textures, models, animation, effects, environments, lighting, compositing, camera work, sound and so on. They also have people who run the project as a full time job. They would also have a team of rendering/editing experts who know how best to process and post-process the video. They probably also have a suite of custom made plugins for their renderer that allow them to do certain things in a much easier way than you will be able to do with the basic software

- but maybe they use a mid poly model with good detail instead going upon millions of polys.

It depends on what you can get away with and how convenient it is to cut corners. Making everything in a sculpting app would be great but you would send render times through the roof if you rendered using the full detail models. You also need to carefully plan each scene so that the character and camera motions are contained in such a way that you only need to model what will be seen and can forget the rest

- i just dont know what the basic things are, like poly count. how high detail should my model be?

They should be as detailed as they need to be. Objects/characters that will be seen close up need more detail to be convincing. Objects in the background can be less detailed and may only need to be partially modelled if they will only be seen from one angle

- oh come on, im not 'new' to 3d, i've been doing it for like a year and a half

Most of the people who worked on the animation you linked to would have many years of experience in perhaps only one or two of the disciplines required to complete the work

- i mean im going to like plan this and no life it for like 8 months

8 months on your own will not be enough time. Go for something smaller

- the workflow i chose goes something like this

you forgot storyboarding, camera positioning and movement planning, prototyping and a couple of other things. Even without those things it is still a huge ask for one person to do

- that should take about 4-8 months for a nice Blizzard like cinematic.

If you have a large enough team, then yes, it could be done in that time

[Freespace-3DT]

To add a few known facts about Blizzard's cinematic process:

Characters have a lowpoly cage of around 55,000 polys, that is then displaced with info from a sculpted character of >2 million polys. (considering the density required to get subtle details, I wouldn't be surprised if they went over 10 million polys for one character)

They have a team of over 100 people (all seasoned veterans, some with over a decade of experience in the industry), and it takes them a year to create 2-3 minutes of that quality.

Thanks Bigley for your vote of confidence, btw. I'm flattered. I've been doing 3d for ten years (five years professionally), and I'm not even close to their level regardless of how much I spend. It's just not possible to do it as a one-man team, when they're 100. But you can get close to what they did several years ago, thanks to new technology in software and hardware.

[Timberpig]

you guys have totally destroyed my hope xD
i know they have a very large group of people work on these things, and lots of vets, but i mean, if i can get anywhere near there, i should be perfectly set for college. im only in 9th grade :P
the main reason i want to do this is because i want to convey more than a picture can. i'm specifically a modeler, but i've tried the other things (i HATE rigging with a passion)
but yeah freespace, how long your work take? your pure cg work like starcraft metamorphosis? and your other starcraft thing. (i LOVE starcraft :P
personally, im a zerg.)

the therory of modeling and topology is easy, but its not always so easy to put into practice.

[Perversonality]

Start simple and build up from there. You college application isn't expected to be industry standard but should show that you have some basic capabilites in the areas you want to study

[Freespace-3DT]

Ah, sorry, we don't want to bash your hopes. Not at all! We all have dreams, and many of us have had dreams a bit too big for ourselves.

Personally, I want to let you learn from my own mistakes. I've started out a lot of huge projects, bigger than I should have, and I always left them incomplete.

So start small. Work focused. Don't widen your reach too far.

Start with a character. Make it the most awesome character possible. Let this be your entire project for now. Once that's done, post it here, get feedback and see how you'll continue onward.

Like I've said, I've been doing this stuff for ten years, so I started StarCraft Final Meta when I was already doing it for 9 years. I've been working on it for a total of six months (spread over an entire year), and it's nearing completion. But without all the experience and some advice from very talented people (including some fine folk at Blizzard), it would have been impossible.