Motion capture. We’ve all known what those two words mean – in combination – since Andy Serkis’s performance as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies. It’s that thing where actors wear strange suits, covered in dots, so that special cameras can pick up their movements and mannerisms and transfer them to a computer-generated character. Plenty of modern blockbusters now use it.
And it’s gone over to video games, too. After all, when every character is quite literally computer-generated, why wouldn’t you use motion capture to really nail the visuals of, say, a footballer striking a ball or a super-soldier running into battle? Real people in dotty suits have been behind some of the biggest titles in gaming for years now.
But few have used motion capture as extensively or as impressively as the upcoming Ubisoft game Star Wars Outlaws.
MailOnline was last week invited to a galaxy far, far away – well, Ubisoft’s studio in Toronto, Canada, actually – to peek behind the scenes of the making of Outlaws. It was one of those experiences where technology seems like magic.
MailOnline was given a behind-the-scenes peak at how Ubisoft brought Star Wars Outlaws to life. Pictured is actress Humberly González, who portrays Kay Vess in the game, being put through her paces during a motion capture performance
Motion capture technology was made famous by Andy Serkis’s performance as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies. It captures the moves of actors and replicates it in a 3D environment (pictured: actors working on Star Wars Outlaws film a series of movements using the tech)
Pictured is an early render of the actors and their movements after being recorded with the performance capture technology
And this is what the final product looks like after it has been fully created in the game
What is Outlaws? First, as its full name suggests; it’s a Star Wars game – so there’s a whole lot of hope and expectation around it.
Second, it’s the first proper open-world game in that particular universe. As the roguish Kay Vess, supported by her furry friend Nix and a whole crew of space-weirdos, you get to roam across various planets to try and make a living.
Life in the Outer Rim ain’t easy: Kay’s best-laid plans will be tested by the nefarious Empire and by various, competing underworld gangs.
‘This duo’ – Kay and Nix – ‘will bring a lot of great memories, great laughter, great enjoyment to the screen,’ says Humberly González, the actress playing Kay. You might recognise the 32-year-old, Venezuela-born actress from such live-action productions as Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia. Here, in Outlaws, she lends not just her voice to Kay – but also, of course, her movements.
At which point, we should probably distinguish between motion capture and performance capture. Performance capture – or ‘p-cap,’ as the Outlaws crew call it – is motion capture’s more advanced sibling and involves head-worn cameras tracking the actors’ facial gestures.
When González plays Kay, it’s everything from the grandest sweep of her arms to the minutest raising of her eyebrows that goes into the performance.
Star Wars Outlaws is set for release later this month and follows Kay Vess and her furry friend Nix during an adventure in a galaxy far, far away (pictured is in-game footage)
Actress Humberly González is kitted out in her performance capture suit holding a dummy of her small in-game sidekick, Nix
Pictured are actors during a performance capture session at Ubisoft’s Toronto-based studios
Pictured is concept art that features as part of the game’s storyboard at the studios in Toronto
All this is done in a special room in Ubisoft’s Toronto studio. Or perhaps it’s more like a warehouse. A large, white, windowless space in which González and her fellow actors can… well, act.
‘Surrounding you are hundreds of infrared cameras,’ explains González, ‘picking up on your movements because you’re wearing a wetsuit covered in these reflective dots, and that translates into your skeleton. It really is the skeleton of the character.’
We got to see this in action. During our day in Toronto, González and two other actors, along with various crew members, put together a scene in which Kay encounters an old comrade – and a dangerously malfunctioning droid.
Even Nix – the squirrelish creature who accompanies Kay throughout the game and who has his own gameplay mechanics, such as distracting stormtroopers with his cuteness – was represented; on the studio floor, he’s a strange-looking fabric creation that’s pushed around on a broom handle. The actors carried plasticky prop guns and arranged themselves around basic wooden blocks.
If that makes the process sound lo-tech, then be assured: it’s really not. The most impressive bit of kit was a sort of virtual camera that can be brandished like a normal film camera to shoot the actors as they go.
In-game footage captures Kay as she fights a storm trooper and imperial probe droid
Outlaws is set between two of the most beloved films in the series, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983)
Outlaws is an open-world game set in the Star Wars universe, giving players the chance to explore vast cities and indulge in space battles
Screens around the room relayed the scene in real time, except – and this was the magic – the actors looked like basic versions of their counterparts in the game. Even Nix suddenly looked less like a bundle of fabric and more like a real alien. ‘It makes the animators’ work a lot easier than just starting from scratch,’ says González.
It’s much like creating a movie – and that, in a way, is the point. The makers of Outlaws have gone to great lengths to make their game seem like an actual Star Wars production, not just with the performance capture, but also in how the final game looks.
‘A lot of research was done into the cinematography and the lensing and all the different styles used in the original trilogy movies, specifically – but not with the purpose of directly replicating that, but more to give you that same feeling,’ explains Bogdan Draghici, the realization director on Outlaws. And with the game set between two of the most beloved films in the series, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), that feeling is all-important.
And we don’t just have to take their word for it. MailOnline got to spend three hours playing Outlaws (we’ll publish a review of the full game next week) so we could see it for ourselves.
The game features a host of worlds and terrains for players to explore – including this crash site of a large spaceship
Star Wars Outlaws launches at the end of the month. MailOnline’s review will be out next week
This segment featured Kay arriving on a new planet and having, at first, to scratch together some money to fix her ship. It was a wowing showcase of what the game can do – from its jet-biking sequences across miles of extraterrestrial landscape to its system for trading off the favour of different gangs to the moment, after the ship is finally fixed, when you seamlessly ascend from the ground to a starscape full of debris and threat.
But most wowing of all were the characters – especially Kay and Nix – who radiate life and energy. Spending time with them, throughout the many hours of this open-world game, is sure to be a pleasure.
Where will Kay and Nix go next? Where, indeed, will Outlaws go next, if there is to be more Outlaws in future? ‘I would continue investing in technology to allow us to have more resolution, to allow us to have more fidelity in facial expression, to allow us more geometry, more light,’ says Draghici, ‘so we can get closer and closer to the physicality of a film.’ Which is to say, the Star Wars cinematic universe is about to get even more cinematic – through its games.