Ultima IX: Ascension – Return
to Britannia – 1998
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genre:
length:
format:
status:
logline:
notes:
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fantasy PC
game
3:15
3D animation – 640x320 @ 15fps
produced for Origin Systems
"A hero of a
distant world returns from afar, only to be thrown straight into a fight
for his life."
The Avatar is an Earth-born man who
travels to Britannia in its time of need. Once again, the world is in
peril – this time at the hands of the Avatar's arch enemy, the Guardian.
In this animated short, the Avatar finds himself in unexpected terrain
and immediately under attack – a fitting jump start the the adventures
that await him.
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write: |
Return
serves as Ascension's opening cinematic and depicts the hero's
arrival in his adopted land. One of the most common writing errors
I have observed in game cinematics, is the tendency to "info dump" the
player -- to tell them everything they need to know.
Unfortunately, that technique also completely deflates narrative
tension. Leave the details to the printed manual. Intro
cinematics are for propelling the player into the game -- for posing
questions, not answering them.
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direct:
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This short has
an action sequence with the hero followed by tension-filled dialogue
between the arch villain and his subordinate. Each scene has a
specific shift in power as first one character, then another, drives the
moment. Specific beats are established for repeated and
overlapping setup, tension, and payoff.
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animate: |
I designed,
lit, and animated the throne room scene with 3DStudio R4 using Bones Pro
for body and facial deformation. I wrote a script that read
and wrote an Excel dope sheet, and presented an editable dope sheet
within 3DStudio to automate the animation of facial bones for layered
expressions and phonemes.
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tools: |
animation – 3DStudio R4
facial anim – custom R4 scripts
vfx – 3DStudio Max 1.0, Premiere 4.1
skies – Alias
compositing/edit – Premiere 4.1 |
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read the script
(pdf)
watch the short
12.9MB (quicktime)
credit
roll
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