Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas Developer Q&A
What is your name and title? What is your role on the Rainbow Six Team, and what is your background?
My name is Aaron Gilman. I`m the Animation Director on Rainbow Six: Vegas. I`ve been a Character Animator and Animation Supervisor for over 5 years. Prior to coming to Ubisoft to work on my first game, I was working on feature films with Tippett Studio in Berkeley, California.
What is the benefit of doing MOCAP instead of traditional animation?
Rainbow is all about realism. For that reason it was critical that we create the most fluid and realistic animation possible. Motion Capture allows us to go straight to the source of human movement. Rather than relying on key frame animation, the process of creating motion from scratch, mocap technology allows us to capture and integrate movement performed by trained actors.
How many different animations will be created? How does this compare to the
past Rainbow Six games?
With a substantially larger memory budget for next-gen games, we`ve been able to create custom animations for virtually every character type in Rainbow Six: Vegas. Right now we`re pushing about 4000 animations including story driven events, whereas older Rainbow games, like Rainbow Six: 3 for example, used approximately 800 animations.
Is everything in the game MOCAPed?
No. Approximately 35% of the game content is key framed (created by hand),
and 65% is mocap. With mocap you have to pick your battles. Those types of moves
that require complex sets, and that we need to have the freedom to revise and
modify on the fly throughout the length of the game`s production, we generally
reserve for key frame. For example, rappel and take cover are 100% key frame.