When we were approached by Coldwood, the client provided us with a detailed brief and storyboards to outline intro and outro in-game cinematics. Spov was able to collaborate with the client to finesse the story and convey the emotional and perilous journey of the character, Yarny.
It was important to achieve the right mood for the piece. Spov spent time researching the quality of light during storms and how this affected the look of the water. How the warm inorganic light sources of the boat and lighthouse contrasted to the cold moonlight and how it would react on character with such a distinct texture. All of these atmospheric components would help to convey the grave journey Yarny has to embark upon.
Once the overall concepts for the look and story had started to become more concrete, Spov began to bring all of these elements together. Because the character of Yarny is very small, Spov needed to be aware of his proportions so that he wasn’t lost in the action. This meant playing with the size of his world so that the scale of the character would translate to his surroundings believably.
In the outro cinematic, Spov designed the look of the monsters that threatened Yarny. The team used references from the game to ensure that they still retained their affinity to what the players had already seen. To separate the monsters from Yarny, motion capture was used to emphasise the differences in their movements.
To bring the cinematics together, a large amount of time was spent on compositing and lighting. This was a vital part of bringing believability to the scenes. As Yarny is made of yarn/wool, we also had to have the character react to his environment by becoming wetter and heavier. Retaining and then adjusting the texture of the character based on the action increased the plausibility within the cinematics.
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