MotorStorm Game Trailers

Alongside being an art lead on the development side of the game, I was responsible for all of the in-game cinematics and promo edits/trailers produced for this game, which involved a steep learning curve for both myself and a previously PlayStation 2 based studio that was used to producing edits using DV capture on fairly cheap hardware, as we moved into the massively data heavy realm of next-gen gaming and high def trailers.

Due to the very low FPS of early, un-optimized builds and new hardware and SDK, I developed an initial system using the in-house PS3 capture tool that dumped uncompressed frames over the dev kit’s Ethernet connection to slow USB drives. These sequences were converted to an intermediate format and ingested into Adobe Premiere Pro, a process that usually started after all the bugs had been fixed (including my own) and the edit session with just myself and the Art Director running overnight until the very last minute, where if we didn’t deliver it to the audio guys, the video apparently wouldn’t have any sound. Slackers…

Because we couldn’t predict the actions of the AI during capture, I worked with the audio team to plan and produce a music edit ahead of capture, and would be looking throughout capture for suitable elements to fit different parts of the song. This allowed a degree of creative preparation ahead of actually having any footage or knowing what it would contain and the ability to deliver a tight movie in an even tighter time-frame.

Movies to follow.