Anti Patterns - quantic

The Escapist: Face Job

noreply@hautetfort.com (Dazibao) — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:00:00 +0100

L'animation du visage est devenue un sujet fondamental ces derniers temps. David Cage revient sur cette problématique dans The Escapist...

"Why make videogames when you can make art?" David Cage asks, as I visit him at Quantic Dream headquarters on Boulevard Davout in Paris.

His delivery is plain, without pomposity. He doesn't even look at me but seems lost in thoughts about his motivations, what drives him down this difficult path, looking for new ways to tell stories with emotional complexity in a medium where the safe bet is to make another shooter.

...

Facial animation has become a key feature in Sony's next-gen vision. At E3 2005, the pliable cheeks, breakable noses and rolling eyes in Fight Night Round 3 were highlights among scarce PS3 offerings. Last year "The Casting" raised eyebrows on and off screen, and since then Heavenly Sword has impressed us with cut scenes created at Peter Jackson's CGI company, Weta Digital.

And Sony is far from alone in chasing the facial animation dream. Valve keeps refining its muscular system in Episode Two, and BioWare's upcoming space opera Mass Effect relies heavily on sophisticated animation to make dialogue vibrant.

"Videogames today are about primitive emotions," Cage says. "We need to bring it to the next level, closer to theatre, literature and cinema - art forms that can convey any kind of emotion and tell any kind of story. Except, we don't only want to watch it, we want to be a part of it."

[ The Escapist ]

Develop...

noreply@hautetfort.com (Dazibao) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 21:46:38 +0200

Il pleut, il pleut, bergere... (refrain connu)...

Pour ceux qui passe entre les gouttes, Develop a une interview avec David Cage et Guillaume de Fondaumière... ^_^

Le mag est dispo a present en PDF, et gratis, s'il vous plait :-)

Public relation...

noreply@hautetfort.com (Dazibao) — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 13:38:23 +0200

Plus ça va, moins j'ai de temp pour moi. L'été promet d'être chargé ^_^

En attandant, en cette pluvieuse journée de ~~Mars~~ Juillet, les communiqués de presse font ce qu'ils ont à faire, c'est à dire communiquer...

Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios Europe et les développeurs de Quantic Dream ont le plaisir d'annoncer leur collaboration pour un titre complet sur PLAYSTATION3 – sur lequel de plus amples informations seront bientôt divulguées. Quantic Dream est connu pour avoir déjà réalisé des jeux cinématiques et interactifs riches en émotion. Ce nouveau projet va tirer pleinement profit de la puissance du processeur Cell et de la technologie de développement PS3 la plus récente, et devrait hisser à un niveau encore jamais atteint les sensations émotionnelles que pourront ressentir les joueurs.

Créé en 1997 par David Cage, le studio de développement français Quantic Dream s'est construit une renommée mondiale grâce aux innovations fondamentales qu'il a apportées à l'industrie du jeu, en particulier concernant la narration interactive et le contenu émotionnel. Les réalisations de ce studio en sont les meilleurs témoins : Quantic Dream est, par exemple, à l'origine de Fahrenheit (dénommé Indigo Prophecy aux États-Unis et au Canada), titre récompensé par un prix en 2005 et qui mélange, dans le domaine du paranormal, le jeu et le cinéma, en renouvelant complètement le genre aventure.

Michael Denny, Vice Président de SCE Worldwide Studios Europe a affirmé : « Nous sommes vraiment enthousiasmés par la perspective de travailler pour la première fois avec Quantic Dream et d'avoir ainsi une opportunité d'améliorer encore l'interactivité de nos jeux et d'apporter aux joueurs des sensations qu'ils n'auront à ce jour jamais ressenties. Nous espérons, très bientôt cette année, pouvoir vous en dire plus sur ce nouveau titre très particulier ».

[ AFJV ]

E=M6...

noreply@hautetfort.com (Dazibao) — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 09:33:16 +0100

Quanticsur M6, c'était hier soir, dans l'émission E = M6 ;-)

Le crédit d’impôts…

noreply@hautetfort.com (Dazibao) — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:10:00 +0100

… en thème sur LCI…

[ LCI ]

Vicon a la GDC...

noreply@hautetfort.com (Dazibao) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 13:15:00 +0100

...et Heavy Rain en cameo sur leur site...

Et ailleurs aussi. En Espagne, certains tentent de convertir de vielles salles d'arcade moribondes en salle d'arcade d'un nouveau genre.

Spain's Yelmo Cineplex company recently splurged on a "Cinegames" setup, converting one of its small theaters into a sizable LAN arena. Inside, some 50 17-inch LCD screens have been bolted to armrests, a gamepad dangling below each one. Once the fog and low smoke start to roll in, the black light and flashing green lasers get going, and the seats start vibrating, one gets a sense of why this innovative concept could reinvigorate the movie theatre business -- and resurrect the arcade.

[ Joystiq ]

Dans la rubrique "ce sont les autres qui en parlent le mieux"...

noreply@hautetfort.com (Dazibao) — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 13:30:00 +0100

...

Une chose est certaine, cette génération de console fera ses preuves dans les extrêmes. Dans l’immensité, le spectaculaire et la pyrotechnie, évidemment - je vous conseille d'ailleurs la démo de Crackdown, disponible sur le Live. Mais aussi dans les détails. Ce sont ces petits trucs auxquels on ne fait pas forcément attention qui arrivent à nous faire croire à la réalité d’un univers.

Il suffit de regarder la vidéo de «Heavy Rain», présentée à l’E3 dernier, pour s’en persuader. Tout tient aux larmes qui coulent sur le visage de l’actrice et à l’aspect incroyablement réaliste de la peau de son visage. Avec ce petit grain de beauté presqu'invisible au dessus des yeux.

J’attends le moment où un personnage de jeu vidéo arrivera à transmettre des émotions rien qu’avec son «jeu» d’acteur et l’expression de son visage. En attendant, on peut sans doute encore parler de «next».

...

[ Piqué aux jeux ]

Heavy Rain en caméo...

noreply@hautetfort.com (Dazibao) — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 13:30:00 +0100

...dans le dernier Game Developer Magazine :-)

Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain an emotional breakthrough

noreply@hautetfort.com (Dazibao) — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 13:05:00 +0100

David cage Interview on Globe And Mail:

"Most video games only use very basic emotions, like fear, anger, power, and frustration," he notes, "but not the social emotions that appeared later during evolution like empathy, sadness, joy, pity, love, et cetera. These emotions are more complex to generate, but all other art forms managed to do it. I can see no reason why games should limit themselves to the same old basic ones."

All art forms are, he believes, "emotional roller-coasters". "The pleasure we feel watching a movie or reading a book comes from the different emotions we go through," he elaborates. "There is no doubt in my mind that games will follow the same direction and offer more interesting, emotionally involving experiences, with more meaning and depth. Fahrenheit, our last game, was our first try at exploring new solutions. We will go much further with Heavy Rain."

"Although we didn't plan for it to be shown, this trailer is indicative of the direction we will take regarding acting quality. The final quality of the game will be significantly higher, though. Also, this trailer is just a real-time non-interactive movie, where the game will be fully interactive, without cut scenes."

Cage is disappointed that some chose to focus on what wasn't achieved in the trailer, rather than what was. "A lot of writers also wrote that this trailer was one of the first to put a step out of the Uncanny Valley," he remarks. "I think this is really an outdated discussion. There is absolutely no doubt that we will very soon have highly emotional and believable synthetic human beings. The technology and expertise are now in reach, and we could touch it in this prototype. The exact problem is that the closer you get to realism, the more it has to be perfect because the least imperfection becomes shocking. If you raise the quality bar, you need to do it in a consistent way on all aspects, which is the current technical difficulty. There are still issues, but again, we feel we are not that far anymore."

As long as Quantic Dream is consistent with its emotional sophistication — i.e., its game design and character development are just as advanced as its technology — Cage doesn't think such complaints will arise again. "They'll have no difficulty accepting virtual actors, as long as we remain consistent. We still need to work on some aspects, because very few people found solutions to reach this level of detail in an acting performance. For some major publishers, emotion in games is limited to a smile on the face of a golfer when he did a nice drive. With our trailer, we had a girl talking for four minutes, looking straight into the camera, in a kitchen and going from a naïve attitude to smiles, tears, and anger. This is a different type of challenge."

[ Globe And Mail ]

Quantic recrute...

noreply@hautetfort.com (Dazibao) — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:00:00 +0100

Yop, juste pour info:

Join our international team based in Paris (France) now and bring your talent to create HEAVY RAIN TM, an ambitious next generation interactive entertainment experience unlike any other…

ART, CONCEPT DESIGN & 3D GRAPHICS

    * Art Direction: Production Designer (Film)
    * Art Direction: Consultant Director of Photography (Film)
    * Art Direction: Stylist (fashion or costume designer)

    * Design: Senior Concept Artist - Graphic Designer (x2)

    * Animation Manager
    * Senior 3D Animator Motion Builder/Maya (x3)
    * Senior 3D Character Artist (x2)
    * Senior Set-up/Rigging Artist

    * CG post-production: Senior Lighting Artist

CODE & SYSTEM MAINTENANCE

    * Senior System and Network Administrator

    * Tools Programmer (x2)
    * Physics Programmer
    * A.I. Programmer

    * QA: Tools and build tester (x3)

GAME DESIGN

    * Senior Game Designer (French a must) (x1)

[ Quantic Dream ]