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PHOTOGRAMMETRY, 1:1 SCALE & GRAPHICS TECHNOLOGY! - Modern Warfare - YouTube
Channel: TheFirstJoeL â 1.8M views â 4 hours ago .
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At the start of Call of Duty: Modern Warfareâs
development over two years ago, Joel Emslie
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was reminiscing:
âIâd seen Call of DutyÂź: Modern WarfareÂź
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Remastered and it had given me âall the
feelsâ again.â
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Despite the jump in visual fidelity of that
title, Infinity Ward wanted the next Modern
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WarfareÂź to be different, with a much bigger
jump in graphical quality.
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They loved Remastered, but the goal, from
the inception of Modern Warfare, was âto
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make a visceral, real-looking game.â
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That prospect became a reality one day at
Infinity Ward: âI was walking past an office,
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and someone was screwing around with photogrammetry.â
[55]
What is photogrammetry?
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Dating back to the middle of the 19th century
(in its simplest form), this technique uses
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photographs to make comparative and accurate
measurements, usually in order to precisely
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show a location, scene, or object.
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Today, this results in the ability to construct
highly-detailed 3D models.
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Or as Joel describes it; âtake a thousand
different photos of a particular room from
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different angles, feed it into a magic computer,
and itâll spit out a mesh [that looks real].
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Like a 3D version of a room, exact to the
micron.â
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Initial photogrammetry results using the new
game engine behind Modern Warfare were so
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impressive, that the studio began to galvanize
into art teams with one overriding goal in
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mind.
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Joel explains: âDuring the past two years,
the trick was to apply photogrammetry into
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the [Modern Warfare] environments without
messing up all the game design.â
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Teams began to fan out to find examples of
a wide variety of objects they could photograph:
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âWe started going out and collecting data,
around the [neighborhoods near the Infinity
[112]
Ward] office at first.â
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Joel was particularly keen on detritus, rubble,
and other scenery he knew would be needed
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for the game.
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In particular, he remembers taking âimages
of some bad-ass looking garbage on [State
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Route] 118.â
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During this formative period, Infinity Ward
âcreated a team of people that educated
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[themselves], and learned, and understood
photogrammetry techniques to try and push
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the effort.
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We even tried designing our own devices, like
poles, to take shots from all kinds of different
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angles.
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We got really good at it.â
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With all of this visual data, the art teams
began to construct environments using the
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new game engine, which was already well into
production, before upping the quality of the
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graphics considerably using a tiling technique,
adding additional detail for times when youâre
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close to an object (like a rotting red leather
sofa, a crumbling wall, or the brick work
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of a London townhouse).
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âYou get really close to walls, and when
you see things up close, [youâre seeing]
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this detailed tiling technique where you can
really notice the detail.
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Youâre probably familiar with 16 or 32 pixels
per inch; this will be 64 pixels per inch;
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almost as real as it gets.â
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Crumpled corpses are another way to increase
the seamless believability of the environments.
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Joel tells us; âI like to get a bit experimental.â
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So they started to drop in âmeat bags.â
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These bodies were âactually one of our in-house
devs: There was a casting call one day, [asking]
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âwho wants to get dressed up as a dead corpse
and lay in the scannerâ?
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It actually doesnât take a long time to
scan, itâs just a camera snap, and 160-200
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cameras go off at once.
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It takes one shot, which then takes six hours
to process.â
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Again, the results continued to impress:
âWhen you pose a character, you donât
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fully get the nuance of the skin, or gravity,
essentially the realistic effects of gravity
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and physics at work.â
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It seemed that scanning developer-shaped meat
bags allowed the team to drape and position
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expired remains with a new level of believability.
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The same was true with masonry and structures.
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Legacy techniques were mothballed, while the
team took advantage of the abilities of that
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the new game tech allowed.
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Joel again: âWeâd done this for years;
environment artists [would] sometimes end
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up hand-placing every single brick [at a location].
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It looks good, but it doesnât look as real.
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Not like this.â
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Instead, when twisted metal rebars, rusted
piping, or other scenic necessities were needed,
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a quick field-trip was organized: âWe went
out to a quarry, stacked bricks, or went out
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to dilapidated wrecks and ruins, and we captured
all this data, brought it in, and integrated
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it into our [in-game] environments.â
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Now the team goes anywhere, and scans anything
they need.
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One example is an entire Russian tank.
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âThis is⊠fully scanned, we got underneath
it, Iâve no idea how.
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I guess they lifted it up and scanned it.
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But it makes for a smoking hot prop.
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When you see these things rolling around,
itâs just completely convincing.â
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As the scope of the possible ways to use photogrammetry
grew, Joel tells us the team âstarted getting
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super-creative, and we heard about people
using drones to scan [environment].
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Weâd go out to an area to get a good example
of an expanded environment, and weâd pop
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a drone up, and we would sweep coastlines,
we would sweep deserts, mountains, and forests,
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and we would bring all this data back.â
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That data would prove to be extremely important,
as the size of the levels (or as Joel describes,
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the âsetsâ) of the game also grew: âWe
started to make this super-convincing far,
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mid, and close periphery areas to expand the
âsetâ.
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Itâs a big game.
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You can reach out with a 12x and snipe in
on this stuff and glass it [from extreme range],
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as well as getting real close to it.
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You need to have all that detail; you have
to see details on cement [scenery for example].
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We have some sets that just go on and on and
onâŠâ
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Even the most convincing townhouse, rebel
stronghold, or mountain hideaway wouldnât
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be worth painstakingly crafting together if
the AI inhabitants werenât rendered to the
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same quality.
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Joel and the art teams worked tirelessly to
ensure believability across the board.
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âPutting it all together, and seeing our
characters in the environment, we did a massive
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amount of [work] on our shaders and on our
materials to make sure that⊠this was a
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challenge.
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If we have an environment thatâs as real
[as a photograph], everything else has to
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be photographically real too.
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If you put in a made-up character in a realistic
environment, they look completely inappropriate;
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it looks awful.
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We really had to work hard on that.â
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How hard?
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âWe turned ourselves into a traditional
Hollywood model shop.â
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More on that later.
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This standard, naturally, extends to the outfits
and garb each entity in the game wears or
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carries on their person.
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Even the screen where you choose an Operator
to play as in Multiplayer was painstakingly
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realized.
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âThe [operators] and characters you work
with are all standing in a photographic real
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environment.
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If you zoom in and zoom out you can see the
environment parallax, itâs dimensional;
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itâs a photographic projection technique.
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This is a real space that we went to â a
prop house â we got everybody out of the
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studio that day, and we got props, and we
set-dressed, and we shot all of this, creating
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a realistic environment, but our goal is that
every time we show you something, it needs
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to feel real.
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It canât be just a character spinning in
a black space, or some kind of low-res, crappy
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environment.â
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Breaking out real-life props and making photo-realistic
in-game versions of them, leads to some truly
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impressive results.
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Take Operator Grinch, who wears the ghillie
suit, for example:
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âIâve been chasing after stuff like this
for years.â
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Joel tells us, with a laugh: âI did the
original ghillie suit,.
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I donât get to [design] this, a character
artist that I work with now totally kicked
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my ass, so they get to do it, and I get to
kind of admire how badass that is.â
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Itâs not only impressive to look at, but
like the atmospheric environments, itâs
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also designed to aid gameplay.
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âWhatâs cool about this is; itâs concealment.
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You can crawl round, smith your gun a certain
way, put some ghillie on it, and crawl around
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and use it properly.â
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As we watched another playable Operative (âZaneâ)
on-screen, we marveled at the utterly believable
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torso-length cape flapping and draping over
the characterâs body armor.
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Joel was quick to correct us:
âThat is not a cape, itâs a tactical poncho.â
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âI saw this thing a few years back and thought
it was awesome, so we went after it, and found
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the right character for it.
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This is stuff Iâve been wanting to do for
years that we couldnât.
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At one point I was told I couldnât do high
collars or low jackets on characters, and
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now we can do a full poncho.
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This dudeâs badass!â
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Joel brings up another character; an operative
named Kreuger, wearing a helmet with camouflage
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âfrogmanâ netting shrouding the entire
face and shoulders.
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âWeâve been chasing this type of character
design for I donât know how long.
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Iâve tried, and failed miserably until now,
when weâve got it right.
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Thereâs so much happening to make this look
right.
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The cloth and the netting on his hat have
to look a certain way, to render a certain
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way, and you have to see through it.â
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Looking at the spots of mud, creases and divots
in the leather, and stains on the material
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of individual items adorning each operative,
it became clear that authenticity was paramount
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in adorning each character.
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Joel agrees: âWith our character department,
we turned ourselves into a prop house.
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Weâll actually take the shoes, go hiking
in them, throw them in a pool, leave them
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there for a week, pull them out, distress
everything.
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Weâre down there with dremel tools, scraping
things and making things look worn.â
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The physics engine also ensures hanging cloth
sways in just the right manner, too.
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Finally, we took a look at the playerâs
gun bench, where loadouts are chosen, and
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weapons are augmented.
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âThis is where you disassemble and arrange
your stuff, where you trick out your weapons
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and do all the cool things that go along with
that.â
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The bench, the scattered shells and bullets,
and the weaponry on show⊠it all looks real.
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The challenge I had when we started this?
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Give me a still [screenshot] of this and let
me build something that looks like a [gun
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enthusiastic] magazine cover to see if we
could fool people.
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I think weâre getting there.
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This is still pre-alpha.â
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âBy the way, this is all on the PlayStationÂź
4.â
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How does Infinity Ward obtain such impressive
visuals no matter what hardware is utilized?
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Thatâs down to the new game engine, overseen
by Principal Rendering Engineer Michal Drobot.
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Join us soon for an in-depth overview of the
tech present
[635]
in
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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
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