It's common knowledge that a lot of work goes into AAA video games. From the creation of concept graphics to the simple programming of the basic framework to 3D modeling, there are countless small individual steps and cogs in the wheel. At Capcom's invitation, I recently had the chance to visit the Monster Hunter Wilds development studio and get to know three very special parts of the production in more detail. Probably the biggest surprise: the monsters are actually played by people and not just animated!
During the studio tour, Capcom limited itself to the impressive parts of the development. We didn't look over developers' shoulders as they dryly typed code. Instead, visits to the recording studio, the Foley Stage and motion capture were on the agenda. An exciting journey through the innards of a AAA game production that I am only too happy to take you on.
Motion Capturing: People become monsters
It can seem a little silly to come into a huge basement room in which two actors are standing in spandex suits with lots of little balls stuck to them. The 36 infrared cameras mounted all over the walls clearly show that the work here is extremely professional. For the demonstration, Capcom showed us how the movements of the two people are transferred to a hunter and the monster Doshaguma - in real time and with almost no delay. The in-house RE engine makes it possible.
As a kind of warm-up exercise, the hunter swings his dummy greatsword and, after a powerful blow, falls crashing onto a mattress. To my untrained eye, the animation recorded could almost end up directly in the game. Only a second look reveals minor imperfections and, as motion capture lead operator Tsuyoshi Nagae explains, for each completed movement in the game, several dozen shots and a lot of post-processing and fine-tuning are required.
Of course, this applies even more to the monsters than to the hunter himself. The Doshaguma vaguely resembles a feral mixture of lion and bear. The beast stomps around on four huge paws, fluffs up its golden-brown fur and swats at small insects. When he stands up on his hind legs, even the most experienced hunter shudders in awe. In stark contrast to this monster, several men tall, is the motion capture actor: a slight man who clearly enjoys his job, bares his teeth, crawls around the room on all fours and hisses as if he were out of his mind.
For the final scene, the actors rehearse the greatsword's new counterattack. After a brief duel, they race towards each other, the hunter raises his weapon while the Doshaguma presses against it. What is a wild dance of blade and fangs in Monster Hunter Wilds doesn't seem so violent in the motion capture studio. A third person acts as a buffer and blocks the hunter; the two actors actually don't touch each other at all. This is explained by the dimensions of the monster in the game. There is a good meter of space between the two actors. In the game, however, this is filled with the massive body of the Doshaguma. The recording isn't perfect, but it shows the clash of forces more than well, even without any extensive post-editing.
Motion capture is largely new territory for Capcom. The technology was used for the first time in Monster Hunter World; before that, the team created all of the animations by hand. For Monster Hunter Wilds, the team uses its own studios much more extensively and creates realistic movement sequences for humans, monsters and Palico. Because the actor, who just lent his movements to a Doshaguma, slips into the fur of a cat at the end and happily chases after a balloon. This also shows that the people present clearly enjoy their job.
In addition to the Osaka studio, Capcom has two other motion capture facilities. One of them is in Kyobashi, which opened just last year and has 150 cameras. In-house studios like these allow animators to quickly and easily try out ideas for moves and monsters in the engine.
The short demonstration in Osaka only represents a small part of the possibilities. Motion capture recordings are so small that even individual fingers are captured, and actors and actresses sometimes whiz through the air on ropes in the studio to create flying monsters.
Recording studio: More than just music
In the far corner of the development offices behind an inconspicuous door lies a small and dark room. After entering, a wall of loudspeakers awaits us, which could probably make a small industrial hall full of ravers very happy without any problems. In Osaka, however, music director Akiyuki Morimoto and his team use them to mix and compose music for Monster Hunter. According to his own statement, every single piece in the series passed through the membranes of the loudspeakers here at least once.
The subsequent performance of the theme song “The Beauty of Nature” can only be described as a delight. Every little detail comes out of the boxes crystal clear. The epic orchestral sounds with their strings and various wind instruments are accompanied by unspecified ethnic instruments and the discreetly used synthesizer rounds off the overall acoustic picture and caused a few theories in the first trailer - which Morimoto partially confirmed!
According to him, the song represents the full spectrum of the game world. Happy sounds illustrate the beauty and sheer size and vastness of Wilds. The almost unreal and slightly out of place synthesizers, on the other hand, symbolize the hardness and heaviness that awaits you.
The music also makes it clear what awaits you on your trips through the game world. During the barren period, the entire land lies fallow and the soundtrack also reflects this, it is almost subtle. However, the menacing synthesizers suggest that the calm won't last long - a violent sandstorm is coming and the music warns you of it.
A live performance from Morimoto makes this even clearer. While a hunter fights through the raging sandstorm on the screen, the orchestra illustrates the danger with fast strings and an excited beat. But one thing is missing: the synthesizer. The music director plays it directly via the keyboard, illustrating how even the absence of small elements from the soundtrack can create a completely different mood.
Capcom chose the synthesizer as the main element for the music of Monster Hunter Wilds. It represents something strange, almost alien, and some of the monsters actually seem as if they do not come natively from the game world. Rey Dau, on the other hand, with his lightning-dissipating horns, fits perfectly into the wind plain with its violent thunderstorms. And his piercing scream was also created with the help of a synthesizer.
Foley Stage: Monster screams from the hardware store
Even before we enter the actual Foley Stage, the first props appear. A huge shoe cabinet contains cowboy boots, sneakers, high heels and much more. This selection allows Capcom to display almost any type of heel, sole and shoe on a wide variety of surfaces. But today the focus is on something completely different, namely the cry of Rey Dau.
If the term Foley means nothing to you at all: the foley artists who work here record sounds from films, series or video games that are missing or have to be created in the first place. This includes the steps just mentioned, but everyday actions such as pouring liquids, people flying into a wall, or pressing keys are also part of the task.
In the case of Rey Dau, however, simple household objects are not enough to produce convincing monster screams. The solution for lead sound designer Wakana Kuroiwa and her team? Simply build your own instruments that capture the essence of the Apex monster. For example, the team glued a few plastic pipes together and created a very simplified flute. However, a strange kind of horn was created from a pair of bellows, a cleaning glove and a hose.
When played live, these instruments sound, to put it mildly, terrible and not particularly impressive. However, that's part of the concept, as sound director Hideki Hosoi explains. The monsters deliberately sound “not good” because that’s how they stay in the players’ memory.
Two home-made instruments played later, something booms out of the speakers that can, with a lot of good will, be interpreted as the noise of a preschool class. But after some post-processing, the soundscape becomes much more similar to Rey Dau's menacing scream. As Hosoi states, the team augments the strange sounds with synthesizers and elements of real animal sounds to create an unreal yet believable Rey Dau sound. What was already possible in the fifteen-minute presentation impressively shows how a vision can be turned into an actual sound for a game.
But why does the team even build its own instruments? Here too, the creativity of the developers comes into play. Because as soon as they see a monster for the first time, ideas for the respective screams and shouts quickly solidify. Traditional flutes and other instruments rarely make these sounds possible and often sound too clean - we remember, strange tones are better remembered by fans.
