Sitting down with Stevivor, Infinity Ward’s Brian Horton, Studio Art Director on Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, explained how the developer got the most from Game of Thrones‘ Kit Harrington and the UFC’s Conor McGregor.
The answer is rather simple: digitally.
“When the actor is performing, it’s not separated — you’re getting their face and voice all at one time,” Horton said of the motion capture process.
Infinity Ward had a team inspect the motion capture “to make sure acting matched the intent of the performance,” Horton said. “If emotion doesn’t resonate, we’ll look at the expressions. We’ll research to see if something [was] missing.
“These microexpressions really can help drive a performance home.”
If something wasn’t quite right, it doesn’t necessarily mean the scene has to be acted out again. Instead, the actor’s digital equivalents — Harrington as villain Admiral Salen Kotch and McGregor as a Settlement Defense Front soldier — can be manipulated.
“Faces are about millimeters — we get to dial those performances to where we need them to be,” he continued. It could be the raise of an eyebrow in a certain scene, or the turn of the side of a mouth in another.
We’ll have a chance to see the finished product when Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare hits Windows PC, Xbox One and PS4 on 4 November.
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