Interview with Blur Studios Jed and Leo

[Garthilk]

Warhammer Alliance (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/) just posted a nice interview (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/article/alliance-exclusives/interview-with-jed-and-leo-of-blur-studios.html) with Blur Studios Jerome Denjean (Jed) the CG Supervisor and Leo Santos the Animation/Layout Supervisor on the topic of Warhammer Online's cinamatic (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/article/alliance-exclusives/warhammer-online-trailer.html).

Can you elaborate on the technical aspects of creating and animated these characters? What kind of software and hardware was used during the production?

Jed: We're using 3DS Max and Brazil R/S for all the 3d, and Digital Fusion for all the compositing on workstations from Boxx. We also have access to a 200-machine render farm for all the final renders. There's nothing fancy about anything we use really, it's mostly off the shelf software with only a few in-house scripts to make sure we can deal with the sometimes massive renders.

[Sion]

The Dawn of(best RTS ever) War intro was damn well the best game into ever.

[The Continental]

I was a little dissapointed in the Warhammer Online cinematic that they showed for E3, it seemed a little hokey, kinda like the EQ2 cinematics they showed for those overly long commericials in movie theaters.

I do agree with Sion however in saying that the Dawn of War cinematic was fantastic and probably on par with what you'd see from Blizzard (if not for visual quality, but for all around production values).

[balamoor]

It's hard for me to be objective guys, hell I am the Biggest GW fanboi (Play both Fantasy and 40K table top as well as Mordhiem and WH RPG) this side of the Mississippi Take the DoW cinematic for example, I feel that could have easily been turned into a Two Hour CGI movie.

I enjoyed the WAR cinematic, I especially liked the Dig Mythic made at Blizzard (25 Years of Warhammer Mocking the Ten years of Warcraft in Blizzards intro) To further my Bias I have friends that work for Mythic. I don’t think I have been this excited about a MMORPG since I first heard of UO back in 96. One thing I am glad for is World PvP and there will be no Raiding in the Elder Game. That alone should keep 90% of the loot whores away.

[gawaintheblind]

cool video.

Where. The. Hell. Is. Chaos??!

I see orks, dwarves, two flavors of elves.

dammit.

[Sion]

Yeah, that "25 years of" was quite a good punch.

[Savok]

The Dawn of(best RTS ever) War intro was damn well the best game into ever.
It boiled the essence of 40k down to its purest form, that's what made it the best intro ever.

[Savok]

Hehe, just watched the trailer, nice to see orcs being orcs again. There wasn't any chaos because there weren't any humans around.

And yes people, the crazy looking dwarf was crazy looking, that was a Slayer, dwarves with deathwishes (usually when the rest of their family is wiped out by orcs or something and they've nothing to live for). They run around half naked with dyed hair, find the biggest creature they can and usually get killed by it. However if they kill the creature, they just go find something bigger.

[Garthilk]

I'm a huge Blur fan. They do a lot of very good work the DoW intro. Rockfish, and a couple of their shorts on their website are great. Check em out.