Acclaimed Polish production and animation studio employs real-time workflow to accelerate the creation of 3D assets for animatics, previs and performance capture.
Acclaimed Polish production and animation studio Platige Image has produced the trailer for Stormgate, the highly anticipated real-time strategy game from developer Frost Giant Studios. The cinematic trailer was created entirely using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine and was first teased during Frost Giant Studio’s segment at The Game Awards in 2023. Stormgate is slated for a 2024 Early Access release.
Stormgate is an upcoming real-time strategy game from Frost Giant Studios, an independent game development studio founded by Tim Morten and Tim Campbell — previously with Blizzard Entertainment and among the people responsible for fan-favorite RTS games such as Warcraft III and StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void.
The script for the trailer was written by New York Times bestselling author Micky Neilson, who was involved in the creative development of blockbuster franchises such as World of Warcraft, Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo. The trailer also features actor Simu Liu, whose credits include Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Barbie.
Executive producer Piotr Prokop oversaw the production at Platige, alongside producer Joanna Strzałkowska, director Michał Niewiara and VFX supervisor Adam Rybarski.
The studio adapted its traditional CG pipeline for this project to align more closely with film production workflows. By accelerating the initial creation of 3D assets and integrating them into animatics, Platige Image enabled the production team to begin performance capture early on using a virtual camera. This approach allowed the creative team to work in a virtual space with actual characters, props, and environments, giving the director and cinematographer the ability to operate as they would on a live-action set. The captured footage was then quickly turned into a preliminary previs, which was handed off to Frost Giant on the same day.
“Working with anatomically stylized characters in MetaHuman was quite the challenge,” Strzałkowska commented. “Together with Frost Giant, we made the decision to use a technology we haven’t seen deployed on the market yet, so we learned a lot and experimented throughout the process. Our team is experienced and robust enough to handle challenges like these enthusiastically — and the risk is often worth the reward, as the end results tend to be spectacular.”
Niewiara added: “Although we had considerable artistic freedom, we had to maintain visual consistency with the style of the game. We worked with the artists of Frost Giant Studios to develop the look of the characters and environment, consistent with their vision. We worked quickly and efficiently at every stage. During the shoot in our motion capture studio, we recorded all camera moves to create full coverage and edited the video. Later the same day, we presented the entire story in motion to the Frost Giant team and planned the next stages of production.”
Source: Platige Image
