Duke Nukem Forever Update

George Broussard updated his .plan file this afternoon with a short Duke Nukem Forever-related update. Check it out:

Well we finally almost have the motion capture room setup. The ceiling has been yanked (so we can jump up and not hit our heads) and the stage will be installed tomorrow. Then we just setup the equipment (We opted for the MotionStar Wireless system from Ascension), calibrate it and start capturing motions for the game. The 3 animators (Chris, Allen and David) are in Canada now getting training on the mo-cap cleanup software we're using (Kaydara FilmBox).

Chris Hargrove already has the full skeletal system in the game and it all works great. A character can be doing his animations and you can use the bones in the skeleton to override various animations like: Have enemies heads track Duke's position, shoot them in the shoulder and they can recoil, independent things like ponytails or tails, while doing another animations.

We've spent a good deal of time re-working Unreal's character system, and it's time for it to all start paying off. Once you have skeletal control and motion capture data, putting animations in the game becomes trivial (the cleanup is very minor with the right software), and capturing complex motions like strippers becomes easy

Add to this, a fully dynamic real-time LOD system for every mesh in the game, and you have a character system that we are very, very happy with.

Motion captured strippers, eh?

Posted by Joe Siegler on March 8, 1999 at 1:00 PM | Permalink
News Categories: Duke Nukem Forever