EA’s new monster-hunting role-playing game Wild Hearts launches with this spectacular full-throttle CG trailer, a massive effort from Mill+ director Morten Vinther and the animation and creature crews at The Mill studios in Shanghai, Bangalore, London, and LA.

The Mill CD Anthony Bloor: “We started this project off with the assets from the game, keeping a faithful representation of the characters and beasts but altering them to fit in with the trailer’s cinematic style.

“The hunters themselves were cast from actors that were also experts in martial arts and stunts. We scanned the actors’ faces and then fitted them into the elaborate game costumes made of layers of armor and cloth simulations.

“It was essential to recreate the actors themselves rather than use the in-game characters so we could get the best translation from their real-life expressions onto the CGI characters.

“We used cameras mounted on the actors’ heads so we could capture their facial expressions and reactions while being motion-captured performing the stunts. We used this data to directly drive 3D scans of the actors’ faces to make sure they matched faithfully to the performance.

“Technical challenges included creating massive environments that were viewed from many different angles. We populated these environments with millions of trees, plants, and rocks using powerful scattering tools to efficiently render incredibly complex scenes.”
 
 

 
Client: EA, Koei Tecmo

Production: The Mill
Director: Morten Vinther
CD: Anthony Bloor
Lighting/Rendering Supervisor: Kate Gabriel