Have you ever wondered how Ghost of Yotei’s wolf-petting scene was made? Honestly, as adorable as it is, there’s a pretty good chance your answer’s going to be no. The game does its job, after all, in immersing many players in the moment itself.
Foolishly, I always assumed the answer would be motion capture of an actor or developer petting a dog. You know, not a wolf. A dog. Well, no. It wasn’t a wolf, but it wasn’t a dog, either. It was… a person. It was a person petting a person. It was a whole thing.
Good Work, Atsu. Now Pet Billy Harper
TheGamer’s Rhiannon Bevan was on-site today for the BAFTA Awards. She got to speak with cool people about cool things—like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 actor Charlie Cox on how much harder video game VA work was than he had expected it to be. Rhiannon didn’t chat with Ghost of Yotei actor Erika Ishii, or at least, if she did, she hasn’t told me yet. But GamesRadar did. And a lovely, strange, revelation soon followed.
“I will never forget motion capturing the scene where Atsu pets the wolf, and it was Billy Harper, our director of cinematics, that was on all fours, getting his head patted by me.” -Erika Ishii
Sucker Punch cinematics director Billy Harper took on the proud role of the wolf. He got right down to business. “…Yeah,” Ishii added, and, erm. Yeah. Oh, and it gets weirder!
“I walked in on [Billy Harper] petting Nate Fox, our creative director, at lunch, and I have that video, still, because I walked in and they didn’t notice that I was watching. And so I recorded it, and they were, like, trying to figure it out. Like, ‘OK, she’ll stand, like, here,’ and like, ‘Oh, she shouldn’t pat it, it’ll be more of like a petting… yeah, yeah.’ And, you know, Nate getting his head pat.”
So, not only did Ishii herself end up petting Billy Harper in the name of sterling video game development; but Ghost of Yotei’s own creative director preceded Harper, all his paws hands and feet down, providing important research so that Harper got could thereafter compel Ishii to get things just right. I guess? GamesRadar’s writer notes that they want to see Ishii’s video. Same, Jordan Gerblick. Same.
Charlie Cox Says Video Game Acting Wasn’t As Easy As He Expected
Expedition 33 proved rather different from what the veteran actor anticipated.
