Hillyan News - The News Of Your Planet

Great thanks Nimitz! I can finally understand what the hell they were seeing in that video I saw ages ago!

Good to see you still lurking around these parts :)

@Nimitz: Thanks man, it's a great help. I didn't actually see the video yet, but I'm planning on it as soon as you translated the whole thing. It's an interesting read so far anyway, so thanks for translating!

very great Nimitz :) :)

Can't wait for the rest.....

Some very interessting details :)

edit: I think this is the video what is christophe is talkin' about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8QQVmRV87k

What Ancel said about these "invisible wall" sounds like he wants to have more contact to fans etc. but he can't get that for some reason.

Yes great conference ^^.

Next part, from 16"15' to 21"35' :

Guy : So the game is not in production, it's the reflection phase about what the product is going to be. I'd like to know who inspire who ? How did you meet ?
Michel Ancel : First, you have to know that we work in Montpellier.
Guy : You are both from Montpellier.
Michel Ancel : Yes, it's a place where many animation schools, animation studios, were. Christophe worked on animated short films, full-length films, with those animation societies, he will talk about it. I met someone who made european comics, and he worked on Rayman and Rayman 2. Since the beggining, we tried to open our doors to other professions. This person also worked for advertising, animated short films, animation, and he knew Christophe. It's a network of people, there's a lot of artistic activities there, that's how we met.
Christophe Héral : I worked with Hubert even.
Guy : But you don't only work with your friends' friends ?
Michel Ancel : No no, the idea was to...
Christophe Héral : He doesn't have any friend.
Michel Ancel : That's funny because that was not the our first experience with people from others medias. It's one of rayman game particularities, which is a project i created before, graphics weren't make pixel per pixel, we worked with people from animation, it added a particular graphic touch to the project. About the music, i found a jazz composer but he had a huge talent, he was capable of creating catchy musical themes. That already was some experiences about working with people who don't know video games. It's really comical when you work with those people, first they take the pad in the wrong way, then they press all the buttons for no reason, so it takes 6 months for them to learn how to play, but now Christophe gets it. That's really 2 differents worlds, everybody thinks that's video game is an apart world where music is all about "bip bip". But it's not, there is a real video game culture since the beginning, some compositions are really powerful, players are impregnated of those but it stayed in the video game bubble, so the music quality is unknown. Christophe and I participated to a concert featuring video games music...
Guy : Video Games Live.
Michel Ancel : In this tour, we noticed that when the orchestra play those 20-30 years themes, they are really captivating, that was the same at the time even with technicals means.
Guy : I was at VGL Paris, and listening the orchestra playing the Tetris theme, wow, that's really something, you suddently realize that it's a really music, that's unbelievable. So that's how you met, you don't work in video games, you are on the movie music part, "linear narration", is it hard to work for video games ? Michel says "i want to work with someone who doesn't know video games" like for Rayman, but is there any constraints about composing for video games ? I mean because of those constraints, maybe it's harder for a musician who doesn't know video games to compose, contrary to an other one who knows this environment.
Michel Ancel : I think it would be great to have Christophe's point of view about the beggining, how he felt about it. That was a bit difficult, we're not going to say "we love each other since the first second, etc.", it took time to met each other. Patrice, Christophe's brother had an important role here, thanks to him we succeeded to dialogue, because Christophe has an important internal work. That's the encounter of two persons, you have to mix ideas, those ideas have to evolve, it's the encounter of two universes, two differents medias. Technically it's different too, there is the interactivity, so it took some time for Christophe to appropriate that, but he did it quite fast. The idea was to work with someone who is not used to compose for video games, to propose something original, that's what is interesting.

Nice, you're at two third. Keep it up! :D

I hope you'll understand this part from 21"35' to 27"33' :

Guy :Christophe, was it difficult at first? Because when you compose for films, it's linear composing, but in videogames maybe music is going to loop, maybe it will be cut, you don't know if the player is going to stay here for 1 or 10 minutes. How did you integrate those constraints ?
Christophe Héral : It's maybe a complicated constraint but a passionating thing at the same time, it's so interesting that this constraint become a composing game to me. It's really great, i was able to test some things with Michel's team and i attented a "focus test". Can you translate "focus" ?
Michel Ancel : It's a phase during devellopment time, where people can try the game to give us feedbacks.
Christophe Héral : During a "focus test" when a "gamer"... Can you translate "Gamer" ?
When a gamer removes his headset, it means that the music is not great for this game part. I think that's also a gamer culture, sometimes he doesn't use sound, he just mutes it, i mean he keeps the sound, but he cuts the music. So it's hard for people who think that music and image are linked. For cinema, it's chemically bound, the celluloid pellicle is projected and the soundtrack goes on. If a player mutes the sound and replace the music by his favorite music band, he will have a different perception. Sometimes we don't even know why he mutes the sound, some mute the sound before playing even, it's really hard for a musician, you have to learn it. When you attend a "focus test", if the player takes the headset off, you just go home and start from scratch. So it's about learning, it's a tool, you have to appropriate that tool for creating, a house for example : you can build it using a trowel, a mechanical shovel, you can build it using 50 people, or 2. Whatever the tool you use, you have to learn how to use it, if we succeed to create music using those tools, that's look pretty good to me.
Guy : Any musician can compose music for videogames ?
Christophe Héral : I don't know.
Guy : Do you need any particular talent ? For a composer who is use to create classic music, rock music, etc., are those constraints hard to avoid ? Any musician can learn to compose videogame music ?
Christophe Héral : I can't answer this question, all i know is that i like this constraint. Having a tool which is able to "generate" a music i composed, i really like that, it means that it could be different everytime, it's really unexpected. The tool can generate musical parts from a harmony to an other one, and you must ensure that it works. I'm sure that one player discovered musics that an other one didn't because he played a different way.
Guy : It's "user content generated" music.
Christophe Héral : These are complicated words.
Guy : It's really popular now, "players make the game", but they also make the music, well not music but soundtrack. The soundtrack is different depending the player.
Christophe Héral : It's the same about image, if someone watch a movie or play a game, everybody see a different thing on the screen. When we are listening to a soundtrack, we don't hear same things, some people hear clarinet part, others hear "a noise", others don't hear anything, some like what they heard and others don't. What i like, it's the tool, partitions are in front of the musicians and interactivity is the conductor, interactivity can ask for a oboes part here and not there, it's really interesting.
Guy : Who inspires who ? You're going to tell me "both". Michel you're the creator of the game, of the universe, you're are the one who create the basics. Then Christophe gets this inspiration from your work, he knows about what's going to happen in the game etc. But then, how does it work ? We talked about it this morning, the design can change if you add certain sounds in your composition. How is this alchemy created, the goings and comings in the creation process ?
Michel Ancel : You have to know that Christophe is really openminded about new ideas and about changing. We were talking about what kind of musician can work in video games, i don't think that it's about video games, it's about team work. When you are a creator and you work in a team, you have to make concessions, you have to accept that you can't control everything everytime, you have to compromise.

Nimitz, please do also the rest.

I regonized that they don't recorderd the full conference and made a cut just before the bge1 presentation...damn.

Yeah, i'll finish it when i have some time. Stay tuned :P.

From 27"33 to the end !

Michel Ancel : So he has this quality, but he got another one: He doesn't try to make movie music for a VG. Lots of people works in VG because they can't work for cinema, so the music in VG got a radical importance like...

Guy : ...Too bad that we unplugged the computer, we should do this next time, I was watching the trailer before you came in. Now seeing it again with the sound, suddenly, that's another dimension, it's incredible, it's really different.

Michel Ancel : Exactly, I think that musicians who are interested in VG have to understand its universe and they should wonder what the sound can bring to VG. Sound is not only a cosmetic element. For example, the sound is able to make you understand something even if it's not on the screen. It's fundamental in a VG to have a parallel action. In games, the player often controls the camera, if suddenly the game takes the camera from the player to show an event, the player could not like this maybe because he was doing a particular action, it could be leading to frustration. In general, we try to not cut the interactivity, it's like a flow, we try to avoid this, the sound tell us the situation of a character, we even have details of what he's feeling, we are not obliged to use the camera to show it, it's even stronger to just hear it, the sound become a strong ally to the interactivity. The sound allows us to have 2 simultaneous actions, 3 even, but 2 is great enough, we don't have to split the screen in 2 parts, we don't have to take possession of the player's camera, that's an example of fundamentals things that you have to understand about the sound in VG. Then the sound has to be in the action pace but that's a global rule.

While the game is booting, i want to talk about the introduction of the game, you'll see that it mixes cinematic scenes, that means that the player can't play, it's a mix between animation and video games. That's funny, we are just on the menu and there are 3 piano notes, that give you an idea of a feeling you can create with few things. Something you learn when you're working with people like Christophe, even if nothing happens in the game, the sound can bring a lot.

[36:21] Michel Ancel : We could continue this for a long time, i didn't play the game for a long time, so there was a bit of suspense even to me because of my bad fight. It's funny, we can see that the visuals a pretty rudimentary, because our technical knowledge at this time was not incredible, there are blurry textures, characters are a bit rudimentary visually speaking, and we see that the sound bring a huge contribution, it's obvious. What is interesting, it's that we gave this environment to Christophe without sound, without anything, and he created the whole sound universe. It's visually really really simple, but the narration and the sound are here to bring the game spirit.

THE END

Thanks Corny for the help !

Thanks Nimitz, much appreciated!

Always good to have someone to channel French BGE news to us not so fluent in French.

No prob, i'm happy to share it with others bg&e's fans.

Thanks a lot Nimitz_3d! :rulez: :arr::rulez:

This reminds me I need to keep at learning French.
I’ve been using www.livemocha.com. It’s pretty decent.