Presented By Aleissia Laidacker Nicolas Barbeau Living Crowds

Presented By: Aleissia Laidacker Nicolas Barbeau

Living Crowds AI & Animation in: Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood PIPELINE - AI AI TEAM Core AI Missions Behavior Fight Crowd

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood PIPELINE – CORE AI TEAM > > > Core Mechanics Spawning Save System, Replay System

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood PIPELINE – MISSIONS TEAM > > Mission Design Tech Exotic Gameplay

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood PIPELINE – BEHAVIOR TEAM > > > Physical State and Actions Main Character – “ 3 C”: (Character, Camera, Controls) Animation Gameplay

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood PIPELINE – FIGHT TEAM > > > Fight Behavior Fight AI Fight Animators

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood PIPELINE – CROWD TEAM > > > NPC AI Gameplay Systems Navigation

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood CROWD PROGRESSION AC 1 AC 2 ACB Crowd Flow Technology Memorable Moments Real World Ambiance

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood THE CHALLENGE More Missions and Reactions + > Day and Night Cycle + > Rome Upgrade System = 3 X more Crowd Life content than AC 2. > In 10 Months Time!

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood STARTING POINT > Behaviors = Programmer Centric: Problem for simple needs > Programmer vs Animator Control > Need new tools! > How to create a simple behavior?

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood DATA DRIVEN BEHAVIORS

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood CUSTOM ACTIONS What is it? > > > Body Part Transferring Look-at Transitions Loops Variety Weights

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood CUSTOM ACTIONS Orientation Settings > > Idle: Turn to Target Move: Oriented Move

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood CUSTOM ACTIONS Blended Animations

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood CUSTOM ACTIONS Random Look-At > Systemic > Moods

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood OASIS Reactions Using Oasis and custom actions for sound and NPC reactions. > Mix and match thousands of speech lines with generic or specific animations. > Fast creation based on a template system. > Managing the Data

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood CROWD LIFE COORDINATOR What is it? > Gameplay Object > No Scripted Scenes for each Character > Drag and Drop – Static Object > It makes creating a unique ambiance fast and easy.

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood CROWD LIFE COORDINATOR What it does > Plays Custom Actions > Prop Spawning information > Loads animation data dynamically > Manages character interruptions and reactivity.

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood BREAKING THE CYCLE > Break the robotic feel > Making walk uneven and asymmetrical > Making characters feel more human

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood BREAKING THE CYCLE Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 2 Step 5 Step 1 Step 6 Step 2 Step 1 Step 3 Step …

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood NPCG: How to make a character with a wait and a walk animation How it was done before… GENERIC UNIQUE WALK WAIT TRANSITION a WALK a WAIT TRANSITION b WALK b

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood NPCG: How to make a character with a wait and a walk animation We call it… Transblend! GENERIC WAIT TRANSITION UNIQUE WALK a WALK b

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood NPCG: How to make a character with a wait and a walk animation Fame

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood ANIMATION BUDGET Doing More with Less > > > NPCG Reuse Animations Dividing Rome into distinct areas Loading Animations dynamically Memory Limitations!

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood RECAP What a Challenge!

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood Q&A Thank You! Q&A aleissia. laidacker@ubisoft. com nicolas. barbeau@ubisoft. com