Archives: Case Studies

Grid Trailer Codemasters

The latest generation of the GRID franchise from racing genre gurus Codemasters, offers a fun and accessible adrenalin fuelled experience for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. This is not the first time REALTIME have worked with Codemasters having already delivered ‘Dirt 3’ and ‘Dirt: Showdown’ which were also created by the same team.

“We’ve worked with Realtime before on our trailers for DiRT so it was a no brainer to collaborate with them on this show stopping trailer for GRID. It’s always a pleasure to work with Realtime, they always deliver and their artists are hugely skilled!” – Dan Robinson – Marketing Director, Codemasters

WHY REALTIME
CAPTIVATE YOUR AUDIENCE
As the trusted partner for world-renowned games companies for over 20 years, we have the experience, expertise and passion to deliver engaging and immersive trailers for upcoming releases.

With specialist creative teams working with the latest CGI tools, we create cutting-edge visual communications that captivate audiences, engage viewers and inspire belief. Whether it’s an online marketing trailer or TV commercial, we’ll create fantastic digital worlds that deliver tangible real life results. Grid Trailer Codemasters

Through individual and team expertise, our highly adaptive production pipelines add efficiency, quality and transparency to our creative processes.

Realtime UK
HBO
Yoozoo
Codemasters
Rebellion
Hi-Rez Studios
Gameforge
Tencent Games
Amazon Game Studios
FlareGames
Sparkypants

BRINGING THE DIGITAL WORLD TO LIFE Grid Trailer Codemasters
With seamless visual effects, cutting edge in-game cinematics and compelling storytelling, we help immerse gamers in fantastical digital worlds. Our cutting-edge visuals and engaging storytelling can set moods, create emotional connections and drive a storyline forward – all while helping to bring digital worlds to life. This can be combined with character design, helping to inspire belief further and turn players into fans.

As well as pre-rendered footage, we also deliver in-engine, live action and 2.5D solutions; all created by the same highly skilled team. Our highly adaptive production pipelines ensure an efficient, high quality and transparent creative process. Grid Trailer Codemasters

 

2.5D Trailer

When we found out that we were going to be revisiting the wonderful world of RuneScape, we couldn’t have been more excited. With its rich 17-year history, we were honoured to be asked to create the main branding trailer for the prodigious game that has over 250 million registered players. 2.5D Trailer

Building on the 2.5D cinematics that we have previously made for RuneScape Eastern Lands and Mephanos, our artists set out to push the limits of what they could do, to an image projected on geometry. As Senior Generalist Chris Scubli explains, “Trying to achieve the illusion of 3D, while preserving the illustrative look became a fine balancing act.”

Lead Animator Will Eades also weighed in, on creating a cinematic feel to an illustrative world- “The animation was fairly restricted to minimal movements due to the nature of the 2.5D approach but I feel the amount of character and life we gave to the paintings was just right. Subtle details like eye darts and facial expressions were used to really push the final quality up. The finished animation along with the amazing FX work, really brings the piece together to create yet another beautiful looking cinematic.” 2.5D Trailer

One of the biggest games in existence just got bigger. After 15 years and over 200 million accounts having been created, Runescape is widely acknowledged as being the world’s largest MMORPGs. Now it’s grown even bigger with the introduction of an entire new continent, including an archipelago of islands, which can be claimed as their own by adventurous players.
To announce the new content update, the games creator Jagex commissioned RealtimeUK to create a cinematic 2.5D motion graphics trailer which was made entirely out of animated artwork. 2.5D Trailer

Building on the 2.5D cinematics that we have previously made for RuneScape Eastern Lands and Mephanos, our artists set out to push the limits of what they could do, to an image projected on geometry. As Senior Generalist Chris Scubli explains, “Trying to achieve the illusion of 3D, while preserving the illustrative look became a fine balancing act.”

Sci-Fi Trailer

Dreadnought is a combat flight simulator developed by Yager and published by Grey Box with Six Foot. It’s been in beta since April 2016, and now it is finally out for all to enjoy. Players take the role of captain on one of several classes of ships, from agile corvettes to hulking dreadnoughts. They then face off against other players in tactical skirmishes where team play and strategy will pave their way to victory. Sci-Fi Trailer

This trailer plays out a battle between two teams of five, where the hero team use skill and tactical guile to overcome the enemy in an epic battle resulting in an explosive finale.

The sheer amount of ground covered by the ships during the trailer was the biggest challenge we faced. The environments were the largest and most complex we’ve created and as the landscape was seen from many different angles it was important to balance efficiency, whilst achieving the RealtimeUK visual quality our artists just won’t compromise on. Sci-Fi Trailer

We used World Machine to generate the base layout, but we found that we couldn’t quite get the look right as it generates landscapes from top down height maps, meaning the steep cliff faces just didn’t have the detail. Taking inspiration from how the original game environment was created, we used the concept images to direct the modelling team generating around ten different cliff face sculpts of varying scale and complexity. These were positioned into the current world machine base to achieve the detail we were looking for. Sci-Fi Trailer

V-Ray’s proxy system is quite robust, making it possible to create vast worlds as long as the objects remain static. The use of procedural shading networks let us cover large areas with unique detail. For example, dusty surfaces, worn edges and dirty crevices can all be added with one setup and are unique to the geometry they act upon. We found with the efficient use of a few great assets we could achieve a vast and complex look. Sci-Fi Trailer

The trailer of course wouldn’t be complete without some cracking VFX, and our favourite was the ship destruction finale. This was a combination of several Houdini PYRO simulations and Rigid Body sims. We also added multiple trails using particle systems which were then sampled into volumes within Houdini. We developed a few tools to help with speeding up the process of adding gun flashes, impacts and tracer rounds. This tool enabled us to select a set of guns on a ship and then generate gunfire FX including muzzle flashes, particle based tracer trails and explosive impacts. Apart from the tracer fire the explosions and gun flashes were generated in Houdini using PYRO tools and exported using VDBs.

Dakar UE4 Trailer Dakar UE4 cinematic Trailer

Bigmoon Entertainment’s ‘Dakar 18’ marks an important milestone for our studio as it’s our first game cinematic to be made within UE4. We’re proud to share our thrilling and breathtakingly realistic portrayal of the legendary Dakar Rally. The trailer was wholly made in the UE4 engine, except for the sand and dust VFX that were created in Houdini. Dakar UE4 Trailer

Realtime are CGI, animation and VFX specialists, with a focus on gaming, automotive and broadcast. We go the extra mile to create cutting edge content capable of transporting the viewer. Whether we are immersing gamers in distant alien worlds or placing buyers in the driving seat of their perfect car, we don’t just make visuals, we craft belief. Dakar UE4 cinematic Trailer

Using assets from the video game developed by Bigmoon Entertainment from the Unreal4 Engine, we prepared to make this cinematic trailer. The engines flexible technology allowed us to easily adapt our prerendered pipeline to the production process, so that we could make the most of our existing modelling, texturing and animation strengths alongside the live assets within the game. UE4 allowed our artists real-time feedback whilst developing each scene, which presents a more creative and fluid development process, offering great opportunities for inspired experimentation and a dynamic workflow. Dakar UE4 Trailer  Dakar UE4 cinematic Trailer

Based on the world famous annual rally raid organized by Amaury Sport Organisation (A.S.O.) in South America, DAKAR 18 is a realistic simulation of the biggest cross-country rally in the world and features a variety of vehicles, including motorcycles, cars, trucks, quads and UTVs. Players will compete in fierce online multiplayer battles as well as playing offline to harness and grow racing skills in a huge open world.

Realtime are CGI, animation and VFX specialists, with a focus on gaming, automotive and broadcast. We go the extra mile to create cutting edge content capable of transporting the viewer. Whether we are immersing gamers in distant alien worlds or placing buyers in the driving seat of their perfect car, we don’t just make visuals, we craft belief. Dakar UE4 Trailer