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Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Fully Animated Commercial

CG environment with realistic animated characters

Dec 10, 2007 11:27 GMT  ·  By
As you can see, they're not lying about that Wrinkle Mapping Facial Animation system
   As you can see, they're not lying about that Wrinkle Mapping Facial Animation system

Perspective Studios and The Mill New York are two companies that have collaborated in order to come up with a nice commercial for Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and if you'll just click right HERE to download and watch it yourself, you'll see that they did a pretty good job at it too. Uncharted is an upcoming PlayStation 3 game from renowned development studio Naughty Dog - the guys behind the Crash Bandicoot series.

Both Perspective Studios and The Mill New York were tasked with creating a full CG environment with realistic animated characters, since gamers have such high standards nowadays, but also high hopes for this particular PS3 title. The Mill team worked closely with Perspective Studios to motion-capture Nolan North, the voice actor for Nathan Drake, Uncharted's main guy.

"Being able to work with Nolan North has allowed us to maintain authenticity in the TV spot," said Joshua Merck, lead animator of The Mill New York. "Access to North was crucial in our efforts to create realistic body movements, and working with Perspective Studios enabled us to capture the finer details of his performance."

"It was a remarkable opportunity to apply our expertise towards the creation of a commercial for such a highly-anticipated title," said Keith Robinson, SVP Animation Production at Perspective Studios. "The Mill New York has done an amazing job re-creating the environments with great detail and realistic feel."

The game's plot says that a 400-year-old clue in the coffin of Sir Francis Drake sets a modern-day fortune hunter on an exploration for the fabled treasure of El Dorado, leading to the discovery of a forgotten island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The search of course turns deadly when Nathan Drake becomes stranded on the island and hunted by mercenaries. He and his companions are outnumbered and outgunned, and so the game becomes a run for survival while players begin to unravel some terrible secrets hidden on the Island.

But what's really great about this game is that characters are said to express lifelike emotion using gesture and facial expression. This wouldn't be possible, had it not been for Naughty Dog's proprietary Wrinkle Mapping Facial Animation system.

Here's the TV spot again. Enjoy!