That's Gotta Hurt (July 20, 2006)

[Bandit LOAF]

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The Escapist has published a very nice article about the history of Wing Commander development. Wing Leader starts with a very interesting story about Wing Commander's original unveiling and goes through the series' evolution -- through to the fan efforts that continue today. It's full of interesting anecdotes, including a great story about Chris Roberts being punched in the face during the animation shoot for Wing Commander II.

Wing II also used rotoscoping for its cut-scene animations. Stephen Beeman recalls, "We used people around the office, filming them with a camcorder, capturing with a really primitive capture card, and painting over the vidcaps in Deluxe Paint, frame by frame.

"The best part of the rotoscoping came when we filmed the scene at the end of Wing II, where Angel punches Jazz. Jackie Chapman, one of Origin's marketers, was playing Angel, and we had Chris play Jazz. Needless to say, neither of them was a trained Hollywood stunt person, so when Jackie threw that punch, it didn't breeze past Chris the way we intended - it socked him right in the nose! Naturally, that's the take we used.

"The fans should be pleased to know Chris literally put his blood, sweat and tears into that game. The rest of us settled for just the sweat and tears."

The article is ultimately a criticism of Roberts' decision to move on to Hollywood... but it presents some excellent information before reaching that end. The online magazine also published an article on Origin itself back in October - you can find that here. You can also find the article in an easier-to-read straight format of the current article here.

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Original update published on July 20, 2006

 

[Dundradal]

interesting read. It's really great how they mention the CIC and all the things us fans are doing to keep Confed going...truly long live the confederation...

Wish it was a little bit longer on WC3 and 4 and not merely speaking to them as training vids for Roberts later move to movies...

 

[Lt.Death100]

Funny how the guy really got punched.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I do question the validity of the criticism of Chris Roberts' career. For one thing, as a Producer his job success is measured by how much money he can get for a project -- not how much it makes at the box office. Getting people to risk money on projects has always been something Mr. Roberts has been great at, and that transitioned to Hollywood *perfectly*.

Obviously, I'd love to wake up tomorrow and find out that he's decided to come back to gaming... but at the same time, I don't think that's either likely or something that would make him happy.

 

[t.c.cgi]

The really silly thing is how they average the list of movies out to make the movies he worked on look like failures. The Punisher and The Upside of Anger made good returns (using their side-panel info), while Lord of War just about broke even on the profits side of the margin. And that's just the box-office numbers.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Yeah... and it's the domestic box office, too -- that's good for comparing movies on the news each week, but it isn't anywhere close to showing whether or not a film was profitable (it would need to include things like money made in the rest of the world, licensing and home video sales).