Space Marines End Cinematic Commentary
The Space Marines race was the third video I did of the seven. They are the loyal super-soldiers of the Imperium. To portray their honorable presence, I opted to do several scenes of extended height and battles where each individual soldier was a threat to an enemy. I threw in some fresh ideas here as well. :)
Part 1
Scene 1
The first scene takes place along the side of a mountain and is one of the tallest sets that I arranged. I put a few paths on the mountain to make it even more realistic and to have places where troops could traverse. I then put several one-on-one battles across the mountain, which meant I had to take careful attention to the slope of the mountain. If the slope was too steep, the troops wouldn’t be able to stand on it. So the mountain consists of little flat spots and steep cliffs. At the top, the Force Commander defeats a local Ork boss and then takes a moment to glance out into the distance. I focused on this to show that the Force Commander fights alongside his troops instead of sitting back and giving commands.
I created a lightning effect for this scene. I had the ability to fade in or out to a color and since this was supposed to be a rainy scene (once again, to show the soldiers fight well in any condition and for dramatic effect), some lightning would really fit well. Thus, I wrote a function that fades the screen to white in less than a millisecond, seemingly instant. It then faded back to whatever was going on in about a second or two. When the sound designer added the thunder sound, it felt pretty true while not feeling too hacked.
Lastly, I was running out of room on this map, so I built this mountain where only half of it was in the playable area. The unplayable area is shaded and no units can go there no matter what the script is. I had to carefully plan the camera path out so this didn’t cause a problem.
Scene 2At first, the battle scene was all there was for part 1. When we got the voice over for the dialogue, it wasn’t long enough and I realized half the dialogue talks about the unfortunate killing of other Imperial forces. I decided I wanted to make a graveyard scene to depict the respect Space Marines gave to the fallen, following the trend of them being an honorable race. This was difficult considering there was no gravestone artwork available in the game.
Using a bit of smoke and mirrors, I managed to accomplish what looked like gravestones. In fact, they were road signs that I turned around (so you only saw the artless backs of the signs) and then buried them in the ground. It’s like turning a Stop Sign around and burying it so only half the sign is visible. The spikes at the entrance, preventing vehicles from accidentally entering the sacred area, are actually the top part of a tall gate. Lastly, I had a confessor from the Sisters of Battle walk in to pay his respects to his comrades, attempting to create some activity occurring. The Knight guards are another attempt at adding to the honorable portrayal of the Space Marines.
Part 2
Scene 1
There’s not much to say about this scene. It’s simply a large, somewhat reenactment of one of the final battles taking place on Kaurava IV to finish off the forces of Chaos. I scripted a few squads to run to certain locations and cue certain enemies to die to fit with the camera shots. I put in some Landspeeder Tempest, the new flying unit, near the end of the project to promote Iron Lore’s new additions to the game. I try to keep flyers moving during any cinematic since it doesn’t really make since for them to hover. I had some different ways of how I was going to kill the Bloodthirster at the end of this scene, but I ended up going with the most cost-effective method of simply letting him do his long, drawn out death animation.
Part 3
Scene 1
I added this scene later on in the project. Every time I heard the voice over mention “Fortress Monastery,” I imagined a large, church-like building. I thought it might be neat to bring that vision to reality. The set here is really small. I found some church-like walls and put stained glass windows on them. I have a Librarian walking in, once again without explanation of why to allow the players to fill the gaps in with their own imagination. Maybe he was going there to research some materials kept there. Who knows?
The inside of the building wasn’t really inside at all. It had no roof. In fact, I just used a very simple texture and then painted it purple. I used purple because it is a very royal-like color and isn’t very common in natural settings, making it more apparent that it is intended to be carpet. I then painted a red carpet with gold trimming directly onto the scene as another detail. Lastly, I put in some civilian models to make it more inviting. The models actually do scared animations, but from the distance of the camera, it’s hard to tell that.
Scene 2A quick scene of troops either parading around to enjoy their victory or a run through the streets scouring for remaining enemy troops. At this point I was quick at setting up a group of units moving in the same direction.
Scene 3 and 4Here, Imperial guardsmen arrive and form rows being instructed and reviewed by Chaplains of the Space Marines. The marines have done their job and cleared the system of any threat. They must mobilize and move elsewhere to where they are needed. Thus, the Imperial Guard returns to reestablish their presence and hold the Kaurava system once more.
The troops that come out of the Valkyrie have to spawn at just the right moment. There’s no way to visually show them coming out of the ship, so instead, they magically appear. I have them spawn where the Valkyrie throws dust up and, using a simple loop, give them a location to move to, waiting a moment before the next is spawned. I decided to put some construction where the wall had collapsed as if the engineers were rebuilding the wall (see side picture).
Scene 5The last scene shows the Force Commander and his elite knights talking to a Librarian. The commander and his guards get on a Thunderhawk and fly off while the Librarian heads towards the guardsmen. Unfortunately, all of this occurs during dead air. The final bit of the dialogue got cut due to a falsity in the context. Originally, it stated the Ecclesiarchy dispatched Chaplains and Librarians to oversee the Imperial Guardsmen to make sure they didn’t screw up again. That’s what the video is showing, that the commander is having one last word with a Librarian before he leaves. The Ecclesiarchy doesn’t actually do this though. I tried to cut this last scene off, but it ended the movie at a weird place. The Force Commander had to be seen leaving to have some form of closure in the video.