Cyberpunk 2077 kicked off a summer full of reveals with a cinematic trailer at E3 2019, and now it's closing out the season with a stylish, behind-the-scenes look at how the trailer was made. Don't fall asleep yet - I know making-of videos are often pretty dull for folks who aren't invested in all the little details of how the video game sausage is made, but this one is different. It's no less dynamic and aesthetically pleasing than the final product, all while giving you an inside look at how digital effects studio Goodbye Kansas put the trailer together from top to bottom.
The video runs roughly parallel to the original trailer, following V and his gone-too-soon friend Jackie from a gunfight to the, uh, office (I guess) of Dexter DeShawn. That said, it doesn't rehash the whole trailer, which you've presumably already seen if you're watching this. Instead it pulls back to show scenes from the performance capture studio interspersed with capture of the modeling and animation processes for individual characters.
Every now and then the video 'glitches' out to show an un-textured version of the characters on screen in an otherwise normal context, just to remind you that Hello Kansas has complete control of this reality simulation you're viewing right now. It reminds me of the old opening for The Outer Limits. "We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical," and so on. I think if one of the producers for the original version of that show saw this video they'd probably faint on the spot, though.
Speaking of cinematics, did you know that all of Cyberpunk 2077's in-game cutscenes will be in first-person?
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