Unconsciously, "Peace Elite" and domestic players have spent nearly 3 years together, as a game that has set off the public to follow the trend of innovative gameplay, "Peace Elite" is still one of the most popular national products at present, and it has already completed the leap from simple entertainment works to cultural representatives.
While the core fun foundation of the game is solid and the gameplay is constantly exploring and deriving, we are also concerned about the continuous advancement of Peace Elite to the national IP complex. In this series of three-anniversary activities, the animated short film "Brothers" of "Peace Elite" makes us unable to look away, these 6 minutes of short film, for expanding the story background of the characters in the game, coupled with the relationship between the characters plays an irreplaceable role, and the production team behind this effort, the thought, we also in the communication with the "Peace Elite" creative team more clearly felt.
· Nine iterations, how to make a heavy performance, movie sense of the game animation?
The short film "Brothers" tells such a story:
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Victor was once a brilliant fireman of the League of Peace and the League of Peace, and his friend Ivan was killed by the wrong orders of his superior Maxim, and Victor turned against his superiors and angrily left his post. He named his pet bear Ivan, and he thought of his friends.
After a drunken Victor meets Gilly at the tavern, he is approached by Maxim to threaten him with perjury, Victor and Ivan Bear fight with Maxim, gilly lends a helping hand at a critical moment, and the two join forces to defeat Maxim. Victor and Gilly have been inextricably linked ever since and are invited to join Gilly's team.
In the limited space, we find that "Peace Elite" also has no intention of forcing into a plot that requires long preparation, many turns, and excessive fullness, on the contrary, "Brothers" puts the expressions and limbs of the characters in front, and reflects the inner activities and motivations of some of the characters through dreams and memories. With a refined story structure that appeals to all audiences, this small but well-to-do short film naturally strengthens the original character perception and new story stage expression for the world of Peace Elite.
Anyone who follows the Peace Elite short film series will find that Brothers is not their first time to do animation, but a sequel to the previous game," Courage, and the second installment of the Gilly Team Animated Short Series. To this end, the "Peace Elite" team said that they can be said to have strictly followed the creation principle of "staying in front of the fight and starting at the point" in this second world war.
"From the initial brainstorming conception to the completion of the final script, we iterated 9 versions and continuously optimized, and the whole production cycle was 6 months." The team's creator told us.
The animated short film was completed by the Photon Studios Group in collaboration with a team of Hollywood artists, the Peace Elite project team is the main creative team of the "Gilly Team Animation Short Film Series", and the Photon Art Center and Technology Center control the visual and sound quality of the animation. On audiovisual standards, the team said that the picture production followed the original team of artists from the previous "Courage" short film, while the sound effects used a film-quality soundtrack and a version of Dolby Atmos was specially produced.
Concept art of part of the shot design of "Brothers"
In these 6 months of production process, which part of the most difficult part? The production team told us that their positioning for this series of animations is to shape and enrich the characters, and the key to shaping the characters is the performance. At the beginning, due to cultural differences and different degrees of recognition of the roles, there were certain differences in the direction and scale of performance, and later through the screenwriter's talking and the recording of performance references by bilateral team artists, everyone's desired feeling was achieved.
"In addition to the vivid body language, the audience can see a lot of character close-up performances in this animated short film, and accurately convey the character's joys and sorrows in each expression, which is a great test of the animationist's skill." The production team said, "Especially because our characters are Chinese, if the performance of the speech and the dialogue cannot be consistent when shooting close-ups, it will be very dramatic." So this time, the Hollywood team customized Chinese mouth-shaped blendshapes for each of our characters, and did face binding according to the Chinese pinyin "b, p, m, f" and pronunciation habits. This is one of our attempts to avoid simple facial performances. ”
In the visual perception of the whole film of "Brothers", we also found that it is different from the first work, and the fight scenes of "Brothers" are obviously more dynamic. "In Courage, Gilly appears handsomely in bold colors and light and shadow; in Brothers, we want to have a more spatial sense of combat - in Victor against the giant mech, the use of jetpack props to broaden the imagination of the camera scheduling, and then use high-frequency cutting mirrors to enhance the sense of substitution with the comic design of pulling in and out, and we also hand-draw multi-frame two-dimensional special effects to create a stronger sense of impact."
From Courage to Brothers, we see some continuations of the same style in both animations, but also different innovations and new attempts. The production team told us that in terms of production focus, "Courage" focused on lighting and color, "Brothers" focused on animation performances, based on the experience of the first episode, their process management was optimized, the production soon entered the later stages, and they also had more time to design individual shots and figure out the narrative rhythm.
"On the basis of the previous episode, the narrative of this episode is more relaxed, and the player can recognize the character characteristics of the character through dialogue and some detailed Easter eggs. At the same time, according to the feedback of players from the previous game, we have incorporated more representative symbols of "Peace Elite" with memory points this time: pan, large plate chicken, airdrop box, etc., including adding to the soundtrack to familiarize players with the main theme of "Peace Mission". ”
The main creative team also revealed to us that the story of the Gilly team gathering will continue, after Gilly and Victor they will start to make the original story of Professor Oliver of the "Free Man", and there will be mysterious characters closely related to the Night Crisis and the mutant events, and the "Peaceful Universe" has just been unveiled.
· The competitive adventure opens to an instant addition to the story, with a deep digging of player emotions
"Brothers" after the launch of the major social media platforms caused a hot discussion, the first day of the launch on the Weibo hot search 29th, the Vibrato hot list 39th, and then on the Kuaishou hot list 51st and the entertainment list 10th, it can be found that the audience has both "Peace Elite" players, but also ordinary users interested in animated short films, "Peace Elite or turn to animation bar" "Victor is really man and cute" Comments abound.
"Brothers" has received positive feedback from users on the short video platform
As the second of the Gilly Squad short films, Brothers plays an important role in the entire storyline, and this entire series is precisely to complete the prequel part of the entire "Peace Elite" version of the main story through the excavation of the background story and deep connections of the four resident Kanban characters of "Jilly Squad".
The creative team also said that they positioned the animation of this series as the "starting point" in the entire competitive adventure open world layout of Peace Elite, and players have always asked what is the story behind these four original characters, what is the story setting of Peace Elite, and they are now telling the story of the entire tactical competitive adventure world in the "initial creation" stage.
A four-man squad of stars led by Gilly
From "Courage" to "Brothers", while maintaining a continuous narrative line, it is not difficult to see that the core of the theme they want to explore and express in each episode is also closely linked to the core spirit of the game and the player's emotions of "Peace Elite".
Compared with "Courage" that focuses more on personal awakening, "Brothers" resonates with players emotionally, and it is the process of cooperating with teammates to win countless times in the game - whether it is a new teammate or a long-term partner, whether it is a gag or a serious battle, in the end, they will always trust each other and give the "back" to each other.
In "Brothers", Victor would rather give up his glorious past because he once lost his brother; named his partner bear "Ivan" in honor of his comrades-in-arms; and he did not succumb to power and stood up for his brother, gilly was also impressed and reached out, and the two sides became teammates who fought side by side... This ubiquitous "brother complex" runs through the entire animation and also strings together the relationship between the characters.
As a teammate of the Kanban character Gilly, Victor's strong and "meme" personality has also aroused heated discussion in the player community - in addition to the interactive details in the "Brothers" cartoon this time, Victor's boldness and care have been fully expressed in the official peace elite comic "Peace Elite: Depicting God of War"; the "Ivan Bear" who often appears next to him in the story is clumsy and cute, but the key moments are often strange, this contrast is cute" Since its debut, the "Man-Bear Brothers" has also become one of the most talked about highlights by players.
Officially made Easter eggs and memes
Prior to the animated series, the official manga Peace Elite: Depicting God of War, which had been linked to major comic platforms, was a long-term narrative product of the Peace Elite version of the story, and now the way engine animation is made allows them to advance the story and release clues in a more agile and dynamic way.
In addition to the Jilly Team series of short films, "Peace Elite" also has "Inner Ghost" updated with the Light and Shadow Factory version, "Rescue" updated with the resort island map, and the third anniversary of the mutation 2.0 gameplay of the same version of the short film "Mutation 2.0", these same world, but with different timelines of IP content are constantly through the way of slice narrative, so that players have a deeper understanding of the world, characters and events of "Peace Elite", leading them to collage a larger "Peace Elite" story picture.
From top to bottom: "Inner Ghost", "Rescue", "Mutation 2.0" version of the short story
· Behind the episode plan, meet the multi-faceted Gilly whose "value" has soared
With the release of Victor's short films, team Gilly's animated series plans have gradually surfaced. As the core character of "Peace Elite" and the leader of the star four-person squad, Gilly's image and backstory are also becoming more and more full. If "Courage" is her personal autobiography, telling how she overcame her heart demons and determined to become a peace elite, then "Brothers" is the beginning of her adventure with her partners, and we have witnessed the more faceted growth of this digital spokesperson for the peace elite.
Officially made Easter eggs
Previously, as the digital spokesperson of the peace elite, Gilly had a dialogue with Lawrence Xu, a well-known couture designer in China, brought couture ready-to-wear clothes in the mountains to the fashion week to inherit the intangible embroidery culture; during the Winter Olympics, served as the ambassador of the peace elite ice and snow sports promotion; worked with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to appear on the cover of the fashion magazine "ELLEidol" magazine; served as a close friend of West Lake culture and led users in the charm of the west lake scenery in the game; she also served as a good official of Tencent's 99 charity day... Her "business figure" has been shuttling through the major sets of the peace elite.
The more diverse the backstory and character dimensions of Gilly and her squad, the richer the externalized character image of Peace Elite will be in the future - it is not difficult to foresee that the unforgettable core characters will help Peace Elite be more comfortable in cross-border cooperation with a wider field.
In the exchange with the main creative team, we learned another news: the "Peace Elite" project team is preparing a blockbuster birthday plan for Gilly, and will meet with you in May, which is not only a "multi-faceted" Li "faction" external presentation, but also a blockbuster surprise for the third anniversary of the peace elite.
· The "Peaceful Universe" in Flight
Team Gilly's short film series Brothers kicked off the third anniversary of Elite peace. As a super IP complex, the connotation and influence of "Peace Elite" in the past three years have long exceeded that of simple games, music, comics, variety shows, e-sports, traditional culture linkage... It is creating cultural value through various mediums. From being selected for the Asian Games and representing China's sports competition strength, to linking with the Institute of Oceanography of the National Academy of Astronomy and Science of China to help scientific and technological exploration and digital science popularization, from exploring traditional Chinese humanistic arts such as Peking Opera art and Western Huxuan Dance, to excavating regional humanities such as Hangzhou West Lake and Chongqing Pengshui Miao Embroidery, the linkage object of "Peace Elite" is often beyond our expectations, but it can always tell one story after another.
Thanks to the open and co-creation nature of the game itself, Peace Elite has no limits on exerting its own content energy, and as the development of the game enters a mature period, its cultural attributes and commercial value are also reaching a new peak - just as the theme of this third anniversary celebration has advanced from the "take-off" of the second anniversary to the "flight". Better-made original animated shorts, richer character stories, and non-stop gameplay innovations are all important parts of Peace Elite's open story of competitive adventures and the creation of a "peace universe."
Storytelling, character shaping, and IP comprehensive development, in the "peaceful universe" without boundaries, the main creative team said: "We have just stood at the starting point."