Baldur’s Gate 3 ‘looks so alive’ as it used 248 actors to bring its characters to life

Baldur’s Gate 3 relied on the expertise and motion capture of 248 actors to bring the cast to life – including NPCs.

That’s according to Performance Director Aliona Baranova, who posted a long thread on Xitter over the weekend detailing just how much work goes into making your favorite games look “extremely alive.”

“[For a]“In almost all of the dialogue we recorded, we also captured the actors’ mocap data. This means that all 248 actors, all NPCs, not just companions, wore the mocap suit and their movements, gestures, and bodily choices were recorded. And sent,” Baranova explained. With the audio files for the game animators to use. That’s why the performances look so lively.”

The exceptions to the rule? The animals, of course, have additional dialogue — Baranova gives the example of when she gets a bird’s-eye view of a character running while speaking — as well as cutscenes, and “sometimes,” when an actor is injured or unavailable to record the mocap. with their voice lines.

Which means the iconic head is shaking [Jennifer English] I did as the heart of the shadow He was “Actual Jane’s head shakes,” Baranova says. Lay’s militaristic antics and antics were Devora Wilde’s physical choices for the character. The theatrical flare of Neil Newbon as Astarion are all part of the cast’s choices.

“As a performance director, our job is to work with the sound director,” Baranova explains. “Our focus is on the actors’ body, their movements, how they embody their character, and making sure that the body relates to the sound.” (Thanks, computer games).

“When you watch the in-game dialogue, you not only hear the voices of the actors, but also see their physical performance as well as the beautiful work of the animators at Larian Studios, of course, who used the files we sent to create the finished product.”

Larian has released the first “major” update for Baldur’s Gate 3, with the developer stating that it will target 1,000 fairly large bugs, as well as “balance, flow issues, and more”. As Larian joked, it’s so massive, the patch notes can’t be fully detailed on Steam, because it’s over the platform’s text limit.

This chunky first update comes after Larian announced that Baldur’s Gate 3 will make its way to Xbox before this year is out.

After sitting down with Xbox chief Phil Spencer at Gamescom earlier this week, Larian revealed that it dropped the Series S split screen as a “solution” to bring its action RPG to Microsoft’s consoles.