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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Intro Cinematic
Jeff Chamberlain,
Phillip Hillenbrand,
Blizzard Entertainment
Original: WOWX2_Prix Ars Electronica 2009.jpg | 3000 * 2400px | 3.1 MB
The cinematic intro for “World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King” presented an exciting creative and technical challenge, and it marked a number of firsts for us.
It was clear early on in production that we wanted to focus on the character of the Lich King himself, Arthas Menethil. Arthas plays a central role in the story of the expansion, and we knew that not every “World of Warcraft” player would be familiar with the Lich King’s lore from our previous games. As a result, we decided to depart from the “montage” style of cinematic we’d used to introduce World of Warcraft and its first expansion, “The Burning Crusade”, in favor of a more character- and story-driven approach.
Our challenge was to simultaneously provide history for players unfamiliar with the Lich King’s lore, set up what’s happened to the character since his last appearance in “Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne”, and make it clear to players that the Lich King was one of the greatest threats they’d yet encountered in “World of Warcraft”.
This cinematic was also a test bed for many new technologies. It was the first production in which we used Maya for all of our rigging and animation. It was also the first time we used a combination of Maya, Renderman and Nuke for lighting and compositing. We developed a rigging and animation pipeline that took advantage of Maya’s referencing system in order to automatically update character rigs, which greatly sped up the rigging and animation process. Additionally, we were able to use Renderman to create massive armies, hundreds of millions of particles of ice, and realistic snow using far fewer compositing tricks than we had relied on in the past.
It was clear early on in production that we wanted to focus on the character of the Lich King himself, Arthas Menethil. Arthas plays a central role in the story of the expansion, and we knew that not every “World of Warcraft” player would be familiar with the Lich King’s lore from our previous games. As a result, we decided to depart from the “montage” style of cinematic we’d used to introduce World of Warcraft and its first expansion, “The Burning Crusade”, in favor of a more character- and story-driven approach.
Our challenge was to simultaneously provide history for players unfamiliar with the Lich King’s lore, set up what’s happened to the character since his last appearance in “Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne”, and make it clear to players that the Lich King was one of the greatest threats they’d yet encountered in “World of Warcraft”.
This cinematic was also a test bed for many new technologies. It was the first production in which we used Maya for all of our rigging and animation. It was also the first time we used a combination of Maya, Renderman and Nuke for lighting and compositing. We developed a rigging and animation pipeline that took advantage of Maya’s referencing system in order to automatically update character rigs, which greatly sped up the rigging and animation process. Additionally, we were able to use Renderman to create massive armies, hundreds of millions of particles of ice, and realistic snow using far fewer compositing tricks than we had relied on in the past.
Blizzard Entertainment, Cinematics Dept.; Director: Jeff Chamberlain; Senior Producer: Phillip Hillenbrand
Jeff Chamberlain: Director; Phillip Hillenbrand: Senior Producer
Jeff Chamberlain: Director; Phillip Hillenbrand: Senior Producer
Jeff Chamberlain (US). As a project lead for Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.’s cinematics department, Jeff guides the vision and direction of the award-winning cut scenes featured in the company’s games. He joined Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. in 1998, immediately after graduating from James Madison University with a degree in art, emphasizing computer animation.
Phillip Hillenbrand (US). As a senior producer for Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.’s cinematics department, Phillip is responsible for managing all aspects of a cinematic production from inception to the completion as well as any additional secondary aspects that relate to the project, such as marketing, licensing and trade shows. He currently is working on the real-time cinematics for "StarCraft II".
Phillip Hillenbrand (US). As a senior producer for Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.’s cinematics department, Phillip is responsible for managing all aspects of a cinematic production from inception to the completion as well as any additional secondary aspects that relate to the project, such as marketing, licensing and trade shows. He currently is working on the real-time cinematics for "StarCraft II".