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Today's early-morining Revenant Wings interview features that talented group of people who created the FMV for the game: Movie Director Eiji Fuji, Character Model Leader Naomi Horigome, and Animation Leader Hikaru Murakami.

Check under the cut to learn all about the unique challenges of designing high-quality FMV for the DS, but be forewarned: this interview is full of spoilers!

Q: When working on the movies for this game on the DS, what did you have to watch out for?

HORIGOME: The main thing was that, due to the screen size, the character models would often appear so small that when you viewed them at a distant camera angle you wouldn't be able to make out the faces. So we had to be careful to keep the camera close enough that you could see them clearly, and far enough so that the faces didn't take over the whole screen.

FUJI: We also had to keep down the polygon count, yeah.

HORIGOME: Yes, if you increase the polygon count to add more detail, then when you compress the image to fit the DS, you have to start raising the compression ratio to compensate.

FUJI: The DS can't play video with too high of a compression ratio, so you can't include any very detailed textures. When we were working on FFXII, we had to put in as much detail as possible, but for this game it felt like we were working in the opposite direction. I'd never done anything like this in all my time creating FMV, so it was quite difficult.

HORIGOME: Also, the character designs for this game are by Ryoma Ito, who hadn't ever worked with FMV before. He had no experience with things like character silhouettes and coloring, so it was harder to reproduce his designs. There were also times when we'd be working, and we'd compared the polygon models that we were making to the concept art, and we'd think "this flesh-tone isn't as good." The characters' clothing has its own color schemes too, so for that we just wanted to make sure we preserved the impact of the concept art.

Q: How did you use motion capture for this game?

MURAKAMI: The only scene where we used motion capture is the one where Penelo dances; for all the others we animated it by hand. After that, we used cloth simulation [a technique using computer algorithms to simulate the movements of cloth] for Penelo's costume when she dances, and for Kytes' robes. Moving each individual strand of hair or billow of cloth is just too much work to do by hand.

FUJI: FFXII's movies were 30 frames per second, but Revenant Wings is 12 frames per second. When you have a lower frame count, using simulations and motion capture can become awkward. For instance, if you're using simulations for falling rubble and recording at 12 frames per second, a single piece of rubble may only appears in one frame, and will appear and disappear instantly. You need to do it by hand so that you can prolong it, to hang around for 2-3 frames and give a real sense that it's falling.

MURAKAMI: As far as character movements go, as long as you're careful about their posing, it will look pretty no matter what the frame count. So we have to be careful that we use posing that will look as good as possible no matter what.

Q: I thought using both of the DS's screens to display the movies was an interesting idea.

FUJI: Originally we thought we'd just use one of the two screens to show the movies, so we tried to play one of FFXII's movies on there just to test. Having one screen black while the movie was playing on the other really made it lose its impact, but we discovered that the movies really look gorgeous when you use both screens. The computers we used to develop this game had tools so that we could check what was running on both screens simultaneously. The colors and button placements was just like a real DS. (laughs)

Q: It sounds like making movies for the DS was very technical. FUJI: At first, we tried to concentrate on composition, so that nothing on the screen was so large it would be forced off the edges. But the screen is so small that if you try to fit something like an airship into that size, it will look claustrophobic. So instead we had it move so that it became so large it went out of boundaries of the screen, which preserved the dramatic intensity. Once we had that established, we had to think about ways to make use of both screens. We thought about various things we could do, like having a character on the bottom screen looking up at the sky on the top screen, or creating complicated cuts between the top and bottom screens. I'd like it if players would look consciously for the small details we put onto both screens in all the FMVs. Like the scene after Penelo runs from the bottom screen to the top screen, and the flowers on the bottom screen sway. When a movie starts, I think it's important to hold the DS out from you a little bit to watch them.

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Insider Production Secrets

Eiji Fuji: In the scene where Vaan and Penelo are hanging from the airship as they escape from the Cache of Glabados, they stay in that position until the movie ends. Even at the end when they become so small you can't see them, they're still hanging on.

Naomi Horigome: When I was completing Penelo's polygon model, we did motion tests using motion capture data from a professional belly dancer, but it was sexier than we expected, and got everyone a little too excited.

Hikaru Murakami: In the scene where Vaan draws the sword and Penelo embraces him from behind, originally it was planned to be a face-to-face embrace between them. That was a little too much so we ended up changing it, but personally I thought it was kind of a shame.

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Q: Voices have played a big part in your FMVs up until now. Was it a big deal that you couldn't use them here?

FUJI: Having voices means that you can have the characters communicate their feelings through what they say, but since we didn't have voices we had to convey their feelings only through the movement of their eyes and facial expressions, so it took quite a lot more work.

MURAKAMI: There were plenty of scenes where we said "If only they could talk!" (laughs) For instance, in the opening, there's a scene where Vaan is piloting the airship and Penelo is pushing buttons and teasing him at his side. We were wondering how we can convey their fighting without having them speak, and we redid the screen layout over and over again trying to make it work.

FUJI: The length of each movie is decided in advance, so it's difficult trying to decide how to convey the scenario supervisor's intent within the allotted time limit.

HORIGOME: I really love that opening movie. I love it when the airship jolts, and Penelo puffs out her cheek when Vaan slights her. You don't see that kind of thing in CG characters very much.

FUJI: Actually, in that scene, she's really puffing out her cheeks quite a bit. At first we just wanted her to do it as much as a normal person would, but it looked so small when you saw it on the screen, you didn't really get the feeling of Penelo sulking and going "hmph!" and turning her back on him. So we gradually puffed her up more and more.

MURAKAMI: Yeah. I was in charge of the opening movie, and he kept saying "puff her up more!" (laughs)

Q: There were some images from the FFXII epilogue that made it into that movie, weren't there?

FUJI: There were. The ship Vaan is piloting and the scenery appeared in the FFXII epilogue. We felt nostalgic for that earlier work, and we can show it off even better here with the 2-screen composition. I really like that opening movie.

Q: So, the storyboarding for the movies were done individually by various members of the movie team?

FUJI: Yes, I thought of the sequence for that one, and Toriyama, the director, checked it for me.

MURAKAMI: I had the ideas for the opening and the movie in Chapter 7 where Vaan pulls out the sword, so I did all the storyboarding, camera work, and even the animation by myself. Normally you split up the work on a movie, but it makes me happy to be able to say "I created the opening movie all by myself."

Q: Were there any ideas you had in the storyboard stage that didn't get used?

MURAKAMI: When Ashe meets up with Vaan and the group, I wanted her to be holding the hem of her skirt in a "grand lady" sort of pose.

FUJI: And for a while we had a scene with Penelo and Vaan standing on the wing of the Galbana, right?

MURAKAMI: Yes, we did.

FUJI: We had a scene with Vaan and Penelo clinging to the deck over the wing, but we decided "They couldn't ride that high on a wing like that, that's impossible" so we stopped production on it. We also had... in the movie where the Galbana descends on Rabanastre, we had a bolt of lightning come from the surrounding clouds, and destroy the city. (laughs)

MURAKAMI: We'd already created all the animation for that when we decided to cut it, too.

FUJI: We thought it would increase the drama if it destroyed the town while it was passing over, but when we saw it actually happen, we realized that it was too over the top, so we cut it. There also used to be a lot more to the ending, but we couldn't include it all due to storage issues, and so we scrapped most of it in the end. But originally, the scene where the airship explodes and the continent crumbles were a lot longer than they were in the final version.

MURAKAMI: Ba'Gamnan was also scheduled to appear.

HORIGAMI: Then we had a scene where the force of the airship taking off causes Tomaj to fly back and hit his head. When the person who was in charge of Tomaj's model learned about this, he started crying at us "Why only Tomaj!?" (laughs) He sure was relieved when we took that scene out.

Q: Mr. Fuji, I remember you were obsessed with setting FFXII's ending taking place during a sunset.

FUJI: Before I created the movies for this game, I had visited San Francisco on a business trip. When I was in the plane, somewhere between Hawaii and San Francisco, I saw the most beautiful clouds at sunrise, and I quickly took a picture to use as reference. This game's ending period is set during morning, so I thought setting it during sunrise would be great.

MURAKAMI: Doing Llyud's animation in the ending was really hard. It's the only movie where Llyud appears, so of course we wanted to feature him prominently, but I couldn't get Fuji to approve his facial animations.

FUJI: I wanted him to be more hopeful. Partings are sad, but it has to be hopeful as well. And since he can't speak, you have to convey it all using facial expressions, and I think that was the hard part. I had them redo even the movement of the hair until they got it right. The movement of the hair will cast shadows over the eyes, and convey a feeling of sadness. So even though they'd already modeled his hair movements, I had them change it.

MURAKAMI: It meant his forehead ended up being really prominent. (laughs) During the ending, all the different characters are shown on the top and bottom screens, but they all have to be progressing at the same time. When you're watching, you'll notice all the care we put into it. We had to watch over and over again to make sure that the expressions and movements matched the character.

That's it for this interview. I'm not much of a motion capture, myself, so I enjoyed the pure, hand-animated style seen in Revenant Wings, and the way they managed to convey emotion even in the absence of voice acting. Unfortunately, I don't think all of the team's efforts were fully realized thanks to the compression required to fit the movies onto the card. What about you think? Did the artistry and effort they put into the movies allow them to overcome the limits in the technology, or does FMV just have no place on the DS?

Just two more interviews to go! Next time: the background artists!

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