How do real physics aspects interact with the artistic side of your job? For example, we know that there is no sound in space, but we know there will be sounds in space in Star Citizen. Have you got other examples of choices made between Hollywood style and reality?
TL;DRThe team aims for realism first but sometimes departs from it, as with the railgun and sparks, because real effects can look boring or wrong compared with what movies have taught people to expect.
That's a very good question. So sometimes... We try to go for realism first, but for the railgun, for example, if you look at what I did for that, it doesn't look anything like a real-life railgun. But I really tried to make it look like it does in reality, but the reality version is honestly quite boring, especially the trail, because there's nothing there, and the projectile is just a bullet. And I asked Paul, I did a mock-up for him, like, what do you think about this? Because our railgun needs to be charged as well, and then you have to indicate that the weapon is charged. So already there we're crossing a line, I think, because a real railgun can be fired without you being able to see that it's ready to be fired. So then you might as well go for that extra thing. So it almost felt like the weapon itself, the Scourge Railgun, called for something else than the real stuff to look good. I don't know if I'm making sense, but that's one example. Sometimes the reality isn't cool enough.
But that doesn't really apply to just us. VFX in general, you often see the reality and then you know it sucks, so you have to make it more interesting. To be honest, I have a friend who made VFX for... he's more working on Game of Thrones now, but he made VFX for a movie called Pompeii.
Yeah, it's Jon Snow.
Whatever. The thing is that they have this volcano exploding, and they made a first version which looked really real. But guess what? It felt like it's not finished, like it's wrong, just because the reality sometimes is not what you are expecting to see. We are always discussing what we should do.
Yeah, because we're so influenced by movies. That affects what we're expecting to see. I was looking at real bullets hitting actual steel, and it's the most boring thing ever. So sparks have to be there, because that's more fun, basically, sometimes.