The characters who appear in Siren are depicted with a unique touch of realism that is reminiscent of a photo. How were they created with a feel that is different to the "hard touch" characteristic of recent CG? Here we will show you behind the scenes of character creation.
01 - Photography taking place, taking pictures of the character from eight angles using eight cameras.
02 & 03 - Shibito makeup, dirt etc. being applied to the actors. They look like the cast of a live-action movie.
04 & 05 - By taking photos using eight cameras positioned all around simultaneously, you can get photos of the way the person looks from all directions like these ones. These were used as bases for textures.
06 - Some of the Shibito actors were also involved with development.
07 & 08 - Many costumes were prepared for shooting.
What creates the sense of realism you feel as you play Siren is not only the scenery, created based on detailed research. The characters, created using techniques not usually seen in the making of average games, heighten the game's overall realism with their photo-realistic touches. The characters, including Shibito, who appear in Siren are all modelled on actual actors. Not just their movements but also their expressions and outfits were photographed the same way as a live action movie would be made, simultaneously shooting an actor 360 degrees all the way around. The textures created based on this photo data were applied to 3D models that conform to the physique of each actor. Frankly speaking, the techniques used by Siren take quite a long time. With the actors playing primary player characters at the core, the total number of performers who went to the studio was around 30. It took 50 staff to photograph them, and 14 days just for photography... The total time taken from preparation to completion of data was more than a year. Besides performing motion capture to capture the movements of the actors' bodies, if you consider the photography of the performers, with their makeup and costumes, the character visuals are perhaps better suited to a live movie.
Why did the staff focus on this particular method? The answer is that they they chose the path of not trying simply to reproduce reality, but rather create something more realistic than reality. The characters created with this previously unheard of method take a different form of realism to a simple live action movie. These characters are based on photos, not textures created from drawings as is the standard method. Furthermore, since these are created in polygons, when combined with the scenery graphics an odd sense of unity is born.
English Translation by Chelsea
