A certain mystique and self-possessed flair surrounds the
concept of martial arts in today’s culture. Some who actually practice martial arts do so
for a constructive relief of physical or mental tension, to learn meditation
and self control, or purely for self-defense purposes. Others only observe
and enjoy the flamboyant cinema interpretations shown in theaters—such
as The Matrix.
With the incredible visceral audience response to the special
effect, BULLET-TIME™, and its close tie-in to film martial arts and wire-fu
combat, The Matrix Online was given a unique opportunity to allow players to
experience these moments themselves. There was never a question of whether
forms of martial arts would appear in The Matrix Online. There was only the
question of which forms.
Finding a Martial Arts Stunt Group
Monolith Productions Game Designer Adam Bormann talks about
his search for just the right stunt group to help The Matrix Online team create
the most effective and realistic animations possible.
“During our original pre-production, we needed some martial arts
animation for our original proof-of-concept demo of the Interlock
Combat System (the system that handles melee combat in The Matrix Online). Monolith
has a motion capture studio, but we aren't set up for wire work or large scale
captures, so I needed to find some martial artists who could perform “Matrix-style” stunts,
without wires and that would look effortless.
I looked around locally, and didn't really find what I was looking for. I
eventually found the ZeroGravity team's website,
which was full of these awesome martial artists who were doing amazing acrobatics
and martial arts stunts. It was exactly what we needed. So we
brought up four guys for a few days to do our motion capture. That
was when I met Kerry Wong, who was their choreographer as well as one of
the stunt performers. He
was very interested in games, and the way they were put together.
Once that first prototype was finished we decided to move away from motion
capture, for mostly technical reasons. We still needed someone
to design the actual martial arts and to help us develop the awesome Matrix-style
wire-fu moves. That's when we decided to use Kerry Wong as a martial
arts consultant, who would design the martial arts moves. Then he and
the ZeroGravity team would help us visualize it, through photos and videos.”
Introducing the ZeroGravity Team
 |
| ZeroGravity's Kerry Wong |
Over
the course of a few months, a fantastic collaboration of talent developed.
Adam Bormann and the Monolith design team worked with Kerry Wong,
one of the founders of the martial arts stunt team ZeroGravity. Kerry
currently works as a stage fighting instructor in Hollywood, as well as doing
motion capture and stunts for film, television and other games.
Monolith Productions and ZeroGravity
came up with the concepts and design of the martial arts styles that would
be included in the game, while the Monolith animation team worked to make sure
the animations would be smoothly executed and had enough space to play in.
In its final form, The Matrix Online grants focus
to three distinct martial arts disciplines: Kung Fu; Karate; and Aikido. Read
on for our exclusive Q&A to find out why these particular arts were chosen, how they were handled in
the game, and what the future may hold for martial artists in the Matrix!
Martial Arts and The Matrix Online Storyline
Paul Chadwick of Eon Entertainment added
his input as the Wachowskis’ designated storyline liaison to ensure that
the styles would also be effective in portraying events essential to the Matrix
story. All groups worked together to ensure that The Matrix Online would include
accurate, motion-captured martial arts that players would be able to enjoy
using as they experienced the world of the Matrix in MMOG form.
 |
Eon's
Paul Chadwick |
“Like
any good “clueless-about-martial-arts” movie
director, I left it up to our cinematic animator, John
Piel. I
would usually indicate "Niobe
does a flying kick, starting the fight," and "this guy gets kicked
off the building, falling to his death," and then John would make it
work.
We have a library of "off the shelf" fight animations, of the sort
that start automatically when players fight NPCs. We use these frequently
in the cinematics, unless they don't work in the shot for some reason.
And
these animations were modeled by the martial arts troupe ZeroGravity who,
since lending their services to The Matrix Online, have become rising stars
in the film fight-choreography/stunt world."
Inside
The Martial Arts of The Matrix Online Q&A
From the Monolith Design side, Adam Bormann was heavily involved
in the martial arts aspects of the game design for The Matrix Online. Many
important decisions were made on how best to bring the fast paced hand-to-hand
action of the films to the virtual space.
Q: Why were Kung Fu,
Karate, and Aikido chosen for
The Matrix Online? |
Adam: Our first
goal was to choose styles that looked very different from one another visually. So we had a short list
of styles that were fairly visually distinct. The second goal was expandability. Obviously
we could keep adding moves from the martial arts forever, but what if we ended
up adding martial arts weapons—which styles would give us the best
support for weapons?
At this point, I decided to remove my own personal specialty,
Tae Kwon Do, from the list, because it looked similar to Karate, and Karate
gave us more flexibility for martial arts weaponry. The final factor was that we wanted
to have a style that we could focus on with each one of the Tactics (part of
the Interlock Combat system). So we chose Karate for the Power tactic,
Aikido for Grab and Kung Fu for Speed.
Q: Were there other styles considered? |
Adam: We have
two more styles completely designed out with resources from ZeroGravity;
Muay Thai and Tai Chi. These were both great styles because they fit
our criteria well. They were put on the back burner because they didn’t
fit into our schedule.
Q: Will the other
styles become a part of The Matrix Online? |
Adam: It’s always a possibility, but it is really up to the direction of the
Live team, or perhaps as an addition to any future expansions. We could
add additional styles, martial arts weaponry, or something completely different
such as Drunken Boxing and Savate. At this point, we have all our options
open.
Q: How were the moves and attacks chosen? |
Adam: Internally,
we worked out a rhythm for how we wanted the entire system to work. We asked
ourselves questions like “how long is a Speed attack”, “how
many hits a Power attack has”, “what does a Grab or counter-attack
feel like”. After figuring that out, we took our plan and handed
it off to Kerry Wong.
Kerry then developed content that would work for all of
the different things we were trying to accomplish. After a bit of
back-and-forth, we had everything worked out and Kerry started gathering
and building the references we needed to animate each martial art.
Q: How were the moves and attacks chosen? |
Adam: Some
of them are, but for the most part, they were made up by Kerry and the Monolith
team to describe the move and its effects to the player. What’s
that disclaimer, “any resemblance to any real martial arts move name,
living or dead, is purely coincidental…?”
Q: What are your favorite moves from each martial art? |
Adam: I really
love all of the Aikido throws; they make me smile even when I’m
the one getting hurt by them. My favorite Karate move has to be the Machine
Gun Kick. That was the first Special Move we got working, so it has a
special place in my heart. My favorite Kung Fu move is the Extreme Falling
Kick, especially when you get BULLET-TIME™!
Martial Arts
and The Matrix Online: Part Two
Stay tuned for more begind the scenes information on how the
Martial Arts were created for The Matrix Online next Monday when we release
part two of the story! The next installment will contain two more Q&As from
The Matrix Online animation and art teams, and an exlusive interview with Kerry
Wong from ZeroGravity!
Posted by The Matrix Online Team
