The Crystal Habit Podcast

[joseua84]

¿Alguien sabe cuál es la tercera pregunta del concurso del podcast 6? Estoy buscando por internet alguna transcripción del audio, pero no encuentro nada.

[Kevin Croft]

No tengo ni idea amoree, a ver si encuentro algo o si alguien encuentra algoo

[Ren Spyro]

Por estar debatiendo lo de la Xbox 360, casi ni me doy cuenta de que ya llego el nuevo podcast

 

http://officialtombraiderblog.tumblr.com/post/17763326004/thanks-for-listening-to-the-seventh-crystal-habit

 

Como novedad, aqui esta todo transcrito (Gracias a Croft Generation)

 

 

Transcription

The Crystal Habit Podcast: Episode 7

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Hey, everyone, Meagan Marie here, thanks for tuning in to the Crystal Habit Podcast: Episode 7. In this episode we have a couple of very cool segments for you. The first is called "Creating a Cutscene," and we'll have our Creative Director in here to talk about exactly that, the process of creating a cutscene in-game. After that we have the Take Five segment with Karl. I think it's quite an enlightening segment this episode, so definitely tune in for his answers to several questions that I've heard repeatedly. I'm very excited to finally get you guys definitive answers for them. And last, we have a crowdsourced segment featuring audio clips from webmasters worldwide, talking about why they love Lara, which we thought would be a fun little way to tie in the podcast to the recent Valentine's Day holiday. So, stick around and enjoy!

 

[musical interlude]

 

Segment 1: Creating a Cutscene

 

MEAGAN MARIE: I'm very excited for the first segment of our show, which is called "Creating a Cutscene." What I like about these segments is, I get to learn right alongside you guys, because this is all new to me. So I have with me Noah Hughes, who is our Creative Director. Hello Noah.

 

NOAH HUGHES: Hello.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Would you be able to walk me through, kind of... Almost a timeline, from beginning to end, of what you do, before we get down to the nitty-gritty of creating a cutscene and getting these into the games?

 

NOAH HUGHES: Ah, yeah, just to walk through our high-level process... We'll start with a meta-script. Generally, we map out the story that we want to tell. From there we go into a scriptwriting phase, where we'll do several iterations of a script. From that point we'll break it down into the scenes that we intend to shoot, we will storyboard those particular scenes. We do a practice shoot with the actors at the motion capture stage. From that we'll iterate on the script, we'll do a revision based on how the scene was playing. We'll also learn more about the staging of the actors and where we want the camera in the particular scenes, so when we come back in and do the final shoot, we really have a clear understanding of where we want the actors and where we want the camera and things like that. We will iterate... From that session we'll actually get rough motion in data. So we'll cut together a version of the scene based on the practice data, make any last-minute changes to the script from that, and then go back into the motion-capture studio with the actors, this time with the full audio capture and the full set design and all of that. And we do a capture of the motion and voice of the actors playing that particular scene. We then bring that back in-house and do things like lighting and textures and refining the motion and all of that. That's basically, I guess, the high-level process.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: And then it winds up in the game. So how many people are involved in creating a cutscene? What departments have a hand in it, aside from... You talked about talent, and you talked about, obviously, your involvement as the Creative Director.

 

NOAH HUGHES: Yeah, we have a lot of people touching it at different stages. We have stakeholders on the team, who participate in the overall story that we're going to tell. I'll work closely with the writer and the cinematic director, turning that into script and storyboards. And then, obviously, we have a lot of professionals at the stage and the actors, things like that. And then once that data is captured, we work with an external animation group, who will take that data, clean it up, things like that. That's a lot of animators touching it at that point. When we bring it in-house, we have fewer people. At that point we're building our sets, we have a group of a few people who are helping with getting the animation on the actual rigs that we have and polishing it. We have our character group, which is essentially making the characters and making their visuals final, and then a few people who are making the cinematic sets and art final, lighting, things like that. And then we have an audio department doing the mix. I guess, at any given stage, it's usually in the hands of a few people, but by the time it's gone through the whole process, it's been touched by... I don't know, what, 30, 40 people, something like that?

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Wow. And at what time do you implement these cutscenes into a game? I know, looking at early footage, you see those storyboards, that are just panned across to give you an idea of what's going to be there, as placeholders. So when do you try to implement the final cutscenes?

 

NOAH HUGHES: Getting all of the cutscenes in around our alpha milestone is important, so we can start really judging the story of the game in the context of how it's actually going to be told. But as you mentioned, before that, we make sure to integrate storyboards and other stand-ins for the cinematics so that we can start to understand how it transitions in and out of gameplay and what the pace is going to feel like and those types of things. But really, alpha is when our cinematics start to drop in.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: And at that point in time, are they locked? Do they still have the ability to change, if necessary?

 


NOAH HUGHES: Yeah. They're a little more locked than a lot of our content, because we're trying to keep the capture data that we have, but at the same time there's a fair amount of iteration that happens. With cameras... The performance is happening in a way that's hard to change. If you change one character then they won't interact correctly with another character. But having said that, the camera can be changed so we just view that scene from a different angle. So we have a fair amount of liberties playing with the camera after the capture. But we also have done a lot of capture cameras, so even those we don't like to touch too much. We're trying to keep the organic feel of the hand-captured cameras. But that is something that we'll iterate on. Additionally, we'll do ADR sessions, essentially some dialogue replacement. If there's particular lines in performances that are bit rough, or if we'd like to change a line, we can do some of that on the home stretch as well. And then things like lighting don't even happen until later in the process. We really iterate on that a lot, to get the mood and the cool final polish.

 


MEAGAN MARIE: It's interesting seeing them progress, it's something I hadn't been privy to before, so it's cool seeing them layered and layered until you get the end result.

 

NOAH HUGHES: It's kind of scary, because at first they're pretty much a disaster, until it all starts coming together...

 

MEAGAN MARIE: But then they function as placeholders, and then, like you said, the puzzle pieces fit together and it's impressive. I think a lot of our fans are actually quite interested in the motion capturing process. And obviously, we haven't revealed who the voice actress is yet, so we don't get to say who's running around in the black suit, but... These people, are they in the traditional black suits with the little balls all over it? Can you kind of set the stage as far as what the motion capture stage looks like?

 

NOAH HUGHES: Yeah. The motion capture stage... It's pretty cool. It's just a huge square warehouse-stage-type-feeling-thing. But it's got a carpeted floor and a grid on it, so we can use that for marking out the scene. And then actors, as you mentioned, they're in the jumpsuits with the little balls. The sets are built out of rough materials, when we need the physical form of the sets to be there. We'll have... The stage itself is very clean, with thousands of cameras, or I guess hundreds of cameras placed all around it, but then there's at least as large an area that's just full of wood planks and pillars and boards and apple boxes...

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Kind of a build-your-own set...

 

NOAH HUGHES: Yeah. It's almost like a carpenter's Lego set for building the physical form of the set that we need. It looks more Tron-like than Tomb Raider-like. It doesn't look much like the game when we're doing it on the set, obviously.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: It's very interesting, though. So we capture... You said that we capture the voice and the motion simultaneously, is that correct?

 

NOAH HUGHES: That's correct, yeah.


MEAGAN MARIE: So what are the benefits of doing that, in terms of character performance?

 

NOAH HUGHES: For us it was pretty important to try to really have the actors benefit from playing off of each other. So obviously, their ability to act in the scene together, but also even be giving that vocal performance as they're giving the physical performance. I think you get nuances out of all of that happening at the same time, that you don't necessarily get when you try to break that up into different stages. As I mentioned, it's fine for us to do some pick-up lines in a booth, stuff like that, but really, the ability to hear exertions underneath a line, if someone's straining as they're delivering it... Or even just the little bit of stepping on a line that you get between two actors as they're playing off of each other. There's a lot of nuance that we like to try and capture in the moment.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: How do you capture some of these more, like, grand action sequences? Like jumping or falling or... Is that all captured, or is some of that keyframed?

 

NOAH HUGHES: We try to capture as much of that as we can. We have stunt actors as well, so we have a stunt Lara and some other actors. We will do any number of things, I guess... We had wires hanging from the struts in the ceiling, or we had trampolines where they were doing head-over-heels flips to capture exposions, things like that. But, like you would do in a standard movie shoot, you break the scene up into different bits. One contiguous action sequence would actually be done in little snippets, so that moment where the explosion goes off, that will be one capture, where we'll get the stunt actors flying through the air, and then as we edit it together it becomes that contiguous action scene.


MEAGAN MARIE: This sounds like a lot of fun! I need to come down and see one of these stages. Stunts hanging from the ceiling... So how often do you need to go down there? Do you do a couple of very full days, do you do smaller bite-sized sessions, or... How often are you recording?

 

NOAH HUGHES: We try to do... We tended to do about two or three days at a time, and we've done... I don't know, probably six or seven of those particular sessions, with enough time in between... One of them being practice, and then leaving some time in to iterate on the script and do our initial edit based on the preliminary data. And then we do the final version of that shoot, and again, leave a little bit of time to prepare for the next one, get all the props ready, things like that. Then we go down and shoot the practice for the next batch. So we ended up doing three batches overall, doing a practice and a final shoot, with a little bit of test thrown in there for a total of about seven different sessions.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: So are you down there earlier than the actors, helping set up the stage, preparing all that, getting it all ready for the performance capturing?

 

NOAH HUGHES: Yeah. There's a decent amount of preparation. Also, the actors' time is pretty precious. In games, we're used to working a really long day if we need to get things done, but the actors have the strict rules of how much they can work in a particular day, so what we try to do is get down there, do as much preparation as we can, so as soon as the actors are in there, we're actually shooting scenes. It's always a stress throughout the day, hoping...

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Checking your watch.

 

NOAH HUGHES: Yeah. Are we gonna get that final minute that we need to get to today?

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Okay. So once you get the footage... You're talking about how you have multiple cameras all over the motion capture stage. Who decides the angles and the panning and the camera view, once you get all that raw footage back to the studio?

 

NOAH HUGHES: That's actually a really fun part of the process. When I mentioned all the cameras around the stage, those are just for tracking the motion. So they have... If you look at the little shiny balls on the actors' suits, the hundreds of cameras around are really just tracking that and turning it into 3D motion. When we're actually doing the cameras for the cinematics themselves, we've already captured the actors and we're able to play them back in the 3D engine, watching the scene play out. And then we have a virtual camera, which we can take into the stage. So at that point, there aren't any actors on the stage. If you look through the virtual camera, you see the 3D characters performing, so we use that virtual, handheld camera, which has a little viewport just like a regular camera would, but you're seeing in to the digital version of it. You can move that camera around and shoot the performance from any angle you want, and then you can go ahead and start the performance from the beginning again and shoot from any other angle. So we have a cinematics director, who's doing the directing of the actors on the set, and then doing the directing of the cameras on the set. Those are two different days. The process of being able to shoot multiple cameras over and over with the same performance is pretty fun. The other things that are neat with that, that you can't do with a normal camera, is you can, say, for example, change the scale of the motion of the camera. So all of a sudden, it's as if you could be a hundred-foot-tall person, and when you move the camera around the scene, it's really more like a huge crane shot, something where, in a normal movie, you'd need that giant crane or a helicopter or something to get. Just by changing the scale of the camera motion, you're able to move the camera in all different ways. It's a super-fun part of the process.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Very cool. I have to imagine it makes it that much more rewarding when you finally hear that audio layered in, and the texture and the lighting and whatnot.

 

NOAH HUGHES: Yeah. And that really is the thing, it's... Every piece is done as a separate layer. It's always very exciting to capture one layer, but you're always then anxious to get the next layer in, so that you can see it all. When we first capture the performance, I'm really just looking at the videos from that day. But once we get to the cameras, we can look at the camera shots. But until you get the edits, it's not that interesting. Even once you get the edits, it's not that interesting until you put in... You know.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: But then when you see it all together... That's what everybody gets to see, and they don't realize how much work goes into it. So everything is rendered in-engine, correct? Nothing is pre-rendered?

 

NOAH HUGHES: Yeah. For all the standard cinematics in the game. We have an opening sequence which is pre-rendered, but beyond that, we've really enjoyed using the realtime process. It allows us to transition seamlessly from gameplay to cinematic and have it really feel the same. That's something that's important to our game. The whole experience should feel like an intense performance from the actors, right? That goes in and out of gameplay. That ability to do it in real time has been an important part of us making it feel unified.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Awesome. Well, I can't wait for everybody to get to see more of the work that you've been doing down the road. So... Thank you very much for your time, I appreciate it.

 

NOAH HUGHES: Thank you.

 

[musical interlude]

 

Segment 2: Take Five

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Alright, Karl, you know what's coming.

 

KARL STEWART: Cool, no problem. Take Fiiiive!

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Yes. And I'm actually extremely excited about this one...

 

KARL STEWART: Oh, dear.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: ...because I get Karl to answer two questions that the fans have been asking quite often, and that I know they're going to be excited to get definitive answers to. So!

 

KARL STEWART: I know they have questions about this as well, because I get more tweets, more questions on the forums and e-mails, I get hit up with this a lot. And every single time I walk by Meagan, this last week, all she keeps saying is, "What's the answer?! What are we gonna say?!" So for all you people giving Meagan crap for not answering, I'm the one who said, "We say nothing just yet, until we communicate it correctly."

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Thank you, Karl, you just made my day.

 

KARL STEWART: So Meagan presses me every single day to answer these questions.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Oh, you just made my day. Thank you so much.

 

KARL STEWART: I always try to find excuses to have to go. "Gotta go to a meeting! Sorry!"

 

MEAGAN MARIE: But 90 percent of the time you do have to go to a meeting, so...

 

KARL STEWART: Yeah, I know...

 

MEAGAN MARIE: So, question number one, are you ready for this?

 

KARL STEWART: Yeah.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Does the new Lara Croft have a birth date, and if so, what is it?

 

KARL STEWART: No comment. Question number two.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: What?!

 

KARL STEWART: [laughter]

 

MEAGAN MARIE: That was a bit of a loud screech.

 

KARL STEWART: Okay. So. Let me see if I can answer this in a very constructive way. When we went back to look at this new vision of Lara, obviously, we tried to make sure that we position the character in the future of the character. So we're not looking at a year, we're looking at the next 20-plus years, let's say, if she lasts that long. Obviously she will. We had to be very cognizant about dating our character. I know, in the past, we've had... Lara's birthday is February the fourteenth, it was Valentine's Day. For the life of me, I don't know who ever decided that, I don't know when it was decided, whether it was a year, five years... Well, I know it wasn't a year. Five years? Ten years ago? I do not know. And in all of the characters that I've been studying really closely, I have tried to make sure that... We give her a juice, right, so we're building the game better, we're telling a story. But really, there are certain personalities and certain things that... I, and the team here, just don't feel like you need to get into that level of depth. That brings a level which kinda starts to break down that fourth wall a little bit too much. And some of the examples that I will give are... You look at James Bond. I have studied it and looked it up. He doesn't have a birthday. Batman doesn't have a birthday. The Incredible Hulk doesn't have a birthday. So it's looking at characters and kind of going, "What is the rationale for having a birthday?" Right? Of course we want to celebrate and everyone wants to say, "Oh, Valentine's Day has just come," and we had loads to talk about, but... Does it necessarily mean that we have to pay homage to a fictional character on her birthday? So despite the fact that a lot of people will probably be a little bit peeved with us for not calling it out and saying, "Hey, February 14!", we look at it and kind of go, "Does she need to have a birthday? Is it something that we need to bring to her personality?" And I think that the answer is no. So...

 

MEAGAN MARIE: We can love Lara every day.

 

KARL STEWART: We love Lara every day. I don't want to disappoint people by kind of making them feel like we're disrespecting it, saying, "No more." But we have looked at a lot of characters and a lot of people, a lot of games, and really... My thought, and I think the team here's, is that we do not want to date the character. You put a date on it... It's like, how old is James Bond? James Bond has been the same age for God knows how long. It's just been a different iteration of James Bond. And I think even when you look through... There's always been speculation about when James Bond was born, what his birthday was, and the same with Batman, the same with many, many other characters. Really, from our perspective, we don't want to date Lara. But we still keep her in our hearts.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Absolutely. Thank you so much for that one.

 

KARL STEWART: I know I'm going to get shit for it anyway. But I'm just... Trying to be as open and honest...

 

MEAGAN MARIE: And I think the fans will appreciate that. Thank you. Alright, question number two, this one's a little easier. What sort of additional content or replayability will we see in the new Tomb Raider game? Will there be side missions, alongside the main missions?

 

KARL STEWART: Over the coming months, as we've been sort of saying in the last podcast, we have loads more content we're going to talk about. I don't want to spoil anything, I don't want to give stuff away, but I think it's very simple to read between the lines and kinda go, "Look, we're Tomb Raider, of course this island is full of mystery, there'll be loads of other things you'll be able to do." As time progresses we'll start to introduce you to different storylines and different faces, sort of different times that'll be on the island. For instance, you step out on that cliff and you see all those ships, historically, there are ships from many different ages. There's a Viking ship there, there's a Spanish longship... Is a longship Spanish? What do you call it? A Viking longship, Spanish armada, made a mistake there. As well as, like, B-52 bombers, fishing trawlers. So of course there's tons of stuff that we want to talk to you about over the course of time, but really, our core is that the next time we come back, we're going to talk to you about the progression of our character, a little bit about the surroundings and the people on the island, before we start getting into that secondary stuff. But trust me, as with Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, as with all the Tomb Raider games, there will be lots of other things to do. We're not going to stick to just...

 

MEAGAN MARIE: To cater to your play style...There are people who just want to plow through it, and then there's people like me who can spend an hour and a half in one little area because I'm trying to jump on everything and find everything...

 

KARL STEWART: Exactly. Guardian of Light, I loved all the challenge tombs, and to us that was a big deal, to make sure that the player felt like there was more than just that main story. And I think, you know, again, read between the lines. You see what we're setting up here. Over the coming months you'll see that there's a lot of other things that go on on the island that will keep you intrigued. I'm just not going to go into it right now. [chuckles]

 

MEAGAN MARIE: The third question goes into it a little bit more... But, similar parallel lines, not exactly the same. What variety of environments can we expect to find on the island? I think that some people have a fear that our game is dark and moody and scary and rainy and gross all the time, and that you don't get to see the beauty...

 

KARL STEWART: It's not.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: I know it's not, and that's why I can't wait for people to see more. But can you expand on that?

 

KARL STEWART: So one of the most important aspects, when we started work on this game, was setting the island up as a character. Now, in order to have the island as a character, you can't just have a one-dimensional character, you have to have a multi-dimensional character. So therefore, you're going to come across situations on the island where, yes, you've seen dark, dank tombs and you've seen ships on the bay, imagining being able to possibly get down to them, and then you see it's raining... Well, of course, you know, there's going to be so much more. There's going to be places on the island that will blow your mind, vistas, beautiful. Again, I'm big into not spoiling things for people. I love to remark on them, let you know that stuff's coming and not to worry, but I don't want to turn around to say, "She does this, and she looks out on this, you'll be, like, holy shit!"

 

MEAGAN MARIE: I think the character analogy is a very good one. The fact that it's a very multi-faceted location. Because it is... The game is on one island. That was one of the things, a persistent single location... So we wouldn't want it to feel redundant and boring just because it's in one space.

 

KARL STEWART: Exactly. And it's like... Trust us. We're not going to build a game where it's all nighttime and just rain. [laughter] Because we'd be very bored should we have decided to do that.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: And we didn't.

 

KARL STEWART: And we didn't.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: So rest assured. Alright, question... The next question is, is there any news about trophies and achievement support?

 

KARL STEWART: Only the fact that it's going to be in the game, of course, because it's a big deal in every single game. We'll try and make some easy, some very hard. But it's kind of a moot question because it's going to be in there, right? I don't think we can contractually submit a game to any first party without putting in trophies or achievements.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: It's, surprisingly, a question I get quite often, and I think that perhaps just hearing the reassurance is a good thing.

 

KARL STEWART: Alright, well, maybe on this one, I can answer wholeheartedly "Yes!" We will have trophies and achievements. What they will be, right now, there is absolutely no way on this earth that I know, because that doesn't happen until you have your game in a position where you can go in and play it and kinda go, "Oh, that's cool, let's make that really hard to get! That's a cool reward for doing that." So although it's in the back of our heads, it's not something, at this stage, that we start planning out. And then, of course, you don't want to give any spoilers. I will be doing my best to make sure that we keep it as quiet as possible, and that the XboxAchievements.com or whatever that website is doesn't get their hands on it...

 

MEAGAN MARIE: That always breaks them...

 


KARL STEWART: They always break it, they always tell people...

 

MEAGAN MARIE: And then there's storyline spoilers and...

 

KARL STEWART: Yeah. And I suppose, to comment on that, we will be very cautious about making sure that the names of the achievements aren't spoilers. Because I think that is a very important thing. It's a bummer when you turn around and say... Here's an example, it's probably a spoiler, but if you got an achievement in Arkham City for, say, "The Death of Joker," you'd be like, "Oh, no, that means he's gonna die!" Well, who the hell names an achievement that? Now, I know that Rocksteady did not give an achievement named "The Death of Joker." But that's a spoiler, that's a big deal...

 

MEAGAN MARIE: And there's a lot of people that go through the achievement list immediately, to see all of the non-hidden achievements, so they can make sure they've got their eye on the right activities and whatnot, so...

 

KARL STEWART: Exactly. Which is funny there, because just as I said "The Death of Joker," Meagan looked at her like I'd just given her the spoiler alert and she hadn't played it...

 

MEAGAN MARIE: No, I played it, I know.

 

KARL STEWART: Funny.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Last question. So we bookended the Take Five with the hard questions. So now we're closing in on a hard one. Final question is, why have you guys gone so long without sharing any new information about the game? Is there a strategy to this?

 

KARL STEWART: So I would say, yes, there's a strategy behind everything we do. We do not just talk for the sake of it. It was very important to us that we time the announcement of our game, as well as the information that we reveal about our game, very strategically, so that we tell the story of re-imagining this character. Lara's been around for a very long time, and you cannot expect that you come out, 12 to 18 months before the game ships, and go, "Ta-da, here she is, she's shipwrecked on an island," and the next phase is, "Oh, she's getting stronger," and the next phase is, "Oh, she's an action-adventure hero." There has to be the right amount of time to allow everything to sink in, for people to understand what we're trying to achieve. Now, with that said, we have been extremely lucky in 2011 off the back of getting the cover on Game Informer, written by none other than Meagan Marie... We had planned to sort of say, "Well, right, for the entire year we will just talk about and focus on that one thing." Now, as the year progressed, and we found that the 35-plus covers and all the awards at E3 and the amount of people who came to see it, we were... It was almost a sellout concert. Every single time we did a demo, whether it be at E3 or any show, we had more people turning up than we'd imagined. So we felt like we achieved our goal of communicating this new vision for Lara in a fraction of the space of time that we thought it would take. And we really reached a point in time where we said, "Okay, well, the next stage has to be that evolutionary step of Lara. What's she going to do next?" So that each step of the way you kinda feel like she's growing and growing. And that's what we plan on doing now when we come back pretty soon. But as soon as we got to... Like, I think it was around the September timeline. Really, everybody had seen it. Everybody had seen what we wanted to show. All that happens is that, in my mind, you start frustrating people. Because you're regurgitating the same content, you're talkng about the same thing over and over again. Even if... As an example, we had the option to release the gameplay footage, narrated, that we'd shown at E3. At some point in time, everybody has seen it and it feels like you've got nothing new to show. We have loads of new stuff to show and we're really excited to get ready to do it. We just decided that for a period of time, we did not want to keep showing the same thing, because it starts to just date the product. People look at it and go, "Is that a one-trick pony? Is that all they can do?" And that's not all we do. So it has been very strategic. It was obviously a little bit... It's a little bit longer than we had planned, because we managed to achieve so much last year. Which we're very proud of and we're very happy, that the press and all the fans loved what we were doing. But let's just say that it will not be long before we will be coming back. We will be coming back and showing you the next phase, and trust me, from then on into the campaign it's a lot of content dropping.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: A lot of content, and it's not just game-specific, like trailers and screenshots. We'll be talking about talent, we'll be looking at ancillary things... All sorts of stuff.

 

KARL STEWART: We have loads to say. But it also takes time for this new vision to settle in to people. We're all fans, we're very close to it, a lot of the people who listen to this podcast have been close to it since day one. Re-imagining an IP like this takes a little bit of time for it to sort of seep through all the cracks and for everybody to be aware that it's happening. We believe that, when we come back in the very near future, we will have sufficiently sorta seeded the new vision, the re-imagining. And when we move into this next phase, people will understand where we're coming from in order to get there. These things take time.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: It does take time, but it'll be worth the wait. That's what I keep telling people. The content that we have coming is phenomenal. So I cannot wait to share it with you guys, and thank you for explaining that, Karl, I think it does provide a lot of insight into the motivation behind why we're doing what we're doing in the order and the timeline that we're doing it.

 

KARL STEWART: Excellent.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Awesome. Thank you so much!

 

KARL STEWART: And you see, that's only a Take Five. If you'd had a Take Six, that would have been... "Who is the voice of Lara Croft?" And that would have been... That's a great sixth question. But I'm not going to answer it right now.

 

MEAGAN MARIE: But you won't.

 

KARL STEWART: [knowing laughter]

 

MEAGAN MARIE: Alright. Thank you.

 

KARL STEWART: Bye-bye.

 

[musical interlude]

 

Segment 3: Why we Love Lara

 

MEAGAN MARIE: In the final segment of this episode, I wanted to tie in to the recent Valentine's Day holiday, and I thought... What is better than asking the Tomb Raider webmasters, the members of the official fansite program, to discuss why they love Lara? It turned out to be extremely cool to hear everybody's voices for the first time, to hear all the accents from all over the world, and to hear all these very similar experiences to my own. So, here are some of the webmasters from around the world, talking about why they love Lara. Enjoy!

 

DRIBER: Hey, everyone, I'm a custom level builder, I live in the Czech Republic, and I'm a long-time Tomb Raider fan. What I probably like most about the games are the environments which Lara is placed in. My first-ever experience with Lara, if I remember correctly, was a demo of the Venice level from Tomb Raider II, I absolutely loved it, I instantly fell in love with the atmosphere of the game, and soon afterwards I headed to the local game store and I bought Tomb Raider one for the original PlayStation. I've just been hooked ever since. Over the years I've played many other types of games, first-person shooters, RPGs, racing games, fighting games, other adventure games. But Tomb Raider always managed to stand out to me for some reason. It's got that special something to it. I really can't explain what that is, though, it's hard to really put my finger on it. So far I liked every major installment of the game. Yes, that does include Angel of Darkness. Despite its flaws, I did like the original story which Core wanted to tell with it. I think it's a shame that their planned trilogy was never finished. It was actually funny for me, chasing Eckhardt in Prague, because I was actually in Prague at the time on vacation. I was staying at my girlfriend's parents house and looking out of the window, I could see the real Strahov, which by the way is in reality a football stadium here, not an actual fortress. I think the atmosphere in some of the levels of Angel of Darkness was some of the best in the entire series. But still, nothing really beats the first experience of Tomb Raider one. It left by far the biggest impression on me. The creepiness of the abandoned tombs, the subtle background ambiance, the weird creatures in the levels, especially the ones near the end, the giant alien eggs all over the place. I especially loved the awesome orchestrated soundtrack for the game. It was really something different at the time. What I also love about Tomb Raider is that it's still alive and kicking, after more than 15 years now. Everyone knows Lara Croft. She's such a major icon worldwide, both in the gaming industry and outside. And finally, I love Tomb Raider for its community. I love reading all those online discussions, playing those very creative custom levels, and seeing all that awesome fan art from you guys. You guys rock. And I love how the Tomb Raider community brings people from many different backgrounds and countries together. So in the spirit of Valentine's Day, I'll end by saying, thanks, Tomb Raider, I wouldn't have met my better half if it wasn't for this game.

 

Quentin: Hello everyone, my name is Quentin, I'm the webmaster of the website tombraideraddict.com, a French fan site about Tomb Raider and Lara Croft. I'm a fan of Lara for almost 11 years. Lara is my idol since I'm a little boy. I started playing it on PS one with my parents' friends, who already had the four Tomb Raider games. I fell in love with the Tomb Raider franchise, with the action, the adventure, and especially the character, who is strong, beautiful, and intelligent. If I had to choose my three favorite Tomb Raider games, I think I would first say, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation. The Egyptian feeling that I love, it was a wonderful game. Lara was beautiful, and we could play as young Lara for the first time. Then I would choose Tomb Raider Legend, that I had on PS2. Lara is handsome in this game. The levels are very different. The environments are awesome, and the characters are lovely. The story wasn't that bad. Finally, I would say Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, that I also had on PS2. Lara is dark in this Tomb Raider, but she's not bad, and I like the way you go through the levels without having weapons like the other games. Infiltrate, kill, pick up, I found this very prudent. The Louvre was the best level of the game to me. About the upcoming Tomb Raider, I can't wait to play it. I've always dreamed about a Tomb Raider that would have to be played as a survival game, where you need to eat, to drink, to pick up equipment. And especially, to survive. I think about it every day. Crystal Dynamics is making a very good work. I know this Tomb Raider reboot will be great.

 

Jessica: Hi, my name is Jessica, and I'm the proud owner of the site Tomb Raider Level Editor of Brazil. I love Lara Croft because she inspired me a lot and made me learn that women can also be prominent, strong, and always wanting more. That is what makes her what she is today, a global icon!

 

 

Reno: Hey, this is Reno, from Lara Croft: The Raider community, I'm from Iraq and I want to take this opportunity to say that Lara Croft is one of the most important people in my life. She's more like a mentor and a best friend to me than just a video game character. She's always been there for me since I first started playing Tomb Raider in 1997, which was Tomb Raider II. And until now, Tomb Raider has been one of the most important and most inspiring video games I've ever played. Lara Croft has always been there for me, whenever I felt lonely, or upset, or just didn't know what to do. I turned my console on and I started playing for hours and hours. That's what I still do, to this very moment. It's all led me to creating a fansite, which later became an official Tomb Raider fansite, which is more like an honor, one of the biggest achievements in my life. I want to say that I'm more than just excited about the upcoming Tomb Raider title. I think it's going to be amazing, I can't wait to play it, and I have every trust in the developers, and of course, in the amazing Lara Croft.

 

Katie: Hi, this is Katie Fleming, from Katie's Tomb Raider Site in Canada. I've been a huge fan of Tomb Raider for 13 years, and it's my biggest passion. I love how each game brings you to unique places around the world, perfectly combining adventure, action, and puzzle-solving. I have so many great memories from the games, and here are a few of my favorites: locking Winston in the freezer; crashing the quad bike into a federal compound; discovering aliens do exist; kayaking down the river Ganges; and blowing up the speedboat in Venice. Tomb Raider is an amazing series with an incredible fan base, and I can't wait for her next adventure later this year.

 

Matt: Hello everyone, my name is Matt, I'm from Australia and I run tombraiderblog.net, and that's been going for almost a year now. I've been a Tomb Raider fan for about 14 years, and the demo from Tomb Raider II is what started it all for me. One of my favorite Tomb Raider moments would have to be from Tomb Raider III, in Area 51. Towards the end of the level Lara comes across this UFO, in the facility that she's found herself in, and eventually she discovers a way to undo the trapdoor underneath the craft. Now, it looks pretty small from the outside, but on the inside it's absolutely huge. Kind of like Doctor Who's Tardis. And then there's the artifact, Element 115. It's just sitting there on the floor, unlike the other artifacts throughout the game, where you practically have to kill Lara to retrieve them. So that's one of my favorite Tomb Raider moments.

 

Luca: Hello, my name is Luca, I'm from Germany, and I'm the maker of Tomb Raider Insider. Meagan has given us the opportunity to tell you why we like Tomb Raider so much. What I like best in the games are the great and awesome worlds and places you can explore. I think that's what makes a good game. Most of all, I liked Underworld, because the Thailand level was absolutely epic, I love it. In addition, Tomb Raider also offers a great and interesting story. But unfortunately I started very late in the series, so I'm really looking forward to the reboot, and I'm really looking forward to a new Lara, too. Finally, I extend greetings to all visitors of Tomb Raider Insider and everyone I know. Thanks for listening.

 

Marco: Hello everybody, I'm Marco, and I'm the webmaster of the website allgamestaff.altervista.org. I'm Italian, as well as my website, so I apologize for my English and my pronunciation. But I would really like to talk about the reasons why we love Lara Croft and Tomb Raider. Personally, I fell in love with Lara, so to say, since the first time I met her. A sort of love at first site. She was and she is very beautiful, but she's much more than this, in my opinion. I was struck, for example, by the characteristics that weren't hidden by her beauty. First of all, she's very clever. She's sarcastic. She's a self-made woman. And most of all, she has made her passion her job. Some people accuse Lara of being a symbol of the objectification of women, but I do not believe it is true. Lara is so beloved because she's an independent woman, and she can do what most men couldn't do. These are the reasons why I love Lara Croft, and I do believe that I'm going to appreciate the new Lara too. In my opinion, the franchise is going in the right direction. That's all. Thanks for listening, and I'll continue to follow Tomb Raider. See you!

 

[musical interlude]

 

MEAGAN MARIE: And that concludes our episode. So, to wrap up, we do have a Tomb Raider trivia contest of sorts this month. If you've been following the blog, you know that we've had a couple of technical problems, and as such, the podcast number six was down for about a week. Because of that, we're going to extend the trivia contest from last month to make sure that everybody has a chance to get in and answer the questions, since the final question was on podcast number six. So, to make things a little bit easier, I'm actually going to recap all three trivia questions right now for you, so you don't have to hunt them down on Facebook, Twitter, and the podcast. And remember, you're going to take all three answers and you're going to plug them into tombraider.com/podcast.

 

As a refresher, the prize on the line this month is a custom Tomb Raider North Face jacket that is only available to us as developers, and also kind of a little survival kit that we picked up from REI. So, trivia question number one is, in the original Tomb Raider, touching what artifact will transform Lara into solid gold? Question number two is, who is the ill-intentioned cosmetics tycoon from Tomb Raider III? And question number three is, what is the mysterious Bermuda Triangle-esque location in which the newest Tomb Raider unfolds? Hope you got all of that, and best of luck.

 

'Til next time.

 

[Lord_Slaughter]

En el forums han puesto lo mas importante de ese podcast.

 

- New tidbit of music.- Noah talks about cutscenes and camera.

- Voice and Action are captured simultaneously.

- Karl is heard yelling in the background.

- Two people are motion capturing Lara. (Stunt & VA. I assume.)

- All standard cinematic are rendered in engine. (no ****)

- A wild Karl appears:

- Lara has no birthdate. (In Meagans words; WHAT?!) And Karl is repulsed by Lara and states that he doesn't wanna date her.

- The beauty of the island WILL BLOW YOUR MIND. *twitch*

- If you haven't played Arkham City, don't listen to the podcast. Ah, the irony.

- The reason we haven't got new info is because there is a strategy between everything they do. They want to tell Lara's re-imagening slowly and carefully, and wants the info to sink in. (*facedesk*) They have loads to show, and it won't be long until they come back. (It won't be long = Soon)

- The president of Germany has resigned.

- The VA is not revealed.

__________________

 

[Ren Spyro]

Osea que es una estrategia lo de "No mostrar info"

 

Me he quedado frio con lo de "La nueva Lara no tiene fecha de nacimiento", ahora queda bien lo que me dijo Juca: Es atemporal

 

Ya quiero ver la belleza de la isla demonios!

 

Yo sigo presintiendo que viene algo de info en la GDC 2012, y para rematarnos, en la E3 2012... Ojala

[Oraculo]

Graciad por la informacion. Me gusto la idea de que Lara sea atemporal. Lo demas de no mostrar informacion, bueno a esperar.

[Daviz]

Para mi Lara debió ser atemporal desde un principio y sus aventuras también. Es más, estaría mejor que no se dijese nunca su edad, ni en esta entrega, que cada uno saque sus propias impresiones.

 

La verdad es que lo de que su cumple sea el 14 de febrero nunca le hice caso, realmente no es algo que me importara.

[Kevin Croft]

Personalmente imaginaba que iban a quitar el día del cumpleaños de Lara porque con un reboot de TODA la saga, no quieren dejar muchas marcas del pasado pero para los fans, siempre será el 14 de Febrero, un día un tanto especial, y eso no lo pueden evitar por mucho que quieran...

 

La info. imagino que empezarán a sacarla a partir de la E3, que es lo lógico, y entonces, veremos el combate, que es lo que ahora mismo más me preocupa porque están diciendo mucho que va a ser una experiencia increíble y novedosa y ya veremos... Que los gráficos del TRU también iban a ser así y luego mira como quedaron...

[Ren Spyro]

Rapidpost desde el movil para dejarles el podcast

 

http://officialtombraiderblog.tumblr.com/post/19638638403/thanks-for-listening-to-the-eighth-crystal-habit

[requiemsoul]

Gracias Ren!. Como no entiendo nada de inglés hablado he mirado en el Forums para ver si mencionaban alguna novedad...y parece que no hay nada especialmente relevante en el podcast.

[Ren Spyro]

Como es costumbre, nuevo podcast

 

http://officialtombraiderblog.tumblr.com/post/21449348680/happy-friday-everyone-the-newest-crystal-habit

[Ren Spyro]

De Ultima hora ha salido The Crystal Habit Podcast: E3 2012

 

Es un Q&A sobre la Conferencia de Microsoft:

 

http://tmblr.co/ZqCvTxMmE9k8

[Ren Spyro]

Episodio 11 del Podcast, esta ves tambien se ha llevado a YouTube

 

[saqueadordt]

Y dicen algo nuevo o interesante?

[Jexus]

Ha salido el 15º podcast. En él, Meagan entrevista a Rhianna, la escritora principal. Comentan algunas cosas curiosas, como que Sam es estudiante en la misma universidad que Lara, pero hace cinematografía (si mal no recuerdo) y es una chica con familia rica, a la que le gusta gastarse bastante dinero en fiestas. Habla de que hay cariño entre ellas, pero que son muy diferentes, y Sam admira y respeta a Lara. Habla un poco de los padres de Lara y de que en el juego se notará que ella es británica, aunque no demasiado. Dice que saldrán unos comics que cuentan toda la historia antes de que Lara se embarque en el Endurance, donde salen personajes que están en el juego.

 

http://officialtombraiderblog.tumblr.com/post/34248703306/new-podcast-is-up-and-running-i-think-you-guys

 

Yo lo leo en la transcripción en el word que ponen de enlace en la parte inferior.