After signing the non-disclosure agreement, Shinji Mikami handed the princess mononoke script to Kamiya Hideki.
Once Kamiya had a basic understanding of the script, the meeting reconvened.
Kamiya Hideki was wearing a leather jacket and a pair of magic glasses around his neck, looking very cyberpunk.
No matter how one looked at it, this new square-faced man was the most stylish among the group, but in reality, Kamiya was the only junior among them.
After he entered the conference room and sat down, his heart was filled with excitement.
Kamiya himself had not expected to participate in a meeting of the great figures so soon after joining the company.
The most crucial thing was that this was princess mononoke.
A collaborative game specified by Studio Ghibli.
Many people dreamed of participating in its development, but so far, there had been no word about it within the entire pokeni.
Shinji Mikami really did not deceive me.
…
"Kamiya, you've read the script, right?" Aoki Haruhi asked directly, "What do you think?"
The others also turned their gazes towards Kamiya Hideki.
To be honest, Akanishi Ken didn't quite understand why the President wanted such a newcomer to participate.
Their impression of the new Kamiya was not very good; he always seemed a bit scatterbrained, spoke very directly, and often gave the impression of acting and speaking without much thought.
The key was that Kamiya had been there for too short a time and hadn't even mastered many basic game production skills, let alone having any game production experience.
If such a fellow joined the princess mononoke project team, Akanishi Ken could only interpret it as the President needing someone completely unconstrained and unaffected by experience to provide creative ideas.
Perhaps it was an interesting thing for the President, and Shinji Mikami could also gain more inspiration from it.
But for Akanishi Ken, it was simply a disaster.
You are all responsible for providing ideas; we are the poor fellows who need to realize them!
When the President asked Kamiya Hideki this, his eyes immediately lit up, "
Amazing!
Too amazing!
It's simply a masterpiece!
The princess mononoke script is too good, far exceeding my expectations. It truly is a work by Master Miyazaki Hayao.
This animated film…"
"Wait."
Seeing that Kamiya Hideki was about to launch into a full review of the film, Aoki Haruhi quickly interrupted him.
"No, what I mean is, what type of game do you think princess mononoke would be best suited for?"
"Hmm… what kind of game?"
Kamiya Hideki reined in his enthusiasm and entered thinking mode.
"Such excellent animation, it would be a waste not to utilize it. How about making it a galgame?"
Sakata Taiji clenched his fist, indicating that Kamiya indeed understood art.
Aoki Haruhi shook his head, "It cannot be a galgame. Do you have any other suggestions?"
"Then how about a top-down, flat combat RPG type? I saw The Witcher…"
Before Kamiya could finish his sentence, the President shook his head again, "Anything else?"
Young Kamiya paused slightly.
Huh?
What, none of these are acceptable?
He then swept his gaze across the great figures present, noticing a slight smile on everyone's lips.
"All those you just mentioned, we've already brought them up," Shinji Mikami explained at the opportune moment.
Ah ~ I see.
Kamiya Hideki nodded in sudden realization.
No wonder the President rejected them so quickly.
Then what else was there to say?
He looked up again, finding the same perplexed expressions on everyone's faces. It seemed no one had come up with a plan that the President approved of.
The President was too picky, wasn't he?
"Then… how about making it a 3D game?" Kamiya Hideki said.
"Eh?"
Everyone suddenly looked up, staring at the young man as if he were an idiot.
Are you an idiot?
princess mononoke is 2D from its animation source; you want to make such a game into 3D?
Does Kamiya really know what 3D means?
"Make it a 3D game?"
"Can it be a 3D action game?" Kamiya Hideki said, "I previously watched the internal company demonstration of pokémon 3d world, and it was incredibly impressive. If Pokémon 3D is a family-friendly game for all players, young and old, that most people can participate in.
Then why can't the same model be replicated in other types?"
pokémon 3d world corresponds to super mario in the 3D genre.
So, what Kamiya was thinking was that in the future, the 3D genre could also correspond to The Witcher or other different types of game.
3D is an excellent medium; the key lies in how to use it.
However, Kamiya's statement was too unbelievable for everyone.
So everyone shook their heads in disagreement.
"But… have you ever considered… that this animation itself is 2D, and perhaps inherently not suitable for a 3D mode?" Sakata Taiji kindly reminded him.
One could only say that this young man was indeed still a newcomer; having ideas was good, but some were impractical, too much taken for granted.
This was the result of not considering implementation issues or whether it was appropriate or suitable.
Kamiya must have had the idea of making a 3D RPG game very early on, but he shouldn't have applied this idea to princess mononoke.
"Ah! Indeed."
Aoki Haruhi suddenly slammed his fist, "How could I not have thought of that? Making princess mononoke into a 3D action game, this idea is simply brilliant!"
"Huh?!"
Everyone's expressions changed drastically.
Everyone could laugh off Kamiya's previous statement, but who would have thought that such an "outrageous idea" could actually gain the President's approval.
President, you're not joking, are you?
Sakata Taiji immediately spoke up, "President, have you considered whether Ghibli would agree to us making it a 3D game?"
"Yes," Shinji Mikami agreed, "The original animation tone of princess mononoke is already set, and making it a 3D game seems to create too much of a difference."
After all, current 3D game could only be made to look like block figures.
If you wanted to sculpt a beautiful princess mononoke, the difficulty would truly be quite high.
Even if it could be sculpted, the PS might not be able to run the game.
"If you want it to look good and be sufficiently refined, then the polygon count for the model will be higher, but high-polygon models consume more resources when running on the PS, so it might not run.
No, it definitely won't run."
Akanishi Ken also raised doubts from a programmer's perspective.
From the current situation, it seemed that, apart from the naive Kamiya Hideki and the occasionally eccentric President who were still going it alone, everyone else felt this was an impossible task.
Aoki Haruhi saw everyone's reaction and couldn't help but laugh wryly.
"Hmm, it's definitely not that kind of 3D game."
Aoki Haruhi said, "Make it a 3+2D mode."
"Huh?"
Akanishi Ken and Sakata Taiji both looked at Aoki Haruhi in surprise. Every single word in the President's sentence was recognizable individually, but when put together, they made no sense at all.
They couldn't imagine what 3+2D meant.
"I'll describe it to you, and you'll understand," Aoki Haruhi smiled, then picked up a marker pen and began drawing on the whiteboard.
He first drew a three-dimensional coordinate map.
"And then, in reality, all 3D can be broken down into 2D graphics facing the camera, right?"
Just like taking a photo, even though you're photographing a real 3D scene, the photo is flat, and you can also draw graphics based on the photo.
"Hmm." Akanishi Ken raised his hand, "But when you turn, it can't be handled; you'd have to fill in all the faces."
He understood Aoki Haruhi's meaning: it was equivalent to saying that if it was camera-facing, then that face could be displayed using 2D hand-drawn methods, and the other parts would be empty.
For example, in this 3D scene, there is a cube, but only the side facing you has a pattern, and the other sides are blank.
Although everything looks normal from this angle, once the perspective changes, the cube will be exposed.
"Exactly."
Aoki Haruhi snapped his fingers, "That's the effect I want."
The reason he proposed this idea was actually entirely inspired by Kamiya Hideki.
In his previous life, Kamiya had a highly acclaimed but not commercially successful masterpiece called Okami, whose Japanese name is [okami].
A 3D game with an ink wash style.
It applied a large number of 2+3 mode combinations.
If you look closely, you will find that many parts of the scene are actually flat.
Just like a movie screen.
Although you can adjust the view by raising or lowering it, the scenes in the game are definitely not 3D effects that conform to normal perception.
"Look, I'll first break down the game scene. First, the ground. The ground, we'll make into discontinuous planes."
The reason for making it discontinuous is mainly to accommodate the gameplay.
"This layer of physical collision is done programmatically, and not needing actual drawing greatly reduces overhead."
"But then, what the art team needs to do is to draw fitting 2D textures within this flat part of the scene."
"And now, let me talk about the essence."
Aoki Haruhi smiled happily, "You see, the mountain is this shape, but from a programmer's perspective, the collision of this mountain can be a regular cuboid, or composed of multiple cuboids, with each face being a 2D plane.
Or it can be made into a circular band, which is then a single texture.
Just like the skybox in a scene."
The skybox is one of the most widely used technical means in 3D game, meaning that the world players are in is on a square platform, and the outermost circle of this square platform is surrounded by a circular band, like a circular movie screen.
Then, the artist only needs to create a 2D texture within this circular band, and in the game, it can give people the real feeling of a "distant view."
Because it's circular, no matter how you rotate the camera, it actually looks the same.
By this point, everyone also understood…
Although it was a 3D game, the President was going to break down the models into three-dimensional structures with "faces."
Then, the faces would cooperate with each other and be drawn as 2D effects.
This way, even though it's a 3D game and your perspective can change, no matter where you turn, you'll always see a 2D effect.
More precisely, it ensures that your camera always faces a movie screen, or a world composed of multiple continuous movie screens.
And this way, the model polygon count is also saved, and it probably really can run on the PS.
Everyone's minds buzzed.
Niitsu Cheng slapped his thigh, unable to resist wanting to stand up and cheer for the President, but seeing the bitter face of Sakata, the art director, he shrunk back in fear.
My goodness!
The President is truly a genius.
He could even come up with such a bizarre production method; it's incredible!
And…
Niitsu Cheng silently simulated in his mind:
This way, there would be an extremely strong viewing experience. Although it's a 3D game, it presents the experience of a 2D animated film, which can perfectly connect with Miyazaki's animation. It's truly amazing.
President is the best!
…
In the room, Shinji Mikami also had a similarly excited expression.
Shinji Mikami's imaginative space suddenly broadened. If it weren't for the implementation plan provided by the President, he wouldn't have dared to think in the direction of 3D game.
Now, everything made sense.
The door to a new world had been opened!
And at the same time, Shinji Mikami was also astonished by Aoki Haruhi's creativity and problem-solving ability, getting goosebumps all over.
Having such a President truly put one at ease.
It was precisely because pokeni had Aoki Haruhi's powerful vision that planners and Producers could boldly imagine, create, and realize their ideals.
Kamiya Hideki, on the other hand, was bewildered. I only suggested a 3D game, so why is everyone reacting so strongly?
…
"Emmm… at first listen, it seems possible." Akanishi Ken pondered for a long time, unable to immediately identify any potential pitfalls.
But it sounded like it was worth a try.
The others folded their arms and fell into deep thought.
Especially Sakata Taiji, whose heart was aching, just a tiny bit less than Akanishi Ken's.
Such a bizarre production method would truly be the death of the programmers and artists.
Especially the workload for the artists; it would be enormous, equivalent to having to draw each scene individually.
"Then how do we handle the characters?" Akanishi Ken asked.
He stood up and gestured, "Because the characters themselves need to move. Running forward, running left, and running right are definitely different. Does this mean the characters also need 3D models, otherwise continuity cannot be guaranteed?"
"But then, it won't match the animation," Sakata Taiji happily added.
"Discontinuous intersecting textures," Aoki Haruhi said.
"No need for continuity. Because we are aligning with the animated film itself, in animation, the male and female protagonists, and even every character, can have close-up shots from different angles. We can just use these shots as the character visuals corresponding to each direction.
For example, the right side, front, left side, and back are all animated figures."
"To be precise, we'll do 8 directions, or if absolutely necessary, we'll do 16 direction textures," Aoki Haruhi said.
In fact, this is also how it was done in the game Okami.
The protagonist "Amaterasu" is a dog, but this dog is by no means a true 3D figure; he is a very typical 2D RPG character drawing style, with different textures for multiple directions, so the turning and running movements are not continuous.
But this did not affect the players' experience at all.
In fact, if you don't pay attention, you won't even notice that it's not a 3D character.
On the contrary, the game Okami, with its unique art style, distinctive ink wash style, and 2D-like 3D effects, gave it an extraordinary game experience.
It was like actually stepping into a Japanese ink wash style painting.
In terms of the quality of the work, it can definitely be called a masterpiece.
…
After some discussion, Akanishi Ken and Sakata Taiji had no more questions to ask.
Only one thing made Akanishi Ken grit his teeth in frustration.
Damn it!
Kamiya, why did he have to go watch the Pokémon 3D demo in the first place?!
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