IN this case study, we had to watch the “Making of The Black Soulstone Cinematic Panel” at Blizzcon 2011. I’ve seen the video before, yet still took some extra tidbits from the video.
Question#1: What was the most impressive or surprising thing you saw in their design process and why?
The most impressive thing I saw in the video, was just the way they went about showing light in so many different situations. They used light in a ton of different ways, and even took real world objects and materials to see how light reacted to the material in real life lighting situations. The balls wrapped in different cloths was extremely clever, and really gave an idea how light bounced off and reflected off the surface of each material, be it wood, leather, or any another of the numerous materials used in the experiment.
Question#2: As an artist, what would be something that you can take from this video and add it to your design process and why ?
The most essential thing I can, and must take from this video, is iteration. Just doing something once, and being done with it is not enough. No matter how good you may think the end result looks, without extra time put into it, it will never reach it’s full potential. The numerous times that Blizzard re-iterated ideas, even when in my opinion characters and environments looked really polished, they took it a step further. Whether it was the lighting, shader, or the camera angle. Things were changed, and adjusted to better suit the idea and mood that they were trying to accomplish.
Question#3: What was something that you didn’t understand or don’t think would help you in your ways as an artist and why? Make an example.
I don’t understand rigging at all, although I’ll admit I haven’t taken any time to learn about it on my own time, at least not yet. Also I wanted them to go a little more in depth about the particle effects, which really made the crumbling way scene come together. The indulged a bit into the larger chunks, but didn’t explain the process behind the smaller and thousands of small set pieces. Wish that was something they delved a little deeper into.
Overall the whole video is incredible interesting and inspiring.
iadtgame225_Texturing and Lighting 
I totally agree with not doing somthing once and saying its done theres always a way to make it better you just have to find it.
I like how you admit that you knew little about rigging, i kinda thought i was the only one who felt like this and its good to know that im not the only one who feels like so. I forgot to mention in mine that i like how they used real world materieals for in game materials and how well everyhting was polished. Continue to make fine posts such as thins good sir.
You touched on how they did lighting, where they would actually set up the scene and go from there. It goes back to references and how much they actually used them. They had references for everything, and in my opinion it should very much in the cinematic.