Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 - "Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2"

The stifling morning air of the Laotian jungle is pierced by a helicopter flying in to save a failed rescue mission. That is the opening scene of the second film prepared by Platige Image for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone Season Two, developed by Treyarch Studios and Raven Software. This cinematic was crafted by Damian Nenow (Director), Jakub Jabłoński (Art Director), Robert Stasz (CG Producer) and Konrad Kiełczykowski (CG Supervisor).

The trailer was based on a script received from the Call of Duty team to tell the story of the new content Season. The task of bringing that to life and translating the creative into film language, belonged to Platige. Damian Nenow, a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, was the driving force behind the project and it was his guidelines that led the creation of the nearly 140 drawings constituting the basis for the previz works.
“With our history on this series, we were comfortable creating most of the of choreography, editing and camera work” Damian Nenow says. “I executed some of the ideas at the storyboard and animatics stage, in partnership with the Call of Duty team when shooting the motion capture scenes, which I directed remotely in an Activision studio in Los Angeles.”
All the visual stages of the film, from concept art to colour correction and online, were watched over by Jakub Jabłoński. Some of his ideas had already appeared in the initial concepts and were an invaluable source of inspiration for the artists working on ShotLookDev. The creators responsible for rendering and compositing also contributed a lot of passion and talent to ensure the right execution of this effect. All this helped to create an action-packed story that closely reflects the atmosphere of the Lao jungle.
“With this film, we can say that the environment played as important a role as the other characters” comments Robert Stasz. “The research and level of detail in the briefs prepared by Jakub Jabłoński were invaluable here, as was the set of basic assets provided by the client.”
“Ever since we started our work, we knew that our jungle had to come alive. That is why, for the duration of the work on this project, we became gardeners – we planted and simulated the movement and behaviour of dozens of different plants. We didn't build a static set design, but a real living place. The plants react to the movement of the characters, light seeps through the leaves of the palm trees brought to life by the wind and casts fantasy-like shadows, drops of sweat run down the skin of our characters” explains Jakub Jabłoński.
In addition to the precisely reproduced jungle, the Platige team has also developed very detailed cinematic versions of the Call of Duty game characters. Each of the protagonists has a specific weapon assigned to them, with their equipment lists also containing dozens of additional items. All these elements, combined with all the flora, the temple elements and the helicopter, meant that the artists had to create hundreds of assets for the project, none of which would have been possible without the enormous commitment of the over 100 creators working on the production.
“If we add together all the inputs from Damian Nenow, Jakub Jabłoński, Robert Stasz, the Call of Duty team, and a bit of my own humble contribution, we end up with more ideas for effects than it’s possible to include. The whole Platige team was deeply involved in the implementation and, from the very beginning, we felt that this project was met with a lot of enthusiasm. I am very happy that together we managed to bring all these ideas to life” concludes Konrad Kiełczykowski.
Platige Image is a production and post-production studio. It specializes in computer graphics, animation and visual effects for the film, entertainment and advertising industries, production of mass events and broadcast design for TV studios using Vizrt technology. It is especially renowned for cinematics for world-known game developers.