Previsualizing in the Borderlands 3: "Playable Loading Screen" Concept
About mid-way through development of Borderlands 3, an idea was floated to create a playable loading screen. We weren't far enough along to know what our average load times would be, but the idea was to give Players something simple and interactive to pass the time with. I wasn't connected with the people developing the concept at the time but I recall being intrigued by it. Eventually, for reasons typical of game development (scheduling, resources, etc), work progressed only so far until it was deemed untenable and shelved.
Fast-forward to the final months of BL3's development, the idea of a playable load screen crept back into my mind. Some of the mock-ups I recalled from the original exploration team were very basic in what the Player could do. Really cool, just basic. On the other hand, I was curious about taking the interactive element a step further and turning the load screen into a "game within a game". With enough art resources and downtime between bug fixes, I set about previs'ing the concept...
Early on, I chose a Mortal Kombat/Street Fighter approach; thinking that the assets needed might not be heavy on resources (if made for real one day). Additionally, the Player could fight some very basic A.I. or possibly another Player using the second controller; upping the value of the experience.
I was planning on building this previs completely in After Effects, so an MK-style game - with it's faux 3D look - would also be relatively easy to set up. I rendered a bunch of animated image assets out of Unreal. In keeping with the spirit of the original Mortal Kombat, all of the characters were rendered against greenscreen so they would maintain a cheesy, composited look.
Implementing the cheering background characters was straightforward thanks to their seamless looping motions:
The two fighting Psycho's were a bit more complex. So, I rendered out a slew of movement and combat animations to use as smaller motion "clips" which I could easily swap between as the action dictated:
In the game, a high-resolution screenshot from inside the Holy Broadcast Center Level became my main backdrop. A metal floor tile texture rounded out my remaining environmental needs.
Jumping into After Effects, I started assembling the environment and placing the characters along with my camera to quickly test the feel of the parallax movement:
As you can see from this angled view, there's nothing terribly earth-shattering about the approach. From here, most of my time was then spent on the fight choreography, moving the two fighters around the space and sorting out the camerawork.
Once everything felt integrated, I began a UI pass. I didn't spend much time on aesthetics of the UI - just enough to be passable and communicate intent for the previs. Two health meters, a timer, and the match start/end text was all I needed to get the idea across. Compacta Std - the Borderlands font of choice - was dropped in with all the grace of a swan in mud.
Along the bottom is a long yellow bar indicating the loading status for the Player. The way I designed it, the Player could continue playing the "Load Screen game" even after the load was complete. As you can see in the final video, once the load is complete the state of the bar changes to alert the Player that the game is ready. It was also a deliberate choice to have this status bar appear BEFORE the game starts. Those critical few seconds aid the Player in identifying it's purpose so they can turn then attention to the game when it fades in.
One benefit of going for the MK/Street Fighter-style presentation is the inherit understanding amongst gamers of what type of game it is. Once they see the game appear, it very nearly screams "I AM PLAYABLE!" And even if they don't get right away that it IS playable, once the timer starts ticking down and the two characters just sit there, a Player might toggle the gamepad to see if anything happens. Et Voila!
Now, with everything in place and looking good, my final addition was book-ending the previs with sample gameplay so that the Viewer could get a sense of (A) how we are introduced to the "Load Screen game" and (B) what happens when you exit the mini-game. This additional contextualization is an extremely important element for anyone viewing a previs for the first time and especially for stakeholders.
Another detail worth noting is the addition of sound effects to further sell the presentation. Luckily, Gearbox has a world-class audio department so I dug through our Borderlands sounds effects and character dialogue to complete the previs.
Here's a high resolution video of the final previs:
Here's a high resolution video of the final previs:
As I mentioned early in this presentation, the original desire for a playable load screen was originally dropped as a viable idea. So, having come all this way for nothing seems like a waste of effort, right?
Absolutely not!
Absolutely not!
The learning experience of taking this mini-game concept from start to completion was invaluable. To extend the use of this previs and turn it into a fun conclusion, I took a bit of extra time to build it into an arcade scene with a couple of ultra-competitive Psycho's:
That's it! I hope you found this breakdown interesting and possibly informative. Thank you for taking the time to read this far.
