Thread by @alionabaranova1

1/🧵 BG3 thread alert

i’d like to clarify a few things about the dialogue recording process that went into making Baldur’s Gate 3, while i have peoples attention.

Firstly: for almost ALL the dialogue we recorded we ALSO captured the actors mocap data

2/ that means all 248 actors, ALL the NPCs and not just the companions put on a mocap suit and their movements, gestures and physical choices were recorded & sent along with the audio files for the animators to use in game. which is why the performances feels so *alive*

3/ the exceptions to the rule were when actors voiced animals, additional dialogue (when you see a birds eye view of a character running while speaking),cinematic cut scenes & occasionally if an actor was injured or unavailable to record mocap & did voice only -more on this later

4/ which means the iconic head wiggles Jen did as Shadowheart WERE Jen’s actual head wiggles. the militaristic & alien like movements of Lae were @Devora_Wilde physical choices for the character. @NeilNewbon’s theatrical flare as Astarion are all part of the actors choices

@Devora_Wilde @NeilNewbon 5/ there’s countless others i could mention but we’d be here all day

here’s a video of Jen that might help illustrate the process. the movements should seem familiar & be recognisable as Shadowheart

& this brings me to the role of a…
✨ performance director ✨(me!)

@Devora_Wilde @NeilNewbon 6/a voice directors role is pretty self explanatory

but as a performance director, our job is to work with the voice director, and our focus is the actors body. their movements, how they physicalise & embody their character and making sure that the body is connected to the voice

@Devora_Wilde @NeilNewbon 7/ essentially, our role was to ensure that choices actors were making vocally, matched what they were doing physically and that this was clear when looking at the mocap

by working with the voice director, as a team, we aimed to get the best possible performances from the actors

@Devora_Wilde @NeilNewbon 8/ at the very least we wanted all the physical performances to look alive & be interesting to watch

but when the magic really happened was when we helped the actor connect to the text on a deeper more physical level. when u could *see* what they were saying affect their bodies

@Devora_Wilde @NeilNewbon 9/ i really could get carried away talking on this subject

but imo the beauty of the performances in this game are in part because the actors weren’t simply speaking the lines, they were feeling the emotions & meaning of what they were communicating with their entire bodies

@Devora_Wilde @NeilNewbon 10/ it also takes a village. at @PitStopTweets where most dialogue recording took place, there was an entire team dedicated to this process

aside from voice & performance directors, we also had sound engineers & mocap technicians who were vital to getting everything recorded

@Devora_Wilde @NeilNewbon @PitStopTweets 11/ on top of that there were also countless staff @PitStopTweets dedicated to keeping the studio running. as i said, it takes a (blighted) village 🥁

ok i’m starting to get bored now so i’m gonna wrap this up

in conclusion: lots of people were involved with dialogue recording

@Devora_Wilde @NeilNewbon @PitStopTweets 12/ when you watch the in game dialogue you’re not only hearing the actors voices but you’re also seeing their physical performances

as well as the beautiful work of the animators @larianstudios of course, who used the files we sent to create the finished product

@Devora_Wilde @NeilNewbon @PitStopTweets @larianstudios 13/ there’s so many more departments involved that i’m sure someone more qualified than me can talk about. we had editors working on the files at Pitstop & then of course Larian has offices worldwide working on this incredible game

(i’m sorry if i missed any details or jobs out)

@Devora_Wilde @NeilNewbon @PitStopTweets @larianstudios 14/ i’m aware that i never got back to mocap for cut scenes, but i think this thread is long enough now & if i keep going i’m gonna start to get v nerdy about this stuff

i’ll post about that another time, but for now @JoshWichard does a great job explaining it over on tiktok 🖤

@Devora_Wilde @NeilNewbon @PitStopTweets @larianstudios @JoshWichard 15/ hopefully that helps clarify what a performance director does & the fact that virtually all performances were also mocapped

thank you for coming to my ted talk
i will not be taking questions at this time because this thread took too much of my brain power 🧠 (pun intended)