Patty Loew:
There are all kinds of websites for video gamers and one Wisconsin company is leading that video revolution. The technology is advancing by leaps and bounds as "In Wisconsin" freelance producer Alex Andre discovered behind the scenes at Raven Software Studios in Middleton

Brian Raffel:
Raven Software is a developer of games on many different platforms, both PC and console.
We build everything that's in the game. We build the art, we build the levels, we build the sound and music and things like that. The whole process in order to make a video game is a very multitiered. We have motion capture, we have a cinemax department. The difficult part of the industry is you have so many creative forces to line up with sound, music, low cap, scanning.

David Peng:
If you're going to go for stylized like photorealistic motions like a movie style adventure game, or sports title then you use motion capture. If you use animated, it would take hours, most likely take days. But if you want to do a game that has hundreds or thousands of those motions, the best way is to get somebody in the studio and motion capture them. Because we could take that same walk cycle and turn it around in a few hours. The marker is a film marker with a velcro base and it’s covered in scotch guard, basically reflective tape. When you shine a flashlight on them, they -- it's just a white hot, one inch all of light. They have 28 cameras. They're emitting the red spectrum light, infrared and there's a black and white Camera right in the middle. It starts out on a piece of paper. We want this character to do this in the scene. Basically we'll look at it on paper and then decide how much we can capture, if we can capture it safely. Most cases motion caption has two different uses. One is for cimenatics. You can use it as a story telling tool. The other half is more of a technical side and that's for actual interactive play of driving the character.


Kevin Schilder:
When a game is created it's done in different parts and pieces. Until the audio department gets involved in it, nothing you see on the screen is going to make any sound. So whatever you're going to hear, we’re responsible for that. Without any audio on it, we're looking at something like this where we see a movie and we see characters moving and doing things in here. The character walking around in the world actually should have some footsteps. And sound effects, voices of characters and finally, to give it a little mood and atmosphere, we need a music track behind it. I think the most awesome feeling is when you create something new that really didn't exist before.
Whatever you're dreaming, whatever we're trying to envision and we just need to find the objects and the assets that will help us make it.


Michael Abell:
We take scans of different objects within the real world and it allows our artists to have to build less on the computer. The types that we use are structured light scanners or laser scanners. They go at a wave length of 390 nanometers and sends out light waves and the laser light goes out, comes back in and is received in the camera and then there's processing that goes on. To make the three dimensional scan, we will take each separate scan and using the software overlay them and create one scan. We can do a face scan in 10 seconds' time. Do a complete scan of an object in -- if it's large, say, automobile, would take about two hours. For me coming in and seeing new things created that have never existed before, that's my favorite part of my job.


Brian Raffel:
That's really what kind of inspires me is I love working with other creative people on fun projects. That's what I get up in the morning and look forward to coming to work about. I'm a video game addict. That's kind of what got me in trouble when I was younger.


Michael Abell:
I probably play close to 15 hours a week.

Kevin Schilder:
Maybe six to 10 hours a week.

Robert Peng:
You know, when I was in school it was like four hours a day.


Michael Abell:
I also still play dungeons and dragons on paper and pencil.

Patty Loew:
Did you notice the posters in the report for games like Marvel, Ultimate Alliance and Quake Four? Those are video games developed right here in Wisconsin.