EA - Couple of Screenshots For Wii and 360/PS3 Versions Of Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince - Press Release

EA have released a couple of screenshots for both the Wii and 360/PS3 versions of Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince.
EA have also released a Editorial Feature for the game, this one focussing on the character animation. Most of the actors have provided voices, photos, and Body Scans to make the characters appear life like. the emotions of the characters can be seen, facial animation matches the voice work, and the characters now move more believable than any previous Harry Potter Game.
The game is out in the UK on 3rd July 2009.

Wii


360/PS3


Editorial feature for the videogame #2

Muggles and Magicians

Although you’ll be playing as Harry for nearly all of the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood PrinceTM videogame - no spoilers about who else you’ll get to play, but if you remember the moment when Harry is out of action in the film you might manage to guess - everyone else in the game is just as detailed and full of character. Many of the actors from the film have provided their voices for the game, and the team have had access to photos and bodyscans of all the characters, so every raised eyebrow and fluttering cloak is accurately portrayed. For the first time in a Harry Potter game, it’s really possible to read the emotion in characters’ faces as they talk, thanks to the advanced facial animation system that’s been used. And it’s not just that the characters in the game look right and sound right - they moved right, too. EA has made every effort to perfect the animation for all the action in the film. To capture the moves that Harry can make on his broomstick it wasn’t enough to film a stuntman in a studio to get a decent approximation. Instead, one of the game team built a complete broomstick rig in his kitchen at home, bringing it in so the animators could experiment with every possible move by ‘flying’ one themselves.

Press Release
EA will provide the ultimate immersive experience for Harry Potter fans when they play the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince video game, available in the UK on the 3rd July 09.

For the first time in a Harry Potter video game, it’s possible to read the emotion in characters’ faces as they talk, thanks to the advanced facial animation system that was used during development. Many of the film’s actors provided their voices for the game, and the development team at EA had access to photos and body scans of all the characters, so every raised eyebrow and fluttering cloak is accurately portrayed in the game. Although you will play as Harry for nearly all of the game, the other characters in the game are just as detailed and full of emotion.

Not only do the characters look and sound like the actors in the film, the EA development team went to great lengths to ensure that the characters even move accurately. To capture the moves that Harry makes playing Quidditch on his broomstick, it wasn’t enough to just film a stuntman. One of the developers also built a complete broomstick rig in his kitchen at home and brought it in so the animators could ‘fly’ a broom themselves and experiment with every possible move.