Seven years after the last Rayman game came out, the series finally awakens with the announcement of Rayman Origins, a two-dimensional prequel to the original game which will be released in an episodic format.
Trailer
Links
RayWiki article: http://www.raymanpc.com/wiki/en/Rayman_Origins
Rayman Origins walkthrough (PC): http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB38D568B3215DCF3
Rayman Origins video catalogue: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... e=view_all
Ubi Art blog: http://ubi-art.uk.ubi.com/
Michel Ancel talks about Ubi Art and Rayman Origins at a conference (French): http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdrgzj_videogames
Translation by DesLife and Drolpiraat
Christophe : It's a shame Michel Ancel isn't here because... Ah ! Michel Ancel is here ! Come ! What a surprise !
[Random jokes]
Michel : I'm really pleased to present you this game, because it's Rayman's return, and it's true that Rayman is a character that comes from Montpellier. What was fun and peculiar about Rayman is that we worked on it with animated cartoonists. So basically what created the game's qualities is that we worked with cartoonists, musicans who didn't work in video games in the first place. That is this union that created Rayman and its graphisms. That was in 92-93... We were asked to work on Rayman again. We made 3D games, and ofc, there will be others, but we thought that we could do a game with the same "spirit" that Rayman 1 had, with animated cartoons technics.
What you just saw was entirely done with a tool that we created 6 months ago. I'm going to show it to you. The first idea was to make a new 2D game. The 2nd idea was that there were only a few of us when we worked on the first Rayman. There was one person working on the characters, one for the decors, and it's just the same for what you just watched. There were only 2 persons. Ofc there were technical assistants, but the idea was to work with artists that aren't necessarily in the video games business, but who can bring a lot to this business.
Girl : to keep this peculiar universe, do you think that it's better if there's only one person working on it because they can go farther in their artistic concepts ?
Michel : Yes, it's true that when you read some comics, there are one, two or three authors working on the same comic book, in a band there are 4 musicians... There are some domains where there are some huge artistic personalities, and there's a great creativity cause there are only a few of them working on a project. Christophe did a great work, cause he composed, wrote and recorded the music in just a few days, and we couldn't do that kind of thing if we were numerous. We wouldn't have this mobility.
Girl : The reason why you first collaborated with Christophe was because he came from the cinema business and you were interested in working with someone that comes from this business.
Michel : Exactly. In Christophe's flat, there are instruments that come from around the whole world, he made the OST of a game called BG&E, I don't know if you know it... [laughs and applauses]. Christophe had never composed for a video game before, and the music was a great success. I think that we have to invit that kind of people in the video game business.
Michel: So we have made tools to make it easier and more attractive for people from the videogame business, but also for people who have never worked on videogames before: artists, sculptors, etc. Their work can exist in an interactive way and we can put it on PC, but also on iPad, iPhone, etc. We hope that we can spread it over many different platforms like this. ( hint at iPhone & iPad version of Rayman Origins? )
Girl: So can we see it?
Michel: Yes, I'm going to give you a little demonstration... can you hold the microphone Christophe?
Girl: He's used to holding a microphone, isn't he?
Christophe: ... and now he connects the mouse. It's quick, because you know... and now he's typing his password, it's... "Michel... Ancel".
[Michel laughs]
Michel: So here are the tools I told you about. This is one of the sceneries of the beginning of the game. What's interesting is that... wait, I'm going to show you quickly. [Michel starts Rayman Origins and small gameplay part is shown] This is a very early version of the tools, but I can show you how it works. Now I'm going to start the cinematic that you've seen. So what's interesting here is that there are very little drawings in this cinematic. I'm going to stop here at this point in the cinematic and show you how it works. The scenery was made by only 1 person. So as you can see I'm really inside the landscape, and even though it's 2D, you get the impression that it's 3D. That's kinda funny. So a young painter can just draw this, position everything and turn it into 3D like this. Now I'm going to take this tree and replace it.
["WHOA!"]
Yep, emotion, emotion! And you can rotate it, etc. in a very simple way. So as you can see, you can replace everything, all the little elements in the scenery, and you can zoom in really close while maintaining a reasonable quality. Also interesting here is that it's not only for videogames - you can also show what happens in cartoons or in a comic in an interactive way. So finally, you can make cartoons with only 2 drawings. You can be the creator. And I think that it's important that new creations are not only books or comics, but also for the new media... ( like videogames, films, etc. ) You will be able to tell your own stories. So we're going to try to give you free access to these tools, we don't want to commercialize it. It's not for now yet though, we're still working on it.
[Applause]
So we're going to give access to it to everyone who wants to use it. We've made a little blog called ubi-art.com. For those who are interested, we're going to post about our tools regularly. We hope that we'll be able to put the first version of our tools online this year or the next, to allow people to make their own cartoons.
Girl: And they can share their creations.
Michel: Yes, and we're sending it to schools too. And again, in the presentation you've seen, there were a few things made by children: animation, landscapes, etc. So you can make a game on your own. You'll also be able to turn it into 3D because 3D will be possible in later versions of the tools.
Seriously, check out ubiart.com.
(Load of bull dust, if you ask me, and yet they released freaking Katamari Damacy, which is even more Japanese then those games!)), and 4-5 are on the DS (4 is once again a Japan/emulator-only, but they 