Shea Wageman, Rainmaker's Director, Producer on the project adds, "Ubisoft wanted to give Sam Fisher more character and emotional depth. Our mission was to give Sam a soul.' They wanted us to create a fully realized cinematic character in order to put him on par with the complexity of Jason Bourne or James Bond." Wageman continues, "It meant we had to deal with photoreal CGI facial and eye movements, and in very constrained time frame. We studied various live action and CG films to understand what truly denotes emotion, and it really comes down to the eyes and subtle facial movements."

Rainmaker was responsible for concept and design, art direction and storyboarding. Primary characters were provided by Ubisoft which Rainmaker uprezzed. Mo-cap was done at Rainmaker's motion capture stage. The Rainmaker team rebuilt all the geometry and created the shading, textures, rigging and facial movements for the primary characters. All the sets and secondary and background characters, as well as all the animation, lighting, visual effects and compositing, was done by Rainmaker. Concept and creative took three months and production five months.

Winder concludes, "Our team was excited to have this opportunity and energized by the challenge. We're looking forward to doing more in this highly creative realm."

Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction will be released fall 2009 on Xbox 360® and PC.

More Information at www.rainmaker.com. Image and Video Courtesy of Ubisoft Entertainment