Schlagwort: insomniac

Has it already been a year since Marvel’s Spider-Man webbed up our hearts? I’ve been a lifelong fan of the ol’ wall-crawler, so since Insomniac’s acclaimed adventure first point-launched onto PS4 I’ve been beside myself swinging through the city, putting a stop to crimes both big and small… and stopping every five minutes to bust out my camera.

Even after locking down the game’s Platinum Trophy, I’ve made quite the habit of hopping back in from time to time not only to let off some steam with a quick swing through NYC, but to flex my photographic muscles with the superb Photo Mode Insomniac baked into Marvel’s Spider-Man.

There are three broad ideas I try to keep in mind when getting into the Photo Mode mindset in any game, and they certainly apply here as well. Let’s call them Lights, Camera, and Action.

Photography, at its core, is the practice of capturing light. As such, understanding light and how it affects your subject is key to capturing a compelling photo.

If you’ve unlocked the ability to set the time of day at Harry’s Research Stations, set your game to nighttime and go for a quick swing around the city. Look for various sources of light and get up close to each one to see how they interact with Spidey. Some of my favorites are the lit glass skylights on top of some buildings, which can make for dramatic bottom-lit shots of our hero.

Use these…

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I also like to play with the huge electronic billboards you can find in the brighter parts of the city. Framing a well-timed jump or mid-air attack just right can make for a rad silhouette shot of the web-slinger. Setting the time of day to sunset can make for great silhouettes too, and that warm “golden hour” lighting is especially gorgeous.

Experiment with the different color filters in your Photo Mode menu here, too — but keep in mind that you can (and often should) decrease their intensity a bit to suit the photo you’re taking. The Spider-Chrome filter can blow out the details of a photo at full strength, but reducing its intensity can provide just the contrast bump you need to give your photo an extra kick.

Photo Mode in Marvel’s Spider-Man has plenty of menus to tinker with, but the first one I look to when setting up a new shot is the FOV (field of view). This behaves similarly to the optical zoom feature on a real-life camera, which means two things:

1. Setting it to 100 will give you an ultra-wide angle shot. This will add an element of distortion to the edges of your image, which can make for an especially dramatic shot if you frame it well.
2. Cranking it all the way to the other side of the slider acts similarly to a super-telephoto lens in real life, compressing the elements of your image together and letting you zero in on specific details. This makes for great portraits, especially given the extensive texture work Insomniac has put into many of Spidey’s suits.

Next, I usually adjust the aperture and focus distance of the photo. This emulates the behavior of the aperture setting on a real camera, which means it lets you adjust how much of a photo is in focus. You know that effect where a person’s face will be in focus, but the background is blurry? That’s called depth-of-field, and it’s what we’re playing with when we adjust these sliders. It’s tempting to just crank it all the way down to blow out the background of every photo, but don’t get too carried away. Sometimes it pays to keep a little bit of detail in the background to add a bit of context to your shot.

Tilting your camera is another technique that can help keep certain elements in-frame or make a photo feel more dynamic, so don’t be afraid to play around here. Additionally, you can rotate the camera 90 degrees to frame your photo in portrait orientation, which can make for some rather nice mobile wallpapers!

It’s important to consider the altitude of your camera in relation to your subject, as well. Generally speaking, shooting from a low angle can make your subject seem more powerful, but as with all things in Photo Mode (and in life!), moderation is key. Try taking the same photo with the camera at different heights and see how it affects the final shot.

Bonus tip: Watch Spidey’s eyes as you experiment with all of these points. Since they’re so large and expressive, they can be especially subject to these adjustments. Play with the different emotes when using the selfie camera, too!

Since Photo Mode freezes time, it’s possible to capture positively striking images if you time things just right. Experiment with all the moves in Spider-Man’s repertoire — he has a far more tricks up his sleeve than swinging and punching. If you’re really precise, you can even see the details on all of his different gadgets as he fires them off at foes!

Keep playing with different moves to see how certain ones look when frozen; you’ll be surprised at the photos you can capture without even meaning to. Web Zips, Point Launches, various combat maneuvers, gadgets, and even simply wall-running can lead to surprisingly dramatic images.

You may have noticed the repeated use of the word “experiment” in this guide, and there’s a good reason for that. I’ve provided a few starting points here, but the best way to get pictures of Spider-Man is to get out there and take them! The more you tinker with the toolkit Insomniac has provided, the more familiar you’ll become with its various powers — you might end up developing your own tricks, too.

To get this shot, I froze the camera while wall-running up the side of a building, just as I passed a light mounted to the wall.

Finally, there’s a sweet suite of frames and stickers you can apply to put the finishing touch on your art. Don’t be afraid to get weird with it — you could create the next great comic book cover!

I’ve shared plenty of my own in-game photography on Twitter with the #SpiderManPS4 and #PS4share hashtags, and if you decide to boot up the game to take some photos I’d love to see you do the same! Got your own Photo Mode tricks you’d like to share? Drop ‘em in the comments!

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Spider-Man: Far From Home Director Jon Watts seems unfazed when I ask him if, after capturing what made the character of Peter Parker so great in Spider-Man: Homecoming, he’s given himself a tough act to follow in the web-swinging sequel.

His answer is simple. “You have to tell the story that’s right for the characters.”

That story places both Peter and his Super Hero alter-ego in unfamiliar territory, half a world away from the skyscrapers of New York that Spider-Man calls home. Peter finds himself shepherded to the other side of the globe along with his classmates as part of a school trip across Europe.

It’s a welcome vacation from web-slinging that’s sadly disrupted when he’s enlisted by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and paired with a mysterious new ally Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal) to combat a fearsome new threat. With Earth’s defenders now in short supply following the events of Avengers: Endgame, Peter must decide where his ultimate responsibility lies: protecting the world or the life he’s built with his friends.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt9L1jCKGnE&w=1032&h=581]

I’m talking with the movie’s director during a brief promotional pitstop in London. The whirlwind global press tour for Spider-Man: Far From Home, releasing in cinemas worldwide this week, has returned him and key cast members to within a few miles of where part of the movie takes place, at one of the city’s iconic landmarks: Tower Bridge.

“I thought of Homecoming as being the story of a kid who is desperate to prove himself but the world isn’t listening to him,” says Watts of the dilemma facing Peter in this follow-up to the 2017 film, which he also helmed.

“This movie is essentially a sequel to Endgame. It’s the situation were the world is now looking to this kid and for the first time the kid isn’t sure if he’s ready.”

Making comic book suits cinema-worthy

The challenges that arise require Peter to don two new suits over the course of the film. You’d think that nailing a duo of new looks for one of the world’s most recognizable Super Heroes must have been as much of a creative headache as crafting bombastic action sequences and emotionally-charged character moments.

Not so, according to Watts, thanks to the talents of Ryan Meinerding. “He’s incredible,” the director says of Marvel Studios’ Head of Visual Development, who has had the enviable task of adapting the iconic costumes of Marvel’s biggest heroes for their cinematic debuts.

According to Watts, his brief for Meinerding was, well, brief. “‘Make it real, make it cool.’” Meinerding’s response was “amazing,” says Watts, as he presented to the director a black-clad ‘stealth’ suit and an upgraded version of the classic Spider-Man costume.

Passing the Super Hero torch

While the Stealth Suit is a “stripped down” all-black version of the standard costume, masking the fact Spider-Man is operating in Europe to avoid further raising the suspicions of his classmates, the upgraded suit represents a milestone for the character. It’s the first Stark-tech Spider-Man suit specifically built by Peter, rather than having it gifted to him pre-made.

“It was something I really felt like we needed to see happen,” explains Watts. “It was a really important story beat for me: it’s part of his growth. It’s supposed to be about him getting out from underneath this shadow of Tony Stark… he’s stepping up and becoming his own Super Hero.”

Watts’ favorite Spider-Man suit

The result is a long way from the customized sweatsuit Peter began his Super Hero life with (seen in both Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming). But Watts finds that bargain-basement garb particularly endearing, citing it as his personal favorite design of Spidey’s growing wardrobe.

“He made it, he colored it himself,” says Watts. “I think there’s just something really cool about that.”

Making Mysterio work on the big screen

I mention how pleasantly surprised I am that he managed to make Mysterio’s traditional look work on the big screen. The ‘fish bowl’ helmet that Jake Gyllenhaal dons during key action sequences is as source material accurate as they come. It looks brilliant on comic book splash pages but could — should — have been notoriously difficult to translate into live action.

Again, Watts points to Meinerding as the reason for the seemingly effortless translation, nailing the design on his first pass. “Our very, very first sketch became the thing that we built,” the director confirms.

Putting a fresh spin on an iconic character

Watts has helped develop the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Peter Parker over both Spider-Man: Homecoming and now Spider-Man: Far From Home, building upon his scene-stealing debut in Captain America: Civil War and the essential part he played in the larger ensembles of both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.

While the MCU version looks to the high school era of the character’s earliest years as its primary inspiration, Watts also pays homage to Spider-Man’s long history in comics.

“What’s great about Peter Parker is you can pick different sections of his life and tell a compelling story,” he explains.

That’s something Insomniac Games embraced with last year’s critically-acclaimed Marvel’s Spider-Man, bringing its own spin to an experienced Peter Parker, charting the day-to-day struggles as his personal and Super Hero lives spectacularly collided.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5-_MvCWSfI&w=1032&h=581]

Try out Spider-Man’s new suits for yourself

Watts was a fan of the game’s narrative (“I really liked it; I thought it was a great exploration of the Peter Parker story”) though he had to put the controller down to finish the movie. He was so invested in putting the finishing touches to the project, that the suits’ cameo in the PlayStation 4 game came as much as a surprise to him as it was for players.

“It was an ‘oh by the way, check out the suits in the game,’” he cheerfully recalls of the moment during production when someone passed him a tablet with in-game shots of the suits. “I didn’t realize they were doing it until they had the finished design!”

You can appreciate the finer details of both suits right now in Marvel’s Spider-Man for PS4 thanks to the free update* for Insomniac Games’ critically-acclaimed take on the wall-crawler.

They join the trio of preexisting MCU costume choices — the Stark Suit, the Iron Spider Suit and the Homemade Suit — to give you a complete suite of Marvel Cinematic Universe outfits to save the world in (or to snap some heroic shots of in Photo mode).

Spider-Man: Far From Home is releasing in cinemas worldwide from this week. Check your local cinema for screening times.

*Internet connection and a copy of Marvel’s Spider-Man required. Players must reach a certain point in the game to unlock suits.

Website: LINK