Recap of today's chat session with Nice Peter [12th July]

Earlier today we held a Discord chat session that was hosted by Nice Peter. This is a summary of the main points that were discussed, for those of you who couldn't tune in live.

Peter began with some non-ERB news by telling us about puppies. He explained how a stray German Shepherd approached his wife in a parking lot. They took it home and attempted to locate the owner. But, the dog had no collar or chip to identify it with. They then took it to a vet to get spayed and the vet later confirmed the dog was pregnant. But not just pregnant. Super pregnant. So for the last couple of months he's been caring for all the puppies whilst they try to find them all good homes. 

Peter then moved on to talk about ERB related news. He said that we would be publishing a poll on YouTube during the chat session in order to decide on a new matchup to start working on. We had been bouncing various ideas around, and done research on certain characters but wanted to make a firm decision on what battle to develop next.

As we already have two fictional based match-ups in production we wanted this next one to feature real life / historical type figures. We were initially thinking about doing Tom Brady vs Diego Maradona but Peter is still not fully convinced by the match-up. But he wanted to place that one on the poll to see what the wider fanbase thought of it.

He then indicated it would be joined on the poll with Karl Marx vs Henry Ford, P.T. Barnum vs Vince McMahon, Vincent van Gogh vs Andy Warhol and Margaret Thatcher vs Otto von Bismarck. We then published the poll on the community page tab on the ERB YouTube page - you can go vote for your favorite match-up right now. :)

Whichever match-up wins the poll will be the one we focus on to make into a new ERB. But, all the other options will certainly be considered in the future too. This was simply a case of wanting a definitive decision on which one is next in line. Democracy in action!

Peter then explained that it had been challenging for him to talk, or even think about any other match-ups recently because he has been fully immersed in learning "Unreal Engine 5" which is the software engine we are using to create the King Kong vs Godzilla battle.

He explained that we had ordered motion capture body suits and gloves which should arrive in 2+ weeks. This week we also purchased an powerful and expensive computer in order to run all the software. Once we have everything setup and tested Peter and Lloyd will film themselves in order to directly animate the characters of Kong and Godzilla. 

Once the "performance" is captured, the data will then be applied onto the 3D models of the characters. The learning curve for this process is very steep, but Peter is very excited about the potential for it all. All the cinematics and lighting and camera movement happens inside Unreal Engine.

Peter has been playing around with large scale models of New York and Japan to test out what is possible. Those will essentially serve as the 3D backgrounds. If everything goes well we will hopefully be able to use motion capture in more battles in the future.

Peter then moved on to talk about Indiana Jones vs Lara Croft. He confirmed Dan Bull has been asked to add some British flair to the Croft writing. Sadly it also eliminated a few rhymes that were deemed "zero British". We are currently writing and re-writing lines for that battle. It's been a slow process. 

The genuine depth of conflict between the two characters has been tricky to dig down on. But the beef is there, flows, the beat is crushing, jokes are plentiful. But, it still needs a lot of work in order to make the writing as good as it can be. 

Peter stated he had bought a total gym to put a little muscle on for role of Indiana. He had also found a perfect hat that suits his own head size. And was currently on the look out for the right size and look of leather jacket. He had also been trying to get the right voice for the vocals. The track is "banging and fast" whilst Indiana will rap smoothly over it.

We have not yet cast the role of Lara Croft but we have had a few people in mind for the role. But we want to have a finished full demo before we approach anyone. Peter said he was initially very sceptical that the lyrical heft we've been aiming for with the lyrics was possible with the characters of Croft and Jones but he's since changed his mind. :)

After checking  on the current state of the votes on the poll, Peter ended the session. Tomorrow afternoon we will check the votes again and then reopen the writing room on the Discord server for which ever battle wins the poll. 

Thank you for everyone who attended the chat session live. And hope this recap has been useful for those of you who weren't there. Please don't forget to vote in the poll and if your favorite match-up doesn't win, don't get too disheartened - we may well do all of these match-ups one day down the line! 

Talk soon - HM