God of War team borrowed Avatar camera, director tells Turin conference
The God of War team filmed actors with one of the cameras James Cameron used on Avatar.
Game director Bruno Velazquez described the experiment on Monday at the View Conference in Turin, during an 'Ask Me Anything about Games, VFX and Animation' session moderated by Wieke Schrakamp, as reported by Variety. Velazquez leads games at Sony Santa Monica Studio, the PlayStation studio behind God of War.
Developers got hold of one of the Avatar cameras and brought it onto their motion-capture set. Motion capture is the process where performers in marked suits act out scenes that are then turned into digital characters. Shooting live alongside them helped the team shape the look and movement of the games.
That film influence runs through the two most recent mainline God of War titles. Both play out as one uninterrupted single take, with no visible cuts. The virtual camera borrows handheld cinema technique to feel as if an operator is in the room.
Velazquez also outlined how the studio tests its work. God of War development uses scheduled play-tests, facial recordings, eye tracking and detailed surveys on story understanding and difficulty.
The traffic moves the other way too. Jan-Bart van Beek, studio director of Guerrilla Games, the studio behind the Horizon franchise, pointed to the LED volume now common in virtual production. The setup uses huge curved screens to project digital worlds behind actors, a tool built on real-time game technology.
Animation director Hal Hickel, of Industrial Light & Magic, spoke about The Mandalorian and Grogu. He explained how the team chooses when to keep Grogu as a physical puppet and when digital help is needed. Viewers love Grogu's 'muppety quality', he said, adding that sometimes the 'puppetiness is exactly the effect you want'.
The panel also included Paramount visual effects supervisor Tara DeMarco, Lola Visual Effects supervisor Trent Claus and Skydance Animation production designer Noelle Triaureau.
For fans, this means the divide is thinner than it looks. Films lend games cameras and shooting language. Games lend films real-time worlds. The audience just sees the result.
View Conference 2026 runs from 12 to 16 October in Turin, Italy, covering animation, visual effects, games, film and immersive media, according to programme listings View Conference.
