Blink and you’ll miss some of the best secrets in Kingdom Hearts 3, like a watermark that someone accidentally left in while rendering the cut-scenes.
See where it says “Arnold” up there by Elsa’s arm (via Reddit)? That’s a big ol’ watermark that you’ll get in the animation software Maya if you don’t have an Arnold rendering licence while trying to batch render a scene.
You have to try really hard to see it, as it only pops up for a single frame, but go to 9:55 here to see for yourself:
Video games are typically rendered in real-time, generating graphical effects as you move throughout the world, but cut-scenes like this one (from the Frozen world) are usually pre-rendered. Whichever computer(s) handled that process clearly didn’t have the Arnold licence installed. Whoops.
Or maybe this is a subtle reference to Mr. Freeze. Or maybe Kingdom Hearts 3 took so long to make, their licenses expired along the way.
Comments
3 responses to “Someone Left A Watermark In Kingdom Hearts 3”
In b4 lawsuit between Squeenix and Autodesk over use of pirated software.
Seems weird it would only appear on one frame. If the cause is not having a licence, why wouldn’t it appear on all frames? Unless one unlicenced PC was part of a rendering farm and this was the only frame it did. ‘Tis a puzzlement.
I’m guessing one of the render nodes lost contact with the licence server, then again if that was the case, it shouldn’t have rendered at all.