Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/110536
Gaming Dante must overcome obstacles���temptation and sin���to achieve the ultimate goal: eternal bliss in heaven, guided there by the ���ideal woman��� Beatrice. The interactive title, from Visceral and published by EA, places a contemporary spin on the poem. In the new medium, Dante, a mercenary soldier during the Third Crusade, pursues dark forces that have dragged his beloved Beatrice to the fiery depths. During this journey through the afterlife, the player, as Dante, must battle hideous monsters within the Nine Circles of Hell in an attempt to save Beatrice. The game���which plays out within the first cantiche, or part, of the three-part poem���ends as Dante leaves Inferno, or Hell, and makes his way to Purgatory. Hellish Vision While ���The Divine Comedy��� offers a haunting description of Hell���s nine circles, Dante���s Inferno goes one step further, giving it a visual interpretation under the art direction of Ash Huang. ���The game brings to life the vivid and detailed worlds imagined by Dante Alighieri,��� says Knight. ���Each of the Nine Circles is its own world, with unique art direction, environments, effects, creatures, and back stories.��� Huang worked with lead concept artist Jeff Adams, and together they forged Visceral���s contemporary vision of Hell. Huang and Adams worked on the game���s concept art throughout production, from the initial stages all the way through content lock. ���Given the original nature of so many of the creatures and environments, concept art was an integral part of every step in the production,��� says Knight. In fact, concept art was made for every facet of the game: characters, environments, props, weapons, the UI, and cinematics. Further direction was provided through 2D and 3D storyboards. n n n n times consisting of visual effects elements. As a result, the character modelers often worked closely with VFX leads Jeff Kuipers and Sandy Lin, as well as VFX artist Seth Hall, on combining the model and effects assets to complete a character���s look. Holden points to the smoke Lucifer and fire minions as prime examples of this workflow. Some of the so-called ���bosses��� in the game, such as Cerberus, Phlegyas, King Minos, and Cleopatra, required more attention than others. ���In several instances, we had to rework the UV layouts to give more resolution to specific parts of the character that got unexpectedly close to the camera,��� says Holden. ���Changes in gameplay cameras gave us fits from time to time.��� Without hesitation, Holden names Gluttony���s Cerberus, with its three unique heads, long necks, and large-body appendages, as the most difficult character to create: Each head and several of the satellite heads had functioning mouths, complete with wagging tongues and gnashing teeth. Characters whose surface style varied greatly were particularly hard to texture���some characters had flesh, cloth, metal, and fluid in the same surface area. Using a combination of Adobe���s Photoshop and ZBrush, the crew created the various texture maps: diffuse, color, normal, specular, reflection, ambient occlusion, and chrome. Due to Hell���s Inhabitants The characters of Dante���s Inferno range from the realistic knight Dante and the beautiful Beatrice, to the hideous Lucifer, and all manThe detail in the game���s imagery is apparent here, in Hell���s City of Dis, as Dante makes his way to ner of monster and creature in between. The the Circle of Anger, to face the molten giant Phlegyas. character model concepts were driven by the sins by which the characters were condemned in Hell: Limbo, Lust, time and resource constraints, the artists used photographic reference Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery, the or painted textures for the diffuse maps, and then derived normal Nine Circles of Hell. The theme from each sin is incorporated into and specular maps with Photoshop or Ryan Clark���s CrazyBump for the character design���Gluttony���s multi-headed, mouth-snapping non-specific surfaces. Cerberus is but one example. ���For some of the more organic surfaces, such as many of the intesThe concept designs for these characters were created in high detail tinal-shaped floors and walls in Gluttony, we used ZBrush to create all using Pixologic���s ZBrush, and then optimized in Autodesk���s Maya to the maps,��� says Holden. ���These worked well and, as intended, were adhere to in-game polygon budgets���a process Erik Holden, techni- quite grotesque.��� For some objects and more specific environmental cal art director, says proved particularly challenging throughout the elements, like the tormented human figure statues, the group did a full game���s production. ZBrush sculpt, exporting low-res geometry and a full set of textures. Once the concepts were approved, the team���guided by lead charJust as there was a range of character models used in the game, acter artist Vince Fung and senior character artist Lisette Titre���be- there was a similar range of animations required for them. The anigan building models, starting with a low-resolution in-game version mation and rigging primarily was done in Maya, where it was hand first, before tackling the high-res sculpt in ZBrush. Then the artists keyed. Aside from the usual biped variety, there were characters that moved to coloring and incorporated fine detail in the models, un- required special rigs to account for tentacles, wings, and other aptil they reached the desired visual quality. At that point, the ZBrush pendages (some quite unusual and others quite imaginative). ���Let���s assets were optimized and re-exported back into Maya, before they just say we weren���t limited as to how far we could push our characwere integrated into the Visceral Games proprietary engine. ters,��� says Tristan Sacramento, lead character animator. The characters���from the gigantic Cerberus to the knee-high As Sacramento points out, the in-game animations were the result unbaptized babies���are visually complex, with their costumes some- of a collaborative effort among the animators, designers, and proMay 2010 25