Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/147928
CharaCter Design•gaming Environmentally Unfriendly The island contains large hub areas and semi-open world spaces that are approximately a mile square in size – rendered at 30 fps in real time with the game engine. The artists used modular architecture and set dressing to create the detailed areas. They often feature vast vistas and can be traversed from one end to the other without any loading screens. To accomplish this, the studio developed a special method of streaming that allowed the artists to manage assets dynamically depending on where the player was at any one time. That, along with level-of-detail mesh and materials swapping, present a convincing illusion of a large, contiguous island. The environment is teeming with rich wildlife (crows, gulls, chickens, rabbits, deer, boar, and wolves) and plant life created and placed by hand. The wolves are the only combat animal in the game, and they stalk Lara and work in packs to flank and attack. If Lara gets to an area they cannot reach, they have to intelligently exit the area. The animals are fierce, but the humans are more so, thanks to revised enemy AI behavior. Effects – which Horton calls "the glue" that brings the game aesthetics together – help sell that this is a raw, hostile place where Lara will have to fight to survive. "The FX artists created everything from large weather systems to triggered effects, such as muzzle flashes and blood sprays," he says. "The most exciting are the elemental systems, like our dynamic rain and fire system. We used our deferred lights to create interesting effects, like cascading water or burning embers on wood, to allow the artists to quickly ground their effects in the world." Lara uses fire as a tool. Thus, the team needed to show objects transition from a neutral to an on-fire state, which included custom shaders and design scripting to ensure the items had heat logic and could light other neighboring, burnable items on fire in order to propagate, Horton explains. Mike Oliver, principal VFX artist, relied on his film background to create many of the effects using traditional techniques, such as video capture for blood and dirt. The group also used some technical software, such as Sitni Sati's FumeFX, to simulate fire and smoke into loopable animation flipbooks. Shaders made the grass move in the wind, and a more sophisticated technique, called benies, moved the plants when the player or an AI character intersected the location; this approach also moved larger trees during storms. Various techniques were used to create the water. The ocean contains a special shader that generates small waves, large waves, light transmission, and foam on the peaks. A cube map created the illusion of reflections, and all lights create highlights on the water. On smaller bodies of water, a shader makes ripples when Lara or a dynamic object interacts with it. Waterfalls are a mixture of polygonal sheets and particles made to create the feeling of falling water and mist. In fact, the game contains a rich ecosystem that is made to feel persistent. "We were always looking at how we could bring the world to life. Sometimes that is through weather effects, like wind, rain, snow, and sun, or time of day," says Gallagher. "We pushed the lighting and atmosphere so it doesn't feel like the character is just pasted on top 50 ■ CGW Ju l y / Au g u s t 2 0 1 3 Video: Go to "Extras" in the July/August 2013 issue box ■ LARA'S PHYSICAL proportions are now more realistic. Gone are her hot pants and pistols, replaced by more plausible items. of a CG world, but truly integrated into that world." According to Hughes, the artists pushed the physics system to bring the world to life, enabling players to solve physics-based puzzles by taking advantage of simulation and effects, such as buoyancy and pulleys, and having the world react the way a person would expect – and then challenging them to use that understanding to solve the puzzles in this physically rich world. The engine is one that Crystal Dynamics has been using for quite some time, though updated continually for each subsequent title. The tools and workflow were completely rebuilt for level and art design, and for handing the assets faster and more efficiently. The engine was also tuned from a lightmap baked model to a deferred renderer so the lighting in the game is real time. This allowed the artists to place hundreds of dynamic lights to illuminate the world, props, and characters. Not many franchises can successfully pull off a reboot, but Crystal Dynamics has done so with Lara Croft and Tomb Raider. And while it seems like a contradiction, the studio was able to look ahead while also looking behind, and in the process, turn Lara into a heroine for a new generation. ■ CGW Karen Moltenbrey is the chief editor of CGW.