Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/18322
n n n n Games Holy 3D, Batman! According to Mark Anderson, senior artist on DC Universe Online, today’s technology and software has made a huge difference in terms of artistic freedom, the ability to iterate, and the time it takes to create a game asset com- pared to when he first began in the medium. Anderson entered the game industry during its transition to 3D, and at that time, creat- ing characters for a game was much more of a technical endeavor than an artistic one. Today, ment side of things. To this end, Lee spent a lot of time with the art staff, reviewing assets and collaborating on ideas with game artists. He also did a tremendous amount of thumb- nail sketching during these visits. Anderson notes that having Lee work directly with the artist to create an asset really adds to the au- thenticity of the game. Bringing Batman from the flat comic-book page into a living, breathing Gotham City was a major undertaking. Te process started with detailed model sheets from Lee and the artists at DC Comics’ WildStorm Produc- tions, the facility founded by Lee. “Tese are orthographic turnarounds that make sure we capture the correct pro- portions, costume details, and facial expression of all the key characters,” explains Anderson. Te model sheets often Under the watchful eye of DC Comics’ co-publisher Jim Lee, pri- mary and secondary heroes and villains will fight crime and wreak havoc, respectively, in an online game world. Anderson uses dual- and quad-core Dell PCs running Autodesk Maya, Adobe Photoshop, and Pixologic ZBrush. Te character model- ers and concept artists also use Wacom Cintiq tablets to work. “With tools like ZBrush, the modeling pro- cess is much more like traditional sculpting, and it really allows an artist to make creative decisions rather than getting bogged down in the technical restrictions,” explains Anderson. “Te level of detail and speed is incredible, and it allowed us to concentrate on breathing life into the iconic characters in a way that lived up to Jim Lee’s concepts. We wanted to make sure that we used the stylized proportions and forms that Jim Lee is famous for in his comics, to give the game a distinct look, and being able to rapidly iterate meant we could make sure we got every crease and fold right.” Lee spent a lot of hands-on time working on the game. His own background as a gamer helped with his first entry into the develop- 24 October 2010 go through multiple it- erations to make sure every detail is correct, Anderson says. At that point, the sketches are handed over to one of the character art- ists for modeling. Tey construct a high-resolution model in ZBrush, and once that is approved, they create a game-resolution model and transfer the data from the high-res model through texture and material param- eters. From there, the model gets weighted to the group’s in-game skeleton, and the anima- tion rig is attached. For an iconic character like Batman, the animators create a whole suite of custom attack and personality animations for use alongside the standard list of player ani- mations. Finally, the power of a character like Batman isn’t complete without the effects that make every blow he lands feel like an event. Big Cities, Big Challenges Building the characters, in many ways, was the easy part, because there was plenty to work with. Turning Metropolis and Gotham City into “real” environments offered a unique challenge, especially since they never existed before, aside from in the movies. “We had to create maps for cities that we never had before,” says Lee. “We had a map for Gotham City, but Metropolis was never laid out concretely. We had to create all that stuff in the game, and create a lot of headquar- ters and bases that were never fully flushed out in the comic-book universe because everyone kind of created their own version of what they needed for the purpose of the story they were crafting at the time. But, in a game space, it can’t be that fungible, so we had to go in there and nail things down and say, ‘Tis is the height of this sewer underneath Gotham. Tis is the size of Te Legion of Doom.’ Even creating the map of Metropolis involved a lot of research and time, and I think we nailed it.” Now, all this information will be used going forward as the template for what these envi- ronments look like, not just in the game space, but also in comic books and other related mer- chandise, he adds. Without question, building a virtual Me- tropolis was a huge undertaking. It was the first world built for the MMO game, and it’s abso- lutely massive, says Anderson—on the scale of the real-world area of Long Island. It has six dis- tinct districts, each with its own style and feel. “Much like the characters, we started out with concept work from both Jim’s studio, WildStorm Productions, and our internal concept artists to define the specific look of each building and each district,” explains Anderson. All these designs were approved by DC Comics as well, after which they were handed off to the environment staff to model, texture, and create in-game col- lision. Te team used a modular approach that enabled the artists to mix and match parts from many of the buildings, giving them variety while allowing more time to concentrate on key landmark buildings, like the Daily Planet. “It’s a long process to build the hundreds of blocks of architecture, but it’s a pretty cool sight when you fly high above the city and take in the skyline from high above the streets,” Anderson says. SOE used Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 technology to bring these worlds to life. Ac- cording to Anderson, the Unreal Engine was a great way to get a proof of concept up and running quickly. Moreover, it has a lot of pol- ished, artist-friendly tools, like the Material Editor and Cascade particle engine. “Early on in the project, these tools made it easy to get a sketch of the game, which was used to sell the title to invested parties, as well as convey the general themes and directions to the team,” adds Anderson. “Since then, we have extended its functionality in many places for things like custom streaming our massive cities. Also, Unreal’s radiosity lighting engine, Lightmass, has made a huge difference in the quality of the lighting. With the scale of our