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Games ■ ■ ■ ■ SPIDER-MAN: SHATTERED DIMENSIONS spaces, we really needed something that we could use to lay down a good-quality base lighting pass quickly, and then tweak and tune it in a very localized way where needed. T is added signifi cant mood and intensity to the game’s visuals.” Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions is the latest stand-alone game based on one of Marvel’s most popular characters. T e new game, which features Stan Lee as its narrator, features four unique worlds from Spider-Man’s lore— Amazing, Noir, 2099, and Ultimate—within one unique story line. Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions transports players to a variety of locations, from lush jungles and dusty deserts, to a futuristic New York City, and allows them to employ unique gameplay styles for each Spider-Man in those worlds, including stealth moves in Noir, gliding maneuvers in 2099, black-suited tendril attacks in Ultimate, and innovative web combat in Amazing. “T e game begins in a New York City museum, where we witness the menacing Mysterio stealing a powerful artifact known as the Tablet of Order and Chaos,” describes producer Stéphane Gravel at developer Bee- Fighting Crime Online Online game publisher Gazillion Entertainment is building a Marvel-ous world, aptly called Marvel Universe Online, which is a series of online game worlds featuring Marvel’s comic-book characters. The fi rst game in the collection is based on the hit animated TV series Super Hero Squad and features some of the most iconic Marvel characters as pint-sized youngsters. Called Super Hero Squad Online, the massively multiplayer online (MMO) game has been brought to life by developer The Amazing Society. Rich Rowan, executive producer of the new game, talks about the technology and creative process behind this family- friendly MMO title. How is today’s technology helping to turn 2D char- acters into 3D characters in this game? It’s an amazing time we live in. We research online, we collaborate online, and we’re developing an immersive, vi- sually-rich 3D experience that’s playable in a browser. I’m still incredulous myself [over this feat]. The Marvel catalog is especially character-rich, a challenge we wanted to meet head-on with carefully planned, emotive animations. Using Autodesk’s CAT animation rig and some fancy scripts from our tool engineers, we have one of the clean- est animation retargeting solutions I have ever worked with, enabling us to really bring these characters to life. Can you walk us through how you created a charac- ter, like Iron Man, for this game? Iron Man has a lot of fans, and no shortage of them work at our studio. It was important to us to capture the key at- tributes of the character and present them in a style that fi ts within the Super Hero Squad [intellectual property] as a whole. We did the initial character model with an eye to- ward the TV show and toys, textured and rigged the char- acter in line with our own unique style, and then spent a lot of time on the details of his animations—inside and outside of combat. The characters really come to life through mo- tion—whether that is awesome attacks with missiles and nox. “Fortunately, the Amazing Spider-Man was in the neighborhood and confronts the thief. However, during their fi ght, the Tablet of Order and Chaos shatters, and the pieces are scattered across four diff erent dimensions. In order to prevent his enemies from control- ling the diff erent realities, Spider-Man has to team up with other incarnations of himself to, hopefully, restore peace and order.” Bringing the 2D exploits of four diff erent Spider-Man incarnations to life in this game was aided by new technology, which made it easier to use techniques and shaders which can render imagery that is much closer to what is seen in comic books. Since the game has four The fi rst game in Marvel Universe Online, Super Hero Squad Online, is an MMO title that features the Marvel characters as youngsters. repulsor rays, or the way he zooms through Super Hero City. We’ve created an Iron Man that’s accessible to fans young and old. What technology are you using to bring this world to life? The most signifi cant piece of technology that we are using for this title is the Unity3D game engine. It is a wonderful en- gine that lets us deliver a great 3D experience on the PC and Mac within the Web browser. In addition, we are using many industry-standard tools, such as Autodesk’s 3ds Max, as well as custom tools for editing gameplay data, like exactly how far Hulk can jump. The Unity3D Editor is used to assemble the art and design into a seamless whole that represents the world of Super Hero Squad Online. What technologies will this game support as it per- tains to today’s PC graphics cards? Integrated into the Unity3D engine is the FMOD audio library, which we were able to make use of. Also, there is (Nvidia) PhysX physics simulation, custom shaders, and, of course, full-screen effects, like depth of fi eld. These technologies are used throughout our game to create a rich experience for our players. –John Gaudiosi October 2010 25