Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/19812
n n n n Gaming “We wanted a dir ty, unhealthy-looking en - vironment, and, similar to the palette of the opening [Bangkok] section, we pursued a pro- liferation of warm grays, ocr es, and soft y el- low-greens.” Maps this big usually have much more of a monotone theme. To reduce the size of the library, the group reused some of the core sections dev eloped for earlier B angkok levels to pr oduce the bulk of the r est of the level, only adding new objects in selected areas to break the uniformity. In slight contrast, Bizarre wanted the rooftop level to be dark with splashes of warm colors and harsh neons, woolen with smoke, and teeming with rain and peopl e—evoking a thick, dense atmosphere. Te artists used Maya, ZBrush, and Actor Studio to create and orchestrate the com- plex animated scenes, including the people and ubiquitous neon signage. Choreographed Chaos Like the lighthouse that disintegrates under RPG fire, crashing do wn into the water in a cloud of smoke and r would be baked out and handed to one or mor e effects artists who would then layer in elements, such as the explosion, smoke, and debris.” To construct the sets, the team took a par - ubble, most of Blood Stone’s destruction is car efully choreographed, despite most of the scener y objects having built-in physics. A lot of the environmental destruction unfolds in set pieces, which, says ev ents team manager Mike McTigue, allowed Bizarre to de- sign, choreograph, and position these events to deliver the maximum H ollywood-style impact one would expect from a Bond movie. “We adopted a white-bo x process to cr eate these set pieces, meaning w e were able to test and perfect an effect using lower-detailed ver- sions of the models first,” McTigue explains. “Once perfected, we produced the final result. For example, the topology of the lighthouse was built to make it fall in a specific way, so once we were happy with the timing, the animation Effective FX Bizarre parlayed its experience and technology into Blood Stone’s high-speed chase sequences. Get behind the wheel of an iconic Aston Martin DB5, DB9, or DBS, or a Koenigsegg, and let the thrill ride begin. “It’s always challenging to accurately model something as well known and iconic as the DB5, or even the DBS and the Koenig- segg,” says senior artist Derek Chapman, “especially when you’re unable to secure detailed reference for some of the vehicles.” This situation for the new Bond game was further complicated due to the necessary legal approval from the car manufacturers, which want to make sure their vehicles were faithfully represented. In one instance, Aston Martin reps requested some edits to the front lights of the virtual DB5 featured in the game. When building the cars, the artists made three versions of each vehicle: one pristine, another with heavy damage, and one 22 November 2010 with light damage, along with multiple LODs for each version. One driving sequence, in particular, features Bond gunning his Aston Martin out of an exploding Siberian oil refinery—racing through a pyrotechnic light show with concussive blasts hurtling toward him like rolling thunder. “What’s unique about this effect animation,” says Middleman, “is the fact that more than half the level is a mammoth chain-reaction explosion, which combines ob- ject animations, particle effects, camera effects, and on-screen ef- fects to create some of the most exciting, intense, and challenging moments you would expect in the best Bond movies.” According to Middleman, the team worked from a white-box design, just as it did for the pre-credit action sequence in Ath- ens, where the artists would flesh out their ideas to see what impact the explosive events would have on the difficulty of Bond’s escape. They would then proceed to create an array tial virtual warehouse approach primarily for elements that w ere placed using B izarre’s in- house editor and within Maya itself . Ware- housing all the props to be accessible for each level proved impossible because most of them had to be set up with damage and physics effects specific to the surrounding gunplay and environmental explosions. Tus, the artists custom-built most of the pr ops for the envi - ronment in which they w ere located. “S ince we had a wide v ariety of locations, ther e was a limit to our ability to shar e assets across set construction,” says Anthony F elice, ev ents team art director. Using SpeedTree, the artists initially tailored the plant life—trees, grass, and shrubbery—to be specific to each environment, but as time went by, the cr ew realized it would be mor e beneficial to have them designed for a global context, which would also make them mor e useful for future projects. Character Creation Bizarre re-created each of actors ’ models using Maya and ZBrush, referencing scanned data for Daniel Craig and Joss Stone. Utilizing ZBrush’s ZAppLink 3 editing plug-in, the artists projected various reference photos of the actors onto the head model. Afterward, they knitted together the projections in Adobe’s Photoshop to form one seamless texture. “We also used various tools and techniques in Photoshop to eradicate any lighting information that was present in the photo refer- ence. We then w ent through a fur ther process of evening out the skin tone so that it was suit - able for use with our in-game skin shader ,” says Nolan Rowles, senior character modeler . “Te main challenge in creating these textur es was striking the correct balance between photograph- ic and retouched details to achieve the right level of realism while retaining a movie-star quality.” Modeled in Maya and textured with exten- sive normal mapping, the character meshes varied in complexity based on their impor - tance and proximity to the camera. A typical enemy minion might w eigh close to 4000 polygons, whereas one of the Bond v ariants would typically use three times as many. True to I an F leming’s vision, the game ’s characters are dressed to kill, in tailor ed suits, gowns, and dresses, and dazzle in the glamor - ous fashions on display at a ritzy par ty on the steps of the Acropolis. Working from costume designs by Lindsay P ugh for Bond, M, and Nicole H unter, modelers fashioned the cut of each garment in M aya, and then turned to ZBrush to r efine them with folds, creases, and seams. “We extracted normal maps fr om ZBrush, and developed the diffuse and specu- lar maps in Photoshop,” explains Rowles. To capture the textur e of the fabric, B izarre coded special shaders in-house that w ere then implemented through Maya. Tese fabric shad- ers employed micro-normal maps to bring out the grain of the material when in close pr ox- imity to the camera. “ We also had specific shaders for skin, hair, and eyes. All our shaders featured diffuse, normal, and specular maps. Some shaders also w ere enhanced with addi - tional maps specific to a particular surface; for instance, our skin shader spor ted [sub-surface scattering] maps as well,” says Rowles. Te modeling and mapping of Craig’s face turned out to be an ex cruciatingly exacting process, undergoing endless r ounds of iteration in order to meet B izarre’s standards, but mor e