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n n n n Gaming make its integration coherent without feeling fake. Using the stock lighting of the Unreal en- gine, somewhat re-engineered by our coders, we decided to use an arrow-style representa- tion of the cone of light through the smoke, instead of a solid light cone. With the arrow- style lighting, the Signal achieves its functional purpose and is visually impactful without looking out of place." Each bad guy has his own lair, an environment designed by artists to reflect the villain's personality. inspiration for the atmosphere of Arkham City came from German expressionism (think 1920s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari). We took cues not so much from structures and per- spective, but more in the way we lit the world, with crude light and shadows, which is appro- priate for Gotham City," adds Hego. The multiplicity of villains greatly informed the set design, too. Over the course of the game, Batman squares off against a who's who of villains, including Mark Hamill's Joker, a Cockney Penguin, Two-Face, and Mr. Freeze. Each villain has staked out his or her own little enclave in Arkham City, where the architec- ture, graffiti, lighting, and art direction per- sonify the unique psychology of the character. It's a city diversified and variegated by villainy. Hence, as players make their way from one enclave to another—say, from the courthouse of former DA Harvey Dent (aka Two-Face) to the Penguin's Iceberg Lounge—they had to feel as if they were making a physical transition to another "emotional space" through the art. "A great example of this is the Solomon Wayne Courthouse, where Two-Face is holed up," says Hego. "Not only is the location spe- cifically relevant to him as the ex-district at- torney of Gotham, but he's also remodeled the building to reflect his own duality. The right side of the courthouse—both inside and out—is defaced, like his own mutilated right half, smashed up and burnt, symbolizing his lust for chaos and carnage, while the other side is perfectly rendered in accordance with his belief in order and justice. So, in this way, moving from one district to another is sign- posted by subtle changes in the features and landmarks of the street." By the same coin, the Joker has established his territory in the Sionis steel mill nestled in the industrial part of the North Gotham docks. Here, the Joker's gang has redesigned the area 44 December 2011/January 2012 into a massive, morbid funfair. "The mix of funfair elements with the industrial setting cre- ates an explosive environment, rich in color, just like the Joker's personality. It was a great experi- ence trying to imagine how each villain's faction would mark its territory," adds Hego. This ghettoized city stretches out before Bat- man in great vistas when he enters his Power Dive, arcing over streets and the skyline. "The city is such a rich, dense place, filled with these little iconic elements and details," Hego points out, "that we had to be clever with what we display on screen. To that end, we employed a complex LOD system to hide superficial de- tails at a distance, while keeping texture den- sity and geometry impressively high at street level or while grappling between buildings." Unreal to the Max Using Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 and Auto desk's 3ds Max, artists forged all Arkham City's texture maps, geometry, and lighting. The German Expressionist cinematography— crude, angular, brooding—came mainly from the way the moon lights the world. "It's not just about the lighting by itself, but about how the light interacts with the materials, the normal map, and the specular levels of the snow, the water, the buildings; and the way the water towers and chimneys cut through the moonlight with dynamic light shafts," says Hego. "That's the key to capturing the striking Gothic atmosphere." Another crucial light source in the game, of course, is the Bat-Signal, not just because of its connotation within the Batman universe, but for its narrative function, too, pointing the player to the next objective as it refracts and reflects off smoke and clouds. "The Signal can be placed arbitrarily anywhere on the map by the player (which means it could end up too distant and dim), so we had to find a way to Rogues Gallery The city's massive cast, composed not mere- ly of homogeneous non-player characters (NPCs), but of highly unique super-villains and their equally unique minions, put Rock- steady's character modelers to the test. After sculpting a rough base mesh in 3ds Max, modelers refined the geometry in Pixologic's ZBrush to produce a high-resolution version of each character. From this, they created the in-game model and extracted the normal map. "The poly counts of the in-game models aren't low, ranging around 15k per character, but the normal map is still vital, to keep all the details of the high-res version," says lead artist Pablos Hoyos. While most of the intricate details—wrin- kles, scars, caking face paint, and so forth— were baked into the normal maps, artists used ZBrush and Adobe's Photoshop to paint dif- fuse maps, specular, and specular power maps, as well as transmission maps, to simulate sub- surface scattering of light through skin, flesh, and veins. "We always try to add as much de- tail as we can, especially in the faces. We have skin imperfections, like moles and skin marks, different types of pores, stubble, skin lines, wrinkles, skin tones, and so on. All these details are present in each map of the shader system and, when layered together, produce an aston- ishing sense of realism," says Hoyos. Indeed, unlike the square-jawed, non- descript neckless grunts who inhabit most games, Arkham City's faces reflect the subtleties of strong, nuanced personalities. "Some of the faces presented quite unique challenges, such as Two-Face's burnt flesh, Solomon Grundy's "zombified" look, and Penguin's old skin, which he cakes in makeup because of his van- ity," says Hoyos. Separating the villains with a colorful in- dividuality was a challenge, contends Hoyos. Catwoman was all about playing with her pro- portions until we got the right mix of beauty and sex appeal. Penguin was all about making his face look pure evil, and the broken glass monocle was an unusual, character-defining touch. Mr. Freeze's armor is a complex assem- blage of many individuals, so modelers had