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Special Gaming Section Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception By Karen Moltenbrey W hen Naughty Dog created the first Uncharted game, Drake's Fortune, in 2007, the crew knew they had something special, and the industry knew it as well, citing the title's technical achievements and its high production values that many compared to those of a feature film. The successful follow-up in 2009, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, continued to reap accolades and awards with its stunning visuals and complex animations. In late 2011, Naughty Dog released Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, and continued water, and environmental effects. One of the more impressive feats the artists accomplished for the game is an ocean-simulation system "that wasn't done just for the sake of looking pretty," notes Josh Scherr, lead cinematic animator. "We actually used the ocean to drive the motion of the ships in the cruise-ship level and the dry-dock level that precedes it. We could have faked the motion of the cruise ship just by rotating up and down on an animation curve, but [the boat] actually cruises with the ocean and feels more real as a result of our simulation system." Meet the Characters Uncharted 3 is an action- adventure game played from a third-person perspective, with the player in control of the main character, Nathan Drake, a sort of roguish fortune hunter who is a supposed descendent of Sir Francis Drake. In this ti- tle, Drake is searching for Iram of the Pillars, the Atlantis of the Sands, and the adventure takes him from England to France, to Syria, to Yemen, where he contains complex imagery and effects. The mounds of sand contain baked sims created in Houdini. its trend of receiving acclaim and awards, with critics citing the title's stunning graphics and cinematic quality, among other game features. "We are not trying to re-create reality in our games, but rather a stylized heightened sense of reality," says Keith Guerrette, lead visual effects artist. With each release, the team always seems to have a wish list that carries over to the next project. For Uncharted 3, published by Sony Computer Entertainment, this meant integrating new anti-aliasing that enabled the artists to use their processing power for more exten- sive shadows. Also, they made a full-fledged water system for simulated ocean, and set up a dynamic illumination system that supported many lights that could be rendered efficiently. "A lot of the improvements are things we could have done in Uncharted 2 but couldn't do efficiently enough to get a lot of it into the game," explains Teagan Morrison, lead technical artist. "We could have put it in, but it wouldn't have run at frame rate. A lot of the improvements we made let us achieve that in Uncharted 3." Other technical innovations in the game center around smoke, fire, searches ancient crypts and is attacked by flesh-eating spiders. He escapes captivity by pirates and eventually washes up on shore after the cruise ship he boarded while searching for his captive friend Sully blows up. He also takes to the air, stowing away in a cargo plane while trying to rescue Sully (who was not on the ship but on the back of a truck headed into the desert). He gets sucked out of the plane but lands safely in the desert after grabbing a parachute—all the while coming under attack by the beautiful but sinister Katherine Marlowe and her henchmen. After wandering the desert, Salim the Bedouin leader rescues Drake, and together they rescue Sully. During a conversation, Salim tells Drake about an ancient deserted city called Ubar—the Atlantis of the Sands. Drake and Sully stumble across it during a sandstorm and learn the true mission of Sir Francis Drake so many years before: to locate a fountain filled with a powerful hallucinogenic resulting when King Solomon tossed a brass vessel into the depths of the city. And that is what the vil- lainous Marlowe is also seeking. At the climax, Marlowe is close to claim- ing her prize, but the heroes destroy the winch she is using to retrieve the vessel, setting off a chain reaction of explosions that destroy the city. In addition to Drake, Sully, Marlowe, and Salim, other main charac- ters include Drake's recently separated wife, Elena Fisher; an old friend, February/March 2012 23 Unc harted 3: Dr ake's Deception