Wednesday 25-Feb-2004 5:07 PM Our coverage of Novalogic's ambitious action-FPS continues with a look at how the game is put together from a design perspective, with comments from those in the know So you read our stirring introduction into the brave new world of Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising yesterday? (see here if you missed it.) Waddya mean you want more? What? We promised what?... Ah. Right, well now we've looked at the game in macrocosm, let's zoom right in and cast an eagle eye over how Joint Ops is put together.
How does a team that's been making games in great piles of sand for years, dive into a thick, fertile jungle, swelling with almost thirty playable vehicles, 64 bloodthirsty competitors on two sides, in environments six times as large as EA's Battlefield 1942, give structure and purpose to every part, make it all look so darned pretty and, above all else, make if fun?
Nope, we didn't have a clue either; but then we're not paid to - level creative director David Durand and art director Chris Tamburrino are. So we posed that very question to them (in a slightly less convoluted formulation).
And with Durand's background in movies and theme park rides (he was responsible for the awesome Disney Tower of Terror ride), coupled with Tamburrino's history in game production, their joint answer gives a fascinating insight into the creation of a videogame which we present to you right here.
Durand: The stuff I'm doing with concept and design with Joint Ops is very similar to my work in theme parks and movies - I worked in movies for about 10 years. It's a combination of storyboards and production design.
If we are going to make it a cinematic experience we need a beginning, a middle and an end. We wanted to make sure, especially with the vehicles and different terrains, that we showed off different things in different parts. Some parts had to lend themselves to helicopters, some to wheeled vehicles and so on.
And the environments are far more diverse than in previous Novalogic titles, aren't they?
Durand: We have river villages made out of thatch and wood and corrugated tin; we also have rooms made out of stone. We've got four or five different building just for the Indonesians. It's such a new experience having so many vehicles on top of this and having to balance the story on both sides.
Our lighting engine - the time-of-day stuff [the ability to move through a full 24 hour period, dramatically changing the lighting] - is fantastic; we're talking about using in-game captures to do our cinematics. We'll take our guys and go: you're the actors, you're driving this vehicle, you're over here doing this - it's like being on a movie set and we'll say "action!" and capture it.
Have you been freed up by the lack of a specific licence this time?
Durand: Yeah, it's let us do things historically we were bound to. We're not limited by history as in Black Hawk Down; with time-of-day we don't need to worry if a battle was at dawn or not - we can say it would be more interesting to start it as a night mission, but you must reach your goal by sunset or you'll be screwed because you can be seen.
Vice-versa, you could be in stealth mode as the sun sets, but then when night falls, you can Rambo it in. This lets us come up with more interesting combinations of vehicles and settings.
David, how has your experience in movies and them park rides translated into videogames?
Durand: Both have been really good carry-overs. In movies I was doing a lot of production design on vehicles, monsters robots, spaceships, costumes, building design - the principles are the same. And working with theme parks is very similar since you're moving around in a 3D space and you have to focus and herd people.
You need to set something up to intrigue the viewer, making them want to go a certain way, which is tough in a game where you can go anywhere. How do you coax a player to go through door A, B or C? There are visual placements you can use to achieve this.
It's also about breathing space: how do you keep it claustrophobic then have it open up? You want that visual and spatial rhythm - after too long anything becomes monotonous. A good map is heavily foliated, but you need a valley every now and then where you've got a clear shot.
A game must be far harder than a theme park attraction in this respect, since a ride is just linear...
Durand: It is; in an attraction you're on a rail, but as you decide whether you want to go into that helicopter or head into that foliage, so you wander around a theme park deciding where to go - there are visual clues you give people and there's a big carry over.
I'll give the art guys springboards in the shape of concept art - I'm a visual cheerleader for these guys but I also save them time. They can hit the ground running and it gives them a direction.
For me a piece of paper takes a couple of hours, a vehicle a day. These guys take three, four, five, six days and then they might have to find they need to backtrack - which is why, pre-production-wise, I'm glad the industry is embracing what I do and you're seeing it more and more. It's such a time saver and gives the back end guys time to polish.
With games becoming more and more cinematic, it's almost a necessity then that people with backgrounds in the movies come in?
Durand: As level creative director, I'll look over the shoulders of the mission designers and critique it story-wise - I'm a story champion. I don't want James Bond moments, like if there's a bridge with 40 guys on you can destroy by blowing up a barrel - I want to encourage team play. Let's pull the Zodiac over, jump out of your boat, crawl on your belly, plant a bomb, crawl back and detonate the bomb. You can go in like Rambo but you'll lose.
What's the story? Well, it's Indonesia in the future, violence is spilling out into the streets and the UN has to intervene to restore order - that's a very literal story. What the story is really about is that we've got some bitchin' vehicles, some killer terrain and some killer gameplay!
It's similar to movies, but here the budget is framerate. I already have my stunts - how do I back-engineer those into the story?
Can you pinpoint what it is that excites you about this compared with your work in other industries?
Durand: Certainly the options; the virtual reality - you can go anywhere and do anything. You can take multiple points of view rather than be locked down on a track. CGI is really expensive in movies, as is animatronics on a theme park ride - here you're freed up. I get a combination of cinematic special effects but I can choreograph it like a theme park attraction.
Do you feel, with videogames then, you're a key part of the pioneering stage of an industry?
Durand: Yeah, the future of PC games is the George Orwell/Aldous Huxley movie thing brought into today's technology. Fully-immersive, malleable gameplay is the future, and I'm really excited about it.
It's been an education and I've had to become a gamer. I might have spent ages creating beautiful, ornate models previously, but if something isn't fun to defend or attack, all the detail doesn't mean a thing!
On the technical side of things, where are the big improvements?
Tamburrino: One of the things we've really pushed with this iteration of the Black Hawk Down engine is pixel shaders. The Indonesians' vehicles are a little more beaten up, the building less smooth, more aged, and our new pixel shaders can really bring all this to life.
How much have you enjoyed working with the vehicles?
Tamburrino: We're able to do some objects we've never done before, and fuse things together. Gone is the notion that "hey, this is just a land vehicle" as some now work on land and on water; and the ability to drive onto bigger vehicles is cool as well.
Can you explain how you as art director work with David as level creative director on Joint Ops?
Tamburrino: The basic process is this: we'll get a mission idea from the design department, then David and I will draw up an asset list. From there, David will do a number of concept sketches, present them to me and I'll look at them from a technical aspect. This goes back and forth for a while.
Pretty soon we'll have, say, a helicopter done from various aspects to scale; then it goes over to the art team which begins modelling and texturing; then David will draw up some key 'moments' for the mission for the designers to implement. That process is something we started with in Black Hawk Down but that we've really refined it for Joint Operations.
What, ultimately, do you feel sets Joint Operations apart from the competition; what gives it its unique look and feel?
Tamburrino: The greater range of visual effects we can use; we're building objects with that in mind. We have a great set of tools and everything is very scalable - under the hood we do a great job determining the performance your machine is capable of and adjusting to it.
I'm really proud of the artwork we've done in this game; having two really distinct sides but still being in a modern era is really cool.
And what's been the hardest aspect of creating the visual character of the game?
Tamburrino: Populating the environment with foliage. It's not easy to draw hundreds of trees and bushes.
It's got to be better than all those sand dunes, though...
Durand: Yeah! We've been working hard on the foliage; we've compared it to the competition and think ours holds up really well.
Tamburrino: Graphics have never traditionally been Novalogic's strongpoint when compared with multiplayer, say, but Black Hawk Down changed all that. Joint Ops is moving things on again and will certainly be our best looking game to date. If we continue pushing our engine at this rate, in two years time the stuff we'll be able to do is incredible.
Doom 3 might look impressive, but you can't do that with 64 players.
Don't forget to check back tomorrow, where you'll be able to view Joint Operations in all its carnage-crammed splendour in amazing, exclusive direct-feed footage.
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