CGSociety :: Game Production Focus
25 February 2010, by Peter Rizkalla
|
Take a character from a video game whose design is now so recognizable that he is iconic within the game industry.
Now, make a sequel to that game using a totally different main character, have him retain the same iconic design of the first protagonist but make him individual from the first. This is the complex and awkward challenge that Ubisoft Montreal had to face with the production of Assassin's Creed 2. Fortunately, this challenge also came with a slew of creative solutions.
Remembering that the first Assassin's Creed was set during the Crusades, it still managed to define itself as a fantastic work of design both artistically and as pertains to game design. With Assassin's Creed 2 being set in the Renaissance, the design possibilities are limitless.
Mohamed Gambouz, art director of Ubisoft Montreal tells us about how the design of Assassin's Creed 2 went from concept to creation.
|
All images courtesy of Ubisoft.
Taking the gameplay formula that worked in the first Assassin's Creed, the bulk of the work could now be focused on the design of the game. Establishing the perfect setting for this title was step one.
"As it was the case in the first Assassin's Creed with the crusades, the idea of Assassin's Creed 2 was to explore another pivotal period of human history this time it was the Renaissance, we couldn't
find a better era where arts were right at the center," Gambouz tells us. "Our main focus from the beginning was to make the game look and feel rich visually whether through architectural styles,
textures, ornaments, and diverse and historically accurate," he says.
|
 |
A team of only a half a dozen designers were put together to create the first concepts of Assassin's Creed 2 not only to create the content but to also create the feel of the art.
"We have six concept artists; for characters, environments, props, gameplay ingredients, storyboards, posters, mock-ups ...etc. In environment concept art, for instance, we started by doing a couple of
quick illustrations we call vignettes just to have an idea about the mood, the color palette, the dominant shapes and volumes, etc.
|
"Once we get one where we are satisfied, we take it and add more detail and polish to it. It then becomes the visual hook of the game, something that somehow summarizes the art direction. Based on
accurate references and photos we start doing illustrated strips of our generic buildings to define each of the architectural styles, the colors and materials and also its accessories and props. After
that we go deeper in details by doing some close-ups to illustrate style and color of textures and type of materials and enrich all of that with a lot of photo references."
|
All images courtesy of Ubisoft.
|
It goes without saying that the bulk of design had to be centered around the main character Ezio. He had to be similar to the first Assassin's Creed main character, Altair, but he still had to appear as a distinguishable character in his own right.
"We knew since the beginning of the production of Assassin's Creed 2 that Altair is a very iconic character and it's not a good idea to change the aspects that made Altair so memorable so we decided
then to keep all of his main features (white suit, hood, red belt, hidden-blade...etc) and add to them a different flavor so that the new appearance follows Ezio's characteristics and that his costume
respects the era's fashion. We also decided to move personalities from where Altair was a cold blooded soldier to where Ezio is a charmer nobleman while still keeping the central ?Assassin'
characteristics. Even Ezio's attire is different to Altair's sober and functional suite to a more refined and fashionable costume."
|
 |
 |
The character team was composed of about 11 people. There were six character modelers, the technical director, the skinner/rigger and the in-game character integrator. Nicolas Collings, Senior Character Modeler at Ubisoft, talks more about the crew.
"This project was a blast to work on as we had hundreds of characters to bring to life in a Renaissance style. It was also challenging, because one of the strong aspects of Assassin's Creed, as opposed to any other games, is the heavily crowded street."
|
All images courtesy of Ubisoft.
|
All images courtesy of Ubisoft.
|
"At some points there were more than a hundred characters on display at the one moment. This gives an illusion of real life scenery and inevitably immerges the player straight into the renaissance
life. The consequence resulted in a very tight budget such as low poly count and low texture resolution by character so we obviously had to optimize as much as possible every asset.
"Still to counter this aspect and to match the high quality graphic standard of the latest best games, we developed a few in-game techniques such as the possibility to overlay onto any desired area
small swappable patterns or colors on top of the diffuse map. To maximize the workflow even more, we used a mix of 'old school' and 'next-gen' techniques to generate sharp details, normals and
alphas."
Collings is proud to point out the character team was full of great talents such as Michel Thibault, Laurent Sauvage, Francois Levesque, Alexandre Troufanov, Ian Ladouceur, Yanick Cloutier, Vincent
Gaigneux and many others.
|
|
 |
|