Mike Bantick
Saturday, 18 April 2009 11:36
Opinion and Analysis
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A new X-Men movie means a new opportunity for game developers. iTWire spoke to Doug Smith at Raven Software to talk all things Art Direction on the cross platform X-Men Origins: Wolverine project.
About to hit the gaming shelves is
X-Men Origins:Wolverine ;
talking to iTWire, Art Director Doug Smith from Raven Software talks
about the collaboration and challenges of bringing a comic book and
movie to gaming screens.
iTWire: Working with an existing franchise, as an Art Director on such a project, did you find this restrictive?
Doug Smith: No, that’s the great thing, our team found it extremely freeing. I think the Marvel guys in particular are very flexible with their license. They said; “you guys know what you are doing, you have made games for us in the past, so really have fun”
I think the big challenge was tying it into the movie, making sure we were faithful with the direction, ensuring the story elements that the movie was trying to go towards were represented.
But in terms of the visuals, our team went nuts! We had a lot of fun with, how can we make this character more vicious? How can we make this action scene bigger, where the player feels really gratified after taking down a 20 foot monster?
The Marvel universe is a framed canvas for doing really fun action game stuff, so our team had a great time with it.
iTWire: Though you are working within the movie element with this project, do you draw inspiration from the graphic novels?
DS: I think we tried to have a nice blend between the comics and the movies. The movies themselves have taken a few liberties, having a different slant on some of the characters. We tried to give something to everybody, so if you’re a big comic book fan, then we give some nods to that.
You will see little art elements, we have looked at some of the Wolverine comics that everybody that everybody loves. There might be a really good take on a weapon that we try to put in our game for instance.
So if any body knows the comics, the Barry Windsor Smith style in particular, they are going to see that, and say: “Holy Cow I know that, that is the helmet from the comic”
And the movies are the same, we tried to capture everybody’s likeness, have the same environments, and have a really good blend between the two, so everybody has something to love.
Video games have become more than just a bunch of guys hanging out in a garage, this is a multi-million dollar project, and we want to make sure we’re buttoned up on all sides.
Yeah, it is really fun to dig in with the art, but at the same time we want to make sure all aspects of this game are polished and looking great.
CONTINUED on Page 2
