StarCraft 2 Log: artwork

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Saturday, March 15, 2008

Star Craft II Zerk first look

[source: ign.com]

Dustin Browder, lead designer on Star Craf II, took the stage at Blizzard's studio in Irvine, California to present the Zerg race to North American and European game media, giving us a brief overview of what's new and what's changed. While no storyline details were really revealed, the start of the trailer we were shown featured a voice over by Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, exclaiming, "We are the swarm" and "We are becoming much, much more." We'll have to wait to find out exactly what that means in terms of narrative.

So far, the following units are confirmed for StarCraft II's Zerg race. Blizzard pointed out that since StarCraft II is still pre-alpha, most things are subject to change.

Hydralisk
Lurker
Zergling
Baneling
Overseer
Overlord
Queen
Drone
Larva
Roach
Nydus Worm
Infestor
Mutalisk
Corruptor
Ultralisk

If that list means nothing to you, we'll try and fill you in. One of the more notable changes about the Zerg is the elimination of their traditional base defenses. No longer will drones construct air and ground type defense structures. Instead, the whole system will be overseen by the retooled Queen unit.
A single Queen can be built from your hatchery as soon as a drone sets up a spawning pool, a tier one structure that allows for Zerglings to spawn. The Queen is a menacing unit to begin with, but will become more so when you increase her physical size by upgrading your hatchery to tiers two and three. Along with the imposing physical growth, the Queen gains new skills with each tier upgrade. Initially she functions as a basic base defense unit, able to attack air and ground units. She can drop creep tumors into the ground to extend the Zerg's filthy ground slime, lay clutches of eggs in creep that hatch and attack when the base is in danger, and drop down structures called Shriekers that work to detect enemy units and extend the range of the defenders that spawn from the eggs.After upgrading your base she gets even more powerful, gaining the ability to create toxic creep, which does damage over time to defenders, and she can instantly heal structures for several hundred hit points and spawn base-defense insects. She'll also get an instant-travel ability that allows her to burrow instantly to any part of the map covered in creep, letting her quickly travel to the aid of any base expansion. There is about a 15 second cooldown on this ability, however, so it can't be spammed.Overlords, a floating Zerg unit that determines unit cap, no longer have transport or detection abilities. Transport is now given the responsibility of Nydus Worms, and Overlords need to be upgraded to Overseers to detect. After the upgrade, Overseers gain an increased detection range the longer they remain still. As for Overlord abilities, they can generate creep as well as slime and thereby disable a resource node or observation tower.As far as new units go, we've so far got some hands-on time with the Roaches, which are ground units with a remarkably quick regeneration rate and are capable of attacking land and air. With a group of only six we were able to take down several Terran Thors (massive walking tanks) without a single unit loss. It seems Roaches can be defeated only through concentrated fire, and even then attackers still have to contend with their burrowing ability.Then there's the Corruptor, an air-to-air unit that can turn any unit it attacks into a friendly. With a group of these together it's possible to quickly corrupt units like Terran Battlecruisers and Protoss Motherships. On the ground, units called Infestors can move while burrowed, allowing them to sneak into enemy bases, pop up, and blast corrupting bile at enemy structures. Once a structure such as a Terran barracks is corrupted, it'll start churning out infested Marines until the ability times out.As seen before, players can also mutate Zerglings into Banelings, which are basically suicide units that perform kamikaze runs into opposing bases or burrow, essentially functioning as land mines. The Ultralisk, a massive Zerg melee unit, has been tweaked in the sequel, now possessing the ability to burrow. Its monstrous mandible blade attacks now do area damage as well, making it even more deadly. And that's it for now. We'll have more on how the Zerg, Protoss, and Terran factions have changed in this latest StarCraft II build as we continue to play at Blizzard's studio.

Read full article: Star Craft II Zerk first look

Thursday, May 31, 2007

StarCraft 2's Art Design

How units and environments are being created in the sequel.

[source: ign.com]

The second day of Blizzard's Worldwide Invitational 2007 in Seoul, South Korea shed light on some of the artistic efforts that went into creating StarCraft 2's units and environments. On hand during a panel discussion were Sam Didier, Senior Art Director for the game, Rob McNaughton, Lead Technical Artist, Trevor Jacobs, Senior 3D Artist, Allen Dilling, Senior 3D Artist, and Dave Berggren, another Senior 3D Artist. Didier started off the discussion, which was first a powerpoint-style demonstration from all five panel members followed by a question and answer session from fans in attendance. All these guys with the exception of Allen Dilling (considered a "youngster" at Blizzard, having only worked there for eight years) contributed to the art design for the original StarCraft. Dilling contributed to the visuals for WarCraft 3 and its expansion, The Frozen Throne.

Emphasized was Blizzard's commitment to creating exaggerated, stylistic characters, something indicative of the company's visual form. When characters are so small onscreen, they need "bold and saturated colors," along with "strong silhouettes" according to Didier.

Rob McNaughton then took the stage to speak briefly about creating units. Blizzard is using Photoshop for texturing, 3D Studio Max, and StarTools to integrate custom art into the game. StarTools is planned to be made available to the public along with ScummEdit for map creation. McNaughton went on to say the map editor will feature new scripting and trigger mechanics, and be a more powerful version than that found in WarCraft 3. In terms of fancy technical effects, StarCraft 2 is built on a DX9 engine and uses per pixel lighting, normal mapping, high dynamic range bloom, rendering and tone mapping, as well as integrated havoc physics. Using their engine, Blizzard is hoping to have up to 300 units on screen at once.

Also detailed was the process of creating the actual models in the game. McNaughton showed a Protoss Zealot as an example. The base wireframe model was comprised of 1500 polygons, given the normal mapping treatment, textured through Photoshop, and through the process emerged as a pleasantly detailed, furious Zealot face with moving eyebrows, glowing blue eyes, and a metal goatee. Trevor Jacobs spoke next to briefly relay how models had to be adjusted from the concept art phase to final. He singled out the Protoss Immortal as an example, describing how the shoulder pads had to be enlarged and facial angle tilted to adjust for StarCraft 2's top-down view.

With so many Zerglings, Marines, or Zealots crowding the battlefield, Blizzard is focusing on "personality, life, and emotion with animation," says Allen Dilling, "we're not really worried about being realistic." Each unit will have three variations of animation to make the screen more interesting when multiple units of the same type occupy the screen. Protoss Phase Prisms, for instance, have differentiated effects for transformation between mobile mode and phase field mode. Dilling also described how the Protoss Mothership's Planet Cracker attack, which drills three rings of rotating concentric lasers into the ground, was originally designed as a large single laser blast. It was changed to the present state because the single beam obscured too much of the action behind it. "[We] try to be fast and quick with effects and make sure they don't interfere with gameplay," says Dilling. He repeated the phrase "tight and concise" when referring to animations, and said the art team was focusing on eliminating clipping between units. Exceptions are made for special cinematic effects, such as the elaborate warp-in animation for the Mothership.

Next Dave Berggren took the stage to comment on StarCraft 2's environmental design. Three environments were shown, including a Protoss forested temple world called Bel'Shir, the Terran space platform shown in the demo videos, and the fierce Zerg world of Char. Demonstrated were a number of "doodads," apparently Blizzard's term for environmental objects. For Belshir this includes stone arches and rocky structures. Heavy industrial structures, energy pipes, generators and exhaust vents were used for the space platform, and bone finger structures extending from the earth, fleshy fins, and lava canyons on Char. Berggren continued with his process of creating ground tiles, focusing on the brick floor featured on Bel'Shir. He starts out with a line drawing of brick tiles, adds light and dark areas for texture, overlays an actual picture of dirt, adjusts a few details by hand, the drops in a normal map and imports it into the game. The result, for better or worse, looked like a dirty stone floor.

After the prepared comments, the floor was opened to fans. The art panel had to field some rather strange questions, including one asking whether there'll be a StarCraft-based movie. Of course there's been no announcement yet, but Didier enthusiastically responded, "we never put anything off the table." Another crowd member asked if we'd ever see a StarCraft-based RPG or MMO, to which Didier said, "that sounds awesome, I would love to play it, but at the moment we have nothing announced."

Read full article: StarCraft 2's Art Design

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Artwork Trailer, 1:35

Interesting conclusions based on a screenshot from the SC2 artwork trailer

Obviously it has Zerg features. Looks like a small Lurker...
Look closely... is that... a humanoid had?
And we know Duran raised the Hybrids in Statis Cells...

WTF?
Looks like a Goblin in Protoss Armor. Hybrid?

Looks like Zerg eggs maintained by Protoss tech (notice the Golden texture)

Read full article: Artwork Trailer, 1:35