Noble Savage

Right. The current application is a bit of a 'fake,' it's just a draw distance application (not particle FX). That said, full zone particle FX would be prohibitively expensive, so we'll generate the appropriate atmosphere in other ways.

Edit: I looked into this further, and that's pretty much accurate. Sorry for any confusion.

Of course. That's definitely been my point as well. JUST bright colors= Power Rangers, which to most people over 15= kids stuff. Whether that's fair or not has been a point of discussion, but it's the reality for most of the film-going audience.

If it's in the system already (i.e. shoulder pads, face details, arms, etc.), then we can do more. And while breaking emotes is a concern, it's certainly not a deal breaker. We can typically work around that.

Asymmetry is high on my mind, and it's always something I like to include in the earliest sketches for any concept. It makes more sense for some themes than others, but you can definitely expect more asymm. stuff.

At this very panel, we toyed with the idea of a mutated arm. That'd certainly be cool! And our hope with Fire and Ice is to have Lava/Ice arms (as seen in the concept). Just imagine the possibilities when combined with auras. Can't wait.

FYI, asymmetry is still very much on the table. Fire and Ice will have it, and there's more to come. There are limitations about where it can go, but that certainly doesn't rule it out.

That's really well said. I'm sure Schumacher's intentions were great, and I'm sure 'comic book on film' sounded good to investors at the time. But he guessed wrong about what the audience wanted. With a good 20 years of history to look back on, the comic films that work appear to be the ones where silliness and bright colors are dialed way back--but not to the point where they're gone of course. I guess you can suspend your disbelief about people with super-powers, but only to a point.

After Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America, Marvel seems to know exactly where that point is. DC has been more hit-and-miss. Batman's working great of course, but Green Lantern went a little too silly and too continuity-heavy to really pull people in.

Agreed about Batman Begins. You've got a firm acknowledgement of the source material minus the silly and over-saturated stuff. What's left is very palatable to the mainstream film audience. And Chris Nolan is a genius--he takes that core concept, adds a ton of his own sensibility, and the result is amazing.

A good point, and another good example. Blade surprised everyone with it's huge box office take, and I'd cite it as another case where the comic source material was muted a bit in order to make a very successful action/horror film.

The fascinating thing for me is that Marvel's tried to relaunch the Blade comic several times since then, and it hasn't worked out. I wonder why? Is there some fundamental reason why a vampire story can't work in print? I'd say no, so it must be something else.

Not sure that anything was actually 'tried' on this front--not in terms of actual replacement at any rate. To catch everyone up: some time ago I posted an op-ed thread in which I made a case for why it'd be a good idea for the game to upgrade and replace old parts. Just my personal opinion, mind you. Several players made a convincing case for keeping the old parts in the mix, and that's the long and short of it.

Policy remains the same: we're not going to remove anything.

The only consideration for the future is what new stuff to put alongside the old stuff. And again, I think the goal is to hit similar notes but with modern texture techniques.

It's often said that a hero is defined by his villains; the darker, scarier, and more powerful the foe, the greater the sense of accomplishment and heroism when the hero wins. Praetoria has some pretty dark and deadly enemies, and I certainly enjoy taking them down.

So I wouldn've thought there'd be a limit too, but we're nowhere near it yet, as it turns out. For example, we're only beginning to scratch the surface of what's possible in several keys areas: normal mapping, cube mapping, scrolling textures, glows, fx geo, and fx geo with animation. All of those offer a TON of possibilities for future releases.

Yeah, that's not going to happen. Veteran players have made it clear that they want to keep the old stuff no matter what. Therefore, we'll introduce new things in parallel that offer similar design possibilities but with much better texture treatments. Personally, I'd rather upgrade and update on a 1-to-1 basis in the interest of keeping the game modern, but I want to make the players happy.

That's why there's a so much interest in the 'base coat' kind of costume part right now. We've got plenty of detailed stuff to layer on top, so now we need more 'connective tissue' to mesh it all to together.

Hollywood's all about the sure bet, and now that a working formula's been established, we're even less likely to see a 1-to-1 port of traditional comic book costumes on film.

I'd say it's pretty well documented at this point: the characters will be wearing costumes that acknowledge the colors of the source material, but in a much less saturated, toned-down way. That's what's worked for them in all the solo films, and that's what all the set photos seem to suggest so far.

In my estimation, both companies are muting and toning down the characters' costumes whenever possible. Where do you see a difference in approach between Marvel Studios and Warner Brothers?

For me, Marvel's doing it perfectly, by including each character's original colors, but with a much more subtle application: large swaths of color are reduced; hues are desaturated; detailed, layered textures get us away from the skin-tight look. We can tell at a glance that it's Captain America, but he sure doesn't look like a traditional comic book character.

Remember how Joel Schumacher basically destroyed the Batman movie franchise? His stated attempt was to make the films more like a comic book, which for him meant bright colors, a certain level of silliness, and very little in the way of nuance or atmosphere. That was a test, and it failed; Hollywood learned that a financially successful superhero movie must embrace visual realism (grit optional) and, like most action movies, maintain a certain gravitas. That's the fine line, and anything past it appears to turn off the mainstream film audience. Again, I love the comic book aesthetic, but I don't think it would be profitable in a mainstream movie context.

I don't have any problem with that personally. Please understand though: concept art is merely a recipe for the 3D artists to follow, and I don't actually have any direct control over how the final assets are made.

Bottom line, there's no correlation between our interest in semi-realistic visuals and tints on costumes. Those are decisions made by two different groups of artists. That said, I'll try to communicate the issue to the team.

A slider like that ould be pretty hard to do. The reveal I alluded to is cool and different from what you'd expect, but it's not a system-wide overhaul. I think you guys will dig it.

I didn't even find out about it until after it the 3D was already done, which is amazing, b/c it's not a simple, done-in-one-day kind of thing.

And thank you for allowing me to do this! I love working on this stuff, and none of us could do this without the incredible playerbase that we're blessed to have on this game. *warm fuzzies*

I don't consider it a derailing at all. All of this feels like concept shop talk to me, and I'm happy to hear your point of view. I'm blown away that people would give you grief for liking things as innocuous as comics (and computers!)--sorry to hear that.

Actually, that concept came from a different artist. I art directed th3 3D versions of those, but that's the extent of my involvement on Resistance. Right now, we actually have 2 full-time concept artists taking turns on costume sets.

Let me clarify: I'm a giant fan of the old X-men costumes, and Jim Lee's run on the title is the reason I became an artist in the first place. If you want to see how much I love the colorful, comic book-y X-men outfits, please go here: http://david-nakayama.deviantart.com/gallery/12373396

My point is that those costumes would've been a failure on film. The general public would've taken one look, equated the super-suturated spandex outfits with the Power Rangers and summarily dismissed the X-men as kids' stuff. For you and I--it's not a problem; we like those costumes and it works for us. And it's not that specific colors are the problem; rather, it's the top-to-bottom application of 100% saturated color across the whole body. That's when it gets a bit out of hand and crosses into Saturday morning cartoon-land.

It's a wonderful series, and I whole-heartedly agree with you! But Kirkman and Ottley are doing something interesting here: on the face of it, Invincible is a bright, colorful comic that might be mistaken for kids stuff. It sets up certain story-telling expectations...that are then turned completely on their heads, resulting in huge surprises and reader pay-off. It's kind of like Happy Tree Friends in that way.

I've often wondered how they'd turn that series into a movie. Say they did it as a cartoon--then little kids go see it and run out screaming as Allen the Alien is ripped in half. But live action would have problems of its own; if the visuals aren't sufficiently bright and cartoony, then you lose the expectation/reversal thing. Probably why they haven't adapted it yet.

That would be wonderful! It's just an issue of animation and FX time, I'm sure. We have to be careful how we budget those.

I like that idea, but I didn't set up the button layout--perhaps the Designers wanted to emphasize the optional nature of the comic book? Would have to ask them.

What kind of film work do you do? I think the Marvel movie costumes have struck a good balance: they acknowledge each character's traditional colors while adding in a lot of neutral 'real-world' colors and textures. They keep just enough of the source material to make hardcore fans happy while making things accessible to the wider film audience.

I'm not sure if that interplay's ever been spelled out, but I like your interpretation! The idea of a simpler, purer Paragon under threat from a morale darkness sets up a lot of nice tension.

Sure. You take a texture layer (paper grain, mesh, etc.) and put it above your paint layer. Then you set the texture to Overlay (or sometimes Multiply) to blend them together. Adjust Levels and Opacity until it looks right, and use the Layer Mask to paint out areas that aren't really gelling. Hope that helps!

Well, as you know, we have the somewhat unique situation of having 7 year-old assets in the game alongside more modern stuff. The Art team is committed to keeping the game fresh, modern, and up-to-date, so as new tricks and techniques (like alpha glows, solid geo FX, and normal maps) become available, of course we want players to have those options and to evolve the game forward. (Just wait 'til you see the cloth folds on a certain upcoming set--it's simply jaw-dropping what the Character team was able to do). And don't worry, we won't be taking away any legacy stuff.

Yes. We want the game to stay visually up-to-date. You'll continue to see more realistic texture treatments on costume sets going forward.

Definitely! We have a few modern 'base coat' textures in the pipeline for exactly this reason.

Never say never. If we've made a concept for something, there was at least some interest in doing it at some point.

There's some stuff coming soon. Player Summit will have the details.

I've got one coming that might be just right for a wallpaper. Stay tuned.

Making art for games turns out to be a lot like making art for comics. In both cases, artists begin with written descriptions (from a comic writer or game designer) that spell out the visual needs for a given story or mission. Design docs included detailed information about the characters and environments in each story arc, and sometimes, there's even a little top-down 2D map to get us started.

If we're making a new costume set, the theme is often chosen by a Leads group, then passed on to Concept to elaborate on. We'll be going over this process in detail at the Player Summit next week--hope to see some of you there!

Though we always try to dream up the coolest possible solutions to the visual problems posed to us by the Design docs, the impetus usually starts with them. As for the look of specific costume designs, we always pay careful attention to what's already in the game and then try to create things that offer an entirely different option to players. With each new set, our goal is to dramatically expand what's possible.

Hmm...well, I listen to lot of podcasts (about video games, film, and comics) while I work. Also a ton of Pandora. Before they removed the monthly limit, I used to routinely break it around the 20th of each month. At the moment, I'm getting some good results from "Santigold Radio."

The majority of my time on GR, I was working on architecture, whether it was researching real-world examples, painting moodpieces, or matching up the details on front-side-back buildsheets. And a pretty significant amount of time was spent figuring out what a Praetorian bench or fire hydrant should look like. So yes, definitely! I often felt like Emperor Cole's City Planner-in chief.