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Shellshock: Nam'67 - Dev Diary#1 Feature
Chris Leyton
13/08/2004
Lead Artist, Mathijs de Jonge, gives us details on bringing characters to life...
In development at Guerrilla Games, ShellShock: Nam '67 depicts the reality of the Vietnam War for the first time in a video game. You take on the role of a rookie soldier on his first tour of duty as he experiences the fear and chaos of the most controversial war of modern times. From napalm bombardments and Viet Cong booby traps, to the permanent threat of invisible foes and deadly ambushes, ShellShock: Nam '67 delivers a realistic portrayal of the terror of combat.
TVG has teamed up with Eidos and Guerrilla Games to bring you weekly updates from the developers, focusing on the development of the title and the various aspects that go into creating Shellshock: Namâ67.
TVG will be featuring a new Developer Dairy each Friday, running up to the release of the game on Playstation2, Xbox and PC on September 3rd.
Designing Characters for Shellshock: Namâ67
Mathijs de Jonge, Lead Artist - Guerrilla
Paramount to everything, the first thing we needed to do was to set the style for the game. In doing this the aim was to re-create late 60âs Vietnam in our minds by researching heavily and brainstorming amongst ourselves, basically employing a technique we call âextreme sketchingâ. The product of all this is a series of conceptual sketches that actually define how Shellshock: Nam â67 would look on screen. A good example of this technique in action is in the process we used to come up with the main character of the game, the one you play.
In 1967 there were many different types of soldiers in Vietnam and as the game follows one year in the life of a US Army grunt, we knew we had to fit our character into that type of story. So, we started with three rough ideas: First we sketched out a very young looking, fresh faced FNG (we actually made him look a little like Casper van Dien from Starship Troopers). Then we decided to age the character, give him more of a rumpled and tired look â“ like heâs been humping through the jungle for some time, edgy but ready.. Our final sketch took this theme much further and we created a real veteran-type, with a âthousand yard stareâ that whenever you see it, you know this guy has been through hell and back. With these three concepts in mind and on paper, we could get down to the real business of making a decision. We weighed up the basic concept surrounding each character: Eventually we felt the new guy, although a good concept, did not entirely fit as he was a little too fresh looking â“ and in the âNam, he would not keep that for long. On the contrary, the veteran had simply seen too much action and therefore there was no real development here for us. We finally decided upon the tired, solid grunt type. He had a little freshness, a little veteran and felt comfortable as a player character.
In creating the characters and the game style, we also relied heavily on primary documentation. There is a rich seam of information and photography surrounding the war so we simply used this as the major reference material for our 3D artists. We set a couple of ground rules: Nothing after 1967 was allowed for continuityâs sake and after the initial concept had been agreed, no more sketches â“ only photos could be used. We did not want to water down the reality that was 1967 by re-interpreting real images and drawing them out again. We collected as much reference material as was possible and it is worth noting that good quality game assets not only come from talented artists, but also from providing them with the most solid and relevant references possible. Using these ground rules we were able to accurately define our characters and the actual visual style of the game.
On the more technical side of asset creation, one very important decision we made from the very start was to setup a âbody parts systemâ. Often, 3D objects are created as single mesh characters. Instead, our technical artist wrote a small script in Maya that enabled us to combine different body parts into one single character. This meant that we could create a number of variations on each characterâs individual body parts and chop and change these at will. We could also do the reverse. Some characters wear the same equipment â“ boots for example. With the body parts system, we only need to make one pair of boots and then share these across a few different character types (eg: US soldiers). Techniques like this either saved us a lot of time, which can be spent wisely polishing other parts of the game, or they allow us great variation on one theme. Both have their merits when employed in the right place.
Our aim from the start has been to recreate the look and feel of the Vietnam War and our approach has been to capture its grit in a realistic fashion. By using our tech wisely and investing so much time in concept and reference material, we feel we have achieved this admirably.. hope you like it.
TVG will have more on Shellshock: Namâ67 from Guerrilla Games next week.
