Collaborative Connections: Teamwork Unleashed

Strolling through the Unleashed workplace, you'll pass environment artists defining Kashyyyk or a TIE fighter construction facility as a level. The multiplayer designers lead teams defining what arenas and events await gamers playing across remote connections. They work with network engineers to make sure all those features are actually online and functional.

Systems designers are responsible for the underlying mechanics of gameplay like experience points, camera movement, player metrics, AI, damage output -- things that are used across levels. They work with content designers who are the more traditional level designers, who map out the levels and the kind of interactions to be found there.

The concept artists are kept busy throughout the process. As I briefly touched upon last time, their role is not strictly a pre-production one, as this next example illustrates. One level in the game currently is set, quite literally, in the belly of the beast. You actually explore the innards of a titanic creature, and that offers up a lot of interesting gameplay possibilities, especially when you factor in some of the squishy reality to be served up by DMM technology. In blocking out the level, a content designer works in rough shapes to simply map out the contours and confines of this creature's gullet. To see him test it out, it looks pretty primitive. The shapes are geometric, simply textured with a repeating pattern. It's like a crude animatic that nonetheless gives a clear idea of what the level is supposed to be.

A brainstorm results with an intriguing concept: what if a detour brings the character into the creature's bronchial passage? The player is buffeted by the beast's foul breath as it slowly inhales and exhales, pushing the character along as his feet skate along the slick surface. A series of pillars, meant to represent natural growths inside the beast, acts as fleeting shelter for the character, who must work his way from pillar to pillar in between the monster's breaths.

Now, this was not an idea that first sprung from the concept department; it came out of developing the level. So now the concept team sees the level block-out in progress, and understands the kind of forms, feels and textures required to make this icky environment a reality. It's up the producers to corral these requests, so they can track where each asset is at in development, and who might be waiting on art to proceed to the next step.

It's just one example of multidirectional collaboration that you'll find throughout the team. It bridges companies, too, with ILM technicians developing tools and rendering solutions, and people from Pixelux and Natural Motion sitting here with the LucasArts team, maximizing the power of the new technologies to be Unleashed.