Hey, gang. It's been a long, busy summer for the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed team as we've made our push to polish the game, and now we're into a long, home stretch.
Since Star Wars Celebration IV back in May, the team has made great strides to hone not only the overall gameplay experience, but also to add the visual brilliance that everyone is expecting. Some of the major focuses during the past few months from a design perspective included making continued refinements to our combat and camera systems, as well as working on finding more creative ways to leverage NaturalMotion's euphoria technology and Pixelux's Digital Molecular Matter. In fact, the design and art tech teams have really done some outstanding work to push the boundaries on DMM in ways that we only could dream about eight months ago.
However, the area that has received the most attention during the summer has been our boss battles, which are now really starting to feel "unleashed," and which have been a combined effort from the design, sound, environment art, and animation teams. The team is taking Jedi vs. Jedi battles to a whole new level, and if you think unleashing the Force on your opponent is cool, keep in mind that you'll have to be prepared to have the Force unleashed on you. As we continue with the diaries, I'll go into more details as to how some of our boss battles were designed -- from beginning to end -- and the challenges the team faced during the process.
Speaking of our environment art and animation folks, they have been working around the clock -- literally -- to raise the visual bar to that next-gen quality we expect. But, just as important, the worlds and characters in the game feel as if they belong in the Star Wars universe, which we all know so well and has its own distinctive "look." As I've mentioned before, the team is working toward that visual standard, which has been established for more than 30 years. It's one thing to create diverse environments and characters, but they must fit the Star Wars mold, and Art Director Matt Omernick and Lead Environment Artist Michael Kawas have worked closely with the rest of the artists and animators to make sure we're achieving that standard.
Before signing off, I want to thank you all for coming back to the site and checking up on our progress. As I continue on through the fall and winter, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed nears completion, we'll be delivering more frequent updates, as well as working in a few special-guest appearances from the team.
For the next entry, I'm going to revisit the topic of LucasArts and Industrial Light & Magic working together and how the collaboration has benefited both companies now and for the future.
Thanks, and see you next time!
