《横扫千军史记》连载九6月 13th, 2007 by CaesarZX
CaesarZX：
对于RTS游戏《横扫千军》的制作，GeoffreyKeighley的文章已经不足以全面讲述那段历史，而加入一个亲自参与此游戏制作的人物的视角，我们就可以看到一个更完整的横扫千军诞生史。这篇连载作者是《横扫千军》美工总监Clayton Kauzlaric，他从去年9月开始在他自己的Blog上连载自己在Cavedog参与制作《横扫千军》 的经历。本连载由我与游戏编年史的主人无声畅游合作翻译推出。
第七章:主要的艺术技巧
无声畅游 译
我们可不希望将自己的大型CG宣传影像做得俗不可耐。但为了更好的宣传，我们又不得不做。我所希望描绘的TA世界，还需要一些高品质图象的点缀，才能给玩家带来最真切的感受。此外，我们还须要为E3准备大量的宣传资料。
就游戏本身而言，我们需要制作一部简短的开场影像，两段胜利场景动画，以及一些我们称之为"战役配图"的东东——这是一种奖励性质的过关画面。
为绘制这种战役配图，我发明了一种简易的流水作业线。美工每采用四到五个模型，便可创作出一幅"高清晰"的特定配图。我之所以在这里加上引号，是因为那不过用到了2000到5000个多边形。在多边形数量暴涨的今天，这一数字恐怕只比士长官的左鼻孔多一点。
这些单位建模大部交由美工Jarrett Holderby汇总。最终他完成的任务配图不仅效果一流，同样也被我运用到游戏设计中，这为我的工作带来了极大的便利。Jarret先把这些初始建模载入KPT Bryce中，添加一些纹理后渲染成一副图片，然后再在Photoshop与Painter中对该图进一步修饰。
Jarrett是一位有着数十年资历的古典插画家，这份经验帮了我们大忙。他对构图与光亮有着非凡的洞察力。Byrce生成的场景缺乏沙粒，烟尘，爆炸，残影及其它未来战争应有的特效。而Jarret却能凭"一己之力"在一副已渲染完成的图片中加入这一切，而去不多不少，恰到好处——这样的才干实在是天下罕有。
所有地图与战役配图的渲染工作都是在Mac上进行的。背景美工师的办公桌全都配有一台Mac机+一台Windows机。Byrce的早期渲染工作是在Windows上进行的，可它却无法输出每边大于72 pixel的高度图(heightmap:一种用来表示模型上各点高度的灰度图)。我们需要更庞大的地形立视图(elevationmapping)做背景区域。我们当然还需要更广大的高度图做任务配图。我们使用的机器大部分都是Power Mac 8500系列及7600系列。要打开或保存Jarrett的图象文件可不是件容易的事情，它每次都要花上好几分钟的时间。在调用最简单的过滤器时，同样慢得让人抓狂。然而作为这一切始作俑者的Jarrett，居然没有在作图过程中疯掉，真算个奇迹了。
我们还采用了同一方式，为杂志宣传和市场营销制作了许多华丽的大幅图片。Jarrett再度发挥了积极作用，他的神奇创作，为勾勒TA的整体概貌与世界观作出了不可磨灭的贡献。
这是我们为某游戏杂志特别设计的一副图片，也是TA发售之前唯一一张杂志封面图，可惜那本杂志最后并没有发行
单位美工师在设计这些模型时，还得到了过场电影部门的大力支持，他们为Jarrett提供了充裕的模型素材，使得图片的广度与深度(复杂度)得到了大幅提升。尽管这种流水线上做出的图片，在品质上总有些参差不齐，但却不失为一个"在短时间内提高产出"的好方法。
就在97年E3开幕前的几周，电影部门又帮了一个大忙。
待续
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Part 7: Prime Artistry
We didn’t get our giant CG intro movie with dancing clones, but westill had to make all sorts of fancy pictures for marketing and thegame. The universe I wanted to portray would still need a lot of highquality visuals to give players a decent sense of Total Annihilation’ssetting. We also needed plenty of promotional stuff for E3.
For the game itself, we needed to make a short intro sequence, twovictory sequences and a host of what we called mission paintings - Thelast items being a little visual reward shown to the player aftersuccessful completion of a level.
For the mission paintings I organized a simple assembly line. Every4 or 5 models, the artists would make a “high res” version of a givenunit. I put that in quotes since these only had 2,000 to 5,000polygons. Models with higher poly counts are now common in real timeenvironments. I think there are more polygons than that in MasterChief’s left nostril.
These models were handed off to staff artist Jarrett Holderby. Itturned out the same cheap, simple tools I chose for the game workedequally well for the mission paintings. Jarrett dropped these modelsinto KPT Bryce, added some textures, rendered an image, then retouchedthe image in Photoshop and Painter.
It helped that Jarrett was a classically trained illustrator with acouple decades of experience. His eye for composition and lighting were(and are) superb. The Bryce scenes were devoid of grit, smoke,explosions, motion blur and other touches that help bring a futuristicwar picture to life. Jarrett’s ability to add these things “by hand” toa rendered images without making it too obvious was another rare gift.At top is an early image of Core Prime (a.k.a. Metal World). Thissetting was used for many pictures, but I don’t think this particularimage was ever used. I stole some of those textures when I made themetal world map segments.
All the renders for maps and mission paintings were done on Macs.Back artists had both a Mac and a Windows rig on their desks. An earlyrendition of Bryce existed for Windows, but it lacked the ability toexport height maps bigger than 72 pixels on a side. We needed muchbigger elevation maps for the background sections. We certainly neededhuge height maps for these mission paintings. We mostly used Power Mac8500’s and 7600’s. Opening or saving Jarrett’s super big print fileswould take minutes. The same went for applying the simplest filter. Thefact that Jarrett didn’t go completely insane working on them is a realtribute to his fortitude.
This same technique provided most of the big, lush images we madefor magazines and marketing. Jarrett assembled some truly fine scenes,all of which helped to build an image for the game and its universe.
I think this image was made for a game magazine thatnever got off the ground. It would have been TA’s only magazine coverprior to its launch, but that was not to be.
The models From the unit artists were supplemented by additionalpieces From the small team working on the movie sequences, givingJarrett had a pretty decent inventory of models to work with. Thisadded a lot to the scope and complexity of the pictures. Some imagesare more effective than others, but overall it was a great way to get alot of pictures made in a small amount of time.
The movies represent another big push for the art team in the weeksleading up to E3 in 1997. More on that in the next TA-related post.
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