Van Helsing
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Van Helsing was based on a movie of the same name released in the summer of 2004. Universal’s agreement with the licensor required that it ship on same day as the movie opened. Bear in mind that it usually takes a minimum of 2 years to make a game. And you have to complete it some 3 months in advance of release to get it through testing, acquire Sony approval, manufacture and ship it to retailers for it to be released on the same day as the movie. The developer was Saffire out of Salt Lake City, Utah. The Saffire team, William Oertel (Universal’s Producer) and I were given the script to design a game based on the yet-to-be-started film. We met with Steven Sommers and Bob Duscey, the Writer/Director and Producer of Van Helsing. We were given some basic concept sketches and Steven gave a heroic storytelling introduction to the film. Several of the main characters had to be adjusted all the way through beta because their costume or look radically changed from earlier revisions during the film production.All game work was subject to the approval of Universal’s Film Division and ultimately, Steven Sommers himself, who liked many of our concepts so much that he adopted them directly into the film. Case in point: Our opening cinematic began with a image of the moon over a body of water; the film incorporated this into their opening scene. We had a dramatic final fight scene choreographed between Van Helsing and Dracula; the film makers liked it so much that they took our storyboards, our animatics and all the cinematics we had completed up to that point so that they could use multiple elements and camera positions.Their similarity is striking. |
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Monsters |
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All in-game monsters had to stay within their same nature of the movie and could not deviate. At the same time if the film division decided to cut a monster out of their production, we were forced to do likewise and come up with a suitable replacement while still maintaining the value of the game experience. We used Banshees, Stone Gargoyles, Vampire Bats, Hell Wolves, Fell Spirits and Wraiths as extra characters in the game that all had to be approved by the film makers (and the two divisions of marketing). I had been very successful expressing my vision of the game to Steven Sommers and this seemed to really help in production. Few concepts were rejected and if anything both Steven and Bob got into helping us create the new creatures, I think they really like this new medium. The Wraiths I designed
after the costumes one might find at Carnival in Here on this page are many examples of monster sketches and the final in-game models. |
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Environments |
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Early on, Universal's Producer and I identified what elements of the game production process we felt we could improve by utilizing outside professionals. Environment Concept Design, Sound Design, Sound F/X, Special F/X, Music score, Storyboards, Cinematics, and Cameras were areas we focused on. For environment design
I contacted Alan Roderick-Jones. Alan's During our meetings we would go environment by environment and discuss in detail the motivation for the room. You can see him here (right-click and save target as). If we had any images from the film makers for a location where we were expounding on, then we would focus on them for inspiration. After all, eventually all the environments had to be approved by the Film makers (which they ALL were). Another funny story here is that the first environment we designed was around town according to the script. Except we didn't know until we saw the "daily's" from filming that we saw snow on the ground... oops! After these creative sessions Alan would take our scratch images and create a finished blueprint including elevations and detail drawings. I mean, these are blueprints that if you were building this in 3D, all the information is there. He even gives his own ideas for game play and delivers them on "C" size document paper. When the first rooms were completed by Saffire for the game, it was apparent that more direction needed to be given to them. I retouched the first nine rooms in MAX and then gave Saffire's art team the re-touched levels and detailed art direction on how I expected the rooms to look along with the room-to-room consistency I was looking for. I was very pleased with how the rooms evolved. Some animated walk-throughs of the rooms that I retouched are linked below: |
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Cinematics |
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I was responsible for taking the story that Designer Alan Tew had written and making sure it was transposed into an exciting visual story. I contracted Storyboard artist John Gibson to assist me in the creation of the cinematics. Every one of the 40+ minimatic and cinematic movies was storyboarded by us. I've selected one, Drac's Defeat, so you can see the quality of these storyboards. The film makers liked this particular one so much that they incorporated it into the film. You can see the similarities if you rent the movie. The “minimatics”, those in-game cinematics that were super short in length, went straight to animation without a animatic (animated storyboard), but all cinematics that would require signature sound design, voice over and music score were all made into full animatics after the storyboard stage. I've collected a few examples here. Some of the action sequences were adopted by the film production because they worked so well.
I also use something I call "Puppet Boards" to visualize unique character animation. This way those who need to approve animations can judge them without the character actually attached. Plus, you can visually judge the distance that the action takes place over. The opening cinematic was written by me and executed by Final Light Productions, with character animation, many of the environments and compositing done by me personally. Because the game was made so far in advance of the film, we had no resources available to us for any of the character voices, grunts or movements. We had a Mr. Hyde character but not a Dr. Jekyll. We had no idea what he would look like in the film. This is the primary reason that none of the actors make so much as a sound and the movement of the characters is generic. For the Foley sound recording
I hired Mike Regan Sound. I wanted a gritty texture to all the elements;
you can hear the sound of sand paper on leather when you hear Mr. Hyde
stand up. The entire cinematic was based around the sound of a clock
striking |
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Special
F/X |
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Special effects are one of those details that when done correctly add so much to any scene, character or object. For Van Helsing I hired special effects artist Brian DeMetz whom I've had the privilege to work with in the past on many occasions. We met with Saffire's Art Lead Walter Park and Saffire's effects programmer to work out the parameters of the engine's capabilities so that Brian could create effects that would drop in seamlessly. With that, we set out to create some 36 separate effects, everything from the muzzle blasts to waterfalls to exploding creatures to storm clouds. On average there were at least 3 to 6 versions created for each effect before we had the look we wanted and that could work within the game’s constraints. Here is a collection of sample effects; they are a mixed batch of .avi and .mpg. black powder.avi The following you will
have to use your "right mouse button" and "save target
as.." to download it if you want to see them. |
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Weapons |
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We
had two types of Shotguns in the game; Listen to the Elephant gun here. I wanted to have a Black Powder discharge from the guns at all times. I had given direction to have the last remnants of black powder "sparking" when they left the gun like it would in real life. See it here. (*you might have to right-click and save target, to see this). I felt that if we could have a very effective cloud from Van Helsing's guns, during a fire-fight the room or environment would swell with smoke from his guns leaving a cloud in his wake. Because so many of the environments were in the open, I wanted there to be an echo sounding in the far-off distance at key points when the final obstacle was destroyed. Listen to the echo from the Elephant Gun here. |
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The Tojo blades were to be a signature weapon used by Van Helsing as introduced to the audience in the first scene of the movie where he uses them to cut off Mr. Hyde's arm. It is supposed to be hand-held and something similar to a Jules Verne mechanical device. We had made several versions before we received any art from the studio to clearly show us what they had in mind. Kind of a hand-pumping whirling-blade-of-death thingy. The Cross Bow was one of those unique weapons designed for the film, an auto-loading, gas-powered Cross Bow. Like most objects in this game, we were supposed to follow what the film makers wanted to stay consistent with the film. The only problem is that it takes almost a year longer to make a game than a movie. Production had to march on, so we created everything and corrected it later if it differed from the movie. Van Helsing's hand pistols were part brass knuckle, part revolver, part crucifix. This was supposed to be another Black Powder gun with similar black smoke discharge designed for the game, along with its respective and distinctive sound. The Grappling Gun was used throughout the game and the movie. It could pull monsters toward you as well as vault you toward anything and any object in the game. Again these are the variations that brought us to the final version. Many different weapons were conceived for the game. The Gattling gun and the Electric Bolt gun were used, the others never made it into the game. |
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