DEV BLOG – ART DIRECTION FOR AMAZING

Q&A with Thomas Wilson, Creative Director, Beenox

You decided to adopt a different art direction for each Spider-Man universe. What distinguishes the Amazing universe?

The Amazing universe is inspired by vintage comic books. The style is defined by utilizing a technique that gives the game a more subdued color palette and by replacing the realistic textures with more hand-drawn/pen-and-ink treatments of them. We also applied a thin black outline to the characters, objects and the environment that gives the art style its comic book quality. The mood is generally warm, and we use a technique called ambient occlusion to highlight the 3D volumes. We also complement the amazing visuals with a light full-screen grain effect to bring it closer to the classic comic book paper look. The combat special effects also draw their inspiration from vintage comic books by using motion lines and impact effects. We tried multiple things such as displaying a full-screen, old-paper texture and printed-dot patterns but the results were never quite convincing. Nonetheless, we are really proud of the end result.

You talk about the classic, more subdued colors and ink-on-paper era. How did that reflect on the character design?

For Spider-Man and the bosses, it meant respecting the classic costume design. For all the characters, it meant working with a higher range of flat colors and more moderate usage of 3D shaders. These requirements sometimes made it hard for the character artists, as they wanted their model to shine. But I had to insist for the greater good of the overall art direction.

How is the personality of Amazing Spider-Man different?

Let’s just say we follow the comics closely with Amazing Spider-Man. His personality at first seems to be immature, but if you take a second look, you can see he’s got what it takes to overcome any situation. He fights for law and order, so he has a noble heart. In the game, Amazing Spider-Man often wonders if his dimensional counterparts are cooler than him.

Additional Questions:

One of the levels looks like it takes place in a jungle. What kind of freedom does this offer the art team in that you’re no longer limited to a city setting?

A great deal of freedom, I would say. Although not open world, the artists could go wild and wonder how they could portray a vintage-looking jungle. That in itself was a stimulating challenge.

Will we see more levels where Spider-Man is outside New York City?
To be honest, most of the levels in the game take place somewhere else, and if they don’t, we spent a great deal of time making sure they feel unique. Visual variety is one of the key centers of our focus.

Otherside: I posted the link to the article below. But be warned if you aren't a VIP you can not see this page. That's why I posted it here. Hang on to your web till further updates!