What’s up? My name is Chris Claflin, Associate Art Director on Saints Row 2. My primary responsibility on this project is the art direction for the new and much improved city of Stilwater.
Saints Row 2 is a game that’s all about variety. There are a million and one things to do in Stilwater, and just as many different ways to do them. The action is over-the-top and the variety of potential game play experiences is immeasurable.
To support the variety and over-the-top game play, the city itself needed to be full of variety. Each district in Stilwater has its own flavor and the game’s vibrant color palette would help set off the exaggerated actions of the player. Saints Row 2 isn’t a life simulator; it’s more like a comic book. The action is over the top, the characters are larger than life, and the world had to compliment these things.
District Variety
From the pristine glass and steel of the new Saints Row district, to the run down Sunnyvale Gardens, to the flashy new Downtown, there’s a lot of flavor throughout the city of Stilwater. We took care to make sure each district stood out on it’s own without feeling like a different world altogether. Details like the architectural style, props and clutter, level of wear and tear, signage, and lighting played important roles in giving each district its unique feel.
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Weather, Lighting, and Atmosphere
The outdoor lighting and atmosphere change as the player explores the city. As the day goes through its cycle, the player will experience a wide variety of color palettes depending on the sun/moon’s position in the sky, and the current weather conditions.
Time of Day Cycle
A lot of time and effort went into our time of day cycle. The color palettes for each phase of the day, be it sunrise, sunset, dusk or night, help drive the overall look of the game. All aspects of the time of day cycle are edited by an artist (well, me actually) using a well-crafted control panel we call weTODed (weather and Time of Day editor). The advantage to having an artist control all aspects of the sky and weather is the consistent color palette they can achieve. Really, the Time of Day lighting and weather stages define the overall look of the game when outdoors, so it was very important that a lot of artistic focus went into fine-tuning these settings.
Setting up the final time of day cycle was full of challenges. Not only did the colors of the lighting, sky and fog planes have to work together for each time of day, they all had to transition between each time of day. For example, if noon had a blue sky, and sunset had a yellow sky, it’s possible to get a strange shade green in between those hours as the game translates between the two settings. To overcome this, extra settings were created as “transition” settings to help guide the colors in the right direction.
The end result is a dynamic range of colors that cycle as the player explores the game.
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Weather Stages
In addition to sun/moon light colors, we used a number of frame buffer effects and multiple fog planes to give the world an atmospheric quality. The goal was to give the impression various weather conditions, like the humidity of an overcast afternoon, or the hazy feel you might experience after a heavy thunderstorm. These different atmospheric settings give the world an always changing visual variety.
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Sky
A major component of the game’s atmosphere and overall look is the sky. The sky for SR2 is entirely artist driven, meaning there’s no fancy volumetric cloud calculations going on or anything like that. Just well-painted textures, a 4 color gradient and a shader that allows us to scroll and fade between different cloud maps. Good skies can add serious drama and atmosphere, as is seen when a storm is approaching from the horizon, or during a sunset.
Our sky is controlled via weTODed, along with the time and weather settings, making it possible to tie the sky and all elements of the exterior lighting and atmosphere together.
Additional Details
Here are a few other details that help define the look of Stilwater.
Wear and Tear
In addition to having a vibrant time of day cycle, the city shows a variety of wear and tear levels. The projects are in a state of urban decay, filthy and unmaintained, Stilwater University is clean and nicely landscaped, and areas like Encanto in the Barrio district are well-worn but an effort is made to maintain the streets and landscaping. These levels of wear and tear determine how trashy and cluttered an area is, adding another layer of variety to the city.
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Destination Signs
To help the player navigate the massive city of Stilwater, we created “destination signs”. These are placed on the highway, at highway exits, and on surface streets at major intersections. Not only do they lead the player to the different districts and neighborhoods but also to nearby stores.
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Dynamic Graffiti
Throughout the city, you will find tags from the other gangs you’re battling. Some of the tags can be painted over by playing the tagging activity. Others, however, will change dynamically when you take over the neighborhood.
Crib Customization
Another detail we added to the game world is the ability to customize each crib you purchase. Some cribs start in a state of decay that no self-respecting thug would wanna stay in for long. Save a few bucks, clean the place up and add a stripper pole and you have yourself a sweet hangout.
Each of the games cribs is unique, ranging from the basement of a small house to a swanky downtown loft. In fact, even the gang’s underground headquarters will upgrade as the player progresses through the game.
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Architectural Lighting
To give a sense of “nightlife” to the city, we added colorful lighting to the tall buildings. Well, actually we used a trick using coronas and illuminated decals to create the illusion of architectural lighting.
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In Closing
Saints Row 2 is full of variety, so much so that the player can shape their own experience. Play the game as a serious hardened criminal, or play as an obese transsexual mime on a pocket bike, the choice is yours. We wanted the game world to be as varied and dynamic as the game play itself. I’m very proud of what we accomplished and can’t wait for fans to get a hold of the game in the next couple weeks.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Developer, Developer Blog, News & Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
