paul weaver fantastic four: rise of the silver surfer

During the last years, the worlds of cinema and videogames have been more connected than ever. We can see videogames that take us under the skin of the main characters of films or to enjoy films based on our favorite games.

A third element has been added in the last years, the comic book, in special of superheroes, forming an interesting triangle. With the opening of 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer', 2K Games has released the movie videogame, created by the people of Visual Concepts.

We have spoken with Paul Weaver, Senior Producer of the game, on this project, the challenges that it presented and its creation process.

El Portal del 3D y la Animacion - You already have a long experience in the development of video games, most about sports. Which were the main challenges before taking the project of `Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer'?

Paul Weaver - The single biggest challenge for the project was time – From start to finish, this project was completed had to be completed in just 15 months, which is an incredibly short time for an action/adventure game – However, through a collaboration between Fox, Marvel, Seven Studios, Outsourcing companies and of course Visual Concepts, we strived to make the best game possible within that time-frame. Development wise, a sports game and an action-adventure title are very different beasts and while we leaned heavily on the game 'engine' that has been so solid over the last seven years for Visual Concepts 2K series of games, there were huge amounts of custom code and of course artwork that had to be created from scratch.

3DA - With the previous film about the Fantastic Four, a video-game about it has been released but this didn’t has the awaited success. What can you tell us on this new game? What elements and possibilities have been added to this title with respect to the game of the previous film?

Paul - The developers at Visual Concepts played all of the previous Fantastic Four games in depth and even had the opportunity to speak to the team who worked on the last version of the game to have a post-mortem about what went right and what went wrong – The key thing that we have done for this game is to truly differentiate the characters while also making them accessible to players of all ages. After reading through decades of comics on the Fantastic Four, you will find that hand to hand combat is a huge part of their lore, so our game definitely fell into the realm of a beat-em-up/brawler and that is reflected in the different fighting styles of the characters – Beyond that, we concentrated on their super-powers to make sure players can play the game from start to finish with each character and get a different experience each time they play. Fantastic Four: ROTSS is the first game in the series to offer four player drop in/drop out co-operative play and we feel this is a huge upgrade for the game too.

3DA - This one is the first video game about the Fantastic Four for the new console generation. What has supposed the new generation, with consoles like the XBOX 360 or the PS3, at the time of creating video games like this one?

Paul - The 360 and PS3 consoles have made life very challenging for game developers, especially when they have short timelines to create projects – the visual expectation that has to be met is incredibly high from reviewers and the audience alike and that takes time to get right – We think that the key areas players should look at for our game are in the characters and super powers – Johnny Storm in particular can flame on and off at will, Sue's invisibility makes her truly refractive, Reed's body stretches the actual animation rig when using his powers and all characters have next-generation shader support.

3DA - The 3D models used in the games are more and more complex. Which tools have you used to create the 3D elements of the game, as much for characters, scenes or props?

Paul - Visual Concepts uses Maya for all of its model creation, we use Photoshop for texture creation as well as a host of custom shader support which is all proprietary.

next page >>