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GDC 2010: Art director on how the Icarus myth influenced the cyberpunk prequel, trying to come up with a distinct visual look, and Heavy Rain's scary characters; confirms Human Evolution subtitle.

Who was there: Eidos Montreal art director Jonathan Jacques-Belletete, who spoke about his work on the upcoming Deus Ex Human Revolution.

The only official screenshot from Deus Ex Human Revolution doesn't reveal much about the game's design aesthetic.

What they talked about: The Deus Ex series has always featured dark and moody visuals, which was a perfect fit for the dystopian future the games presented. Eidos Montreal art director Jonathan Jacques-Belletete--the man in charge of the look of the upcoming Deus Ex Human Revolution--spoke about the challenges in creating a unique visual style for the prequel during his 2010 Game Developers Conference session, and it seems that while the team are big fans of the original, they don’t necessarily want to mimic its visual signature.

Jacques-Belletete began by highlighting the fact that this was the first public showing of the game, and firmly asked for no cameras during the session (hence, no pictures from the session to view in this article). He said that while the entire team at Montreal was big fans of the original, Deus Ex did not have the most fully-realized game aesthetic. Jacques-Belletete wanted the new game to have its own individual voice that was still informed by cyberpunk visual archetypes such as night time environments, fog and smoke, clutter, near future technology, and transhumanism.

For Human Revolution’s high-level visual goal, Jacques-Belletete said the team focused on two points: illustration as opposed to simulation, and that design distinction creating desire. When it comes to illustration, Jacques-Belletete wanted to create a world that wasn’t necessarily photorealistic, but one whose individual pieces looked like they all belonged within the same reality. This aesthetic extended to characters’ faces. Jacques-Belletete said they wanted to avoid any uncanny valley problems, and even singled out recent PS3-exclusive Heavy Rain for some critique. ’It (Heavy Rain) is a beautiful game, but those people are so scary! And you look at the teapot in Beauty and the Beast, and that little dude looks alive and he looks like a human being,’ he said.

On the second goal-- design distinction creates desire--Jacques-Belletete explained that looking unique can be a strong selling point for a game. He cited the example of the Big Daddy and Little Sister designs in BioShock as great examples of a game pushing a distinct look. He then put up a slide showing stills from games like Killzone 2, Gears of War, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Unreal Tournament 3, and Turok, saying they were examples of games that all looked similar and therefore weren’t doing anything distinctive.

In Eidos Montreal’s quest to be different, Jacques-Belletete said he focused the team to have two design analogies to keep in mind--the Icarus myth and the Renaissance. Jacques-Belletete said Icarus fitted the theme of transhumanism perfectly. ’Dude, this guy is augmented. That’s transhumanism,’ he said. ’He has too much fun with transhumanism, and then he burns and falls to his death--this is my metaphor, this is perfect.’ With the Renaissance, Jacques-Belletete said he found many links to transhumanism. ’If you want to upgrade a system, first you need to see how it works. And that’s what the Renaissance was--they tried to understand how the human machine functions. It’s the first step towards the transhumanist era,’ he said.

But when the design team tried to directly inject Renaissance themes into the game’s art--balloon sleeves and pants, ruff collars, and patterns--Jacques-Belletete said they failed. It wasn’t until he started to look at the world of modern fashion and decided that any Renaissance-flavored clothing must still look like they would be wearable today that they locked on a design aesthetic. Jacques-Belletete then showed several characters from the game, including the main character Adam Jensen. Jensen sports a pointy, Don Quixote-like beard, and wears a long black jacket with a high, almost Edwardian collar. Other characters--including enemy soldiers--looked futuristic, but did feature some classical touches like geometric patterns and ruffles.

While Jacques-Belletete’s session was heavy with still images and concept art, he did show one brief section of in-game activity. It was a dialogue scene with someone who looked like a police officer and was leaning casually on a desk inside an office. While the dialogue was hard to place out of context, it did highlight what appeared to be the dialogue wheel for the game, which looked like a circle with choices selectable around its hub.

Quote/Takeaway: ’A lot of people were saying just do Deus Ex 1 with better graphics. And there’s a lot of that in our industry--just do that, but bigger and shinier. We didn’t want to make an echo of the first one.’ -- Eidos Montreal art director Jonathan Jacques-Belletete

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GDC 2010: Akira Yamaoka of Grasshopper Manufacture discusses how the human brain works and what techniques are effective when creating a memorable audio experience.

Who Was There: Akira Yamaoka, who is best known for his music in the Silent Hill series, leveraged his 20 years of experience in video game production to discuss audio design in games from a producer's perspective. He has worked not only as a composer, but also as a sound designer, sound director, and producer. Having recently left longtime employer Konami, Yamaoka is currently working with Suda51 on a new game at Grasshopper Manufacture that will be published by EA Partners.

Akira Yamaoka

What They Talked About: Yamaoka's 2010 Game Developers Conference session began with a few slides that highlighted some facts of Japan, including the number of islands (6,852) and coastal line (comparable to that of Australia). Yamaoka wanted go over his background and heritage because the kind of attention to detail that is part of the Japanese culture ties in closely to what he ultimately strives for: perfection.

"We care about details. That's the culture," he said through a translator. "We are married to perfection, to details. I hope that links with the world of games."

Yamaoka wanted to be a designer after entering the world of computer games. Computer graphics were still considered new at the time, and his original goal was to focus on graphics but then switched after he bought a PC.

"I wasn't very serious and was having fun," he explained. "I discovered that with a computer, you can compose music, so I switched to [make] computer music instead of computer graphics."

Currently, Yamaoka uses MAX/MSP to compose, but the interface wasn't as accessible 20 years ago. He says that nowadays, anyone can create music, but for him it's a matter of going beyond that. Comparisons were made to film, but he stated that drama films don't have the same interactive communication that video games do.

The composer went on to discuss how humans rely on visuals for stimulation but what he wanted to do was find a way to stimulate or "tickle" a player's emotion with sound. Because humans have other senses as well, he hoped that later down the road, gamers can be "tickled" by taste and scents as well.

Yamaoka's theory for controlling a person's emotions is based around psychology. He explained how humans feel unstable when they turn clockwise and that there's a psychological uncertainty there. Understanding what humans naturally fear is something that is used in games to create anxiety.

Having worked on the Silent Hill series since its inception, Yamaoka talked about how he would bring in sound three frames ahead to induce intensity or anxiety. The opposite would result when audio comes after the visual cues, which instead provide security and comfort.

Early audio cues induce anxiety.

Contrasting sounds also leave a lasting impression on a listener. An example that he used was to introduce a beautiful piano melody, followed by a frightening sound. Each sound becomes more vivid and the same trick is used in visuals as well.

Based on Yamaoka's audio research, he explained that when the brain hears a sound that is followed by silence, the sound remains even after it has been cut off, which leaves a powerful impact on the listener.

"It's the lack of sound that impresses humans more than the beautiful music," he said.

The final part of Yamaoka's talk was focused on the MAX audio software and how simple it was for him to use when composing and creating sounds. To demonstrate, he brought out his electric guitar and played for several minutes.

At the end of the presentation, he left the audience with a quote from his favorite architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who said, "God is in the detail of the arts." He feels that to achieve what he wants, it's in the details and through that, originality and uniqueness can be delivered.

Quote: "God is in the detail of the arts."--Akira Yamaoka, quote originally by famous architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Takeaway: Silence can often be more effective than noise, depending on how it is used. Understanding how humans digest and process sound can help audio designers create something that is more powerful and memorable.

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