"enlighten" - concept ../06.1
Slide helped Geomerics bring together a production showcasing 'Enlighten'
All images © Geomerics 2008
See also : "enlighten" - outcome ../06.2
When Geomerics approached Slide regarding a showcase for their new technology we were intrigued. That soon turned to excitement when it was revealed we would be working with the real-time global illumination solution "Enlighten".
The prospect of being the first studio to use what could be one of the most important visual innovations in games for years was thrilling - but a tight deadline in the run-up to the annual Game Developers Conference combined with the unknown nature of the tech meant this would be a challenging project.
Over several pre-production meetings we gained an understanding of Enlighten's capabilities. Taking a brief created by Geomerics' Lead Artist Ivan Pedersen, we worked together to iron out a framework for a demo which would present Enlighten as a 'must-have' component for any contemporary game.
The brief called for a fictional North African country, combining elements of Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria and involving three distinct environments. These areas - a tea house, a partially-enclosed market and a classical Islamic-style public arcade - were carefully chosen to show off specific aspects of Enlighten.
Once we all felt the direction was set, Slide's creative director Etienne Jabbour worked closely with Ivan to gather appropriate reference material. We created a series of rapid thumbnails, which along with detail boards were used to flesh out the three surroundings.
This led on to a short period of concept art creation, where we produced day and night illustrations to explore a variety of lighting set-ups. As much as we would all have liked longer to develop the concepts, GDC was fast approaching and time was not on our side.
Along with the three locations, Slide were also commissioned to create a hand-animated, real-time character. This avatar would act as the art demo's guide, and at the same time highlight Enlighten's ability to work with deforming meshes.
After some initial reference gathering and a couple of quick concept sketches, we all settled on the idea of a young female backpacker taking in the sights of the North African market.
To provide a goal for development of the demo system, Slide produced visual target renders of the environments using mentalray and a selection of agreed post-production techniques. As time was short we produced these using engine-ready assets : although this sacrificed a degree of geometry and shader detail, it did allow us to set an achievable target for the real-time scenes.
As the core Enlighten technology came online, Ivan started to bring the artwork into the final demo. Early planning and analysis now paid off and integration issues were kept to a minimum. We all worked closely over this period to address remaining problems as they arose.
