Zombies Hate Devlin - Singularity Dev blog

[Generalvivi]

Zombies Love Devlin

By Jason Mojica: July 09, 2010


Raven Software Blog

In the beginning of the game the player is flying over the island of Katorga-12 when their helicopter crashes after being hit by what appears to be an EMP. Devlin and Renko (the player) are the only two people who survive the crash.

While developing the character of Devlin, we wanted him to be someone you could rely on and build a relationship with, kind of like... a kick-ass bromance. One of the first things we did with his character was to put him and the player in a situation where they would have to rely on each other to survive. In this particular situation Devlin holds a door shut against zombies pushing from the outside, and the player protects him by killing the zombies that pour in through the windows. Afterwards, Devlin offers a plan that he and the player have to execute at the same time. This is a great fast paced high intensity moment that has many layers built into it.

Here is the break down of the scene.

The setup


click image to enlarge


In the beginning we had Devlin already at the door by the time the player reached his location. After a few iterations we realized that this seemed anti-climactic, and the player tended to sit back and watch him get attacked by zombies. We fixed this by adding Devlin busting through the door once the player has walked into the area.

Mocap

After we figured out how the intro was going to play out we took it to the mocap room. With our very talented mocap actors, we set up props in relative space according to a 3D export of this scene.
Next the Designer or Animation Lead runs through the sequence a few times with the Mocap actors. During our different takes we can direct the actors to look at something specific in the scene or act a certain way according to what is supposed to be happening. In this case we added cardboard on the floor so Jeff (Mocap Actor) could slip when the zombies first slam into the door. In addition to the cardboard we had Jeff look at the windows as the zombies came through them. These small touches along with some great voice acting brought Devlin's character to life

click image to enlarge


After the motion capture gets cleaned up, another animator will go in and create all of the door animations so they line up with Devlin's movements.

YouTube - Singularity Blog - Devlin intro

Zombies Hate Windows

The zombies are set up using a system developed here at Raven called FightStyles. Each zombie is spawned on a node that forces them to play an animation. Using FightStyles we are able to trigger an event off of a key in the animation. This makes it easier to time when the windows should break and the visual effects should play.

YouTube - Singularity Blog - Fight Styles

YouTube - Singularity Blog - Zombie's and Window's

Devlin, The Floor, and The Door
After receiving the cleaned up motion capture for this sequence we can then go in and start scripting.

click image to enlarge


Once most of the scripting is finished it is time to go in and add extra polish. For the Devlin intro we decided to create some tiles to get pushed around when Devlin falls. After hand animating the tiles in matinee, we threw some effects and sounds on them. This is very subtle polish in-game but it helps tie the overall scene together.

YouTube - Singularity Blog - Devlin Slip

Extermination complete

Once all of the scripting polish is completed our environment artists will go in and dress the area around the playable game space. Here is the final sequence from the game.

YouTube - Singularity Blog - Devlin Final


Jason Mojica
Game Designer
Raven Software

[barrab]

When I saw the video of the zombie breaking through the window I thought it looked really cheap and didn't think it'd be effective, but in the final product it worked nicely. Good breakdown, I loved the attention to detail and gameplay.