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Latest News Q&A - Alone in the Dark's Enviromental Art | Q&A - Alone in the Dark's Enviromental Art |
| Written by Marco Fiori | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, 18 June 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 We got a chance to ask Eden Games' Pascal CASOLARI some questions about the art and design process found in the upcoming Alone in the Dark. He's the lead enviromental art design figure and we'd like to thank him for taking the time to answer these questions. What does your job entail? How did you get into it? As lead artist for the Environment Art Design on Alone in the Dark, I’m responsible for the concept art of the visual environment sets of the game. I work in close relations with the Game Design team to define the details of each set (Architecture, furniture, materials, color ambiance and lightning…), this to help guide the 3D art team in their creation. My life has always been linked to my passion for paintings, drawings and everything around the projection of the imagination. My art studies allowed me to specialize in animation movies, and then I’ve been drawn to videogames. I’m more attracted to the concept of the environments, as in some sense, it is also a character; a discreet character which reflects the actions of the human or creature characters of the game. Congratulations on finishing Alone, was is it a difficult journey? Oh, every project is never easy, but every project is a tremendous and enriching human adventure. For Alone in the Dark, in terms of environment concept, we had to integrate the fantastical or paranormal aspect of the story into a realistic environment, while conserving a credibility of this integration in Central Park and its environment; people needed to believe that what happened was potentially possible. Concerning the theme of the story, the exploration of death and the after-life, this was also transposed into the environments. The difficulty here was to give an enhanced mystical atmosphere in a normal every day scene. For example, in the great hall of the museum, we transformed it into a sort of a cathedral atmosphere, with the change of architecture, paintings on the walls, even to the lightning of the area itself.
Was Alone your favorite project to work on? Yes, because it was a challenge to transform a real setting with our imagination, while still making a visual sense. The art team really had the chance to put the vision of the game into life. Thanks to our rendering engine which allowed us a huge amount of real-time lights, we really had the opportunity to put into “light” the lightning and shadows into the game, giving it the unique atmosphere of contrasts and depth. I really enjoyed making realistic ambiances on this project, which was a really different perspective from the last project I’ve worked on, Kya: Dark Lineage, which was a more imaginative fantastical world.
Where did you get your inspiration for the art from? Inspiration came from everywhere, from Medias to events in our real world. As part of the ambiance is linked to its destruction by a paranormal element, I’ve been inspired by action/catastrophe films for example, or paintings from painters of the 19th Century like Hubert Robert, Monsù Desidério…. In terms of lightning, we’ve been inspired from films like those of Tim Burton, Seven, Fight Club…
Are you happy with how the art to engine process came out? I ‘m really proud of the 3D art team who has taken the 2D concept to the virtual reality it is today. This also includes the technical team who has achieved the features needed for the rendering. The result of all the team’s efforts is really prodigious.
Do you think Alone is going to scare us? I hope so, but given the game’s variety of gameplay, we hope you’ll live a lot more of emotions.
What's your favorite part of the game? There’s more than one section of the game that I love, it would be too long to expose you all of them J, but some of my preferences go for the very first image of the game, an intense combat sequence in the great hall, and the end with it’s revelations.
What's next for you and Eden games? I’ve started on another project but it’s still too early to tell.
When you're not working on Alone or drawing, what games do you enjoy playing? After work, I don’t have enough time to play games on my own but I love playing with my kids on Ds lite and Wii… Thanks for this interview.
For more examples of Pascal's work head on over to www.pascalcasolari.com
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 18 June 2008 ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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