The Hulk game (left) had to deliver the same impressive character as on the big screen. All Hulk interactive game images © 2003 Universal Interactive Inc. Marvel, The Incredible Hulk, and all related comic book characters ™ & ® 2003 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved. Hulk feature film ©2003 Universal Pictures. All rights reserved. Photo credit: Industrial Light & Magic.

There has been a lot of talk over the years proclaiming that video gaming will be the first choice of family entertainment; that people are demanding interactive past times; that they are bored by the linear, passive television and movie screens.

“When I look at products like Final Fantasy, I think we will absolutely get to the point where we can portray a human being and environments so realistic that people are OK with it,” said Ariella Lehrer, president of Legacy Interactive from her Los Angeles office. “And while we are not there yet, when you look at the progress we have made with that, if you look at the behind-the-scenes, sometimes you really can’t tell the difference between the digital and the real.”

On the videogame hot lists right now are three games that are stretching the developmental envelope — Hulk, released May of this year (Vivendi Universal), kill.switch (Namco Hometek Inc.), released this month and Shadow Ops: Red Mercury (Zombie Inc.) slated for the shelves in summer 2004.

VFXworld.com caught each of these games development teams looking toward the future of gaming and asked how they are able to create the visual worlds that our eyes are beginning to see as being all too real.

Jeff Barnhart, producer for Vivendi Universal Games, decided that the digital artists should concentrate on perfecting the emotions in Hulk’s face.

It’s Not Easy Being Green: Hulk by Vivendi Universal
To transform the image of Dr. Bruce Banner to the Hulk required ILM’s best wizardry, along with 2.5 million computer hours and six terabytes of data. In the film, a team consisting of 69 technical artists, 41 animators, 35 compositors, 10 muscle animators, nine DB modelers, eight supervisors, six skin painters, five motion-capture wranglers and three art directors they worked with an almost limited number of polygons to create a realistic character.

But what a character he is: 15' of bulging, breathing, mass that transcends belief. He is The Hulk, in all his great, green glory that artist Jack Kirby first envisioned, and that has bound through comic books for more than the last four decades.

And he lives.

In the Vivendi Universal Hulk game, players expected to see no less of the real, bulging, breathing, blood-in-the-veins character that they saw on screen, only the Vivendi artistic team had far fewer polygons to devote to the character in any one scene.

“In the game, we actually had 3,000 polygons to devote to the Hulk versus the unlimited number that the film’s artist could use,” said Jeff Barnhart, producer, Vivendi Universal Games, in Los Angeles, “So we focused the polygons on his face because when you first think of The Hulk, you think of bulging muscles, but it really is the ability convey emotions; for example, the sadness he feels when he rescues Betty. When you get to know him, it is the polarity of facial emotions that make him a believable character.”