Microsoft's John Schappert announced big news for game fans and developers: community created content would be made available on Xbox and there will be community games for Zune.

The game itself was still in an early stage, so some bugs were apparent. They were easily dismissed as the overall look of the game takes full advantage of next gen technology. There is a high level of detail on both characters and environments. In addition to utilizing the now common next gen toolsets that allow artists to create high density meshes and normal map textures LucasArts is using their new engine, called Ronin, to power the game. They have also integrated some third party technology to gain more features for the game in a shorter development cycle. These additional technologies include Havok Physics, which turns the game world into a physics playground of sorts -- essential for the convincing players that the force powers players they wield in the game are important and substantial. Another supplemental technology in use throughout the game is Digital Molecular Matter created by Pixelux. DMM makes destroying objects and environments in the game easier on the setup side for developers while giving players a better, more appealing, high energy result. Finally, euphoria, made by the team at NaturalMotion, lets animators craft AI driven character performances with a minimum of custom animation creation. The collection of supplemental tools is another trend as developers have to create more assets than ever before while meeting tighter deadlines. Another announcement at the show signaled that middleware is where the industry is heading. Autodesk, makers of the industry standard 3ds Max and Maya, acquired Kynogon, creators of the kynapse middleware. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but kynapse has been used to develop Alone in the Dark 5, Crackdown, Fable 2 and The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. kynapse gives characters spatial awareness, enabling them to realistically navigate digital environments.

The remainder of The Force Unleashed talk was divided between sizzle video meant to get gamers excited and more behind the scenes of development. The crowd seemed to enjoy the display of force powers more than anything, especially when the live game demo showed how moving from force pushing enemy soldiers to pushing around much larger objects, like Tie Fighters, was part of the game. On the game development side, the creators showed how they would essentially prototype ideas by creating short films or animatics. These were created with both animators and programmers so that final in-game results could be discussed up front before implementation. The purpose of these animatics was for the team to agree early what the requirements were for any given piece of the game and then build just that piece, trying to avoid the curse of over implementation that plagues much of game development. The talk also touched on cinematics. The process here was more known, utilizing a great amount of full body MoCap but also some facial MoCap. In the end, the cinematics development benefited from a script that was locked down and plenty of revision cycles on completed work.

LucasArts whetted fans' appetite for the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed with a presentation that ranged from glittery, crowd pleasing display to a more technical nuts and bolts conversation. © LucasArts.

Realtime rendering was another hot topic. Kim Libreri, who spearheads Digital Domain’s new technology, addressed the “Challenges of Creating Linear Content in a Game Engine” with Jerry O’Flaherty, videogame art director (Gears of War) and director of Warner Bros.’ upcoming animated feature, Thundercats. Bill Kroyer, the Oscar-nominated director and senior animation director at Rhythm & Hues, discussed “The Future of Animation is Games.” Kroyer is writer/director of Blockade Ent.’s Sacred Road, the first 3D-animated series to be made with a game engine and videogame assets from the Brothers in Arms franchise from Gearbox Software. Kroyer was joined by Mark DeAngelis, VP of Programming & Development, Voom Networks HD. His network will distribute Sacred Road this summer via its GamePlay HD channel.

Sacred Road is about a squad of World War II infantrymen that stumbles onto the most demonic and dangerous plan ever conceived by the Nazi war machine. Beneath the rotted, mildewed, overgrown fortifications of the World War I battlefield of Verdun, lie the mangled, burned, gassed corpses of a million men. A German unit specializing in the occult plans to raise these dead to create an invincible army, and the only thing standing in its way are five young Americans.

Kroyer discussed with VFXWorld his excitement of making Sacred Road and his entry into gaming: “In the feature business, you have lots of time and money to make perfection, whereas in the gaming business, it’s ‘get it to look as good as you can within a certain limit.’ In a way, that describes the whole approach to the imagery. In gaming, we want it to look as good as it can be, but it has to run realtime, so it’s interesting how the two worlds are starting to merge.

“With Sacred Road, we simply use the assets for Brothers in Arms that already exist. It’s a World War II world with soldiers, weapons and environments. And then we created an original story. We built some new assets to augment the story. We have a world already -- it’s like a backlot. And, with the Unreal engine, you can create lighting and effects. All you have to do is create your animation files, and the amazing thing is after that, you’re done! There’s no more waiting around for rendering and compositing. Ours takes one second per frame, so we’re not exactly realtime, but [it’s close]. First, we did a short and now we’re doing the pilot episode. It’s not feature quality yet, but for HD and TV, it’s enough to tell the story and not distract the audience.”

Kroyer is partnered with Blockade under the leadership of Co-Founder and CEO Brad Foxhoven, who recruited Rhythm & Hues for design, animation and directing talent.