A few hours ago we posted a rather lengthy video which showed what goes behind the scenes at DICE. So we decided to to pull out some information from the video for our avid readers. We are really surprised by the amount of information that video had and we have it all here, in one place.
On destructive environments and scale:
Gustav Tilleby – Art director says:
“You have the micro-destruction as we call it, which is basically objects around the player. Cover and so on, you know you can blow holes through walls and so on to open up new paths.”
“We also have the really big scale destruction that is like façades and stuff that can crumble and fall over, as well as set piece destruction which is more or less scripted.”
“Since your cover is destructible you can’t stay in one place for very long. As far as I know this is the only game that uses this kind of level of destruction.”
“We can do really big landscapes and we can also do tight interior fighting, and we can actually have both in one level.”
“We have city environments, we have more rural landscapes, we have interiors, we have all kinds of different types of environments.”
On Audio:
Stefan Strandberg – Audio Director says:
“We’ve improved on almost all aspects of the sound for Battlefield 3.”
“We’ve concentrated more on how the world responds to the sounds, rather than the sounds themselves.”
“The sound system is actually in control of the camera, so when an explosion goes off there is a camera shake.”
“All of these things just improve the player feedback, something that Frostbite is really good at.”
On Art and Frostbite 2:
Rob Runeson – Head of Art says:
“For the artists and designers that work with the engine, they do everything in real time. This is something we’ve never been able to do before. So now when you change stuff you will see it on the fly.”
“Frostbite 2 supports nearly unlimited light sources, so we can place hundreds of lights in a room.”
“For the gamers, the benefit here is that everything will be so much more realistic. This is the best looking Battlefield game by far.”
On Weapons:
Alan Kertz – Lead Weapon designer says:
On BF3 weapons “The big thing we’re looking at is what guns are actually being used by armies. Obviously we have the marines in Battlefield, so the first thing we did was go and look for the marine weapons. But we also want the little something else that’s special, so we also went ahead and looked at other forces and what sticks out. What looks cool, what looks unique, what fills a role we don’t have and we went and brought those guns into Battlefield 3.”
“Our focus is making sure the guns look right, making sure the guns sound right. The feeling of the guns is really important for us as well. The gun needs to kick in your hands, you really need to feel like it’s alive. That really comes through with the animation on the guns.”
“We’ve been out with the Swedish army, we also have military advisers. They come in and tell us ‘this is where we’d use this gun and why we’d use this gun.”
On the physical warfare pack
Alan Kertz – Lead Weapon designer says:
“We picked 4 items that really represented the physical battlefield. We’ve got the type 88 machine gun. We’ve got the classic BF gun, the DAO-12. We’ve also got the flechette round for the DAO-12 that tears through things. For the last item we wanted something that would take one of our classes and put it into a team play role. So we looked and thought we could put a flash suppressor on one of our sniper rifles, the SKS. It lets the sniper get in close and be there with his squad.”
So there you have it. All the information you need to get you all excited for Battlefield 3. Of course there will be more at E3 and GamingBolt will be there all 4 days to cover the event for you.
