People Can Fly Used Digital Dress-Up to Create Bulletstorm's Hordes of Enemies

Logan Westbrook

Transform, Roll Out, Etc
Feb 21, 2008
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People Can Fly Used Digital Dress-Up to Create Bulletstorm's Hordes of Enemies


Apparently, all it takes to build an army is one bald dude and a bunch of different outfits.

Polish developer and Epic Games subsidiary, People Can Fly, has revealed its technique for generating hundreds of different enemies for Bulletstorm [http://www.amazon.com/Bulletstorm-Epic-Xbox-360/dp/B003H0CC2O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295355545&sr=8-1] without taking a bajillion years to do it, or using up all the system memory. The secret, as it turns it, is knowing how to accessorize well.

Using the example of the Bulletstorm's Skull Gang, People Can Fly said that it started with a basic model - in this case, a deliberately generic, bald thug - and then layered other elements on top to make them all different. The models might start out looking identical, but after some tattoo work, a snazzy new hair cut, and maybe a pointy collar or a bandoleer/shoulder pad combo and it's much harder to spot the family resemblance.

The accessories are randomized, making each enemy a little bit different, and People Can Fly can also tweak the size of the base model, making it skinnier or more rotund, as well as change the skin tone to whatever it wants. This method made it possible to make an entire army of foes, but only use one character model, leaving plenty of resources spare for more exciting things, like the multitude of explosions found throughout the game.

It's really interesting to see the tricks and techniques that go into building a game like Bulletstorm, and its actually quite remarkable how different a generic model can be made to look just be tweaking what it wears or its face paint.

Bulletstorm comes out for Xbox 360, PC, and PS3 on February 22nd.

Source: People Can Fly Blog [http://www.peoplecanfly.com/blog/2011/01/how-to-make-an-army-out-of-one-bald-dude/#more-364] via The Big Download [http://news.bigdownload.com/2011/01/17/bulletstorm-dev-post-looks-at-making-many-enemies-out-of-one/]





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Nero Haven

New member
Jan 14, 2011
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I've always hated when there were x amount of enemy types, all looking exactly the same. It'll be great if other games pick up on this.
 

DTWolfwood

Better than Vash!
Oct 20, 2009
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huzzah for random number generators! kinda hope they have more body types than just skinny and fat tho. cause really silhouettes are the only things you really see when you chew through the horde.
 

coldfrog

Can you feel around inside?
Dec 22, 2008
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I love these kinds of solutions! They always seem to come from the smaller places, too. I wonder if Yahtzee'll get a kick out of knowing that his little company that could is making some crazy stuff like this.
 

vrbtny

Elite Member
Sep 16, 2009
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Really like the heavy gear.

FATMAN TO THE RESCUE!!!!

Sorta reminds me of those big baddies from Gears.
 

ad4m101

New member
Jan 17, 2010
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Wow I thought this was more common practise then it is. I use this method in creating characters for my games,they are 2D tough, much quicker to draw body parts then an entire body, speeds up my animating process as well as animations can stay the same and just change the accessors.
 

legendarytomuk

bluescreen_crashed.exe
Apr 4, 2010
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I'd kinda assumed that this was how things were usually done, it definitely is for most RPG NPCs, maybe to a visually lesser extent though.
 

TheSalemParadox

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Apr 7, 2010
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I'll see your Borderlands and Left 4 Dead did it first, and raise you a Diablo with their randomly generated dungeons.

Also, if you're feeling more modern, I'm pretty sure Torchlight and parts of Hellgate London did the randomly generated levels as well.

Still, I'm all for the randomization factor. Keeps things looking fresh. Borderlands and Left 4 Dead have simply ridiculous amounts of hours from me thanks to randomizations. Here's hoping this'll be another one. Also? Fire in the hole bonus. For, you know, firing. In their hole.