a single click. All you need is Adobe Reader.
For use with either a modern browser, or an RSS program.
Exclusive Diablo 3 Interview: Part One
We talk to Art Director Chris Lichtner and Lead Technical Artist Julian Love to discuss Blizzard's beloved RPG
Written by Andy Griffiths, 21 September 2009
We've declared it Diablo III week here at PCGZine, as we have a massive exclusive interview with Chris Lichtner (Art Director) and Julian Love (Lead Technical Artist) for Diablo III. We'll be running extensive excerpts from the interview over the next three days, and then the entire unabridged version together with the original audio version inside PCGZine on Thursday.
The Witch Doctor in action.Today we talk origins of artwork, and the advantages of the isometric camera angle. Come back for tomorrow when we get their response to the thorny issue of fan feedback!
A dilapidated tavern.Gamerzines: How do you design the art for Diablo III? Do you start with things like mood boards, or do you look at other games, or films?
The Mistress of Pain.Chris Lichtner : We're far enough along where really we've gotten most of the inspiration and drawn from what we like and how we feel about it. We are very happy with everything so far so really most of our process starts with concept art and we hammer those out. It's a very collaborative effort, we usually involve a lot of different departments including programming and design, so it's not just an art related task. Once we have those down we agree on the direction among the different departments. Among that process there is often more iteration, meaning we might do something and maybe someone has a really great idea and we decide to include that or we alter things slightly. In the end the most important thing for us is to make a really great game, so you know, an idea comes up we'll make alterations.
Goats never learn.GZ: Did you start out looking at Diablo II again and use that as a starting point for the look of III, or did you feel that you were creating a new game from scratch, perhaps what Diablo II might have been like had it been designed today?
PCGZine Issue 34
For our latest Diablo coverage, click here to download PCGZine Issue 34 for free.CL: I think we definitely looked at Diablo 1 and 2, we looked at all the things we liked about it and what brought fans back to the franchise and all the Diablo games, to us that's a huge thing. It becomes a give and take between a lot of different things to make sure we get the feel and the look, but at the same time support the gameplay we want to have.
GZ: So it's all about building on existing fans expectations, but you don't want to change too much...
Julian Love: I think the thing that stood out was not to just look at Diablo 2, but Diablo 1. Treat it more as a franchise, an extension of the franchise instead of a continuation of the previous game. There are things in those two games that may have appeared in one or the other that people loved, we wanted to make sure we were honouring the whole intellectual property and make a game that feels new for people to play but still has enough of the stuff people loved from the previous years so they don't feel like they are playing a completely different franchise.
GZ: Do you look at how other developers make design choices and use that as inspiration or do you prefer to work in a bubble?
CL: I don't think we work in a bubble at all. Blizzard are a passionate bunch of people. We play games, we play other peoples games, we are very passionate about games in general. Whenever we see something we like or a great idea or maybe something we play spawns a great idea we take note. We definitely embrace that.
GZ: Working from an isometric camera angle it enables you to control exactly what the player sees. As an artist what sort of advantages does that give?
CL: We love the isometric camera angle as an art team, it lets us do things that we couldn't do otherwise. We can really cater to it, it's fixed to us and we know what to expect from it and we get to do things, that we wouldn't be able to do otherwise. A lot of the look and feel of Diablo from what has been released so far is really based on the fact we have an isometric camera. Also I think early in the development there was some experimentation with different cameras and it really never felt like Diablo so this was really the perfect choice. In a lot of ways it really is a perfect fit. Art wise we have a lot of things that we can do that we couldn't do otherwise. It's very integral to the look of the game. We're shooting for something that has a painted look to it, something that people will be able to play many, many years from now.
Diablo coverage available in PCGZine Issue 34 - click here to download it for free!
»View more Diablo features...
