Blizzard shows off the evolution of its action-RPG's most dangerous foes.
You don't get a lot of time to appreciate monster design in Diablo. Usually around a second or so, just enough to notice a skeleton's laborious shuffle or a zombie's limp before you drive an axe through their neck and collect your reward. You'll wind up fighting a lot of the same monster types, but you're more likely to remember their attack patterns, sound effects and death animations than the detail on their armor. The only time you actually look directly at a monster is when you're targeting it, and at that point it's usually only a few moments away from being shattered by ice magic or eaten by a Witch Doctor's giant toad.
Bosses are a different story. They don't die after a few hits. They're huge. And in the case of bosses like Duriel in Diablo II, they can kill you in one or two swipes and cause you to reevaluate your entire character build. Because fights against bosses are more memorable, Blizzard put more time into making sure the boss character models really stood out.
You can find more art than what's highlighted in this article on IGN's Diablo III image gallery.
For Azmodan, the Lord of Sin you see in Diablo III's Black Soulstone cinematic, Blizzard wanted to convey a sense vanity, which would eventually take the form of jewelry and ornate armor.
The early concepts showed off the shell-like armor that would eventually influence the final design, but Blizzard wasn't satisfied just yet. "It just really wasn't as impressive or as imposing as we were hoping for," said Blizzard's Christian Lichtner.
So the design evolved, to the point where Azmodan was designed so he would attack by bending over backwards and slice at players with a crab claw. "This was really cool, but it was a little too abstract. It was pushing things a little too far," said Lichtner. But what the team did like was the idea of Azmodan's crab-like lower half and the crown-like protrusions around his head.
Because Blizzard knew they would have a close-up of Azmodan in the Black Soulstone cinematic, the team worked to create a unique facial structure for the demon. "We needed to have an interesting facial silhouette. I'm not talking about the outside of the face, necessarily, but the interior," said Lichtner. "The placement of the eyes and mouth. We wanted to push it outside the norm a little bit more." The main issue with this version of Azmodan was that his skirt, which though detailed, obscured the demon's legs.
That led to the creation of the final version you can see above, keeping the crab-like features and ornamentation (the rings, bracelets and detailed armor) without covering up too much of the model in the process.
When designing any major boss or character, Lichtner said Blizzard would go through easily 50 or 60 concepts per character to work on a new design.
To come up with a new Diablo design, the bulk of the art team was roped into the process. Like in Diablo II, the Lord of Terror started off very bulky and spiky, as you can see above, with mouths set in his shoulders.
After a few iterations, the team hit on the idea of slimming down Diablo a bit. "This is probably something we should explore further. Much more sinewy, still very aggressive, the strong sharp shapes that are associated with him," said Lichtner. "We pushed that concept a little further."
"It's not quite what you expect, but still very true to Diablo," said Lichtner of this near final concept. "You can see a lot of spikes, very sharp shapes. It has a Giger-esque quality to it. It's still very beastly and demonic. Ultimately this one led to our last and final version."
"We actually kept the mouths on the shoulders," said Lichtner of the finalized Diablo design. "We felt that adds an extra creepy sort of vibe. We made sure it had a very iconic look, a very iconic silhouette."
Why are you bothering to fight all these demons in the first place? Probably to save the world or something like that, but really it's so you can take their stuff, sell it or equip it to feel more god-like.
Hey Witch Doctor, would you please stand up straight?
"Visual progressions for armor sets, this is another key component," said Lichtner. "You want to make sure the feeling of progression comes across as you're leveling up your character. We made sure that all our paper dolls had actual icons for the armor so it felt like a real thing." For the later armor sets, Blizzard wanted to make sure that they not only conformed to a class-specific style, but also "look really, really awesome," as Lichtner said, which makes wearing the armor feel more satisfying.
MY GOD
To showcase the type of armor variety you'll see in Diablo III's higher levels, check out some of the Witch Doctor sets.
FROM: http://pc.ign.com/
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