GDC 08: FFXIII Art Behind Closed Doors: Bungie Interviews Square Enix
Yesterday Steve Theodore of Bungie Studios sat down with Isamu Kamikokuryo to discuss how he got into the videogame art business and where his inspirations lie. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the new FFXIII trailer and concept art he had to show us, but we can point out some of the highlights.
Kamikokuryo actually started as an oil painter and illustrator and hadn’t considered working in videogames until after he saw FFVII. Inspired by the artistic potential, he presented a portfolio and eventually ended up directing background art in FFX, moving onto directing the art of FFXII.
His influences range from painter Andrew Wyeth to designer Luigi Colani, and even include comics he read in middle school by artists like Alex Ross and Frank Frazetta. Kamikokuryo is also a world traveler, always taking pictures of scenery and architecture for inspiration. He showed us a few of over 40,000 photos he took on a trip through the US last year.
On working in a large team at Square Enix, he said the key was to have a good vision for everyone to work towards. He did note that even though the scope of games had already broadened a lot by the time he joined the business, he still felt some nostalgia for the days of smaller groups.
What hasn’t changed is their aim for Final Fantasy to be a stylized reality, which is even more important now with the increased possibilities afforded by the hardware. The whole art staff at Square Enix instinctively agree, without needing a memo, that a stylized reality is better than getting too close to the Uncanny Valley -”…we can’t go there.” And with one of the scenes showing a girl on a green flying motorbike, prompting Theodore to quip, “Chocobo of the future?”, a stylized “reality” is what they’ve created.
The new trailer featured tons of CG, but also some in-game battle. Huge airships, something like dragons, and of course, Lightening herself, flew through the air. We saw her fighting a huge purplish ogre monster, and later against a swat team-like force in yellow uniforms and white masks. A blond fellow pulls up on a motorcycle but we don’t get to find out more about him before it faded to black.
We also got a peek at some really fancy concept art. The world of Cocoon hangs in the sky over the monster-infested outer world, Pulse, like a moon with a what seemed to be a huge crater. Cities have very intricate designs and at least one seemed almost nautical in style, another featured terraced halls enclosed by glass lit up in the night.
Obviously FFXII is one of those games that gets prettier every time you see it, so we’ll be looking forward to the next eyeful.
