Creating A Believable World In Far Cry 5
Creating A Believable World In Far Cry 5
So it seems that Ubisoft are going to great lengths to recreate a cult-controlled modern day Montana in Far Cry 5, but….why?
In a recent post on the Ubisoft Blog by Mikel Reparaz, the folks over at Ubisoft were explaining the lengths they are going to to create a believable and realistic portrayal of a modern day Montana county. One of the main reasons behind this is because unlike Kyrat of Rook Islands, Hope County is placed in a country that many of the game’s player base will have experienced for themselves. With that in mind the developers have been going to greater lengths to make Hope County feel like a convincing place.
Isaac Papismado said this: “We needed to change the way we prepared ourselves. In the past, we used the internet, we used a lot of secondary sources, books, things like that. Whereas now, we really want to go onsite with a team with cameras, and get as much as we can.”
For this reason the team have already been on a number of trips to Montana to collect photographic and video material from small towns to wilderness trails. Seeing Designers go to lengths like this isn’t uncommon in the creative industries, we see companies like Pixar do it all the time, and it’s equally not the first time that Ubisoft have had their design teams go to these lengths. On Ghost Recon Wildlands the team did the same thing collected hundreds of photographs, soil and water samples all to help recreate a believable experience.
In order to capture a higher degree of detail when out on these trips the team are using a new process called photogrammetry, and I’ll level with you…that seems like a completely made up word but there is logic to it when you hear what it is. Basically the team are photographing different objects like trees, vegetation, buildings, and even people*and scanning them to create lifelike 3D objects. Again we see similar processes in the VFX side of things in the film world and the technology to 3D scan real life objects to create 3D meshes of them isn’t necessarily new technology but I don’t know if there’s been another game that has used it to the same extent that Far Cry 5 is.
Associate Producer Philippe Fournier said this: “When Richard, our lead on biomes, came back and scanned a birch, and there was actually a heart shape with initials and names, and we’re like ‘this is awesome! This is the level of detail you can find in some of the assets. We can tweak it and make it story-based, but getting that sort of detail is definitely a first for us.”
The data and photography the team captured equally ended up informing not just the look of Far Cry 5’s environments, but also the way the game world itself was structured. In the real world, things like road signs and billboards aren’t just there for decoration; they’re there to naturally alert you to where you are, direct you to specific businesses or locations that might be of help, and let you know more information about your environment. For the team, a big part of making those messages stick out is through branding.
“Every logo is almost a character in and of itself,” says Fournier. “You’re always asking, ‘what’s the history behind that? Who’s the owner? What’s next, where can I find this person? I see there’s a shop, maybe I can find this shop somewhere?’ And it attracts you to go and find it, so it ties into the exploration of the world as you see those signs.”
For the Dev team, this approach to branding isn’t just about the games business and signs though. It extends to the homes of the characters and NPC’s themselves; the team wanted to create interiors that felt lived-in, with decorations that tell you something about the person who lives there, what they do, and how well they take care of their stuff.
For me this higher level of detail and nuance is something that I don’t feel we’ve seen as great a push for in previous Far Cry titles. Sure they’ve been detailed and beautiful but it seems that the Dev team are really pushing for greater substance behind that detail, it’s simply I guess to create something that looks nice, but if you can make the player feel that that beauty has a story behind it waiting to be discovered…that’s something thats pretty cool. Immerse the player in the world and they’re more likely to play, and enjoy it, for longer. But those are just my thoughts, why not let me know what you think down in the comments below!
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