September 12, 2008

Dissecting Dead Space's Grotesque Visuals with Art Director Ian Milham
By Louis Bedigian

“For the Necromorphs, we went straight to human anatomy and trauma for reference. We have reference image folders that half the team doesn’t have the stomach to look in.”

Resident Evil shaped the world of survival/horror, and Resident Evil 4 later redefined it. Silent Hill interjected its own brand of creepy, while Fatal Frame showed us that anything can be scary -- even photography. But what these and most other survival/horror games have in common is that, no matter how fun, definitive or just plain cool, very rarely do they introduce a new monster that makes you step back and wonder, "Where did that come from!?"

Dead Space, EA's first major venture into survival/horror, plans to change that with a new breed of vicious creatures. To find out how the developers pulled it off, GameZone turned to Dead Space's Art Director, Ian Milham. "Getting a new look and ideas into Dead Space was really hard, especially when such great other work has been done before us," he revealed. "The key I think was to not look at other games and movies too much, but instead look at real life. For horror, we thought about what types of things scared us, what made us uncomfortable, and we integrated those real-world influences into the game. We found that these ideas were usually pretty universal, so if we were scaring ourselves, we’d probably scare other people as well."

Start by providing some history about what it is you do as an art director and how you reached this point in your career.

Ian Milham: I’ve been working on Dead Space as Art Director for two and a half years, and at EA in total for almost four. I’ve been in the industry for about thirteen years. As Art Director, my job is basically to set the overall artistic vision and make sure the art of the game comes together into a cohesive whole that supports the gameplay, tells the story, and looks great. Sometimes that happens through actual artwork of my own, but much more often I direct concept artists, modelers, and other artists who get to do the fun stuff.

What was it like seeing your artwork (and/or your team's artwork) come to life for the first time? First it's just a cool sketch…now it's a bloody, ultra-gory horror game.

IM: It’s gratifying and sobering at the same time. On one hand, it’s great to see something become tangible and real. But on the other hand, the first time something makes it in the game, you almost always see a ton of more work that needs to be done. We’re trying to hit a very high quality bar with Dead Space, so we’re polished, worked, and re-worked our art over and over again. Almost nothing made it in the first time and stayed how it was.

Was there anything in particular that inspired the look of the game?

IM: Lots of things were influential. For our architectural ideas, we looked at gothic styles. The way that gothic buildings are spooky, but easy to read and understand with their visible supports and ribbed motifs, were a big influence. We really wanted the ship to be believable, so that was important to us. For light fixtures, we thought about what lighting made us feel the most creeped out, and we decided that the old lights in a dentist’s office were the worst, so we put those in there.

Roughly how many changes would you say a character or environment must go through on paper before it's ready to be designed in the game?

IM: Our work goes through several phases. There’s almost no paper design at first. We make really rough models with really rough animation, and get them into the game as quickly as possible, even if we’re not sure what it is yet. The key is to really get in there and interact with it. That’s how you get something great, by being able to change it and iterate on it a lot with relatively low risk. Then, once we’ve got some good ideas proven, it goes back to the paper stage. Then the concept artists have at it, and it can take a lot of work here. Some enemies took more than seventy full designs before settling on the final one. Once it’s designed, an enemy took about a month to model and texture in high resolution, then more months to animate to final quality.

Let's talk specifically about the individual designs, starting with the aliens. Some of them appear to be a mix of man and beast. Is that what you were going for?

IM: Absolutely. All of the Necromorphs (that’s what we call them, since they’re not aliens, per se) are made entirely of human DNA and parts. You can recognize parts of who they were in the final form. The idea is to make them relatable and horrific, not just space monsters or something like that.

The way the Necromorphs' bodies are blown apart / ripped apart as they're destroyed is very unique. Where did this design come from? Were there any real-world elements that the mutilation was based on?

IM: For the Necromorphs, we went straight to human anatomy and trauma for reference. One of our concept artists’ Mom works at an Emergency Room, so she was a resource. We have reference image folders that half the team doesn’t have the stomach to look in.

Isaac Clarke, the main character, appears to be wearing armor but not the kind meant for combat. His mask, for example, reminds me of what a welder might wear. Is that what you were envisioning for this character – non-combative protection?

IM: It’s a really key idea for us that Isaac is not a space marine. Games have enough of those, and those guys aren’t afraid of anything! What good would a horror story be with Master Chief or one of the Gears of War dudes? It would suck. Isaac is basically a jet mechanic and welder, not a soldier. He has no guns when he shows up, and only modest survival equipment. He has to make do with what he finds, which is mainly mining equipment and tools. The suit he gets is designed to perform mining work, not go to war.

Tell us about the weapons. Based on the screens and trailers, some look traditional, some appear to be futuristic, and some look like they were inspired by Gears of War…

IM: The weapons are the same as the suit, not designed for combat. Isaac’s weapons are really mining tools that he finds on the ship, like the Plasma Cutter or Remote Saw. They’re designed to cut rocks. That they also cut apart enemies really well is a side effect. There is one traditional gun that Isaac finds, left over from a dead security guard, but that’s the exception.

Think about guns today. They’re plastic, corporate looking, not that scary at all. Now think about a radial saw. Those make you wince just looking at them. That’s what we were going after making these tools, not guns.

I heard that subways and other cramped areas served as inspiration for the level designs, particularly in their claustrophobic feel. Is this true?

IM: We did reference subways and ships like aircraft carriers a lot, yeah. It was both for that closed-in horror feeling, and to make the ship feel real. On actual ships, space is a precious commodity, and we wanted to keep that feeling.

Are you involved with the Dead Space movie?

IM: With both the movie and the comics, what we wanted to do is let other people play in this world we’ve created. That’s why the comics and movie have their own style. And they’re cool, not just corporate traditional adaptations. When both groups started, I gave them sort of a Dead Space art boot camp, telling them about our influences, what we’re going for, that sort of thing, but after that, we pretty much let them run wild and do their thing. I nudged them one way or another a couple of times, but really wanted them to do new art styles that worked for their medium and stories.

Is there another game you plan to work on once Dead Space is complete?

IM: We’ve got ideas, but right now I’m working on making sure everything having to do with this game is as good as it possibly can be. It’s not often something like this comes along, so I don’t want to stop working on it until the last possible second.

Thank you for your time.

IM: Thank you! Everyone, if you have time, head over to our website at www.deadspacegame.com, I’m on the forums there all the time, and would love to hear what you think about the game!

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