by: Tech21 | December 20, 2001
HQ: The Glacier engine seems to be a great step forward for FPS engines, since it
seems to be able to depict such amazingly detailed environments at a reasonable
speed. However, from your website, it appears that it was in
production for 5 years. How did IOI manage to support themselves for such a
long time while creating an engine which, ultimately, might never have made it to
a game?
JP: Some of the guys have been in the gaming industry for a long time. Their
tools developed into Glacier. So the Glacier was, when IOI started, primarily
put together by a few guys. How they have managed to support themselves is
a mystery to me. Especially when you consider that they are...not entirely sane.
HQ: What do you see happening to the Glacier engine in the future?
JP: It becomes better at supporting the new platforms, and becomes more user-friendly.
Of course it will become faster and prettier and with more features, but
the important stuff is that it will be better at setting up, controlling, and
tweaking gameplay. We want the Glacier to be the best possible tool to
develop games with high amounts of AI and flexibility.
HQ: What was the design process for creating levels? Even the simple levels
such as 'Massacre at the Cheung Chau Fish Restaurant' are really quite devious
in their solution, and the larger levels can be really quite stunningly
complex. How did you go about creating these as a team? (Also considered
in this last question is - It was said in the design of Quake 3, the level
designers created the structure, then handed it over to the artwork team, who
went off and textured it - seems a bit convoluted really! I was wondering
if a similar process went on here?)
JP: The whole idea about the level designers [creating] the structure is actually
quite good, since you can tweak gameplay at a very early stage. But that's Quake
and the gameplay is extremely dependent on the structure.
In Hitman, the gameplay is extremely dependent on the people in the game,
and they don't really need the finished structure to be set up; so naturally
our process is different. We discuss the location based on what's going to happen
in it, and to which amount of detail/size/complexity/atmosphere do we need to
build it to make it feel right and believable. This results in a base map,
then the structures are built by the 3d-artists and put together in our editor.
All the creative work is done inside Max to gain access to the best possible tools.
HQ: The artwork in Hitman is simply astounding. What was the inspiration for
the different areas of the game?
(How did you come up with the costume designs, building textures etc.)?
JP: The costumes are mainly designed from design drawings. Their inspiration
is often movies or picture reference. Most of the textures are hand made.
Lot's of photos have been used for reference and components, but everything
has been worked over and over.
HQ: Also, a much missed part of any game is the sound/music. Personally,
I think that some of the music in Hitman is outstanding - enough to listen
to on its own - and really captures the mood (I especially love the Menu/Hong
Kong music - muted beats, slow lines, big chords). How did you go about
creating the sound effects for the game, and what was the inspiration for the music?
JP: The music is made by a guy [named] Jesper Kyd. He's mainly been working on
his own (since he doesn't live in Denmark), and I can only congratulate
him on his work. He didn't see the game until very late, but the guys have been
working with him for ages, so they had a mutual understanding.
The sound effects have been done in-house. Most are made from archives or
from scratch. I think the only thing we recorded specifically for Hitman
were the weapons. We went on a trip to Finland to shoot with just about every
available weapon on earth. This resulted in quite good sounds and
lots of ideas of how weapons could work in games. I'm reluctant to admit
that it was good fun as well, but...
HQ: Ok, enough about game specifics - on to the fans. Most FPS games are able
to sustain a fan base because of the MOD community. Obviously,
Hitman is a far more complex game than games such as Quake, but a similar
title, Deus Ex, has recently released an SDK. How do you hope to keep
Hitman alive, so to speak?
JP: I don't think we'll be delivering an SDK. We'll keep hitman alive
by concentrating on the sequel, and do it well.
HQ: Although the Hitman 'community' cannot be said to be absolutely 'kicking' at
the moment, do you keep an eye on what's being said, for example, on the message
boards? Do you take in ideas and comments from these people?
(Specifically in my mind here is the simply fantastic idea of Hit Packs -
The idea that a few expansion packs could be released, each of which
contains a new 'hit' and the levels building up to it.)
JP: We do read the message boards and a lot of very valuable data have been collected.
The idea of expansion packs/smaller assignments have also been discussed in depth.
It would be extremely fun to do, but right now we have to focus on future releases.
We can do much better than Hitman 1. I think we can deliver a superb gaming
experience through Hitman 2. We know so much more about how Hitman works as a
genre now than we did with Hitman 1.
HQ: Finally - Why oh why oh WHY? Having got a fair way through the game,
I thought I was getting the basic idea behind the underlying plot. However,
on reading your website, you gave the whole damn thing away. My life is now
meaningless. Please help...
JP: Can't help you. It sucks.
HQ: Oh - and briefly - what games has IOI done previous to Hitman?
JP: Hitman is the first game for IOI as a company.
HQ: Thanks again for the interview.
JP: My pleasure, and thank you for a great site.
Jens Peter Kurup,
LeadAnimator
IOI.
