User:Gary/StarCraft II


 * GDC 2011: Developing StarCraft II Like Inventing 'Basketball 2'

This is the development history of StarCraft II.

Development
Blizzard Entertainment first announced StarCraft II as an upcoming game in 2007 at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Seoul, South Korea, when Blizzard CEO Michael Morhaime took the stage and revealed the game's opening cinematic. Developers had been working on the game since the release of WarCraft III in 2002, but the project was delayed for a year in 2005 when resources were moved to World of WarCraft, which was growing at a more rapid pace than the company had anticipated. When development for StarCraft II first began, a game engine was written specifically to support the game. In addition, particular focus was placed on the game's multiplayer aspect and in streamlining it, since Blizzard was fully aware of its importance to the original StarCraft. To receive feedback on StarCraft II during its development, Blizzard communicated with fans through Battle Reports (1-on-1 matches), podcasts, and live gaming sessions at conventions and tournaments. A new Battle.net system was also developed for StarCraft II for gamers to meet, share custom maps, and play ladder games and tournaments.

Design
Dustin Browder was the lead designer and director for StarCraft II. He also led the game's design team, called Bunker 55 within the company. The team was made up of veterans who had also worked on the original StarCraft and WarCraft III games, as well as new talent that was added to the team since then. Most design ideas, such as map designs, for StarCraft II came from meetings in which all the designers were participants, where they could collaborate with each other. When designing levels, the level designers took the game's story and broke it down into smaller parts, and then they planned each mission based on how they wanted to best support and "sell" the story. Each level has a "hook" to give it a unique experience, such as having a mission in which the player must survive for as long as possible, or where they must defeat the enemy as quickly as possible. When designing a mission, the team considered it important that it had a clear objective but that it also required that the player think about how best to approach the objective, rather than having the game provide clear instructions on how to accomplish it. This allows for players with different play styles to accomplish a task in their own way. When a level and its mission was complete, it was then playtested and iterated several times until it met expectations.

For the game's units, designers looked at the original StarCraft to figure out how units were introduced to the player in that game's story, so that they could apply similar methods to StarCraft II. By looking at the original game, they also wanted to remain respectful of the series' lore, as well as provide a game that would be fun as an entry level game as well as one that could be played in professional gaming competitions, by being a skill-based game that veterans would enjoy. The design team also ensured that the eSports community was supported, so much of their time was spent working on the game's multiplayer aspect. Therefore, unit balancing was also a major focus. For example, Zerg Hydralisks were not used very often in multiplayer matches during the beta period, primarily against the Protoss, so balance designers worked on balancing the unit so that they were used more often. Although eventually accomplishing it, they remarked that solving issues such as this one was very difficult to do with three races that are each unique.

Programming
The programming department for StarCraft II was split into two teams: Engine and Game, with Carl Chimes as the lead software engineer. The game's build process included servers dedicated to building and then testing the game. It then sent reports to the team when the game broke. To test the game's artificial intelligence (AI), programmers ran tests to determine how efficient the AI was at finding a unit to attack when faced with a large number of units. Ideally, when one large group of units encountered another large group, every unit should immediately find an enemy unit to attack that is close so that every unit is used to their full potential. The team had to continuously work on this aspect so that the time was decreased until they were satisfied with it.

Bob Fitch, who has worked at Blizzard Entertainment for 17 years and had developed the AI for all of the company's games prior to StarCraft II, also developed the AI for StarCraft II. He stated that StarCraft II is their first game in which the AI doesn't "cheat"; previously, the AI would "know" where the human player's base was even before it discovered it, and therefore the AI did not have to scout the map before attacking the player. In StarCraft II, similar to human players, the AI must now send scouts to explore the map and search for the human player so that they know where they are before attacking them, therefore making the game more balanced between AI and human players. The AI will now also only know what buildings the human player has that it has seen, and so the AI player will not be aware of any buildings that the player has built after the AI's scout has left the human player's base. Another major improvement made to the game's AI is that now, it is limited in the number of actions that it can be perform simultaneously, to make it more realistic. It is given a priority queue in which tasks that it wishes to perform is performed in order, rather than simultaneously as they were in StarCraft.

Compared to WarCraft III, the level editor in StarCraft II was developed from the ground up, including the database and trigger systems, which were explicitly designed to allow users to edit them. A programmer who worked on the level editor noted that it could potentially be used to write the next expansion pack for StarCraft II. The in-game recording system has also been completely revamped. It now creates such professional-looking videos that Blizzard itself uses it to record videos that it uploads to its website for promotional purposes. The developers also feel that the recording utility will be extremely useful for the machinima community since it has useful triggers to automatically record cutscenes. StarCraft II also includes a mod system to allow players to publish mods and maps to Battle.net. The game's technology needed to perform a large number of graphics intensive tasks, such as shadow balancing and lighting while simultaneously generating hundreds of units on the screen. Since the programmers also work on the game's graphics engine, they collaborated with the game's designers to share ideas on how to best accomplish certain graphical effects by finding compromises between both teams. In addition, the game's graphics artists sometimes talked with the game engine programmers to suggest new features used to generate certain graphical elements. Also, the artists and designers for StarCraft II often discussed campaign issues and in-game units with each other.

Sound
Russell Brower was the game's Director of Audio, as well as one of its composers. In an interview, he remarked that he felt his job require that he be a storyteller, with the use of music, dialogue, and sound effects that are as unique as the virtual worlds themselves. Since each race in StarCraft II has their own music, there are three different composers, one for each race. Glenn Stafford composed the music for the Terrans. He recorded the music in Woodstock, New York, in a church that was converted into a recording studio, since the wood surfaces provided good reverberance along with a vintage sound akin to rock and roll music. In addition, the mixing boards and microphones used were designed to provide a sound that could be associated with old records. The environment also allowed the performances to give a raw, cowboy sound, similar to the Terran music from the original StarCraft, but with a higher production value.

Derek Duke composed the music for the Zerg species. He also worked on music for World of WarCraft, another game by Blizzard Entertainment. When working on the music for the Zerg, he turned the lights down low and he looked at Zerg concept art for inspiration. When describing the music for the Zerg, he noted that he always starts it off with creepy drones and low sounds, then he added elements of noise that reminded him of the Zerg, including those with "creepy crawly" textures and whining sounds. He then created a "Zerg family space", and he added bass drums that came in the middle of the composition. He delayed the drums to give the impression of space. Finally, Brower worked on the Protoss music. To provide inspiration for his composition, he put up concept art of the Protoss on his walls so that he could study them and let the imagery sink in. He described the Protoss music as a mix of mystical whisperings, like musical hieroglyphs. He then infused them with traditional orchestral melodic sounds for emotion and mixed them with textures created through synthesizers or sound design to bring a "level of magic and otherworldliness" to them.

For the music not related to any particular species, the music team decided to differentiate it in feeling and emotion from previous works such as World of WarCraft and Diablo. Therefore, they decided to record the music at Skywalker Sound on the Skywalker Ranch at Marin County, California, where an orchestra and stage were used that were different from anything they had used before in any of their games. This gave the overall music of StarCraft II a traditional film score sound, rather than the more "primitive" sound experienced in World of WarCraft. They decided to do this since the StarCraft series is a space fantasy, which therefore requires that it have more intricate melodies and rhythms—a "totally different sound".

Voice acting is very different from film and television acting in that the body cannot be used to emote; the actor can only use their voice to express how the character feels. For StarCraft II, casting for voice actors went through several rounds. First, hundreds of recorded auditions were sent in, and then the casting team found actors that could "channel" a character. Then, callbacks were made to bring in actors in person, where a director then directed the actor into a role. The casting team particularly enjoyed creating the "piss lines" the most, which are scripted lines that in-game units speak when they are annoyed at the player when they click on the unit several times in a row. They enjoyed recording the Thor unit's piss lines the most, since it had to specifically parody the distinct accent of Austrian-American actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Jonas Laster was the sound designer for StarCraft II, which meant that he created the sound effects for the game, such as alien sounds that were uniquely Zerg-like. In order to create the sound of Zerg creep moving across land, Laster tried different methods such as taking chicken and then squishing sour cream inside it in order to make a "squishing and gross sound". Laster also stuck his hands in a bucket of Nickelodeon Gak to get more Zerg sounds. He also noticed that, when using the office bathroom, that when he rubbed the liquid soap in his hands it made a squishing sound that he thought could be used for the Zerg creep, too. So, he wanted to try using that and experimenting with it as well. He also placed a microphone in the bathroom to record sounds that came from the soap and that might be interesting and useful. Laster noted that his philosophy was to experiment with as many sounds as possible, and then find a use for them later. He felt that a sound could be useful in a context that he did not expect, and that his job required a lot of improvisation. He also remarked that his job was similar to a composer's, which both require attention to emotion, the environment, space, and the focus on telling a story with sound.

Art
Samwise Didier was the senior art director for StarCraft II. The art team was the smallest team working on the game, with 15 employees, five of whom also worked on the original StarCraft. The art department was broken up into three teams of five people each: the 54, the Ninja Love Lounge, and Tiki Village. When working on StarCraft II, they wanted to improve on the original game by getting rid of non-essential units, such as the Terran Firebat. When designing the game's art, they focused on creating art that looked high tech but "artified", and also readable and playable, meaning that the units are practical and fit into the StarCraft universe. When creating new units, the idea first went through a concept phase in which the entire art team is involved. Then, concept art graphics were created, and then models based off the art were sculpted to use as a basis for future game artwork. Didier would sometimes comment on an artist's work by recommending that more Terran-looking features be place don it to more clearly indicate that a unit is part of that species, for instance.

In the original StarCraft, graphics were done in 3D first and then converted and touched up in 2D to make the sprites that were featured in the game. Also, there were only 256 colors available in the color palette, and each race was only allowed to use a certain range of colors. For instance, the Zerg race was only allowed to use four different shades of brown. In StarCraft II, however, units were created and featured in 3D, allowing for much more detailed artwork. However, since units still appear small on screen and only up to 3/4 of a unit is ever seen, colors had to be bright to make units stand out and sufficiently distinct. The game's artists constantly communicated with the designers to determine if units needed to be toned down if they require too high a frame rate or they lag the game down too much. However, some graphics such as the explosion of the Terran nuclear bomb was encouraged to look as extreme and over-the-top as possible, since it is used fairly rarely in the game. As a compromise, the animation did not need to be as detailed since it only appears briefly on screen.

Movies
Matt Samia was Vice President of Cinematics and Media at Blizzard Entertainment during the development of StarCraft II. The department that handled the in-game cinematics for StarCraft II, both pre-rendered and real-time, was an all computer-generated animation studio, similar to those that make 3D animated films. The department was organized into teams that focused on different parts of the movies. The first part of making the cinematics involved the initial idea and storyboarding; next was the creation process which included modeling, animation, effects, and lighting; and then the final step was the compositing. Nick Carpenter was the executive art director for StarCraft II. For the game's real-time cinematics, pre-rendered assets were taken and placed in real-time environments to create longer cinematics, since less time was required to animate these assets. It also made it easier to extract high resolution maps and meshes and get them into real-time environments. Jeff Chamberlain was the project director of cinematics. The process began by writing a story with the other teams to fit with their criteria and ensure that the cinematics helped tell the existing story. A lot of time was spent on the writing part, since the story is the foundation of the cinematic process. Then the storyboarding process begins, then modeling, and composition, with most of the time being spent on the final step. Time was also spent in the sound department to develop the score and sound effects for the cinematics.

The first step, the 3D modeling process, helps the director visualize assets into 3D as quickly as possible, to cut down on the back-and-forth between teams. A particularly large amount of time was spent creating the Kerrigan model, since she is such as central character to the story. The first concept for the character was created with just the "right amount of detail", and then a base mesh was built of her with the right proportions. Also, a new design for the Marine unit was needed, and it also needed to be very detailed since the suit appears prominently in several scenes. Next is the 3D pre-production process, during which the cinematic is created for the first time in 3D. In this step, it is most important to get the camera spacing right, since the camera is what really tells the story. In the next step, animators then place the characters into the scene, and then afterward, the focus is on the animations by first performing general movements and then focusing on the main action sequences and minute movements. To create real-life reference points, the animators filmed themselves with cameras in the company's parking lot, performing movements that characters would perform in the cinematics. They wanted to know what the camera would do to the characters. In one of the final cinematics in the game, in which the three main characters appear, the animators needed to focus on the emotional battle between the characters. Since the characters appeared in large metal suits, the animators had to rely on close intimate shots with facial expressions to convey emotions. They also had to focus on the acting and body language through the eyes and make the faces believable. This allowed them to worry about adding more detail and effects later.

Afterward, the animation moves on to the rigging process, which involves the adding of controls to 3D objects and characters to allow animators to move them in the scenes. Among the most complex rigs was the armor suit for the Marine, with over 200 controls for the arms, face shield, and the vents on the back down the spine, among other things. The simulation process can also be thought of as the deformation of the character using a simulator. Kerrigan was particularly difficult to simulate since she appears in three different forms throughout the game's cinematics. In one scene, when she is in her human form, her hair had to be simulated so that it blew at the same velocity as the wind and dust blowing around her. Lighting comes next, where animators light a sequence. During this process, half of it involves the lights and the other half involves shaders and how the surfaces react to the lights. The animators tried to mimic real world samples of different materials to capture their shininess, reflectiveness, and coloration. They also rented out a studio to shoot practical effects which they could replicate in the animations. For example, they placed dry ice in a bucket high above the ground to observe how the generated mist would react when it hit the ground and interacted with other objects. During the compositing process, animators are able to fine tune the look of shots in an interactive environment. Traditionally, it can take hours to produce a single frame in a 3D animation. However, the StarCraft II animation team discovered that it was much more efficient for them to render each component separately, such as the lighting information and the surface information. For some scenes, hundreds of layers were created that were then reassembled in the compositing software. This allowed for a more detailed control on each aspect of lighting and shading and how they reacted with each other. It also allowed animators to separate the characters, props, and effects from the environment, make changes to the scene, and then put them back together when they were done.

Real-time cinematics are different from pre-rendered cinematics in that they are generated on-the-fly by the player's computer rather than rendered beforehand. The goal with these animations was to help tell the story while focusing on Jim Raynor, the game's protagonist. The creation process for the real-time cinematics followed a similar process to the pre-rendered cinematics; using Jim Raynor as an example, concept art is first created, and then a model is built, and finally the model is textured. After that, he is placed into the cinematic, fully lit and textured. The team built their own assets to use since they were not able to use any in-game units, as those were built for a top-down viewer. Therefore, the animators had to build characters specifically for close-up shots in which much more detail could be seen. The "style" of in-game units was still used, but the animators also added more detail and determined how the units might look at different angles, a challenge not faced when designing the smaller in-game units.

Writing
Andy Chambers was the lead writer for StarCraft II. The writing team worked with the designers and artists to produce the game's characters, missions, plots, and dialogue. After Blizzard worked on WarCraft III, they learned that players could get particularly attached to a story when hero-type characters were included, such as Raynor in StarCraft II. The writers described the story for StarCraft II as primarily a story about specific characters, and that it was really about "a boy and a girl" (Kerrigan and Raynor), the complex web of how they relate to each other, and how it affects the rest of the game's universe by resolving itself in a galactic conflict that science fiction fans are more familiar with. The writers noted that they also took the story and "peppered it with emotions". They wanted to show the player that Raynor was someone worth investing time into, to keep motivating them to finish the game. They also remarked that the biggest challenge in writing such an epic storyline was how difficult it was to have large, sprawling battles mixed with political intrigue, while still being able to relate it all with the player. Therefore, the writers always knew that they had to keep the focus on a single person—Raynor—and his emotions, while at the same time showing the player the backdrop of mighty empires clashing. They attempted to show the player what the cost to someone like Raynor was when making such significant decisions in the game or when something terrible happened to him.