Tomb Raider: Underworld

All work shown below is subject to Copyright © Crystal Dynamics 2008. These models are from the xBox 360 version of the game data.

Alister

Characters from 'Tomb Raider: Underworld' were created with many texture maps, much like my other current generation game research shows from other games such as 'Tekken 6'. This certainly seems more common practice now than using atlas texture maps. Maybe loading lots of smaller textures works out to be more efficient now?

His mesh varies in detail levels, mainly focusing on folds and bends that would need to animate: something that is true for all models. You can see how his mouth sits inside his head, and how his eyes are constructed. The eyes are actually made up from 3 layers of polygons, not the more commonly seen 2. Instead of having the eyes themselves, then a glaze of shadows and highlights on top, there is a 3rd layer, but it is unclear as to what is on this layer. His texture files suggest nothing and all that I can think of is that the 3rd layer must just use a special shader in-game that can be used to lightly reflect a set image (fake reflection). If this is true, why is this process not applied instead to his shadow / highlight polygon panel over his eyes? Or would this cause their effects to become distorted also?

Amanda

Amanda has some great fine details with her normal maps, especially around her knees and elbows where he coat goes under her gloves.

Notice the level of detail seen on her textures. Like many other characters seen in todays games, she fakes the look of much higher resolution textures by using a 2nd set of normal maps that are set to repeat all over the selected mesh on the character. In this case you can see her detail normal map on her trousers, and a 2nd one on her coat. It is a brilliant technique, but currently is not controlled very well in most games (none that I have found yet). For example, using something similar on skin often causes the 'skin-pore' texture to apply itself to the lips too, making them look very strange close up. There are ways to overcome this, such as simply putting the lips on a separate polygon mesh over her face. However I wonder if for larger issues and even more control, whether making a 'masking' texture to say where the detail map should and should not apply itself would be better. Of course, this kind of thing would require yet more texture memory, and make the shader with it applied too much more complex to process. This arguably starts to fall into the realms of why alpha textures are kept at a minimum as much as possible.

Natla

A character that makes very obvious use of back-face culling, with only a single polyplane running through her wings to represent the skin between the joints. Dependant on the angle of the camera, depends on whether or not one side shows, or the other. It is a very common and important technique used in 3D to represent things that should not really have any noticeable width, such as hair planes, capes, and other hanging fabrics for example.

Notice her hand and the way her fingers are positioned. They have as little bending as possible, and the thumb is also kept fairly straight. This process allows for the hand to be more easily rigged with more complete movement afterwards. It could be said that modelling the hand slightly closed would give better end results for a character who would always have his hand closed or a very similar position, but if the character needs the full movement motions then a standard pose such as this is more required.

Winston

Winston again makes use of the detail normal maps to a larger extent to detail the skin on his face. Also notice how the bottom of his suit jacket flares out oddly. This is down to how the physics engine in the game would react with it. Spreading it out like this not only makes is easier to rig, but it also gives it a good distance between its collidable object (the character), and itself. This ensure in-game that it falls down into a natural position well, whereas modelling it in a relaxed position to begin with could produce abnormal and even adverse results.

Winston and Alister both had their hands in this open-fingered position. While there is nothing wrong with this so much, it does make you wonder why the women have their fingers close together instead. I believe this is down to the different rigs. For natural movement, it would make sense that the males and females both have separate rigs. These rigs were likely built by different people during the games development, and thus you get different layouts. The modellers would have to adhere to these layouts to make sure their characters fit perfectly to them.