[目录] [Building the Myths of Rise of the Tomb Raider] [Finding Inspiration for Rise of the Tomb Raider] [Research and Reference in Rise of the Tomb Raider] [Building from Life] [Creating Believable Hair and Fur] [Creating Believable Materials] [Creating Believable Skin and Character Material Effects] [Creating Motion and Emotion with Animation] [Bringing Lara to Life with Blendshapes] [Physically Based Rendering and Post Effects] [Building Larger Worlds with More Fidelity] [Snow Tech and Houdini Simulations] [Scoring Dynamic Combat with Procedural Music] [“I Must Not Fear”] [The Bear Chase] [Rise of the Tomb Raider for Stealth Gamers] [Rise of the Tomb Raider for Puzzle Gamers] [The Evolution of Tomb Raider Hubs] [Expedition Modes] [A Little Thing About A Little Thing]
Dev Blog: Finding Inspiration for Rise of the Tomb Raider
Brian Horton: Game Director
[Leading into the launch of Rise of the Tomb Raider, we’ll feature a variety of developer blogs that lift the curtain on the creation of Lara’s first great tomb raiding expedition.]
Creating a game like Tomb Raider will always be a mix of imagination and exhaustive research. We want our characters, worlds and adventures to be exciting but grounded in the real world so our mythology will be as believable as possible. Our research takes us down many roads, but we usually start with historical research, location shoots and reference photos but the tone of our games is best expressed through film and fine art. On the reboot, Apocalypse Now and The Descent were very strong examples of survival and a darker narrative tone.
While films are very helpful, our concept artists find paintings to be extremely important to our process of finding the soul of our game’s aesthetic. The Hudson River School were 19th century American painters famous for depicting the untamed west with beauty and reverence. They captured the majestic mountains and valleys, often around a luminous sunset surrounded by with dramatic storm clouds. These paintings served as a tone for the entire game, an aesthetic we called “Ominous Beauty.”
For Rise of the Tomb Raider, we wanted to maintain the survival tone, but shift our color pallets to reflect the Siberian landscape. The 19th century Russian realists depicted the people, landscapes and myths of that time.
Ivan Shishkin showcased a detailed and lush expression of the Russian wilderness. The color pallets are harmonious yet they and showcase the variety of weather and climates.
Ilya Repin and Ivan Kromskoy depicted the human experience through detailed and expressive portraits. The weathered faces and hands, humble garments and wiry hair and beards tells a story of a life of labor. Our local population would reflect spirit of the rural life as seen in 19th century Russia.
“Vision of Kitezh.” Image via vmdpni.ru
Russian myths are beautifully expressed in paintings, including some artistic interpretations of Kitezh. Through research, we discovered many of the Orthodox religious architecture was inspired by Byzantine designs. This was a perfect dovetail with our narrative goals to tie Kitezh to the ancient Byzantine world.
Russian filmmaker, Andrei Tarkovsky inspired us with two of his seminal films, Andrei Rublev and Stalker. Andei Rublev depicts the struggle of 15th Century Monastery during the Tartar Invasion. While the narrative doesn’t directly influence the story, the backdrop is similar to the context of the Mongol invasion of Kitezh. Stalker is a contemporary story that expressed the decay of abandoned architecture, a perfect inspiration for the abandoned Gulags and industrial structures left behind after the fall of the Soviet Union. The characters, locations and drama of these films were another interesting source of inspiration for the tone of Rise of the Tomb Raider.
Tomb Raider has always been a rich canvas to reflect the human experience through history, myths and drama. Our team really enjoys the research process to discover details and emotional that would be impossible to invent in a vacuum. Pulling from many different forms of artistic expressions like films, books and art allows us to think outside of the box of the video game medium and hopefully create a world and characters that sparks the imagination of our fans around the world.
Brian Horton
Game Director, Rise of the Tomb Raider
