Emp Development Questions

[Chris Longpre]

I got an email from a user who asked:

1.How many people were needed to work on Emperor

2.How many people were there working for the then Westwood

3.How were the unit images created as in scanning into the computer or drawn on a program?

I thought you all might like the answers as well.. :) Its been a while, so let me see what I can recall..

1. The main group was around 24 people for the last 1.5 years of the project. Initially, it was more like 12. Then, over at Westwood & Westwood Pacific, we had various folks from E&B, RA2, YR, Renegade & WOL work on the project in the last 3-4 months. So, in the last 3 months of the project, the figure was closer to 36 people.

Of course, that does not include any of the Dramatic Asset crew (i.e. the in-game movie director, actors, voice actors, motion actors, set designers, storyboard artists, blue screen techs, 3D artists, costumer, etc. etc. etc.)

Also, lets not forget the 24 plus game testers that lived emperor from Oct 2000 -> July 2001.

Check out the game manual, it lists everyone, and who they worked for. Its quite a list!

2. The Westwood crew was large toward the end. I do not want to take anything away from IG staff, who did a splendid job, and was really responsbile for the largest portion of the game. And, like in any project (internal or external), you cannot slice up the pieces and easily say that only 1 group/person worked on only 1 area. With a team that size, and with that much passion for the project, we all fed upon each others ideas & energies.

3. Units were designed for gameplay first, then a concept sketch was done. After some revisions, we approved a concept sketch, and then started building 3D models in 3DStudio Max. Texure palettes were built around key 'House themes' which we documented early on as part of our style guide. Once the 3D model is properly modeled & animated, then textured, it gets a final approval for the game. After that, the programmers & designers have to add it to the game build tree, and give it some armor, bullet type, damange, speed, animation keys, particle effects, etc. etc.

During gameplay tuning, some units were dropped (but you all found them in the asset files anyway, and used them in your mods .. Large Windtrap is one), and others were given to completely different Houses (shock! horror! yup, it happened). Some were dropped forever, and others created brand new from scratch (i.e. inkvine catapult was a late add).

Anyways, that's it for tonight..

[lowzeewee]

Thanks for answering my questions I IM-ed to you,CHris

Ummm,I didn't email you... :P I IM-ed u :)

[Gobalopper]

Chris you and James should get together one day and write a postmortem for Emperor over at Gamasutra.

[lowzeewee]

lol post mortem