From the start, the Black team was aligned with idea that "weapons are the stars of the show". Here, artist Chris Healy gives the lowdown on what makes a Black gun like no other.

BLACK ART

Chris: In a first person shooter title, the weapon takes up a large percentage of screen real estate and is center-stage for most, if not all of the time. It seemed obvious to us that these weapons were essentially the main characters and needed to be treated as such. As we started to drive towards production and a looming E3 deadline where we were presenting the game to external parties for the first time, it became clear that we needed someone dedicated fulltime to guns.

While during pre-production I was involved in Level previs and testbed world building, I've always had a huge interest in military hardware and function driven design. I wanted this role. I wanted it so bad it hurt. So I suggested that I step up, create a few guns for the E3 build and hopefully be given the role permanently.

Healy (right) and animator Neil Parkinson survey the library

The company agreed, and so I began my research in an attempt to come up with a clear and concise mission statement and to identify the first few weapon candidates for the E3 build.

In the meantime, we set about building up a small library of BB gun replicas to help us with our research. It all started when Stuart Black bought a handful of replicas from an online shop. The day they arrived at the office was a joyous day indeed.

By the time I'd made a coffee and returned to my desk they were set up, filled with gas and a target was put up in a vacant adjoining room. The sound was as if a small war was upon us and we were winning judging by the din. Needless to say there were no casualties...except for a 19" monitor. (The culprit is still at large.)

Image of a G36c

Amongst the first batch of deliveries was a replica G36, a Modern assault rifle manufactured and designed by Heckler & Koch - a beautiful piece of kit. Within minutes of seeing it we were all convinced that this weapon HAD to go into the game. Over the course of the next few months we slowly built up our arsenal and ended up with a collection of 21 replicas with various swappable attachments.

Having these weapons on hand proved to be essential when building them in 3D. The guns that turned out the best in-game were the ones where we had a plethora of reference - and nothing can beat having the weapon right in front of you. Another advantage of having the weapon in your hand is that you can photograph it and then project photoreal images onto the gun, helping to make it look more realistic.

Simple lighting rolling over soft and hard edges

In terms of budget, the weapons in Black used approximately the same polygonal/texture budget as the player car in Burnout. In comparison to other fps titles it seemed that this would instantly help us get the edge on the competition and we set about creating a test case to prove the fidelity.

The weapon we chose to do this was the player handgun which was later named the "DC3 Elite". This weapon was inspired by the "Desert Eagle" and the "Beretta 92" and was the only hybrid gun we used - all the others were based on their real life counterparts with a few changes to typify the Black look.

An example of the wear and tear look we strived to achieve

Coming from an artist's point of view, I was very interested in the way light behaves as it rolls across the surface of a weapon - that precise mix of soft flowing profiles combined with hard edges was going to be a key feature for us.

Also we didn't want the "fresh out of the box" look to the weapons most games seemed to have at the time. We wanted to inject real character and history into every weapon, as if each one has a story to tell. We achieved this by adding wear and tear to the surface of the guns. The metal finish was scratched and worn as if it had really been used, the wood was pitted and scarred, dust and dirt was suggested in the inaccessible intricate corners.

Another key feature we implemented across all the weapons was Picatinny rail. The Picatinny rail is a bracket used on some modern firearms in order to provide a standardized mounting platform for telescopic sights and other accessories, such as tactical lights and laser sighting modules.

An example of a Picatinny rail based weapon, note the various attachments which can be swapped in and out with mimimum fuss

Another Picatinny rail system close up.

The approach we took towards the creation of the weapons was an important part of what made them stand out. We would take a real life weapon, 3d model it in a primitive fashion and get it in-game before anything else was done.

The reason for this is because we realised that some guns, while looking great as a side profile, simply looked bad once elevated in a 3d form, from the player's perspective. Scopes would interfere with the line of sight, areas of the gun close to the player would look dull and uninteresting.

By previewing the overall mass of the weapon on screen, we could identify key problem areas and iterate the model with minimal impact on any schedule.

Side by side example of a Standard weapon alongside a Black themed version. Note added rail systems etc.

Once its overall footprint was locked down we would then add a few personal touches, little things that gave the BLACK weapons their identity. Sometimes we would change things a great deal in order to give the gun a strong screen presence - rear sights would be changed in favour of more interesting ones, barrels would be lengthened to compensate for camera foreshortening - we even swapped the location of the shell ejection port on the AK47 to help make the whole experience more visceral.

Through these and other techniques, Black's guns were able to take center stage. And even now, with the next generation of console and over a year since we shipped you can still tell the difference between a Black gun...and all the rest.

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