Demolition Man
AUTHOR: Jeff
In celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, I’m going to augment the Flogging Molly we’re rocking in the Lab and introduce you to resident Irishman and all-around badass technical artist, Dave Dunniway.
I met Dave back in 2003 when I was looking for experienced 3D artists for Guild Wars. At that point we had the core of an amazing art team, but I was looking for someone special; someone who could not only model and paint, but who could also figure out how to make things work. More specifically, someone who could build things, break them apart, and then put them back together again. When I looked at some of the work Dave had done for Dungeon Siege, I knew he was our guy.
Sometimes, you just have to blow shit up. And when that time comes, you want a guy like Dave on your team.
It takes a team of talented artists and animators to create a beautiful world and make it feel alive. But players want more than beauty. They want to interact with their environment; to feel like they’ve left their footprints in the sand, or their graffiti on the walls. They want to see the flaming ruins of a gas station that had the poor taste to get in the way of their gun sights. They want a world that reacts and changes as they move through it; more than a pretty backdrop for combat with wandering monsters.
That’s what Dave does: He turns game art into toys for us to play with. And then sometimes he blows them up.
I had the pleasure of working with Dave for seven years on the Guild Wars games, where he quickly became the go-to guy for interactables, breakables, destructables, and any other “ables” we could think of.
When we started laying our plans for the ultimate zombie-survival world at Undead Labs, I knew we needed a veteran technical artist who could make sure that the world of Class3 was not only beautiful, but also a blast to play in. You can imagine my pleasure to wake up one morning last summer and find an email from Dave with the subject, “Zombie-slayer reporting for duty!”
Welcome aboard, Dave!
Jeff
[Be sure to read Dave’s welcome message to his fellow survivors...]
awesome.. really excited for this game, and because you guys are breaking through the walls that have been put up by every producer and developer and corporation prior to you, the talent on your team over there has us up in Canada, very excited and confident..
Keep working, and for the love of Jeff, keep the updates coming…
Blowing up zombies in a world where i can sip my juice is awesome.
Yes, you got it right
world are no longuer simple background, they play an important rôle in immersion. The randomness of possibility in a world is important
Amazing game knowledge, sweet taste in games and excellent taste in music – I like you guys more and more
Go Labs!
The hits just keep coming. Destructable debris is certainly a fun part of any game and its wonderful to have a vet at the helm. It boggles my mind to think of the requirements on destructable debris in a survival game though. The posibilities for debris usage in Class 3 and Class 4 seem numerous and probably make it that much harder to design.
We don’t know how involved barricading will be in these titles (at least the fans don’t), but destructable objects are primed to make a big impact. Do you pull a box infront of a door/window or do you destroy the box and then take the scrap debris and secure the box’s wood planks to the opening with hammer and nails? The first is easier and more functional but the later is probably more secure.
As the living dead batter you barrier to pieces, will there be a health bar showing resilience or will that all be portrayed by the art style?
Will players be able to destroy objects in order to aquire items or acheive objectives? (batter down doors to get food from a 7/11 or break into an abandoned cop car for a shotgun) If so, then how will the art assets represent this and will the items respawn in Class 4?
So many questions. Best of luck at UL and I can’t wait to see what is next.
Glad to have you aboard. I look forward to seeing and playing with your work. I’m a big ballistics guy, so don’t worry about your painstaking efforts to have a .45 bullet impact render differently than a .223 going unappreciated.
Ah from one Irishman to another, welcome!
And the guy who’s going to make it all destructible… I dont think you could’ve picked a better guy hahaha
Jeff had originally called Dave “our resident Irishman”, but had to take out the “our” because all of the other Irish folks here were like “HEY!”
It’s pretty comical to see people in friendly brawls over who’s more Irish. Appropriate, I guess.
(And I can say this because I’m half Irish, too
)
HAHAHAH the other Irish folk at the lab? >_< It’s whoever has the biggest kilt…. next is the biggest Clancy Brothers collection…. if not, largest lager/beer collection
ps: you earned 10 pts
but u were already at the max of 100…. so now… :/… conundrum
I would keep an extra eye on this one, just in case he starts collecting explosives, and stores it in his office at the studio. “its for research
”
Hmm…Dave sits right behind me. Maybe I should get one of those monitor mirrors…
I saw you mentioned graffiti, will players be able to spray paint things in the undead world?
That would be an amazing feature…