Critical Mass Interactive

Critical Mass Interactive Completes Wearables for Electronic Arts' Ultima X: Odyssey

AUSTIN, Texas--Dec. 10, 2003.

Game Developer Critical Mass Interactive (CMI) has recently delivered dozens of completed models for the game Ultima X: Odyssey, a massively multiplayer online game scheduled to be released in early 2004. CMI, which has been a part of major releases like the 2003 "Favorite Video Game" Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award winner SpongeBob SquarePants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman for PlayStation®2 and GameCube, completed the project on time and on budget and is excited about future work with Electronic Arts.

(Screenshots Below)

Critical Mass Interactive created sets of interchangable armor for Origin Systems on their Ultima X: Odyssey project. Right click HERE and "Save Target As" to download a high resolution version to your hard drive.

"These were some of the most technical models we've ever had to produce," said CMI VP of Development Billy Cain. "We knew that Origin Systems had a high level of quality that they wanted to meet from both the aesthetic and technical viewpoints and we managed to match their requests from the beginning."

In Ultima X: Odyssey, the player can change outfits, armor, boots, helmets and the like, for up to three levels of depth. The base model is built and textured so that it is merely wearing underwear, and when a player adds more layers of clothing, the new parts are visible. Anything that gets obscured by the newer level of clothing is turned off, or 'hidden,' to optimize framerate for the game. Players can mix and match whatever armor they wish with any other type of armor. For instance, a character model only wearing underwear may have a tunic added to it, creating a second level of clothing that will cover certain parts of the underwear, and then on top of that, a player can add a third level of clothing such as plate mail. Anything that would appear to a normal person as showing through does, and anything that seems that it should be covered up, is.

To further complicate things, armor was built as lots of separate pieces, such as boots, leggings, chest pieces, gauntlets, bracers, and helmets. Each must be interchangeable across all armor sets. Having a clear plan as to how this all worked together across all files was crucial to success. "Hitting the technical requirements was somewhat difficult at first, but once we worked the pipeline out with Origin, everything just clicked,' explained Matt Scibilia, President of CMI. "By the time we hit our stride, it was fun watching the concept art go from start to a completed, textured, rigged model."

The methodology that Critical Mass Interactive used in their production for this product heavily incorporated the use of their secure client Bulletin Board system. This ensures that the client (and anyone the client wishes) is the only person looking at the progress of the game assets. CMI received concept sketches for characters and sets of armor, and would then take that set of assets to the modeling stage. Once approved by the art lead at Origin, CMI would take that asset to the texturing stage.

By breaking each stage for each asset down into an approval procedure, control over extra work is easily managed. "Origin's art lead would take the images from the bulletin board and draw on them to show us exactly what they wanted to enhance and / or diminish," commented Scibilia. "When an asset was moved from one stage to the next, we never had to go back to a previous stage. That really kept things moving forward day by day."

Critical Mass Interactive has provided art for other Massively Multiplayer Online games as well. "We are happy to build any type of assets that meet either 2D or 3D requirements," explaing Cain. "We've done work for Ultima Online and a few other MMOGs that cannot be mentioned publically yet, but we're anxiously awaiting the day that we can open the floodgates on that information!"

Ultima X: Odyssey is scheduled to launch early in 2004.

Critical Mass Interactive delivers a wide variety of services, including full game production from concept to completion on any platform, any type of outsourcing including concept sketches and storyboards, 3 dimensional models for in-game or marketing materials, design documents, and more. Recent clients include: Electronic Arts, Majesco, THQ/relic, and the United States Air Force. Visit them on the Web at http://www.criticalmassinteractive.com

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For more information, contact:
Critical Mass Interactive, Austin
Billy Cain (512) 219-1600
bcain@criticalmassinteractive.com

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