Lost Planet

Here’s the second half of my interview with Lost Planet Cutscene Director, Mr. Yoshiyuki Tonoe.

[Brian] Can you go over the process of how a script gets turned into a full-fledged cutscene?

[Tonoe] Sure. Of course our work doesn’t start until the story is finalized. Then we take the story and draw up storyboards, and take care of whatever motion-capturing we need to do. Next we get the 3D assets, the character models and other props and environments, from the artists in charge of those things, and fuse that with the captured mo-cap data to start putting scenes together. Finally, we show it to the person in charge of story and continuity, Hosokawa-san the designer in this case, and get his OK, or refine it if needed. Once we get the OK, we show it to Takeuchi-san, the producer for final approval.

Click to read the conclusion to the interview.

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I’m blogging from my parents’ place in Seattle. We drove up for the holidays and almost had a White Christmas—it started snowing here on Wednesday night, missing the big day by 2 days.

This week’s interview is a little later than usual, with the holidays, coordinating with Japan and all that. But better late than never.

For this week’s interview, I asked Tonoe-san, the Cutscene Director for Lost Planet, all about the cutscenes in Lost Planet and the work that went into making them. Lost Planet Director Kenji Oguro also added some comments here and there.

Click to read Part 1 of the interview.

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Just a heads up about our upcoming Lost Planet launch party next month. If you are going to be in or near San Francisco on January 11, you are welcome to come join us celebrate the launch of Lost Planet with a party, a Lost Planet tournament, a chance to meet the developers of the game, and much much more.

Just head over to our Lost Planet community site for details.

—Brian

Here’s Part 3, the conclusion of my exclusive interview with Lost Planet Lead Programmer Kohei Akiyama. Director Kenji Oguro also shared some of his thoughts with me as well.

Jump to:
Part 1
Part 2

[Brian] What can you tell me about the engine being used by Lost Planet? Is it being used by any other Capcom titles?

[Akiyama] We use a proprietary engine called “MT Framework.” The “MT” part of that has three meanings: Multi Thread, Multi Target, and Multi Tool. This is the engine that was used in Dead Rising, and that we are using for Devil May Cry 4. You can tell how flexible it is by the fact that we have been able to produce 3 completely different looking games and kinds of games with the same engine.

Also, as you can tell from watching Lost Planet in action, its graphical prowess and rendering capabilities are absolutely amazing. I just think it’s a great development engine.

In the past we had specialized tool sets, or software that allows level design programming and enemy placement, per series. Onimusha had Onimusha-specific tools, there were RE tools for the Resident Evil series, and so on. But doing it that way takes an extraordinary amount of time and manpower. So a few years back, Capcom decided to make an engine framework that could be used for all games. And what came out of that was the MT Framework engine.

So now that we can save so much time by not having to develop and work on game-specific tools, we can take that saved time and effort and use it to make the games that much better.

Click to read the rest of Part 3 of the interview.

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On to Part 2 of my exclusive interview with Lost Planet Lead Programmer Kohei Akiyama.

[Brian] What exactly is the process for taking an idea or concept that a designer comes up with and translating that into program code?

[Akiyama] Although I’m in charge of the software code, as the Director Oguro-san is the team leader for the whole project, so he does a lot to steer the team in the direction it’s supposed to go.

Click to read the rest of Part 2 of the interview.

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For this week’s exclusive developer interview, I picked the brain of the top programmer on the Lost Planet team, Akiyama-san. Lost Planet Director Kenji Oguro also contributed some answers.

[Brian] What’s your name and title on the Lost Planet project?

[Kohei Akiyama] My name is Kohei Akiyama and I’m the Programming Team Leader.

Mainly I manage the whole team of programmers. I also worked a bit on the storage and memory functionality, Guide button implementation, and other system-integration areas.

Since most of my job entails managing the other programmers, if I had tried to do any of the gameplay-related programming, I wouldn’t have had time for anything else. That’s why I decided to work on the system programming, since it’s pretty flexible and not as demanding on my time.

Click to read the rest of Part 1 of the interview.

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Last week we held a special private pre-launch event in San Francisco, inviting members of the press and a few lucky Capcom fans. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to go, due to both my nasty cold and my nasty work load. But Tony L, who you may remember covered the Gamespot After Hours event for me, did this nice write-up of last week’s event.

Click on any of the below picture thumbnails to go to this photo album to check out the action.

Click to read the report from the event and see the pictures.

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There’s a nice 10-minute discussion of Lost Planet with cool footage on the 12/8 episode of the 1Up Show. It starts at about 18:04 into the show. Check it out!

—Brian

I’m so excited that I finally get to talk about what we’ve been working on lately.

A few weeks back I talked about the update we are making to the text size of the score readout in Elimination for those running in non-HD resolutions, based on all the feedback we got from you guys.

Well, if you thought that was cool, this’ll be like Christmas morning for you! I’ve got a whole list of updates that are being made to the multiplayer game to share with you. This is stuff based on YOUR FEEDBACK.

Below is a quick run-down on all of the things that will be changed in the final version of the game when it comes out next month.

Click to read the list of updates.

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Here’s Part 3, the conclusion to my exclusive interview with game designers Tomoyuki Hosokawa and Kazuhiro Hikida, with Director Kenji Oguro adding some thoughts as well.

Miss the first two parts? Jump here:
Part 1
Part 2

[Brian] What is something in the game that you came up with that you are most proud of?

[Hosokawa] For me it would have to be the cutscene in Mission 0. Ive loved monster movies ever since I was a kid, so it was great to be able to make a cool monster movie type of scene in the game.

Click to read the rest of Part 3 of the interview.

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I trust you’ve already read Part 1 of my interview with game designers Tomoyuki Hosokawa and Kazuhiro Hikida (with Director Kenji Oguro sitting in).

In Part 2 we jump into the anchor, the addition of the melee attack, and design of the Vital Suits.

[Brian] Moving on to some Lost Planet gameplay design topics, why was the anchor put in the game? Were there any challenges you faced with implementing that into the game?

Click to read the rest of Part 2 of the interview.

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This week I am honored to bring to you my exclusive interview with two of the designers on the Lost Planet team, Tomoyuki Hosokawa and Kazuhiro Hikida. Director Kenji Oguro was also present, and he added a few thoughts as well.

[Brian] What are your names and what are your roles in the development of Lost Planet?

[Tomoyuki Hosokawa] My name is Tomoyuki Hosokawa. Within the team Im the lead Planner or designer on the team. My main duties have been the stage structure for the story mode and keeping the storyline together and cohesive. Of course I also have had a lot of other duties besides this.

Hosokawa-san

Click to read the rest of Part 1 of the interview.

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If you’ve checked the Lost Planet community website or the Lost Planet forums lately, you already know about the contest we have going on.

Basically we’re doing a closed-door pre-launch media event (read: party) for Lost Planet next week in San Francisco and we have a limited number of passes to give away to the community. So if you live in the Bay Area and want to come hang with me and the rest of the Capcom gang, see if you can figure out this stereogram. The event is for those of you 21 and over only, and for a VERY good reason, if you catch my drift.

At the event we will have 16 networked Xbox 360s running a near-final version of the game, and attendees will get their hands on, before anyone else, all 8 multiplayer maps that will ship in the final game. All four gameplay modes (Elimination, Team Elimination, Post Grab, and Fugitive) will be playable as well. And that means that even if you can’t attend the event, you’ll be reading about and seeing these other maps in the very near future.

So, what are you waiting for? Get crackin’!!

—Brian

So you saw the theatrical trailer for Lost Planet in the theater a few weeks ago, and earlier this week you downloaded it to your 360 from Marketplace (and did this to Microsoft’s servers). Now the trailer is available on GameTrailers.com, in both HD and low-res versions, for you to watch on your computer over and over and over. They also have a bunch of other Lost Planet videos, and some cool Capcom vids as well.

—Brian

To our brothers and sisters across the Atlantic, if you were wondering if you’d get anything as cool as the VS figure pre-order bonus, here’s the latest scoop on the pre-order campaigns we have going in the UK and across Europe.

In the UK, we are running the following pre-order programs:
Game – Figurines + Bonus level card
HMV – Face Plates + Bonus level card
Virgin – Face Plates + Bonus level card
Gamestop – T-Shirts + Bonus level card
Game Station – Hand warmers + Bonus level card
And selected indie shops will have T-Shirts

And this is what we have going on in other European countries:
Spain – Pre-order campaign using bonus map card with Game
France – Pre-order campaign using bonus map card with Micromania
Belgium – Pre-order campaign using bonus map card with Gamemania
Netherlands – Pre-order campaign using face plates with Replay Videogames

Right now I’m trying to get some pics from our Europe offices to post here too.



—Brian

This morning I was informed by Charles, who was rather a bit too giddy to share the news, that there have been so many people trying to download the theatrical trailer (produced by Hollywood-based Trailer Park) that it overloaded Microsoft’s Xbox Live servers. Yes, we are gloating. I know it sucks for you if you were trying to download it and couldn’t. But it’s great news for us in I guess a twisted sort of way. Guwahaha. :>>

—Brian

In case you missed it at the theater, or just want to check it out again, maybe on your fancy boomin’ surround sound rig, the full 60-second theatrical trailer that graced big screens across the country is coming to Xbox Live Marketplace early tomorrow morning. So now you’ll be able to download it and watch it over and over to your heart’s content. And if you don’t have a fancy boomin’ surround sound rig, you’ll definitely want to get one before LP drops in January. Christmas is coming up, so it’s perfect timing!

—Brian

This is the third and final part of my interview with Art Director Takahiro Kawano and Director Kenji Oguro. Here you can read about what went into the designs of the Vital Suits and the Akrid.

If you missed the first 2 parts, you can jump to them here:
PART 1
PART 2

Click to read the full text for Part 3 of the interview.

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I trust you’ve already read Part 1 of the interview with Lost Planet Art Director Takahiro Kawano, with Director Kenji Oguro sitting in and providing comments as well. In Part 2 we cover more concept and design topics, and delve into the over-the-top visual effects seen in the game. And click on the images to view larger sizes of the exclusive concept art from the game (but remember that concept art is just that, and not everything you see will necessarily end up in the game).

Click to read the full text for Part 2 of the interview.

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For this week’s interview, I talked art, visuals and design with Takahiro Kawano, the Art Director on Lost Planet. Director Kenji Oguro was also there and he shared some insightful comments as well.

They also provided a TON of exclusive concept and design artwork that you will only be able to see here.

Since the interview went so well and they had such great answers, I’m breaking the interview into three parts. Part 1 covers Kawano-san’s art background and gets into some of the concept art for Lost Planet. Part 2 covers more design work and gets into the visual effects. And Part 3 covers Vital Suit and Akrid design.

Click to read the full Part 1 of the interview and see exclusive concept art.

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Scarlett, Capcom’s resident gamer lady, recently did an interview with me. Check it out here.

And check back here on my blog tomorrow, as the first of 3 parts of my interview with Lost Planet Art Director Takahiro Kawano.

—Brian

I just got some brand-new screenshots from LP: Extreme Condition’s little bro, Lost Planet: Trag Zero. If you haven’t heard about it, it’s a “prequel” of sorts to Extreme Condition that you can play on your cell phone.

You play as Gale, Wayne’s father, battling through seven stages against the Akrid, picking up Thermal Energy as you go to survive. It has lots of weapons, and you can even hop in a VS to take on the tougher among the Akrid kind.

Click to see the rest of the screenshots and find out more about the game.

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For those living in or visiting New York city this December, be sure to head down to Times Square to be a part of (Lost Planet) history.

Starting Monday (12/4) and running through New Year’s Eve, a special 60-second trailer for LP will be running on NBC’s 3,000 square foot SharpVision HD screen at the corner of 42nd and 7th.

If you happen to be there and catch it, take some pics and send them in and I’ll throw them up here on the blog!

—Brian


PS – I don’t actually say “peeps” or do shout-outs in real life.