Its release just a year ago quickly cemented Call Of Duty as one of the most popular console franchises around. Although made for the Xbox 360 COD2 was considered to have only scratched the surface of next-gen potential which is perhaps why a sequel has followed so closely on its heels.
Series originator Infinity Ward handed development responsibilities to fellow LA-based Activision company Treyarch. Understandably reluctant to overhaul a winning formula that has won plaudits for its battlefield authenticity and polished first person shooter gameplay lead designer Jeremy Luyties was keen to enhance the next episode by digging deeper into the code for all three next-gen platforms.
The easiest step would have been to reuse assets from COD2 but Treyarch opted to rebuild the renderer from the ground up and “push everything three to five times” more than before. “We needed to build on the quality we’d already laid down by supporting higher fidelity graphics to 720p at 60 frames a second in widescreen,” says Luyties. “We pushed not just the polycount but everything from the vehicle physics to the character’s faces. It’s leaps and bounds ahead of COD2.”
This time the action focuses on the Normandy Breakout campaign, which ran from the Allied landing on D-day all the way to the liberation of Paris some weeks later. Research began during production of the previous game and provides the core to development. This included location visits plotting the trajectory of the allied advance, a blueprint of the strategic village of Saint-Lô, military advice from Lt. Col Hank Keirsey who had worked on all three titles and interviews with survivors. “We talked with the soldier who had heroically fought to run up a flag in the town and included his experiences in the game,” recalls Luyties. However he insists that Call Of Duty aims for a cinematic realism and doesn’t pretend to be a simulacrum of history. “We have to balance historical credibility with game entertainment,” he says.
Production Team
A design team consisting of scripter, builder, animator and artist spent a week with the research before pitching Luyties a game plan. “We catch any red flags or crazy ideas, they go away and rethink, we regroup and that continues until we have the project in its entirety – on paper at least.”
The plan is transferred to a huge storyboard in full view of the whole development team so that anyone can walk up and walk through a scene. It contains all background material, stills and sketches, historical notes as well as active and passive statements concerning the approach to the pacing and flow of a particular level.
From here the key environments (including a cemetery, town and bridge) are built, primarily in 3ds Max, and the gameplay blocked out and tested. “Here’s where we find out if a decision works. If it doesn’t we can change it easily, and far better to find out now than down the road.” All the HD output is reviewed by 20 in-house testers at Activision on a range of 45 displays.
The art director blocks out the game from his point of view and superimposes how he feels a scene should look. For a scene in a small Chateau he suggested the ceiling be blown out to allow shafts of sunlight to illuminate the interior and the soldiers lurking among the shadows inside.
Living Battlefield
Next-gen hardware allows increased numbers of characters and other animated assets such as vehicles on screen at one time. COD3 maximises this to produce a ‘living battlefield’ in which no matter where the player looks there will always be action. “In the sky there’ll be tracer fire or planes; to the right an explosion; troops running down a street; always a movement or something to shoot at,” says Luyties. This ‘state of confusion’ was designed by dividing the screen into layers representing foreground for the core game experience, mid-level and background.
“We want a sensory overload,” he declares. “When you walk on grass you’ll trample it and hear it move. There’s soft cover like hay or wood which will be destroyed and forces you to a new location.” Treyarch deployed a $100,000 laser scanning device to take high resolution images of actor’s faces and manikins wearing authentic WWII uniforms with the information down to fabric crinkles imported to 3D models as texture maps.
“Previously you’d make one pass for texture and that would be good enough. Now you need to multipass. A normal mapping pass, a specular pass, a pass for collisions, diffuse, reflection, ambient or shadow information. If you go up to a wall in COD3 you can see the groves and indentations in the brick.”
The audio system has been “ripped out” and reworked for 5.1. “Sound is 50pc of the gameplay and can play a much more powerful role now the hardware allows us to add more layers.” The level of detail goes down so far, he says, to include crickets on tall grass during quieter moments. “Typically when there are explosions it’s difficult for an individual player, particularly in multi-player mode, to differentiate sound. We now have a battle action system that will trigger certain audio information if the player is pointed in the right position. They could for instance overhear enemy conversations or be forewarned by an ally of attack.”
The team managed to locate the only working Sherman tank in North America and spent a day driving it around and over vehicles recording the sound. They also had fun in the Californian desert letting off over 20,000 rounds of ammunition from artillery including an MP40, Thompson, MG42, Sten and Lee Enfield in the name of audio authenticity. Treyarch even had to pare back earlier versions because they’d overshot by a Gigabyte, mainly from the additional audio.
Adding to the complexity is the ability to play as one of 16 officers from American, British, Canadian or Polish forces in the order the battle happened in 1944. Instead of static loadbars at the end of each level a cutscene shows maps and old footage that detail the particulars of the next mission while data for that mission is streaming off the disc.
Attention has also been paid to the particular characteristics of the Wii’s dual controllers (the wireless Remote and Nunchuk). The actions of throwing a grenade, jabbing a rifle butt or hand to hand combat are mimicked directly by the actions of the player. “When you need to cross a river the player can put the controllers together and row. When they drive a jeep they have to pull the controller on top of them like a 4WD steering wheel.” Similar physical responses have been devised for the PS3 and 360 joypads.
