Remedy's Enqvist: Clothes Key To Characterization In Alan Wake

Author: by Staff

The classic tweed jacket with elbow patches is a common clothing item in the mystery genre, as that particular fashion has always been associated with an academic, investigative or scholarly person. It's exactly the kind of coat Remedy wanted Alan Wake to wear in the game of the same name -- but animating it was another matter. In today's Gamasutra feature, Remedy animation programmer Henrik Enqvist demonstrates in-depth how the team created a believable cloth simulation for the jacket, in a game where realism and richness are essential to the thriller effect. Enqvist also explains why it was so important: "As the game takes place in a real-world setting, the tools for giving characters personality are limited, compared to a fantasy game or a space shooter," he says. "Therefore the clothes that our characters wear become far more important." "Alan Wake's jacket had to be as believable as possible to maintain the illusion of a thriller atmosphere to the player," he adds. "The jacket needs to move in the wind and add a nice secondary motion to the character as he rushes through the forest. As a programmer, you immediately start to think about a cloth simulation." In the full feature, Enqvist takes readers through the process in detail, including images and diagrams. From rigging to verlet physics and more, he explains how the team was challenged to limit stretchiness while still keeping the jacket's fluid body movements. "In the end the effort was well worth it, as our cloth clearly differentiates from cloth simulations in other games," he concludes. "It looks a lot more like tweed than silk or rubber. Our setup also proved to be very flexible when it came to simulating other fabrics, for example the down jacket of Barry Wheeler and the veil for an old lady were simulated with the same system. The looks of the different fabrics were easily accomplished by tweaking the parameters."