Sumea Interviews David Glenn, Art Director with Flagship Studios

Presented here is a transcript of the interview I did with David Glenn at GCAP 2007. Thanks again to the guys at Autodesk for setting this up.

You can download the recording of the interview here.

About David Glenn
David Glenn's work on the Diablo franchise was instrumental in establishing the visual design and dark feel of that world. David worked as Chief Background Artist on Diablo II prior to joining many of his colleagues from Blizzard North in forming Flagship Studios. His Bachelor of Architecture degree from Virginia Tech serves a solid foundation upon which he creates fantastic, yet believable structures and settings that stage and unify the world in which the game is set.

Before making his mark with the Diablo series, Dave created numerous 3D architectural assets for SimCity 3000 while working as a contractor for Maxis. Having worked extensively with 3ds Max at Blizzard, standardising on a similar pipeline helped accelerate the development Flagship Studios' latest title, Hellgate: London.

Why did you get into game development?

David Glenn: Well, it looked more fun than architecture. Yeah, my background... got a degree in architecture. And, started in the industry in the early 90's but it was a really slow time for architecture, and ended up doing work... kinda teaching myself 3D modelling, texturing... mostly modelling at that point. Texturing didn't exist really. But then, I got a job doing architectural rending for a firm called Michael Seckman Assoc. Long history with Autodesk, but anyway; he ended up getting a contract with Maxis working on Sim City because they needed buildings created.

So we were capable of doing that so we did about a year and a half's worth of work for them creating 3D buildings for Sim City. They ended up scrapping all that and going back to 2D because technology didn't keep up, but in that time I got a lot of experience in the game industry. So I decided to make the transition, and ended up getting a job at Blizzard, working on Diablo 2. So I started there right as that development had started, they had just launched Diablo, and this was in January of 97 I believe. And then essentially, went to Blizzard, they were still using really old software, Strata on Macintoshes to create 3D art.

And within a couple of weeks I convinced them to switch to 3D studio, at the time, which is now 3dsMax. And we were still doing 2D for Diablo 2, but we pre-rendered 3D assets and then cut them out in Photoshop and put them in the game engine. So the game engine asset was 2D but the original source asset was 3D so we could model up realistic lighting, shadows, and things like this. So we made the transition to Max and we've been using it ever since.

So how did your find your background in architecture helped you, for example, building backgrounds for Diablo, and also for the Hellgate series?

DG: A great transition for me, looking back at the school I went to – Virginia Tech, what they taught in architecture was very theoretical I guess you'd call it. We didn't do a whole lot of drafting or floor plans and stuff, we just learned what architecture is about; architecture is really about creating spaces for activities. So whether it's a house or convention hall or a restaurant, you have a specific activity that takes place in a certain space, and you create the space around that whole form, with all those functions sort of... philosophy.

And so transitioning into games, it's almost the exact same thing. You have a certain type of gameplay mechanic, that you need to create and environment around, and then you design the environment based off of what needs to happen there. Whether you're adventuring through a dungeon, or if you're in a town situation, interacting with other players. Every specific place has a purpose and you design it according to that, so it's almost identical.

Cool. So what would you say... do you have any influences for your creative style, with Diablo and Hellgate, they're both kind of demonic?

DG: Yeah, they're very, uh, similar. I think it was a style that appealed to me when I played the original Diablo. I'd say a lot of it... other forms of entertainment, books, games... I've always been into fantasy, dungeons and dragons way back when. So that was an easy transition into the Diablo series.

And then the overall mood and atmosphere comes a lot from particular movies I grew up liking, like Aliens or Excalibur from way back in the day. These dark moody, sort of medieval fantasy, but Aliens was Sci-fi, but the same sort of gritty... well Star Wars sort of started that whole trend I think with taking sci-fi and making it dirty and real and gritty. So those were definitely a lot of the influences.

Okay. Have you heard about the issue between the Church of England against the likeness of the Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man. Just wondering what your thoughts on that are?

DG: Well we had been presented in a similar situation, because we put St Paul's Cathedral into the finish of our game. But it's not quite as accurately represented as they did for Resistance: Fall of man. And it looks like the landmark is supposed to be, but our world is randomised for one, so it's not an exact replica of what the situation is...

The architecture is randomised?

DG: Well the building itself is fairly destroyed, so it's recognisable as a façade, but the interior is kind of fantastical. You know, we put demons all around and it's... our game is about good fighting evil so we're trying to take it back, and that just happens to be where, you know, we thought it was a good landmark. Now the overall issue of that, I think it's uh, I think it was basically good headlines for both the Church of England for Sony.

Sony got kinda, dragged through the mud on it, but the fact is, I mean these are virtual worlds; and trying to get to worried about literal representations I think just detracts from the art form. Nobody would complain about somebody setting a movie, in that uh, Davinci Code went through all sorts of churches and temples and relics and that's just par for the course. The fact that, it was created as a virtual world, I don't see why that becomes a big issue for people.

Yeah. Well taking it back to Diablo, how did you design around the fact that all the areas would be randomised, except the towns, but all the actual dungeons would be randomised. How did you keep that interesting and work around those constraints?

DG: Same situation we presented with Hellgate. We learned it first in Diablo. The original Diablo, was a far simpler looking... we only had 3 dungeons, tiles sets, looks, one town. And a lot of that was very code driven; the artists just built the tiles, and then they figured everything out in code. Where Diablo II, we upped the bar for detail in the world, and the more detail you add to a particular tile, the more obvious it will be if it gets repeated, so we had to come up with a balance between a good, rich visual look, and being able to recycle those assets a lot to make a large world.

So would you say you would have larger tiles in Diablo II than you would have had in Diablo because they're so detailed?

DG: Yes, now technically the tiles were slightly bigger pixel wise, but we themed them together. So certain tiles had to go next to certain other tiles, so you'd have a section of wall, even as large as certain rooms were all pre-laid out, like the town for example. But we did that within the dungeons as well to create the special rooms, that would attach on to randomised hallways and doors and all that, and so we done that even further with Hellgate, where we take an entire building structure like Covent Garden Market, and create that... or St Pauls Cathedral, and make a near replica, so it looks familiar to someone who's been to that certain place, or the British Meuseum, same sorta thing, but then put that into context, into randomised streets and levels and things preceding and following it.

moving from Blizzard to Flagship, that would have been an interesting transition. How do you see the organisational cultures differ between those two studios?

DG: Well, one's very large and corporate now, and we're still very small and non. It's interesting, some of the guys we left with, were the original founders of Blizzard North, which was the creators of the Diablo series. So they've basically just retraced their steps, but this time with a lot more history and money and everything else. So it's easier to do second time around, but we literally set up shop in a basement after we left Blizzard, we took nine of us and it was the executives and lead programmers and artists, there was nine total, and one of the guys had a house with a spare room, so we just set up shop in there. Because yeah we didn't feel like... why pay rent if you don't have to?

We only had nine of us. So our whole goal that first year was just to put together the basic foundation of the game and start the company and find a publisher and all that, so it really helped us in negotiations, because we didn't need anybody's money right away, we could work, and create the game we wanted to create and shop it around.

Do you feel your role has changed now that you're an Art Director, from being a background artist?

DG: Yeah. Well yeah definitely. And being one of the founders of the company, so I get to spend a lot of time, not only directing the art style of the game, but figuring out company goals and planning and staffing needs, and designing the office we work in, which is kind of a fun throwback, being an architect.

So you'd say it would be fifty business, fifty art?

DG: Uh no not... yeah originally, in the first year, about all nine of us kinda did that, we had to wear a lot of hats that first year. Just from interviewing people, to hire, to finding new office space, to signing a publishing deal and all that. These days it's probably ninety-ten. You know, we have a directors meeting once a week, and try to figure out strategies for ongoing hiring and things like that. A lot of that's in place, and just functioning.

Aside from the games that you've done, what games do you think you'd say you admire or you really respect?

DG: There's quite a few. I play a lot of first person shooters. I was big into counter strike for a long time. I think they just really revolutionised that whole team online aspect. We played a lot of Quake and stuff in the office, but when counter strike came out, and that was... long time playing that.

Did you make the transition to Team Fortress [2] yet?

DG: I played the demo, we were just finishing our game so I didn't have a chance to get into it, as it launched, but definitely, it looks really fun, and the demo as well. Other games... one of the first really big games I got into online was the original Ultima Online, and that was just, you know the first, I guess, big massive multiplayer that really caught my attention, it was such a different experience than any other thing, and that's been a big influence I think.

What game would you say you're most looking forward to, coming in to the next 12 months? Is there anything that you're seeing on the horizon that looks quite good?

DG: Well Crysis... I've been playing the demo for Crysis, that's about next week or something. Just finished playing Half Life 2 Episode 2. I tend to try to keep track of all the big shooters that come out. We got Unreal 3 coming out pretty soon, that's gonna be something to look forward to. I don't plan too far ahead, because games always delayed. So it's pretty much what's on in the next month, and I schedule some time to play.

Okay, well I think we've covered everything I was going to cover. Thanks a lot for talking to Sumea, and good luck with the future.

DG: Thanks a lot.