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A Look At the Tools Used To Make Metal Gear Solid 4

Posted by Soulskill on Wed Sep 17, 2008 04:24 PM
from the building-snake dept.
Entertainment Games
Soft Image is running a detailed story about the making of Metal Gear Solid 4. They explain the game's development cycle, from the art direction to the animation of characters to the building of models and textures. "In terms of bones used for constructing the bodies of characters, about 21 joint bones were used that contained animation data and were activated through these data. But many auxiliary bones were also used to supplement movements such as the twisting of knees, elbows, legs and arms. These were not activated by animation data. Rather, they were linked to the values of the basic joints that were activated by animation. ... They also used a tool to automatically generate the rig for controlling eyeball movement and the muscles around the eyes. Because the area around the eyes is also controlled using both shapes and bones, when the eyeball locator is moved, the muscles move smoothly just like they do for the mouth. Further, even if the shape is edited to redefine the eye edges, it does not spoil the blinking or brow furrow expressions at all."
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  • Chasing lights. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ostracus (1354233) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @04:29PM (#25045391) Journal

    "Games: A Look At the Tools Used To Make Metal Gear Solid 4"

    Ah! Coming to a Blender's feature list...

      • I've never played, so none of those names mean anything to me. However, I plan to play in the future....but things'll still be a surprise for me! So, you fail. Bad troll.

  • solid/liquid snake? Toilet humor?!?!? (Score:4, Funny)

    by myowntrueself (607117) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @04:36PM (#25045481)

    Never played the games, never been near a console game.

    I had a friend once explain that the "metal gear solid" is a reference to one of the characters, someone called "Solid Snake" and the fighting robot suit called "metal gear". Apparently theres also someone named "Liquid Snake".

    What I've always wondered is... are these names some kind of wierd Japanese toilet humor?

    • FYI, there are PC versions of MGS 1 and 2.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by johannesg (664142)

      The original (2D) game was just called "Metal Gear". You played as "Solid Snake", and were trying to destoroy the ultimate weapon "Metal Gear". That made sense to me, even if the name Solid Snake seemed unfitting for a high-tech soldier.

      I've always taken the "solid" moniker in the name to mean that the game had moved to 3D, and now had a solid environment instead of a flat one. After all, the second one is not called "Metal Gear Raiden" or anything.

      Of course none of this answers your question. I've wondered

  • I've played all other versions of MetalGear Solid and loved them. Thought it is one of the best games on the market. Haven't played MGS 4 because I refuse to pay the high price for a PS3 - however I have a hard time believing the comments above, especially that by swotl.

    I for one am interested in the piece on how they made the game and can't wait until the price on PS3s falls into the range I am comfortable with so I can purchase and play what is probably the best series of games bar none.

    • Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ethanol-fueled (1125189) * on Wednesday September 17 2008, @04:48PM (#25045593) Homepage
      Or, you could just watch all of the cut scenes on YouTube since MGS4 is mostly cut scenes anyway!
      • Just like the previous MGS games, except they were codec conversations instead of cut scenes. So if he did enjoy them I would guess he will also enjoy MGS4, so no need to spoil it.

    • As Ethanol-fueled said, there are A LOT of cut scenes. I think the cut scenes at the end alone added up to about an hour and a half.

      I enjoyed it, though.

      As far as the whole series goes, I would probably rate Snake Eater #1, Sons of Liberty #2, Guns of the Patriots #3, MGS #4, and MG #5. I never did play Solid Snake.

      Rating the original #5 is a bit deceptive. I played it to death when it came out and enjoy it every time I have played it since, but I really like the complexity (CQC, sneaking being har

  • What they needed was a movie camera.

  • I could have... (Score:5, Funny)

    by SlashDev (627697) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @05:22PM (#25045929) Homepage
    ... easily done that on MS paint

    • Re:I could have... (Score:4, Funny)

      by martinw89 (1229324) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @06:13PM (#25046623)

      01001001 00100000 01110000 01110010 01100101 01100110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101010
      01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01111001 01110000
      01100101 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000
      01101001 01101110 01100100 01101001 01110110 01101001 01100100 01110101 01100001 01101100
      00100000 01100010 01101001 01110100 01110011 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000
      01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100101 01101110 01110100 01101001 01110010 01100101
      00100000 01100111 01100001 01101101 01100101 00101110

  • I rather feel artificially full after eating Chinese food with MSG than be left mentally empty after playing MGS. Who sits around watching every muscle in the players. Does that make a game more realistic? Spend more time on making a fully animated environment. I want to see flies bugging me once in a while. How about a bird that can be blown to bits (feathers showering down) because it's sitting on a fence and I can do it without PETA coming after me? Put in the occassional bee stinging one of the fe

    • How about a bird that can be blown to bits (feathers showering down) because it's sitting on a fence and I can do it without PETA coming after me?

      I dunno about 4, but that you could shoot as many pigeons as you could see in MGS2. It's not entirely malicious, as you usually do it as revenge after they cause you to plummet to your death. Back on topic, I agree, as do most players, that games don't have to have cutting-edge graphics to sell well, as long as they have decent game play and story, although it definitely doesn't hurt. Metal Gear Solid games, however, have always presented themselves as a more of a playable movie than as a pure game, and

    • Are you serious? I've found that MGS is better for this kind of thing than most games. You could snipe birds and rats, and you needed to lead them sort of realistically (except for your always-perfect aim which ignores wind). And yes, the birds do spray a few feathers and gore upon a hit (unless you tranq'ed them). That and the fact that you can get stung by hornets in MGS3 actually makes you think you posted facetiously, but whatever.

      One good example of this kind of detail is in MGS2, almost on the level o

  • to require three different accounts to play online.

    In all seriousness, what the fuck?

    I have my playstation account. Cool, but that isn't good enough. I sign into my playstation account and now I have to sign into a konami account? Uh, ok. That's great, I guess they wanted something that the playstation account couldn't provide.

    Ok, all set, wait a third account? A gamer account? Uh, ok.

    Yeah, I played MGS4 online one time and decided not to bother again. Three login screens was too much for a mediocre

  • A fascinating article, but it focuses too much on graphics and ignores the true point of the game series.

    What software was used to write and manage revisions of the voice script? How was voice recorded, processed and stored?

    =)

  • But many auxiliary bones were also used to supplement movements such as the twisting of knees, elbows, legs and arms. These were not activated by animation data. Rather, they were linked to the values of the basic joints that were activated by animation.

    We are doing something similar in MK vs DC Universe. Our Superheroes, Villians, and Kombatants have muscles that flex and move based on the position of other joints. This is done in Maya through "Set Driven Keys" and implemented in the game through a custom-runtime. It cuts down on the animation data required for an extremely large skeleton and it looks much more natural (biceps flex when arm bends). It's a win in both the memory footprint and visuals.

    The cost comes with processing time and developer

  • But the NES Metal Gear was still more challenging and fun.

    • ... actually making the gameplay any fun at all. Who cares about perfect eyeball movement in a game that will bore you to death?

      I don't know... that is what made XEyes such a great game!

      • Just wait until the recently announced XEyes MMORPG is released. This, my friend, will put Linux on the gaming map.

          • In the case of RE4,I totally agree. I got a cube late to the party and was disappointed at some of the games' graphics, but then I played RE4 and I thought, holy shit, why can't other devs do this? Was it all ninty's fault?
            If it was, for shame!

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Thank you ...

      Quit making games that look cool but suck! This is a damn plague these days.

      • I thought MGS4 was actually a lot of fun. It was different from the first three (and I loved the first three, mind you), but it stayed the same in a lot of important ways. The people complaining about cutscenes obviously haven't played...oh...any of the Metal Gear Solid series or something, because they're always long as hell (and done with the kind of panache that makes the length OK, for me at least).

    • Re:Covering everything BUT ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Cornflake917 (515940) on Wednesday September 17 2008, @05:09PM (#25045799) Homepage

      If I had mod points, I'd mod you redundant. This is said on almost every slashdot article involving game technologies. Yes, we all know that gameplay is more important than graphics, can you please find something new and interesting to say? Or do you need the guaranteed "insightful" karma?

      Just because gameplay (just a stupid term btw, since every one has their own definition of it) is more important doesn't mean that developers shouldn't spend resources on trying to get past the uncanny valley, since it is a real problem for games that are trying to achieve a realistic look.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Sparton (1358159)
      Softimage [sic] is a company that makes 3D modeling and animation software. As such, their part of the story isn't related to gameplay at all, which is why only art and related programming was mentioned.
    • Huh? What game was that you played? Did you have any specific complaints about the gameplay features or are you happy to just say "IT SUXORZ!" and leave it at that? I had the chance to play this about a week ago and found it possibly the coolest gaming experience I've ever seen. Granted, I've not played hundreds of other PS2/PS3 games so my console experience is a bit limited. I also played this on a 61" HDTV with a nice big surround system with a large subwoofer, so the immersion was superb. I found the m
      • the boss battle between laughing octopus and solid snake is the coolist/ most emotionally tramatic boss battle since SHODAN v.s. the hacker.

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