Review
		Taking advantage of the graphics power of the PlayStation2 combined with live actors, motion-capture technology, and a unique 3D scanning system by Eyetronics Inc. (Leuven, Belgium), Sony developers have created perhaps the most realistic game to date. "We wanted to create a world so real that players will feel like they're in a movie, from the constantly changing scenery to the emotions the characters will bring," says Gavin Moore, SCEE senior animator. "With a movie, for instance, you like some characters and you hate others. We wanted to get that kind of emotion from the player. And in order to do that, everything must be as realistic as is imaginably possible." "A Living, Breathing London" According to Moore, The Getaway's production resembles that of Guy Ritchie's popular cult film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Developers have created "a living, breathing London" in which players interactively wander around the underbelly of the city. Developers recreated more than 31 square miles of London by taking digital photographs of every building, then modeling them and creating the textures for the game. Within this scenery, players have the option to be a former professional bank-robber who is pulled back into a life of crime to save his son from a mob boss, or an embittered police detective who has an old score to settle.
			Players will be able to interactively explore the city on foot or by car, entering and exiting buildings. The player can steal a car and get into a high-speed chase with police through the city. If anything is damaged during the chase, the game's evolving environmental structure will show that area cordoned off for repair the next time the player passes by. Real People, Real Emotions Perhaps the most important aspect of The Getaway's realism is the characters themselves, whether in the starring role or just a bystander on the street. The character list is complete with pedestrians, drivers and work crews minding their own business as the main characters battle each other. The characters' faces and actions appear as in real life, complete with blinking, breathing and emotional expressions. "You have to have the proper realism to fully project emotions," says Moore. "I want the player to be able to see the expression on that character's face and to empathize with him. You can't do this by hand. You could never be that accurate."
				SCEE developers achieved that accuracy by digitally recreating real actors and their clothing. The Eyetronics ShapeSnatcher Suite 3.0 system allowed SCEE to digitally recreate the actors' faces, and real-time motion capture put the finishing touches on the characters' movements. Simplistic Scanning The first step in the character development process was to scan the live actors' faces and costumes using the Eyetronics system. ShapeSnatcher uses a specially etched slide containing a grid that is projected on an actor's face with a standard high-resolution slide projector. The grid lines are used to calculate the 3D structure of the head. A standard digital camera is used to photograph different angles of the actor's head. SCEE developers then look at the images in relation to the calibration to ensure that there are no holes or distortions. Images are then stitched together in Eyetronics' ShapeMatcher program to complete the realistic 3D model of the actor's face.
					With a normal scanner the file comes out as a huge polygonal model that is basically useless for game rendering," Moore says. "Eyetronics' mapping tools allow the creation of a cylindrical texture map that reduces the polygon count without losing any of the integrity of the file.'' Once the 3D images are completed in the Eyetronics system, they are imported into SCEE's in-house animation program, which contains a model of a generic human head. "We morph that base head into the shape of the Eyetronics scanned head, so that at the end of the day it gives us the actor's authentic face with the correct polygon count," says Moore. "All of our characters use the same animation system called Talking Heads, but they all look different because of the Eyetronics scans of the actors and their costumes." Character files are then transferred to Alias|Wavefront's Maya 3D animation software for final rendering. Actors' motions are captured with an Ascension motion tracker and brought into Kaydara Filmbox, a software program that integrates the motion data with the 3D characters for real-time display. Realism Without the Hassle The result of SCEE's process are scenes and characters so real that the player is absorbed into the gaming experience, according to Moore. "That's what 3D technology has done for game development," he says. "The Eyetronics system, along with motion capture and other technological advances we used, saved us time and money in what would normally have been a long, expensive process to get this level of realism."
					SCEE developers were able to use the Eyetronics system to scan three or four people and all of their clothing in one day. Characters were completed in Maya and ready to be integrated into the motion-capture process and dropped into the game. "The perfect thing for us is that we can set this [the Eyetronics system] up anywhere for anyone we like," says Moore. "We don't have to buy an expensive scanning system that creates files that are too big and have too many holes. This system creates the texture map and applies it to the file automatically. It eliminates a lot of the hassle that used to come with character development in the past." The mix of PlayStation2 hardware power, real-time 3D graphics, and 3D scanning and motion capture has enabled Sony Computer Entertainment Europe to create a game unlike anything that has come before it. Once they boot it up on the PlayStation2, however, players aren't likely to care too much about all the technology that makes The Getaway possible. They'll be too immersed in the streets, characters and action of London.