/-/S'pht-Translator-Active/-/


Scrapbook Pages 5-8
Posted By: REBDate: 3/9/02 1:09 p.m.

In Response To: Re: Thanks Raul! :-) (Hamish Sinclair)

Page 5

expands into grand theft auto. Colin Brent left for grad school. In their stead came Reginald, an artist with a flair for the moody and bizarre whose style ran toward that of the French comic artist Möbeius. The last member of the Marathon team, Alain Roy, joined in the summer. Alain wrote Marathon's Byzantine networking code and received a Quadra 660av as compensation.

The atmosphere around Bungie's Headquarters during Marathon's development stage was much like a commune (without the lofty goals, hash brownies and lack of running water). Everyone worked in a single open room, with the exception of Alex who won the right to a private office in a best-of-seven thumb wrestling tournament. This clustered setup allowed for key exchanges like the following:

"Hey Greg."

"What?"

"Your mom."

"Hey Jason."

"What?"

"No, YOUR mom."

A minute doing anything other than working on Marathon was considered a wasted minute, so activities like sleep and lunch were carefully kept to a minimum. More often than not, the group ended eating up at La Cocina, a small Mexican restaurant with the distinction of being the only eatery in existence. They occasionally grabbed canned food from a nearby liquor store as a treat.

The sheer amount of work to be done was daunting. Jason, Ryan and and Alain spent long hours compiling and debugging new versions of the game engine and tweaking code for maximum performance. Ryan hacked away at Vulcan, valiantly trying to tame the beast he had unleashed. Alain made networking happen through sheer force of will. Reg created ALL the art: weapons, aliens, civilians, the player itself - not to mention all the textures used to add detail to the Marathon Universe. Alex had the task of finding or making sounds for every possible audio event in the game - aliens grunting, doors buzzing open, grenades whooshing through echoing metal corridors - as well as composing a number of original songs for Marathon's soundtrack. Greg had to conquer Vulcan long enough to make ten-odd levels for the single player game. The First Law of Vulcan, "Save Early and Often," gives some idea of Vulcan's penchant for dropping into a debugger or simply locking up the entire machine. It once crashed so hard that Greg's computer actually shut down.

Marathon would grow over the ensuing months to encompass 27 solo levels and 10 net levels. The Seropain-designed "You Don't Need To See My I.D." was a secret level; the title referred to the scene in Star Wars where Obi-Wan Kenobi uses a Jedi mind trick to breeze past a gaggle of stormtroopers.

Jason Jones and Greg Kirkpatrick created the bulk of the solo levels. Jason was responsible for the infamously tedious "Colony Ship For Sale, Cheap" level, along with such levels as "Bob-B-Q", "Have Quiddam", and "Ingue Ferroque". Jason also created the aforementioned net level "Mars Needs Women", the second level ever built with Vulcan and the primary net game test map.

Greg had a fondness for creating maps with complicated overlapping areas. "G4 Sunbathing", the only vacuum level in the game, was one of these. "G4" attempted to convey an idea of what it would be like to explore the surface of a moonsized colony ship. The name itself refers to what the player is doing while traversing the "courtyard" area of the station.

Note: "...Reginald, an artist with a flair for the moody and bizarre whose style ran toward that of the French comic artist Möbeius..." Jean Giraud, aka Möbeius, is know on this side of the Atlantic for his work in such films as Tron, Alien, Blade Runner, The Abyss and The Fifth Element.

http://www.moebius1.com/ (official site in french)

http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/giraud.htm (a fan page in english)

Page 6 (Pictures)

Picture 1: See text.
Text: Greg stuffing his face with Chicago-style stuffed pizza.

Picture 2: See text.
Text: An early sketch of the security officer on board the Marathon.

Picture 3: Screenshot of a version of the Marathon Beta.
Text: By May of 1994, Marathon began to really take shape. Much of the interface and graphics later on, including the compass on the top left, which was taken out of the game because it required too much horsepower (in those days the Power PC was still in its infancy).

Page 7

All but one of the bizarre Pfhor ship levels sprang from the mind of Reginald Dujour. Red had a talent for making unorthodox maps as Jason explains:

"Reg did a great job setting up the geometry and creating a distinctive style for the ship, but Greg and I spent a lot of late nights saying things like "How did he connect all 39 polygons to the same line like that?... Reg's mind worked in a way totally unlike Ryan's, who created the original Vulcan, and Reg found bugs which we never could explain and are probably still in Forge today."

Apart from "You Don't Need To See My I.D.", Alex also created "Arena" (which was - surprise - the first shot at the "arena" concept) and a handful of others. An uncredited Tuncer Deniz designed the solo level "No Artificial Colors" and the net levels "What Goes Up, Must Come Down" and "Waldo World Arena" (originally titled "Arema" but bowdlerized by Greg Kirkpatrick to save America's youth).

Reg brought an astounding level of detail to his work. Having attended med school, he could extrapolate from his vast knowledge of anatomy to explain (for example) how a given alien's blood color resulted from the amount of zinc in tis biological makeup. Reg explained his working method:

" Jason held a couple of meetings in regards to what 'Marathon' was going to be about... The story, the characters, the basic feel of the game and the gameplay. Working from my notes, I did a few conceptual sketches of creatures and the player character. From there we agreed upon a test subject: a spider-like Pfhor. I drew the creature in five views (mirroring three more) with a walking animation in each of those views. The we had to figure out the CLUT (the color palette the game would use), scan each image, import it into Photoshop and paint it, reduce it to size, reduce it to the appropriate CLUT, then import it into the editor, test the animation, see how it looked in a generic world and make whatever changes were necessary... It was an extremely long process, but I developed a kind of routine which sped it up..."

Reg designed three aliens that didn't make the cut for the final game: The Hound, The Armageddon Beast and a non-combatant alien crewman. The Hound moved quite fast but could not climb stairs and only had a melee attack. Hounds acted a lot like piranhas, guarding low spots on a map and wandering off when they couldn't attack the player any longer. The Armageddon Beast sucked down damage like the Big Blue Meanie in Pathways and shot streams of highly damaging little pellets. Both were dropped because no levels had been planned where these monsters would conceivably be fun to fight. The alien crewmen were intended to be Pfhor counterparts of the human civilians on the Marathon.: weaponless and unable to defend themselves in any way. A memory limit on the number of monsters types per level forced Bungie to abandon them.

Bungie planed to included a defenseless civilian character running around the Marathon from the start; later in development, they decided to give Bob, as he was formally know, a chance to speak his simple mind. Alex decided that Pathways tech support was less important than adding some color to Marathon and dragged Doug into his office to record some test phrases for the Bob character. The tests went over well, and the now-classic phrases "They're Everywhere!" and "Thank God it's You!" became part of the Marathon experience.

Note:"...All but one of the bizarre Pfhor ship levels sprang from the mind of Reginald Dujour..." Pfhor Your Eyes Only was made by Jason Jones.

Page 8 (Pictures)

Picture 1: Sketch of the Hunter and the Hound. The difference between this Hunter and the one included in the final product, are the arm shields: in the sketch, the red light is on the left shield; in the final game, this light is on the other shield. The Hunter (on the sketch) is pointing this light to the front - this could mean Reginald Dujour intended this light to be a weapon too, or it is just a pose. The difference between the Hound on the sketch and the later one are the number of eyes: on the sketch it has 3 eyes, but when it was turned into a sprite, it lost one eye. The position of the Hound regarding the Hunter suggest that this monster may have been conceived as the pet of the later one (the names also suggest this). It could be just a pose too.
Text: none.

Picture 2 and 3: See text.
Text: The Hound (left and above) and the Armageddon Beast (below) never made it into the game due to level and time constraints.

Picture 3: See text.
Text: Concept sketch of the Pfhor.

Note: You can see the Hound and the Armageddon Beast on the Bungie's Marathon Ads and Blast From The Past sections at the Story Page. You can also see the Hound in action on the Marathon Home Videos at 00:00:47 or at the end of this post.

[ | Message Index | Read Prev Msg | Read Next Msg ]
Pre-2004 Posts

Replies:

Is the Marathon scrapbook online somewhere?zudo 2/23/02 3:54 p.m.
     Sorry, don't think so. I'd like to see it too. *NM*Callie21V 2/23/02 8:06 p.m.
           Look What The Cat Drug In... (not typo)REB 2/25/02 1:38 a.m.
                 Re: Look What The Cat Drug In... (not typo)Fernando. 2/25/02 1:42 a.m.
                       Re: Look What The Cat Drug In... (not typo)REB 2/25/02 3:04 a.m.
                             Re: Look What The Cat Drug In... (not typo)zudo 2/25/02 3:09 a.m.
                             Re: Look What The Cat Drug In... (not typo)Fernando. 2/25/02 3:46 a.m.
                                   Abandonware?REB 2/25/02 5:24 a.m.
                                         Re: Abandonware?Mark Levin 2/25/02 6:48 a.m.
                                         Re: Abandonware?/hamish please readFernando. 2/25/02 6:49 a.m.
                                               ReadingHamish Sinclair 2/25/02 9:30 a.m.
                                                     Re: ReadingM-Class 2/25/02 3:15 p.m.
                                                           Re: ReadingDjof 2/25/02 5:00 p.m.
                                         Re: Abandonware?Callie21V 2/25/02 9:38 a.m.
                                         Re: Abandonware?M-Class 2/25/02 3:09 p.m.
                                               Re: Abandonware?Vid Boi 2/26/02 2:58 a.m.
                                                     Re: Abandonware?Hamish Sinclair 2/26/02 5:12 a.m.
                                                           Re: Abandonware?Dan Aris 2/26/02 6:06 a.m.
                                                                 Is that soon or Soon™ ?zudo 2/26/02 8:16 a.m.
                                                                 Is that soon or Soon™ ? *NM*zudo 2/26/02 8:16 a.m.
                                                           Oh yea, the action sack...I forgot that one. *NT*Vid Boi 2/26/02 8:29 a.m.
                                         Re: Abandonware?Malcolm 11/6/02 6:37 a.m.
                 Thanks REB! Great work! *NM*Callie21V 2/25/02 9:37 a.m.
                 Scrapbook Pages 3 - 4REB 2/25/02 11:37 p.m.
                       Re: Scrapbook Pages 3 - 4Hamish Sinclair 2/26/02 12:14 a.m.
                             Re: Scrapbook Pages 3 - 4REB 2/26/02 4:20 a.m.
                             Re: Scrapbook Pages 3 - 4Matt 2/26/02 11:09 p.m.
                                   Re: Scrapbook Pages 3 - 4Hamish Sinclair 2/27/02 12:25 a.m.
                                         Bungie Live Up To It's Promise...REB 3/1/02 2:34 a.m.
                                               Re: Bungie Live Up To It's Promise...Hamish Sinclair 3/1/02 12:21 p.m.
                                                     Re: Bungie Live Up To It's Promise...REB 3/3/02 4:30 a.m.
                                                           Re: Bungie Live Up To It's Promise...Matt 3/5/02 5:31 p.m.
                                                                 Re: Bungie Live Up To It's Promise...Hamish Sinclair 3/6/02 12:07 a.m.
                                                                       Re: Bungie Live Up To It's Promise...Matt 3/6/02 12:05 p.m.
                                                                             Re: Bungie Live Up To It's Promise...Hamish Sinclair 3/6/02 1:03 p.m.
                                                                             Re: Bungie Live Up To It's Promise...Speaker-To-Animals 7/3/03 10:09 p.m.
     I would if I had a scanner *NM*Vid Boi 2/24/02 3:38 a.m.
           I'd scan it all but i dont have the scrapbook!Ernie TMBM 2/25/02 6:54 p.m.
                 Re: I'd scan it all but i dont have the scrapbook!Callie21V 2/26/02 2:26 p.m.
     Actually...Hippieman [B.Org] 2/26/02 1:23 p.m.
           Re: Actually...Pedrof 2/26/02 3:37 p.m.
                 Re: Actually... (+Hamish)Djof 2/26/02 5:00 p.m.
                 Re: Actually...Matt 2/26/02 11:07 p.m.
                       Re: Actually...Hippieman [B.Org] 3/1/02 12:09 a.m.
           Re: Actually...archon 2/27/02 12:28 a.m.
                 Re: Actually...Hamish Sinclair 2/27/02 12:40 a.m.
                       Re: Actually...archon 2/27/02 9:18 a.m.
           Scrapbook Pages 9-10REB 2/27/02 5:49 a.m.
                 Typo!REB 2/27/02 5:55 a.m.
                       Scrapbook Pages 11-12REB 2/28/02 2:30 a.m.
                             Scrapbook Pages 13-14REB 3/1/02 4:47 a.m.
                                   Scrapbook Pages 15-16REB 3/2/02 2:41 p.m.
                                         Scrapbook Pages 17-18REB 3/3/02 4:21 p.m.
                                               Scrapbook Pages 19-22REB 3/4/02 9:01 a.m.
                                                     Scrapbook Pages 23-26REB 3/5/02 1:22 p.m.
                                                           I Want My Zombie Pfhor!REB 3/5/02 1:28 p.m.
                                                           Re: I Want My Zombie Pfhor!Callie21V 3/5/02 3:59 p.m.
                                                                 Re: I Want My Zombie Pfhor!Vid Boi 3/5/02 4:49 p.m.
                                                                 Re: I Want My Zombie Pfhor!Djof 3/5/02 5:10 p.m.
                                                                 Re: I Want My Zombie Pfhor!Boomer 3/6/02 4:18 a.m.
                                                           Scrapbook Pages 27-31REB 3/6/02 9:56 a.m.
                                                                 Thanks Raul! :-) *NM*Hamish Sinclair 3/6/02 10:09 a.m.
                                                                       Re: Thanks Raul! :-)D-M.A. 3/8/02 1:46 a.m.
                                                                             Re: Thanks Raul! :-)REB 3/8/02 9:48 a.m.
                                                                                   Re: Thanks Raul! :-)Hamish Sinclair 3/8/02 1:14 p.m.
                                                                                         Speaking of typos and errors...poena.dare #CP# 3/8/02 2:03 p.m.
                                                                                               Re: Speaking of typos and errors...Hamish Sinclair 3/9/02 4:52 a.m.
                                                                                               Then There Were Eightpoena.dare #CP# 3/9/02 9:19 a.m.
                                                                                         Scrapbook Pages 5-8REB 3/9/02 1:09 p.m.
                                                                                               Whoa! the man is back! Nice post. :-) *NM*Hamish Sinclair 3/9/02 4:11 p.m.
                                                                 Re: One last word...mnemesis 3/6/02 11:26 a.m.
                                                                 Re: Scrapbook Pages 27-31Vid Boi 3/11/02 4:18 p.m.
                                                                       Isn't F**k Microsoft 2 words?REB 3/11/02 6:41 p.m.
                                                                             Re: Isn't F**k Microsoft 2 words?Vid Boi 3/12/02 4:28 a.m.
                                                     Re: Scrapbook Pages 19-22Andrew Nagy 3/7/02 6:51 a.m.



Problems? Suggestions? Comments? Email maintainer@bungie.org

Marathon's Story Forum is maintained with WebBBS 5.12.