BATMAN FAN GAME (NON- COMERCIAL)
batman
Recreation of Tim Burton Batman Films.
Non-commercial game, only personal project.
This is a personal (non-profit project) to honor one of the best Batman movies, and some of the most creative directors of this century, Tim Burton.
This work represents a dream I have had since a kid. Tim Burton's movies have always been a reference to my career as a graphic designer and VFX artist. The dark side of Batman always appealed to me as a child.
My passion for video games dates back to my early childhood, while playing Nintendo Batman and the Snes Batman Returns game. The last one was the fist game I played in Super Nintendo, it was very inspiring.
The initial idea for this project was to make the Realtime Batman 3d model. I was interested in learning how the workflow between ZBruch, Substance, and Unreal Engine worked. But once finished the Batman (Michael Keaton Character) I thought "why not make this character walk?" And then I thought, "let's just move to the Batcave." Once the cave was finished, I fell in love with the project. I then decided to challenge myself while modeling "Gotham City" as close as it appeared in the movie. It took months to finish this section of Gotham. In order to represent this set as realistically as possible, I used as reference conceptual illustrations and sketches that are published on the Internet, and Tim Burton's Batman movies itself (Batman 1989 and Batman Returns 1992) by Warner and DC.
why this project?
inside the project
Tim Burton's Batman is known for its peculiar aesthetic. Before get into the game asset and representation,
I had researched its aesthetic foundation. (German expressionism, Brutalist architecture, and Gothic Style).
The main aesthetics concept of this project is based on a game engine, while recreating the movie lighting and color. Basically this project was treated as a real movie. The main assets have their own lightings (Batman and Batmobile), this way is possible to make a visual separation between background and the character.
The music was an important emotional expression on the movie. I collaborated with Bonny Baez, a great musician who made the sound track for this demo game possible. The music is his own creation. Bonny worked on great compositions without leaving behind the creepy and dark tone that represents this Batman, making the music fully integrated to the rhythm set by the scenes and environments of the game.
Flugelheim Museum was included at the last minute, the idea behind was to have the representation between Batcave and Gotham city only. I decided to include this asset before the music was fully mastered. At first I thought about the church in Gotham, but according to the time I had it was more profitable for me to build the museum. Maybe in another upgrade it will be possible to add the church
Example of frames taken as reference from the original films. There were many parts that were recreated from aesthetic guidelines already marked by the movies. I tried to simulate the same experience that people get while watching the original films.
Batman: Arkham City is a 2011 action-adventure game developed by Rocksteady Studios and published by Warner Bros. It is presented from the third-person perspective and is open to the player from the beginning of the game, allowing them to travel freely anywhere within its boundaries. The player can move silently throughout the game, using a combination of gadgets and stealth moves to sneak up on enemies and incapacitate them.
Batman: The Video Game, Despite having the same title, both are different games. The NES title is arguably the best known game and contains five levels culminating in a final showdown with the Joker in the bell tower of Gotham Cathedral. The game has a feature that was unusual in side-scrolling platform games at the time, largely to the NES itself.
ZBrush is one of the most versatile software for making organic surfaces. This tool was essential to achieve the most exact resemblance of the characters to the real actors. The complicated part of ZBrush, those who know
this tool is the fact that it generates a very heavy mesh in the polygon count. Later it is necessary to use another 3d software to be able to convert these assets to low poly.
making the characters
Due to the magnitude of this project for the work of a single person, it was very important to use a software that allowed me to quickly model complex rigid surface assets. In this case I used "Autodesk Maya" Because is much easier for me to work with this tool, although there are many more like (3dsmax, blender, Rhino, Modo etc.)
making the assets
WHAT'S NEXT?
Many games were created in the 90's. This demo represents the nostalgia of that time. The main inspiration that led me to carry out this project was having played these games together. Each of these games contributed to making aesthetic decisions in this project. In case there is a future continuation of this they will serve as a reference for gameplay design.
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Batman Arkham city. It is without a doubt the most successful representation of Batman in 3d. This great game served as a reference for camera movements and aesthetic .
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reference games
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For the moment this project will remain as is. The main objective was to get inspiration to improve my knowledge in Unreal Engine. It has been a magnificent experience, but unfortunately Batman is a protected product with copyright that represents a great idea already developed through many years for great artists.
Batman: Return of the Joker[a] is a 1991 platform video game, the follow-up to Sunsoft's first Batman game on the Nintendo Entertainment System
is a side-scrolling run and gun platformer. is one of the most technically accomplished titles on the NES. At this point Sunsoft were just showing off. The backgrounds are insanely detailed. Layers of scrolling are often three or four layers deep.
It is fundamentally a left-to-right scrolling fighter beat 'em up, a genre that was featured heavily on the console at the time. The game takes the player through seven scenes featured in the film. Each scene has a boss fight that Batman must win in order to proceed to the next scene.