When you picture a Visual Design Director, you usually associate such a person with the latest Hollywood sci-fi or fantasy adventure. However, as video games continue to grow in complexity and scope, the visual flow of a game can become more important than ever before. Enter Stephan Martiniere, Visual Design Director for Midway Games on their forthcoming title, Stranglehold.
Concept art from Stephan Martiniere.
Martiniere began his career in the early days of Saturday morning cartoons, working on titles such as the slapstick comedy Inspector Gadget and Ghostbusters. This was followed closely by directorial stints with shows like Dinosaucers, before moving on to the animated cartoon series Madeline. While working on Madeline, Martiniere assumed the role of director as well as art director, writer and designer. He also lent his voice for some of the characters. After five episodes he would move on to theme park design before returning to animated television.
A scene from Madeline, the animated series. Based on the popular children's book of the same name.
It was shortly after this that Martiniere moved into the movie scene, beginning with The 5th Element before moving onto other films, such as Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
"It was very exciting in the first place," Martiniere said about working on Star Wars, "mainly because of the people I worked with. These were good friends that I knew and worked with on other projects. We were all big fans of the first Star Wars trilogy, this made the working process really cool."
Star Wars is a great example of a film with a grandiose visual scale.
Crossing over from a television and film background to the video game industry, Martiniere touched on how they differ. "It's very exciting and frustrating at the same time. What's very exciting is that it is a very young industry, the possibilities are enormous. It's just the growing pains of the process that can make it frustrating." The video game industry, according to Martiniere, seems to be evolving in the same way that the animation and television industry had in its infancy. When comparing the video game industry's evolution process to the movie industry, Martiniere did not pull any punches. "I would compare it to the movie industry during the 1920's discovering Technicolor," he laughs, "but as technology increases in the industry, the same advances can be taken: Suddenly these potentials start to happen. Now we can bring some incredible visuals into the game, we can use the visual to convey emotion into the story. We can bring some ideas that are relating more towards a bigger experience."
The parallels to the movie industry seem to be all over the place in the gaming industry. "Now everybody is talking about cinematic and immersive experiences, terms that have been part of the film and animation vocabulary for 40 or 50 years. With the Next-Gen technology the game industry now realizes that that it is one step closer to attain this."
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