Tomb Raider Underworld official guide book

Roupas de Lara

Concept art

Lara's Polygon

FORWORD by: Eric Lindstrom

Where is Lara Croft going next?

This question, more than any other, is asked by fans around the world whenever Lara embarks on a new adventure. Only then does speculation begin about what artifacts, enemies, and challenges she might encounter during her expeditions.

The story in Tomb Raider: Underworld follows Lara Croft on a Journey around the world, searching for artifacts related to a myth that literally encircles the Earth. On the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, in the coastal jungles of Thailand, under the high forests of southern Mexico, and deep in the Arctic waste, Lara discovers ruins forgotten for millennia and ultimately learns truths that are scarcely imaginable. The locations were chosen in part because of the mythology they supported- for example, if you want to discover a Mayan ruin, there are only so many places you can find one - but mostly because they are dramatic locations we knew we could bring to life in a way never before seen in a video game. Determining where Lara will go next, and what she will face once she gets there, is a major part of bringing Tomb Raider adventures to life, and it's largely and artistic endeavor.

Current generation platforms have advanced to the stage where limit on the number of polygons no longer defines the upper boundary of graphic fidelity. Shader technology, along with many other layers of light, specularity, and so on, have all advanced to the point where it's not possible to see where all the polygons start and stop. The world of Tomb Raider is filled with dank, ancient stone, vine choked statues, majestic underground rooms lit only by god rays filtering in from the far away sun, but now have we been able to render these elements so vividly.

In the past, crumble stone took a lot of polygons, so we could not have many of them in a scene, whereas now the geometry of a piller can be relatively simple but appear pitted and weathered through the powerful mathematics of shaders. for most of us, it's now impossible to determine where the polygons star and stop. Artwork in video games has finally attained the status of magic.

(Omg another page..)

Once we settled on where we would go in the world, we sent artist and photographers out to take thousands of reference photographs, most notably in cambodia and the Yucatan Peninsula. We had multiple goals in doing so. The obvious one was to make our locations as credible as possible, by basing our architecture on actual ruins. We also took high resolution photographs of stone walls, foliage, and any surface we could, to use as the actual foundation of our surface materials back in the studio. And lastly, While our artist are very capable of imagining all the rich and intricate detail one finds in real ancient architecture, if we took as our starting point all the actual detail these ancient cultures created, we could apply our artistic creativity and know-how toward creating the Tomb Raider version of these places, and of the places Lara Croft finds beneath these ruins for which there can be no photo reference.

While all this was going on, designers were blocking out the locations Lara would discover from a gameplay perspective, but only the basic scale and flow. Just as it's important not to create real places and then try to force gameplay puzzles and climbing routes on them, it was equally important that we not design game levels using a bunch of abstract building blocks and then try to paint over them with local architectural ruins. Both of those approaches would result in a mishmash of elements that would be both ugly and provide no sense of climbing on ruins as they might really appear in the world. Creating ancient architecture based on real forms in parallel with level layout goals, going back and forth between form and function, took more effort and coordination than any other single aspect of creating the maps that make up the world players explore with Lara Croft.

Also important in every location are the local inhabitants, most of which are hostile to trespassers like Lara. We applied the same care, Technology, and sense of fidelity to the enemies that populate the world as we did to the world itself. Whether it's a predator as ordinary as a black panther (or, more precisely a melanistis jaguar) or as exotic as a naga (a "lost" reptile in the basilisk family) or as unnatural as the guardians of the truly ancient ruins Lara discovers, the degree of detail, beauty, and fidelity is amazing and EPIC (oh sorry "advance") lol it's really advance I put epic in there for fun.


Whether it's the dramatic environment, the dangerous enemies that live there, or the many techniques we use to bring all to life, what makes everything so grand is not just the technology we now bring to bear, or the great artistic talents who use these tools here at the studio; it's the care and attention to detail that really brings it all home. That's what everyone can find when the explore Tomb Raider Underworld.

SO where is Lara Croft going next?

Only the future will tell.

MORE CONCEPT ART

Evolution Of Lara Croft by Darrell Gallagher Director of Art

Lara has always been very stylized character. Her larger than life eyes and lips, curvaceous athletic physique, her trademark long hair and clothing are all signatures that make her stand alone. Her unique look amongst the crowd of female gaming characters has allowed her to transcend the ordinary, extra-ordinary, to iconic status. For Tomb Raider: Underworld it was important that we retained those stylistic elements from the past and evolved them to create the most impressive version of Lara Croft to date.

Consequently, there are many areas of evolution with Lara Croft in Tomb Raider: Underworld. In purely technical terms, the level of detail used to create Lara has dramatically increased in every game. The amount of geometry used for Lara Croft in 1996 has increased a 100 times in 2008.

Advances in the lighting and the materials used to simulate skin, hair, and fabrics create a level of detail that look like you could almost touch them. Lara also showcases the most advanced animation set that we have ever created. Her motion is simulated using the same studio and techniques that were used to create characters such as Gollum and King Kong.

As a character she is challenged in ways that we have never seen before. She is tested and pushed both emotionally and physically in order to achieve her goals. Her journey, together with the numerous technical and artistic advancements we have made for Tomb Raider: Underworld has resulted in a character that has gone beyond the virtual and reached the goal of becoming truly believable.

Tomb Raider Underworld (2008)