Economy of scale: project Entropia entices gamers with breadth, diversity, and an innovative economic model. (Gaming).

For the past four years, a small team of artists, programmers, and creative businesspeople from MindArk AB in Gothenburg, Sweden, has tenaciously stuck to its goal of devising an unparalleled, virtual online world. The result is Project Entropia, which illustrates the latest advancement in massively multiplayer online gaming. With its huge, seamless 3D universe and revolutionary realworld economy system, the game is attracting players from around the globe.

One of the hallmarks of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is its ongoing evolution. And Project Entropia, which went live this past January, is no different in this regard. While the new Earth colony on the fictitious planet Calypso is already 1800 virtual square miles in size, MindArk will soon expand this world by adding another vast continent filled with novel 3D environments to explore. One might think that it would take an enormous art team to create such a complex game world, complete with characters and props. However, the MindArk team, which consisted of a mere nine people at the height of development a year ago, today sits at five: one concept artist, one user interface/visual effects artist, two 3D artists who build static objects and environments, and one art director/animator, Alf Svensson, who creates the animation and oversees the team.

The greatest artistic challenge for the MindArk team was creating a sufficient number of diverse environments and creatures to entice players to invest time exploring the entire world. "I figured we would need about a hundred different species of animals, fish, and bird-like creatures, and as many different kinds of trees and plants," says Svensson. "My goal was to create an environment that was probable in all aspects, yet fantastical enough to evoke awe."

Each region within the Project Entropia world has its own flora and fauna, both familiar and alien. "All the animals appear credible, or functional in their shape and credible products of evolution," continues Svensson. "I wanted to fill every niche: bovine-like animals, aquatic and flying creatures, imposing herbivores, predators of various sizes, and insects." To model and animate these creatures, the artists use Discreet's 3ds max Version 4 and Character Studio Version 3. They also employ NewTek's LightWave 6.0 for constructing some of the buildings in Calypso's major city. Additionally, they use Adobe Systems' Photoshop for texturing, generating the concept art, and user-interface development.

Because Project Entropia is an online game, the geometry and textures of the images have to be extremely lightweight to keep Internet pipelines from clogging up and users' PCs from bogging down. And the art has to be beautiful and compelling, as it is vying for players' attention, not only from competing online games but also from mainstream PC and console games, notes Svennson. Therefore, MindArk's ultimate goal when creating the visuals was to employ straightforward CG techniques for producing large quantities of diverse art that will match, if not exceed, current graphic standards in gaming.

"There always seems to be a plug-in that generates a novel effect, but in the end, you can generally reach the same result if you use your imagination and talent," Svensson contends. In fact, by taking this approach, MindArk has not only achieved different looks for its game environments and non-player characters (such as animals and monsters), but also devised a system for creating ...