Dressed for success: players don Iron Man's power suits and step into the interactive world of this superhero.(Gaming)

Superheroes seldom disappoint, whether on the paper pages of comic books or in action-packed scenes on the silver screen. And most of the time they do not come up short in the interactive world of computerized gaming.

When Iron Man appeared in theaters last month, audiences were thrilled by the drama that unfolded as weapons manufacturer Tony Stark built a "power suit" that enabled him to escape the grasp of terrorists. Realizing that such an iron suit could be used to further battle evil, Stark refashions two subsequent versions of his unique costume, and his new career as a superhero takes off (see "Power Suits," May 2008). As exciting as it was to watch Stark evolve into his crime-fighting persona, viewers, nevertheless, were relegated to a passive role. But with the debut of the Iron Man video game from Sega, another role reversal was in order--this time, with the viewer (player) stepping into the interactive role of the superhero.

The third-person action game immerses players in the world of Tony Stark, the industrialist/inventor who both created and became the world's toughest superhero. Iron Man is one of Marvel's most indestructible superheroes, though the game character is based more on the star from the feature film than from the comic books.

Players control Stark as the industrialist and as the suit-clad hero. In fact, to help generate the metal armor for the game, Secret Level (the Sega-owned developer that created the Iron Man game) worked with the CG character model created by VFX studio Industrial Light & Magic and used in the movie. The game artists also received all three versions of the digital suit: the Mark I, II, and III. "Throughout the project, we were given iterative updates of those suits and used them primarily as the basis for baking out the normal maps for our in-game models," says Mick Buckmiller, lead artist at Secret Level.

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The majority of the character modeling was done using Autodesk's Maya installed on Dell workstations running 32-bit Windows XP Professional. Some character and environmental artists also used Autodesk's 3ds Max. In addition, the team relied on Autodesk's Mudbox, Luxology's Modo, Pixologic's Zbrush, and a number of proprietary applications developed in-house.

"We try to allow our artists to use the tools they feel comfortable with, and also learn new tools that could help increase their productivity," Buckmiller notes.