Friday, August 31, 2012

Cutscene, LUA work, and Sig Arc Work

One of my passions in City of Heroes was creating cutscenes. There were a ton that I did. The ones that I'm most proud of are the death of Statesman, an iconic figure in the game, and the new cutscenes in Issue 24.

The Statesman's Death cutscene was made before we had the technology to do Depth of Field and moving cameras.



The next video is one I made to preview cutscenes for studio-use.. It was a trailer to show off all of the new cutscenes coming in Issue 24. These cutscenes show off the relatively new technology for moving cameras and also depth of field, both which help give the cutscenes a more cinematic feel.





I also enjoy writing scripts in LUA, specifically to enhance gameplay experience. I've included a video to showcase a few of the more showey things that I've done with LUA. The scripts shown are:

- Ally revival script. A designer can attach this script to any entity and specify how long it takes for them to revive after they're defeated. They can define what the entity says when they're defeated and when they get up.
- A teleport to location script with special FX and floater text. Like with the ally revival script, this was written in a generic way to be a one size fits all script. The designer can specify what they want and have it change almost on the fly.
- A kill 1 entity script that kills multiple entities. This also showed off a handy functionality of LUA, which was the instant feedback of things changing on the fly.
- Changing the sky in a map to something else. This was a big breakthrough for City of Heroes, as the only way to do this previously was in code. With this, designers could change things very easily to make more interesting missions.



One of the big projects that we had on City of Heroes were the Signature Story Arcs. This was the "holy grail" for MMO's: putting out content on a monthly basis. It was a monumental task, but we managed to get out 2 new arcs, one for hero side, and one for villain side, on roughly a month by month basis for seven months. The following two videos are interviews that we did, featuring myself, Matt Miller, and David Nakayama.



City of Heroes - Signature Story Arc Maps

City of Heroes put out a Signature Story Arc series, which was a set of monthly content updates. We wanted them to have unique maps and entities in each update. Anyone who works in an MMO can tell you that this is not an easy task to do - monthly updates run the risk of being bug ridden or too simple to appeal to players.

I'm very proud of the map work that I did with the Signature Story Arcs. Here is a sample of some of the work that I've done.









City of Heroes - Issue 23/Issue 24 Maps

The following maps were made for issues 23 and 24 for City of Heroes. I made many more, but these were the ones that I'd like to specifically highlight.









City of Heroes Later Work

The following are screenshots from my later work in City of Heroes. This includes my work on the Praetorian tutorial, where I created an instance map using assets made for the title, Going Rogue.

This gallery also includes my work on Dark Astoria in City of Heroes, something that I am personally very proud of. The new maps were all made within the regular time allotted and provided players with new an interesting experiences without heavily impacting the art department.




















Not part of the Praetorian Tutorial, but it looks cool!

City of Heroes Early Work


My name is Sean McCann, I'm a content designer for VIDEO GAMES! How cool is that?

This page is a showcase of my various works, focusing on the creation of cutscenes and maps.

All maps that are shown use assets that were not created by me. These assets were made by talented environment and FX artists; my skill involves using them in new and interesting ways to save on resources and time.

This first post will contain several reference shots from my early work in City of Heroes. Enjoy!
Modified Portal Corp map to be on fire.


Eerie chambers and lightning added into a tech lab map.

A large red crystal in an ominously lit cave.

Bottom of said cave.

Hellions, a gang/cult, taking over an office building in a city.




An old underground pipe system. Needs a handyman to fix it very badly!