Character- Flying Space Pirates (Gene Kohler):
One of the many types of Space Pirates Samus encounters on her mission is the Flying Space Pirate. Though originally created by another artist at Retro, Gene Kohler tweaked and refined the Flying Space Pirate design to better fit his UV layout style and skinning technique. "I did skin the final asset from scratch. It took me about two days to create the skin (texture)," recalled Gene.
While in the process of writing this article I went back and played through Metroid Prime a bit to refresh my memory on certain portions of the game. When I finally came to my first encounter with the Flying Space Pirates, I couldn't help but notice their eyes were made of flames. Even more intriguing was the fact that I realized that nearly all of the Space Pirates had flaming eyes. I couldn't help but ask why this was. Was this to make them appear more menacing? Gene confirmed my suspicions, "Yep you hit the nail on the head. I think it is simply to make them look cooler to view and visually more enjoyable to fight."
Another artistic style I noticed while playing was the varying designs of the Space Pirates. Gene explained by telling N-Sider that, "Andrew [Jones] wanted the Pirates to look like they belong to the same race, but also strived to give them a different look that pertained to their combat specialty. It would have been pretty boring to simply see a regular pirate with a jet pack on for the Flying Pirate put a glowing purple helmet on a regular pirate and call it a Trooper you know?" A Good move on Andrew and Retro's part. By giving the Space Pirates different appearances, they were able to successfully diversify the creatures - a feat that no doubt enhanced the overall experience of the game.
Environment- Phendrana Shores (LeRoy Strauss):
As Samus makes her way back to the surface of Tallon IV from the blazing depths of the Magmoor Caverns, she is greeted by the harsh surroundings of the frozen Phendrana Drifts. From the West Magmoor transport elevator, Samus travels down the "Shoreline Entrance" tunnel, which was modeled and textured by Don Hogan. From there, the bounty hunter travels into the light of the Phendrana Shorelines; an area created by none other than LeRoy Strauss.
At Retro Studios, every area begins with a "blue room" which is blank to allow the programmer to code an area (or room) how they want without being forced to work around the art staff. "This process is not unique to Retro," explained LeRoy. "Many game studios have people build out blocky low poly rooms to test game play and then hand them off to artists. The artists then take these low polygon blocked in rooms and rebuild them with tons of details and textures."
The Phendrana Shorelines took LeRoy about three weeks to model and texture. "I usually build the whole room first then texture it. Sometimes, though, I get excited about a certain area so I texture it before the rest of the room," explained LeRoy. As far as details go, another artist added particle effects such as the snow later. Programmers added the fish swimming around in the pond later as well.
From the Shorelines, Samus can take one of several paths. She can enter the Save Station on the far side of the room created by Don Hogan, head for the Chapel of Elders (also modeled and textured by Don Hogan), or head to the Quarantine Cave and face off against the living rock beast, Thardus.
Boss- Thardus (Mike Sneath):
Thardus was one of the more entertaining and difficult bosses to take center stage in Metroid Prime. Made of Phazon infused stone, the menacing figure towers high above the armored bounty hunter, Samus Aran.
Many who have played the game might naturally assume that Thardus would have been one of the more complicated creatures to model because of his "rock reorganization" capabilities, but that isn't the case at all. According to Mike, "It's actually a lot more simple than that, as I know I only made one 'Thardus' model. How the programmer handled it afterwards is beyond my knowledge Actually, Thardus was probably the easiest boss I did." The Thardus battle is only comprised of one model that was later animated to make all the different configurations seen through out the battle. Quite impressive, I must say, and yet another testament to the ingenuity of the MP programming team. Another artist added the animated particles, such as snow, dust, and rock fragments, later in development.
One aspect of this battle that is very prominent is the use of Samus' different visors to determine the rock boss's weaknesses. How do they work? Though N-Sider was very persistent, we were never able to get a solid answer relating to the HUD. "That I am not sure I can say specifically because of NDA's. I have to stay kind of broad in my answers," explained LeRoy. Mike Strauss wouldn't even comment on the subject.
Though we couldn't get any information how the visors actually work, Gene Kohler was kind enough to provide N-Sider with this nice snippet of information. "I did not work with the visor[s]. I was amazed with the visor look and effects when I first viewed it. Danny Richardson, along with the efforts of the very talented programming staff, created what you see."