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After an extended absence, we return with the next part in our series of interviews with the Revenant Wings staff, translated from the Ultimania guide. Today's interview features the exceptionally adorable BG team: Lead Graphic Designer Sho Okamura, Lead Graphic Designer (for Think and Feel) Nami Takasaki, and Map Graphic Designer Taketoshi Urao.

These are the people responsible for creating the maps on which the game's many entertaining missions are played. Check below the cut for yet more tales of woe about developing on the DS hardware, and what kinds of hidden details they snuck into each map.

Mild spoilers to follow.

Q: What process did you use to create the backgrounds in Revenant Wings?

OKAMURA: First, the planning team would think of a layout for a map that would be fun to play, then the design team would draw the concept art of it. Then, basically, we would create a 3D model of it that could be easily parsed by the DS.

TAKASAKI: The terrain model we got from the planning team was actually made out of polygons too, but they were always square blocks. We would have to align that with the image picture and create the polygon model over again, with real texture applied to it.

OKAMURA: The concept art the design team gave us initially was very simple, but as we got used to the process, their team and ours worked together and started aiming higher. By the end it was as if we were designing for the PS2. (laughs)

TAKASAKI: The concept art had a lot of colorful elements, but we were limited to 16 colors when doing the texturing. We found a way to create texture with very few colors by using vertex colors.

Q: Vertex coloring is supposed to be an advanced technique. Is the DS capable of that?

TAKASAKI: It is. The DS is just a little more advanced than the GBA in terms of functionality, but there's a lot you can do with it if you try.

URAO: We went in with the attitude that by applying our experience and know-how to the DS's potential, we could create something superior. The result is that you'd have 10,000-20,000 polygons on a single map, which rivals what you see in some PS2 software.

TAKASAKI: But the DS can only display about 2000 polygons at once, so the polygons will vanish temporarily when they're not on-screen.

Q: Was there anything you had to take special care with when creating the actual map graphics?

OKAMURA: We wanted to have one eye-catching thing on each map. For instance, when Mr. Urao created the Kisne Rise, he drew a very detailed lake. We wanted a single conspicuous point like that on each map that would serve as a landmark to orient you. Rather than just making everything look vague and clean, if you make sure to add in points like that to create variety, I think it makes for a map that's both more beautiful and easier to play on.

URAO: When playing the game, you're only seeing what's currently shown on camera, so we were always conscious of creating images that would not be monotonous while you're scrolling, and to make it easy for you to keep track of important locations.

OKAMURA: When we started, we had very large maps where you could just see the ground, but it was boring to look at, and it was hard to keep track of where you were. So we looked for a lot of ways to occupy the surface and vary the surroundings, growing grass, and adding in patterns.

Q: It seems like it must have been difficult to make sure that the character and effect colors didn't interfere with the map colors.

OKAMURA: The character illustrations that Ryoma (Ryoma Ito: Character Designer) created already had color, so we were just careful not to make the maps before they saw them. But, in order to keep the terrain from getting boring, we mixed a lot of color in there. Each pixel looks like a different color.

URAO: The character sprites always appear at the same brightness, so we had to make sure that there wasn't too much of a variance in brightness between maps, or else the characters would seem like they were floating. That raised the additional problem that the DS and DS Lite have different brightness displays. It was a lot of work to make sure that the maps would look good at any brightness level.

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Insider Production Secrets

Sho Okamura: "The interior of the Cache of Glabados was based on the Ridorana Cataract from FFXII. If you examine it carefully you'll notice that although they look similar, there are some elements that are very different."

Nami Takasaki: "Since the Midlight's Deep battles were cut midway through production we used the map for the battle where you fight Zodiark ("Keeper of Precepts"). We took so much trouble to create it, we wanted to make sure to use it." [Note: The Midlight's Deep dungeon was cut in the Japanese version of the game when this interview was conducted, but restored for the American version.]

Taketoshi Urao: "The Production Secret Only He Knows: We used the Shadow of Paharo map as our sample data during the early stages of development, and didn't have the heart to throw out the work we'd done. So if you compare the maps carefully, you'll notice that the edges of that field are different from those in the other maps."

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Q: Do you have a favorite out of the maps that you created?

TAKASAKI: For me, it's Tomaj's camp. We didn't get any direction about what the plantlife in Lemures was supposed to look like, and the plants in the concept art weren't very detailed. So I got to imagine what kinds of plants might grow in the jungles of Lemures and create the texture of the grass. I tried to bring it to life as much as I could within our polygon limit.

OKAMURA: Actually, there something else about Tomaj's Camp; during the original planning, it only had a day setting. But then, during the late stages of development, the director Toriyama said "I want to have a scene where Penelo and Valis are around the camp fire and Tomaj is spying on them," so we scrambled to re-create a version of the camp at night.

TAKASAKI: That's great about Tomaj's Camp. The camp gets darker at night, but we didn't actually need to change the textures, we just used the vertex colors to change how it looked. We got add in a lot of little details, like having Vaan and the group use the Ivalician alphabet to spell out "SOS" on the ground, and rotating the water of the lake and the grass so that it looked like it was swaying in the wind, things like that. (laughs)

OKAMURA: My favorite stage is... the Fane of Gucuma Qul: Dais of the Auracite.

TAKASAKI: I love that map too. I never thought we'd be able to acheive that reflection effect on the floor using the DS.

OKAMURA: That's another map we created near to the end, and we really wanted the reflections to come off well. In order to emulate the behavior of light with the vertex colors, we placed models of the pillars and dais under the floor, so as the image passed through the floor it resembled a reflection. We were really proud of ourselves for that one. (laughs) We also placed images of Lemures's symbolic bird all throughout maps on the continent, but I really think it's prettiest in the Dais of the Auracite.

Q: What's your favorite, Mr. Urao?

URAO: I could throw out a lot of names, but the one that made the deepest impression on me was the maps on the Isle of Illusions. The color scheme for after the sun set and it became night was difficult to acheive. Because it's not the world of reality... it's more avant-garde. (laughs) It could end up really gaudy if you drew it in primary colors, so we used a color scheme that was more soothing to look at.

OKAMURA: We were told by the planning team that they wanted the Isle of Illusion to make you think for a second "Is this the afterlife?" We had Galbana Lillies blooming there, and those were Reks's [Vaan's older brother's] favorite flower. Since it's night, everything becomes very blue, so having the flowers light up in red made it a difficult color scheme to manage. When I looked at the concept, I thought it would be impossible to display on the DS, but Mr. Urao made it work splendidly.

URAO: I wanted to preserve the color scheme from the concept art that made it appear not-of-this-world, and having lighting that would convey the sunset and the feel of light was important to me.

OKAMURA: Mr. Urao was also in charge of Isshu, Jewel of the Skysea, and the coastlines he created for that were amazing, too. When the waves pull in, the dunes deepen in color and then the water gradually dries again.

URAO: That animation was hand-drawn.

TAKASAKI: Changing the textures took 32 frames of animation.

OKAMURA: Did you do that much?! You really spoiled us! (laughs)

URAO: The movement of the surface of the water is normally done with UV Scroll, but we combined that with actual animation to make it look more beautiful.

Q: Tell us about some of the concepts you used in the designs of Lemures and Ivalice.

OKAMURA: Ivalice, of course, was based on the way it's portrayed in FFXII. For Lemures, we had the theme of "A culture that was originally in contact with Ivalice, but then separated at some point during its evolution." But we realized we'd be getting our priorities backwards if we concentrated too much on a unifying image for all of Lemures rather than the individuality of each island, so we concentrated on highlighting the contrast between each island.

Q: Who was in charge of creating the world map?

OKAMURA: I was. When you're walking on the world map the camera draws in close to Vaan, but while riding the airship the camera pans far out and faces upward a little more so that you can see far into the distance. Showing what's in the distance increases the polygon count, and it became harder for the system to deal with, so we kept on shaving polygons off the world map right up to the end.

Q: Does the fact that players can't rotate the world map or mission maps have something to do with polygon count?

OKAMURA: It's wasn't so much a question of polygon count. It was more the fact that when you have so many characters in various places all moving at the same time, rotating the camera can make it harder to keep track of them all. That was the main reason. But we were grateful for that, since it meant we didn't have to worry about desginging maps that could be rotated. The pillars and trees that appear three-dimentional are really made up of flat polygons that are made to look like background. You literally can't turn them around. (laughs)

TAKASAKI: When it was time to put the data in the game for real, in order to lighten the processing load, we started cropping polygons in the parts of the maps that would never be shown on-screen. It's easy to wind up with characters clustering around a summon gate and that makes the processing load heavier, so we took out a lot of polygons from there, too. On the other hand, we weren't always sure what camera angle the map was going to be viewed from during events, so in order to make it so that there were no problems when viewing it from another angle, there were some maps where we had to add more polygons in afterwards.

OKAMURA: Because Toriyama and Ishiyama [Takanari Ishiyama: Co-director] were so gung-ho about putting camera movements in the cutscenes. Whenever an event called for seeing something from behind, we were terrified that there would be a flaw we didn't catch.

Q: It sounds like you ran into a lot of difficulties, but are you satisfied with the final product?

URAO: It was actually a really enjoyable project. We worked hard to make visually interesting maps, so I hope everyone has fun playing on them.

TAKASAKI: Our staff never gave up and settled for "it's only the DS." We just kept our eyes forward on our work. We even put a lot of care into chapter 1, so while you're busy learning the game's controls, I hope you'll try to slow down a little bit and appreciate the scenery.

OKAMURA: I hope all the people playing the game will feel close to Lemures, and get the feeling that they're traveling along with Vaan on his journey. We didn't even render the entire world for this game, so I hope that people will start thinking about all the places that exist outside what's shown on the world map.

I must say, as with most of these interviews, it's amazing to see how much care was put into the final product. In terms of appearence and sound, Revenant Wings is pretty impeachable -- and when you think of how hard they had to work to get it looking that way, it seems even more impressive.

What about you guys? Do you have a favorite map in the game? And do any of you technophiles want to explain what vertex colors are for the rest of us?

By the way, If you've played the game by now and want to check out any of our previous interviews: with the character design crew, the sound crew, the writing crew, and the cinematics crew. We'll conclude our series with the next entry, a double-length interview with the game's planning team, once again featuring director Motomu Toriyama.

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