FOX Broadcasting Company: Firefly

GEEK TO GAME PROJECT

Hi there,

I am The SkinwalkeR, and I have been charged with the task…nay, the awesome responsibility of bringing the Firefly fans their very own digital Serenity in the form of an Unreal Tournament 2003 Deathmatch map. My adventure started when my good friend Kyle asked me to come tour the set of the outrageously wonderful new sci-fi show Firefly. Now, at this point I had not yet seen the show, so I was unaware of its outrageous wonderfulosity. Not knowing what to expect, I drove to FOX studios to see my long-lost friend and go on board the marvelous spaceship. After a few hours parking, I met up with Kyle and we proceeded to the office of Kelly, who was to be our guide. Without Kelly we would surely have been attacked and devoured by one of the many key grips and set carpenters that prowl the set sewing the flesh of their victims into their show jackets.

Armed with nothing but my crappy digital camera, Kyle’s somewhat-less-crappy digital camera, and Kelly’s superhuman strength and unequaled hand-to-hand combat skills, we wandered the empty corridors of Serenity. Kelly led us around the bridge, kitchen and engine room. When trying to show us how the engine spins, she inadvertently knocked a rather important looking chunk off of it, no doubt due to her aforementioned super strength. So I am skeptical that it was a faulty compression coil that stranded the crew in the "Out of Gas" episode.

After this apparently "accidental" sabotage, we continued to the common area and infirmary, and then onto the cargo bay. When we entered the cargo bay, something in my mind went “bing.” It was perfect! I wanted to snatch up a rocket launcher right then and there, and rain down upon my companions from the perfectly-placed catwalks. It’s as if the set designers had “deathmatch map” in mind when they drew up the blueprints. I resisted the urge to frag my companions, and took many texture samples to aid me in my work. It is a fantastic set, and I was very very impressed during and after my tour. After all was said and done, I was given the ship blueprints and tapes of the existing episodes, and sent to my task.

I’m currently well into working on it, and thanks to having actually seen the show, I am also mildly obsessed with it. I work from a powerful laptop computer using Lightwave to construct the static meshes that will eventually make up the ship. I am trying to bring more than just a vague representation or a moderately-accurate model of the ship. Now that I’m hooked as a super fan of the show, I want to add little details that only the true geekzilla would appreciate. Thankfully, the capabilities of the newly released Unreal engine allow me to do just that.

I have almost wrapped up modeling the bridge, and it weighs in at around 4,000 polygons, though it will undergo some optimization and have some things added to it. Once I have modeled all of the rooms in the ship (and have them clean and to scale), I will start texturing them. It is a painstaking process when trying to re-create something in such detail. I watch each episode about twice a day, and I’m always finding new things or seeing stuff at angles I hadn't seen them at before. Well, so it goes. It’s lots of fun, and I’m really into the show…literally I guess. I hope Kelly doesn't beat me up for snitching on her little “engine sabotage” job.

The SkinwalkeR

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