Julian Widdows / Rage Software Who: Julian Widdows Works for: Rage Software Position: Product Manager Questions: 10 Interview by: Bjorn Date posted: 1 October '99 PlayDevil.com invited Rage's very own Product Manager, Julian Widdows for a "Hot 'n Spicy Interview". After seeing a presentation of their upcoming football game, International Football 2000", which will be published by Microsoft, we couldn't resist to fire some questions about this game and other upcoming Rage games. We also ask Julian what he thinks of new technologies and nVidia's new GPU, the Ge-Force 256. - PlayDevil.com: Can you tell us a bit more about yourself? And what do you exactly do at Rage Software?    Julian: I joined Rage about 2,5 years ago. Originally just before Striker started actually. So I have been working on the Striker project since the very first day. The first role within Rage is a project coordinator which was helping Trevor Williams, the managing director but now after years of cutting my teeth learning on Striker, International Football 2000 I'm also working on other titles. I'm actually a project manager responsable for the developments of single titles. So now I have moved on to a title in development, Hostile Waters which is an action/strategy game. It is a very exciting PC project. - PlayDevil.com: Your upcoming football game, namely "International Football 2000" certainly looks very impressive. What makes it different then any other football game?    Julian: I think, there are several things that make it very different. Firstly we haven't attempted to make a pure arcade football game. What we wanted to create was a game that was easy to start off with, it was easy to approach by using the basic functions but then also gives the advanced player a chance to do some really impressive moves, to get ultimate control over the game, to get more control over a game of football that is ever been possible in a football simulation before. So from square one, the very basic, when you pick up the game you can play it just by using 2 buttons but then as you get better and better in the game and you're good enough to beat the better team, you start to use things like sprints, the control button, a higher/lower kick modify button and so on. You really get ultimate control over the game of football exactly where you wanted the football pitch. There are so many features that I could go through but ... - PlayDevil.com: There are too many?    Julian: Yes, there are too many. It feels more like football then any other football game has before. And when you score a goal, you score for the same reasons by making space, by drawing defenders away from the goalmounth, by actually beating the opposition as opposed to beating a preset computer system. - PlayDevil.com: Can you give us some more details about International Football 2000 engine? Is it any spectacular and did you build it from ground?    Julian: We build it from the ground and it is a very advanced 3D-engine actually. We use very clever techniques to play really smooth animation. We have 220 motion capture moves in the game. What we do between each frame of animation of each motion captured move is interpolate the frames. So this effect of using a mathematic algorithm allows you to predict where the frames in between 2 single frames of animation will come. And what this gives you is incredibly smooth animation. You'll see that the animation is just .... very slick. That enables us to do that on a relatively low specification machine. It will run without a 3D-accelerator card but for the 3D-accelerator version, you have lots of beautiful lighting effects, a really nice 3D-animated crowd, animating billboards, sponsors, a stadium. And you stadiums you know, I think they are ... - PlayDevil.com: BIG?    Julian: Yes, BIG! You really get that feeling that you are playing in a BIG stadium. And we think that is a shame with so many football games is that you feel like you are playing with your local football team and it doesn't feel like a big game of football. Even on the non-hardware card version you get that BIG stadium. You don't get that 3D-crowd but you get the big stadium field. Next Page Up Previous Page Any problems and/or suggestions are always appreciated on webmaster@playdevil.com Nothing of this entire Site, animation & logo's included, may be reproduced, stored, saved, transmitted, in any form or means, electronic, written or otherwise without the prior permission of PlayDevil. Other Logos & Names are Copyrighted Material of its respectful owners. All Rights Reserved. PlayDevil Productions © 199/8-199/9 "rip your own stuff"