How a Korean star's face became an interstellar snow pirate
In short: To create a global blockbuster, Capcom didn't just want a hero; they wanted a face the world recognized. They used 3D scanning and specialized software to translate the likeness of a famous Korean actor into a protagonist fighting for survival on a frozen alien wasteland.
The development of Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (2006) was driven by an ambition to achieve commercial success in both North American and Japanese markets. To do this, Capcom decided to base their main character, Wayne Holden, on the famous Korean star Byung Hun Lee. The studio employed a sophisticated process using a program called Face Robot to translate Lee's basic expressions into the game's protagonist. They further utilized a function called GATOR to perform full-body 3D scans of Lee in recreation of Wayne's attire.
Despite these high-tech likeness captures, the developers chose not to use Lee for character animations, opting instead to perform those manually. The technical scale was equally ambitious; for single battles, Capcom utilized between 300,000 and 600,000 polygons on screen at once. They then used an XSI program to manually add elaborate details to the environments of E.D.N. III, a fictional planet gripped by a brutal ice age.
The narrative world is one of extreme survival. In the year T.C. -80, humans fleeing a ruined Earth seek refuge on E.D.N. III, only to find it inhabited by the Akrid—an aggressive insectoid species that generates its own thermal energy (T-ENG). Because humans cannot survive the cold without these supplies, the setting creates a desperate economy where 'snow pirates' must harvest T-ENG from fallen creatures while fighting for control against the ruthless Neo-Venus Construction megacorporation.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Lost Planet
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