User Guide

A NEW SUN
APPENDIX 5
241
Mike Bazzell, in addition to doing pretty much all of our prototype art and
having by far the scariest office at FIRAXIS, built all of those cool vehicles and
vehicle parts. Imagine being told you have to design a laser cannon that looks
just as cool on a hovertank as on a needlejet or a cruiser, or carried around by
some infantry guys. And everything has to fit together interchangeably. And
rotate! And move in 3-D! But after years of playing with little “sprite guys,” it
sure is great to watch those needlejets make bank turns. Mike is also respon-
sible for all of our on-screen animations, explosions and so forth.
Meanwhile, Mike Ely directed our Secret Projects movies, coming up with a
coherent vision, doing storyboards, figuring out which movies needed licensed
footage and which we should develop in-house, and working with the artists
to bring Planet to life cinematically. Mike made all of the “footage” movies
himself, and edited together the final cuts of all the movies. For the 3-D
movies, Nick Rusko-Berger was our principal movie man, creating our Opening
and Transcendence sequences as well as many of the Secret Projects, such as
the Bulk Matter Transmitter. But many of our other artists were heavily
involved in movie making as well — Greg Foertsch’s movies included the Space
Elevator and Hunter-Seeker Algorithm; Dave Inscore created the Command
Nexus and Maritime Control Center; and Jerome Atherholt painted the back-
grounds for the Citizens’ Defense Force.
Music for our movies was composed by Jeff Briggs, our versatile CEO,
Executive Producer, Designer and Composer. Dave “Mr. Sound Guy” Evans, our
digital sound wizard and mandolin maestro, masterminded our in-game music
and did pretty much everything else that involves sound and sound effects.
Dave wrote what we suspect may be the first true interactive midi/pcm engine
ever to ship with a computer game. He had the fun of going to a sound work-
shop where everyone was talking about interactive midi as something “a few
years down the road” and thinking “heh heh, I’ve already done that.” Dave also
came up with some literally unspeakable technology to let us support true
voice-to-voice transmissions during multiplayer games. Meanwhile, Mike Ely
went through unending grueling casting sessions to find us seven faction
leaders with good voices, acting skills, and authentic accents. Want to make
Mike wince? Just sing a few bars of the “Deirdre’s got a Network Node” song.