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SIERRA NEWS UPDATE Babylon 5 Engine Roars on the Athlon Aug.31.99 Babylon 5: Into the Fire is primed to take full advantage of the Athlon, AMD's new performance desktop processor. Two months before the public release of the Athlon, the Babylon 5 team was experiencing up to 70% increases in game speed with the processor during in-house tests. These results came without any modification to the original program. The Athlon'sy stability and speed continue to impress the development team, which unfortunately perpetuates the debate of who gets the Athlon this week.
According to co-designer and lead programmer Dan Foy, the Athlon's floating
point speed and 3D Now instruction set allows the current the Babylon 5 game
engine to deliver an unprecedented level of game detail without sacrificing
smooth frame rates vital to the gameplay experience. "Now the biggest
bottleneck is in the limitations of the video card" says Foy.
Babylon 5: Into the Fire Cast List Unveiled
In related news, Sierra wishes to confirm rumors surrounding the Into the Fire live action shoot, including the cast list.
The returning actors include Bruce Boxleitner (John J. Sheridan), Mira Furlan (Delenn), Jerry Doyle (Michael Garibaldi), Tracy Scoggins (Captain Elizabeth Lochley), Wayne Alexander (Lorien), Thomas MacGreevy (Centauri Minister of Defense), and Beata Pozniak (President Luchenko). A complete list is available on this site.
Principal photography for Into the Fire was conducted in two phases. The first shoot was a week-long session on the actual sets from the television show, recreated inside Babylonian Productions’ Southern California sound stage by the Babylon 5 series crew. On a separate three-day shoot, actors were filmed using a blue screen technique, a method that allows for virtual sets and effects to be added in post-production. At over 100 pages in length, Into the Fire’s script is roughly equal in size to that of a feature film. This will not interfere to the action-oriented gameplay, according to the game’s designers. Details concerning the single-player element of the game will be made available closer to the game’s release. As gameplay unfolds, regular viewers of Babylon 5 will recognize many of the original locations from the television series, including the ISN news desk, an Omega bridge, the squad bays, personal quarters, and Babylon 5’s sanctuary. The trademark aliens of the television series will also return in Into the Fire. Optic Nerve, the effects house behind the complicated make-up and prosthetics of the TV show, was brought in to recreate the costumes and makeup effects for the game. Each of Into the Fire’s scenes was written by game co-designers Randy Littlejohn and Christy Marx. Marx, a longtime collaborator with B5 creator J. Michael Straczynski, is one of small handful of writers other than Straczynski to pen an episode of the B5 series (season one’s “Grail”). The filming was directed by Babylon 5 and Crusade veteran Janet Greek. Will Binder, the talent behind Sierra’s Gabriel Knight II (Computer Gaming World’s 1996 Game of the Year), produced the shoot. The event was a sort of homecoming for the cast and crew. The reconstructed, freshly-painted sets, the cameras, crew, and a large number of the primary and supporting cast created the atmosphere present during the full-fledged television production. According to Binder, the “It was a big surprise.” Many of the actors “never thought they’d be back in the world [of B5] again.” The cast list may grow to include several yet unnamed actors between now and the game's early 2000 release. According to art director Marc Hudgins, several more recording sessions are planned for later this summer. Buzz on the set suggested this production will spark future Babylon 5 ventures, including the production of movies for television or theatrical release.
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| ©1998 Sierra Studios, a division of Sierra On-Line, Inc. Babylon 5™ is a tradmark of Warner Bros. | ||||||||||||
