Brant Nicholas: Overseeing Operation Flashpoint 2
The Full Sail grad – and former instructor – puts his skills to work on the anticipated game.
Codemasters’ upcoming game,Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising is poised to follow the success of the first title in the series and its numerous spinoffs. The latest entry will once again throw players into massive, open-ended battlefields, and early reports promise the story and gameplay are going to up the ante in capturing the intensity of modern combat.
And while it might seem like a lot of pressure to live up to the expectations of fans still waging online death-matches with previous Flashpoints, Senior Producer, and Full Sail graduate, Brant Nicholas isn’t sweating it. “Each day as a producer you’re exposed to things that could possibly break the entire production, but you just learn to deal with it,” he says candidly. “One of the most important things I’ve learned is to always keep a positive attitude and work with anything that gets thrown your way. That’s really key in this industry.”
Much of Brant’s approach to game development was honed during his time at Full Sail – not only as a student, but also during the years he spent as an instructor in the Computer Animation program. Working first in the Demo Reel and Compositing courses, and then as Associate Course Director for Scripting Basics, he picked up valuable people skills that he’s been able to translate into his management style on the tech-heavy Operation Flashpoint 2.
“As a teacher at Full Sail, I developed skills in terms of helping people learn new technologies that they had never touched before. While it may sound unrelated, it really applies to me now working on this game,” he explains. “We’re doing a lot of complicated things, and the ability to walk into a situation and have the ability to communicate effectively has been very important. Helping as part of the Full Sail staff really forced me to stretch my communication skills.”
Technology-wise, Brant and his team had a lot of work in store for them from day one, as they chose to build the game using the same engine used for Codemasters’ critically acclaimed racing titles DiRT and Grid. Utilizing (obviously) both a completely different genre and style of gameplay, Operation Flashpoint 2 required the team to band together to push the limits of the powerful EGO engine to the next level.
“It’s really pretty incredible, we’ve successfully migrated a racing engine to a first person shooter,” he enthuses. “It’s not just racing around a track, the player can go any place at any time in a huge streamed world, which was a challenge, but we did it. We’ve also got these advanced, almost film-quality characters with much higher geometry and polygon count than our racing titles since the focus is on the characters and environment rather than the vehicles per-se. It’s another evolution higher, and it’s turned out absolutely beautiful.”
More than just an impressive technical feat, Operation Flashpoint 2 continues the series’ dedication to authenticity, and it’s almost obsessive in its realism, from the characters and environments, right down to the last dent, scratch, and switch on the over 70 weapons and vehicle interiors. Brant spoke about how hard they’ve tried to capture as faithful a war experience as you’re likely to get from the comfort of your home.
“Operation Flashpoint 2 puts the fear of combat back in the player,” he explains. “We’re essentially putting everything we can into delivering the reality of war – the accuracy of the vehicles, the combat, the weapons, the ballistics, and the strategic elements. Our A.I. actually uses strategies out of the U.S. military playbook, so the characters behave just like units and troops would in different situations. It’s going to be a totally new experience. “
The game obviously isn’t going to sugarcoat the intensity of warfare, and with such respect for its subject matter Operation Flashpoint 2 is looking to offer gamers one of the most gripping titles the genre has seen. And while that dedication has meant a lot of work for the production team at Codemasters, Brant Nicholas once again recognizes his time as a Full Sail instructor in helping keep the feature-heavy project on track for it’s 2009 release date.
“At Full Sail I’d have times where I’d go back to the same student’s desk three or four times, and every time you have to be positive, and try a fresh approach with them, and that’s totally what being a manager in the game industry is about,” he shares. “You have to really stretch yourself every day to communicate information in different ways, so that each person can hear it in a language that they can absorb, and the production can keep moving at a good pace. It’s without a doubt been key during this game.”
And while it might seem like a lot of pressure to live up to the expectations of fans still waging online death-matches with previous Flashpoints, Senior Producer, and Full Sail graduate, Brant Nicholas isn’t sweating it. “Each day as a producer you’re exposed to things that could possibly break the entire production, but you just learn to deal with it,” he says candidly. “One of the most important things I’ve learned is to always keep a positive attitude and work with anything that gets thrown your way. That’s really key in this industry.”
Much of Brant’s approach to game development was honed during his time at Full Sail – not only as a student, but also during the years he spent as an instructor in the Computer Animation program. Working first in the Demo Reel and Compositing courses, and then as Associate Course Director for Scripting Basics, he picked up valuable people skills that he’s been able to translate into his management style on the tech-heavy Operation Flashpoint 2.
“As a teacher at Full Sail, I developed skills in terms of helping people learn new technologies that they had never touched before. While it may sound unrelated, it really applies to me now working on this game,” he explains. “We’re doing a lot of complicated things, and the ability to walk into a situation and have the ability to communicate effectively has been very important. Helping as part of the Full Sail staff really forced me to stretch my communication skills.”
Technology-wise, Brant and his team had a lot of work in store for them from day one, as they chose to build the game using the same engine used for Codemasters’ critically acclaimed racing titles DiRT and Grid. Utilizing (obviously) both a completely different genre and style of gameplay, Operation Flashpoint 2 required the team to band together to push the limits of the powerful EGO engine to the next level.
“It’s really pretty incredible, we’ve successfully migrated a racing engine to a first person shooter,” he enthuses. “It’s not just racing around a track, the player can go any place at any time in a huge streamed world, which was a challenge, but we did it. We’ve also got these advanced, almost film-quality characters with much higher geometry and polygon count than our racing titles since the focus is on the characters and environment rather than the vehicles per-se. It’s another evolution higher, and it’s turned out absolutely beautiful.”
More than just an impressive technical feat, Operation Flashpoint 2 continues the series’ dedication to authenticity, and it’s almost obsessive in its realism, from the characters and environments, right down to the last dent, scratch, and switch on the over 70 weapons and vehicle interiors. Brant spoke about how hard they’ve tried to capture as faithful a war experience as you’re likely to get from the comfort of your home.
“Operation Flashpoint 2 puts the fear of combat back in the player,” he explains. “We’re essentially putting everything we can into delivering the reality of war – the accuracy of the vehicles, the combat, the weapons, the ballistics, and the strategic elements. Our A.I. actually uses strategies out of the U.S. military playbook, so the characters behave just like units and troops would in different situations. It’s going to be a totally new experience. “
The game obviously isn’t going to sugarcoat the intensity of warfare, and with such respect for its subject matter Operation Flashpoint 2 is looking to offer gamers one of the most gripping titles the genre has seen. And while that dedication has meant a lot of work for the production team at Codemasters, Brant Nicholas once again recognizes his time as a Full Sail instructor in helping keep the feature-heavy project on track for it’s 2009 release date.
“At Full Sail I’d have times where I’d go back to the same student’s desk three or four times, and every time you have to be positive, and try a fresh approach with them, and that’s totally what being a manager in the game industry is about,” he shares. “You have to really stretch yourself every day to communicate information in different ways, so that each person can hear it in a language that they can absorb, and the production can keep moving at a good pace. It’s without a doubt been key during this game.”
