The Making Of: Dark Cut 3
Dark Cut 3 is finally out, but I wanted to take some time to talk about what went into making this surgery simulator game.
First let’s talk about graphics. The game’s subjects are usually pictures of myself using several different angled pictures. I then doctor them to the point that they are relevant to the time period and subject. For example, the picture above is the picture of me on the submarine with a metal pipe through my shoulder.
- I first take the base image:
- I then crop out my entire body very carefully and make sure I remove a lot of the excess junk in the background. While I am at it, I change the hue of my shirt to be a bit more naval.
- After this long and arduous process I move into creating a background and floor. I do this by finding textures of these (free textures are available on the web for free) and building that old metal look. I also draw a splat by using a splat stencil and drawing a splattered line by hand down the wall.
- Next I add just a touch of lighting across the entire background. To keep the character in focus I left him (myself) in the brighter light.
- And finally, I add the minor details. Notice the buttons are gold to bring out the colour, and that there is now a large metal object protruding from my shoulder. This is done through drawing by hand around the wound area, and actually finding a piece of red meat from a cow to cut away at on the shirt. Red meat is the best way to create that “exposed arm” look because it provides a really nice texture and colour variation. So yes, in every Dark Cut surgery you are looking at raw animal meat where wounds are located.
- Now that the image is done, we’re not quite done yet. We have to recreate every step of the surgery as an image. For example, the before and after of a stitched area of skin, or the before and after of a poll being removed. This accounts for about 22-30 images per surgery, and careful planning must be made to ensure that continuity works.
- After the art is all done, I have to make different splatters and textures for blood that hit the screen. This is done using a combination of Photoshop filters, blends, and brushes. Here is an example of one:
- After I cut out the tools and other goods, I import all the art assets into Flash. I think assemble each of the tasks into groups, and code away at making tools function against the artwork.
The artwork complete, the coding complete, the surgery is done. Now for Dark Cut 3 I had 5 major surgeries and 3 mini surgeries (called treatments), which meant this process was repeated several times. It takes about a week to complete a surgery from camera to Flash.
My composer, MaestroRage, is instructed before all this process takes place to compose tracks for this game. For Dark Cut 3 he composed several beautiful tracks based on the theme of each surgery and the content.
Around all the surgeries there are additional tasks at hand. Making the menus, preloaders, buttons, finding sound effects, and working with a musician is a lot of work and getting it all to come together within a couple of months is quite a lot of work. But once it’s all put together it’s a photo-realistic experence and it’s (hopefully) a lot of fun!
OMG! They killed Johh! I guess there will be no more games from John..
hey lol i though that was a girl when i was playing the game the head wear coverd the hair if any
Great game. Great to see how it was made!
nice game,but need more surgery.And the mega bytes is high.i don’t care but next time put brain surgery or stomach or intestine(maybe butt surgery if u can).can’t find easterr egg where the fuck is easterr egg!easterr egg i can’t find moar easter egg!.
I absolutely love this serious. But killer’s right, it needs some more surgery.
Killer your scaring me
well,i fail surgery many times just because i want them to dead not accidentally.
it was a pretty cool game but couldv been a lil harder
the moderater let you say that lol she or he must be a joke…….FIRE FIRE FIRE HIM/HER
hey what i need to do to get the other surgeries!!
the hypersleep and the easter egg WTF! i need to do please
tell me:)
Frickin awesome game man.
For you, John, making this game was like performing surgery.
And about the cow thing, whatever happened to “No animals were harmed in the making of this game”?
that msut take a long time to do.
I just couldn’t resist saying it. You wouldn’t want to support weight of your body with the wounded side, I’ve never been shot or stabbed, but i’ve had my share of bad bruises, twisted joints and stretched muscles, you’d want to keep those areas as relaxed as possible in order to avoid more pain, with a foreign object stuck in you - even more so. The game looks like it’s good fun though.
Hyper Sleep is when you sedate them till it’s at 99.
t~
i think that dark cut 3 is way beter than dark cut1 because of the graghics and every thing els.
photo shop
oo didnt know a 3rd one was out im going to go play it =D
i dont liked the game, but u’ve made a good work
sweet
omfg that is sweet i wish i could do that i would scare the cow out of my friends
cool cool needs some more work but very cool
Woah I didn’t realise how many details you developers have to take into account.
Well done!
Awesome game. And it’s cool how you made it, too.
great game i hope there will be a dark cut 4
great game now im just waiting for a 4th one keep up the good work
Пожалуй так оно и есть, на самом деле все очень просто
wow, that’s cool to see how those games were made