How DICE is making Star Wars Battlefront feel as authentic as possible

Last month, DICE released a developer diary that took us behind-the-scenes of Star Wars Battlefront. In the video, DICE highlighted the research and technology being used in order to create a game that will accurately let you live out your biggest Star Wars fantasies.

As sort of a follow-up to that, DICE today published a new dev log that looks at one specific piece of technology being used in the process: photogrammetry.

As explained by lead environment artist Andrew Hamilton, “Photogrammetry is essentially the technique of processing still images to produce a high resolution 3D mesh. There are a number approaches to this, but they all involve taking photos of a subject in real-life and running it through photogrammetry software."

While the post itself goes into more depth about the process, the most important thing is that it allows EA "to stay true to the original look and feel of the Star Wars universe in an unprecedented way."

Not only did the developers travel to the same locations where the films were shot, or locations where they thought would be similar to planets not actually featured in the trilogy (like Sullust), but they were also granted access to the Lucasfilm Cultural Arts Museum where they were able to capture the actual props and costumes from the movies: lightsabers, X-wings, Boba Fett's armor, Droids, and Darth Vader's helmet (which proved to be quite the challenge because of its shininess).

"When setting out to create Hoth and Tatooine, we really wanted to get that feeling back into the game, for the players to also experience those extreme conditions,” said Hamilton. “Our ambition is that players will get the same feeling as we got from our trips: to really feel like they’re inside the movies when playing these iconic locations. Also, we want to open their eyes to new experiences and new planets."

Character artist Björn Arvidsson added: “At DICE, it’s everyone’s quest to make Star Wars Battlefront feel as ‘Star Wars’ as possible. All those emotions, connected to this universe we all love, are something we hope will get through to the gamer on November 17th.”

Star Wars Battlefront will be released on November 17th for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.