Why don’t we
start with, one at a time, your name and function, and we’ll
go from there.
Dave Ewing: Okay.
My name is Dave Ewing and I’m –
Ewing?
Ewing:
Yeah. E-W-I-N-G.
Like the Dallas
Ewings?
Ewing:
Like the Dallas Ewings, right, which we watched religiously
when I was a kid.
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Some spiffy new Dark Sector concept art. (135k).
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Yeah I did too.
Not that I meant to, but we only got two channels where I grew
up.
Ewing: Yep,
that was the same with us too.
Pancho Eekels: And
Dynasty!
And Knots Landing!
Ewing: Good
old CBC.
Anyway –
Ewing: Anyway,
my name is Dave Ewing and I’m a Level Designer. Actually I
also did sounds and a little bit of textures for UT, but for
Dark Sector I’ll pretty much exclusively just be doing levels.
I’ll have to do a lot more than I did for UT.
Eekels:
My name is Pancho Eekels and I’m Lead Level Designer now at
Digital Extremes. That’s what I do, just level design. Some
textures here and there, yeah for Dark Sector there will be
a lot more levels.
You’re Lead Level
Designer now? You weren’t before?
Eekels: No.
I wasn’t with Unreal and Unreal Tournament. Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski
is Lead Level Designer there.
Ewing: Even
though we were two teams we were basically doing the same project
and we broke it down so we were one team for those two projects.
Yeah I’ve been
interested in that whole process because there was two geographically
separate teams working on the project. How did you manage coordinating
all your efforts?
Eekels: Well
it didn’t go to well and what happened was that for the last
part of Unreal it was pretty obvious that we all needed to be
together and that’s what we did so Epic came to Canada and we
finished Unreal.
How many people came
up?
Eekels: <mumble>
…Tim… <mumble>
Ewing: <mumble>
… Eric…<mumble>
A boatload.
Ewing: So
yeah like 6 or 7.
Eekels: And
then there was a few guys popping in and out. And it was a
very small office.
Ewing: <laughs>
Yeah it was a small space. Hot. On the weekends, of course,
there was no air conditioning.
Eekels: So
we had a string of fans around the office. It was terrible.
That was back when
you were in Waterloo then.
Eekels: Yep.
And for UT, Digital Extremes went to Raleigh. That’s where
we finished UT.
It was your whole
company that went?
Eekels: All
the people that were needed.
Ewing: Like
the level designers, texture artists.
Ok. What was
Digital Extremes role in Unreal and Unreal Tournament? Did
you split up the level design and that artwork and the engine?
Eekels: We covered
everything. We did a little of coding, Epic did most of the
coding, and we did half of the levels. And basically a little
bit of everything. It wasn’t a defined role where we said,
“You guys are doing this, and we were doing that.”
Ewing: We acted as one team.
Eekels: Yeah we split everything
up.