Hitman World of Assassination devs say Elusive Targets are captured from studying talent over many hours and ‘bespoke craftsmanship’ rather than scans — ‘You can have the 3d mesh completely right and still not feel like it looks like the person’

• IO Interactive shares how it creates accurate Hitman World of Assassination Elusive Targets
• Senior level designer Marin Ansdal says there is no scanning involved and everything is “bespoke craftsmanship”
• Junior concept and character artist Lovisa Österman says it takes “hours” of studying before beginning the design process

IO Interactive has revealed that it hand-crafts all of its Hitman World of Assassination Elusive Targets rather than relying on traditional scanning.

With the release of World of Assassination‘s new Elusive Target mission, The Host, starring YouTuber JackSepticEye, TechRadar Gaming chatted with IOI about the ins and outs of designing these special updates, including how it constructs the most creative eliminations.

When asked how the studio achieves the likeness of celebrities and public figures, senior level designer Marin Ansdal said every character is created from scratch, and no motion-capture or scanning is involved in the process.

“Like many things in Hitman, it’s down to bespoke craftsmanship – we do not rely on scans at all,” Ansdal said. “Instead, the character receives a hand-drawn concept and is modelled and textured by a character artist.”

He added, “Oftentimes a great likeness is knowing when to supplement realism with caricature. This is a balance a real character artist can strike in a way that a scan just can’t.”

Junior concept and character artist Lovisa Österman also explained how she begins the design process, revealing that it takes “hours” simply looking at references to ensure accuracy before the stages of creating the Elusive Target models.

“I spend hours pouring over videos and photos of the talent to really understand what their face looks like from every angle. And a heavy lifter is getting the textures right,” Österman said.

“You can have the 3d mesh completely right and still not feel like it looks like the person. Because you really need the textures, the person’s freckles and spots and flaws to really recognize them.”

The studio also offered insight into its process for selecting the game’s targets, confirming that the level designer and writer take over once a celebrity or public figure is on board.

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