1. Describe your featured media and how it will enhance the user’s life and experience; 

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is the first of any Lucas Arts game to have ever used the programs Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) and Euphoria; two technologies unique to Lucas Arts. Their main purpose is to make everything in the game more realistic, and from this make you feel as though you’re part of the game from its life like capabilities.

Digital molecular matter allows us to simulate the way the materials behave in the real world based upon real world properties. Wood will break like wool would, glass will break like glass, metal will even dent like metal. For example, a piece of plywood in a game using the traditional methods for breakables would mean creating a piece of plywood that isn’t broken, and one that is. After an object hits it, the broken piece plywood would immediately swap with the whole piece, making each time it breaks the same, not taking into account the direction or the force of impact. Applying DMM, however, you would see it breaks differently every single time. It actually takes into account forces in the real physical world and it behaves as you would expect plywood to behave. Every time you reset it you can see it will break differently, just by the level of realism and fidelity that is absent in most games.

Euphoria is a system that allows us to give our characters biomechanical AI (computer generated artificial intelligence). It literally infuses them with a central nervous system, a brain, a spinal chord, a nervous system and even muscles that allow them to act by reflex. The characters will try to protect themselves; they’ll know what is happening to them and react appropriately. For example, if a character was being thrown into mid air, they would realize it and know that they’re about to fall to their deaths unless they can grab onto something. So, they will actually try to hold on to try and preserve themselves.

These two technologies bind together in the sense that not only do we have characters interacting with the environment in a very realistic way, but the environment also knows about those characters. As the characters search for something to grab on to, that something will actually splinter under their weights or bend; the stress will actually show and it will eventually break.

LA games are not just about having entertaining and high fidelity interaction with the environment and characters but also having those other characters interact in a meaningful and high fidelity ways.