Discordia

3D Artist Brian Stark Uses C4D to Turn Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” Into an Online Experience.

Given the western-themed look most commonly associated with Stephen King’s epic The Dark Tower series, 3D artist and interactive producer Brian Stark knew he was taking a chance when he suggested “blowing the dust off the brand and making it more reflective of the post-apocalyptic world” King’s characters inhabit. But Stark, a longtime fan of the author’s work and founder of New Jersey-based Metro DMA, was confident that this was the right way to go. He should know. In 2004 Stark worked with King on the creation of two new Web sites: the author’s official site (www.stephenking.com) and The Dark Tower Official Web Site (www.stephenking.com/darktower). This made Brian the logical choice to work on the redesign of both, which began in 2007. Stark has been working on stephenking.com ever since.

In addition to updating the look and database capabilities of both sites,  Stark and business partner Judy Hahn were primarily charged with the creation and launch of Discordia, an online game based on The Dark Tower series. Stark relied almost entirely on MAXON’s CINEMA 4D, which he purchased for the year-long project, to design and build the artwork and videos for the Flash game. “I tried a lot of different 3D applications over the years but it was clear that CINEMA 4D was the answer for me because it was so user-friendly,” Stark recalls.

While Discordia pays homage to the existing storyline of King’s seven Dark Tower novels, it also introduces new characters and takes off in some completely unexpected directions, Stark says. For those who are unfamiliar with the series, The Dark Tower stories center around the adventures of Roland Deschain, a gunslinger searching for a Dark Tower described as being both “physical and metaphorical.” The novels cross multiple genres with influences from everything from fantasy and horror to science-fiction and westerns.

Fans of The Dark Tower  will recognize Discordia’s basic plot, which revolves around the long-standing conflict between the evil Sombra Corporation (a subsidiary of the equally villainous North Central Positronics firm) and the good Tet Corporation. Stark based his concepts for the design of the game, as well as the revamping of the Web sites, on art that reflected the retro-modern look associated with North Central Positronics. His ideas were an immediate hit with Marsha DeFilippo, King’s personal assistant, who pitched them to the author. Shortly thereafter, Stark and Hahn got to work on the project.

Discordia, which is set in present-day New York City, begins with Tet Corporation agents investigating a brutal murder scene at the Dixie Pig restaurant, a rib joint in New York City. Of all the challenges Stark faced while building the 3D environment used in Discordia, creating the Dixie Pig was the biggest. With its red brick walls, red leather chairs, red table cloths and curtains, and dark, heavy woodwork, the rib joint was already a fairly foreboding place—and then Stark added the blood splatters.

Thanks to the search functionality of the Kindle version of the book, as well as Robin Furth’s The Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance, Stark was able to recreate this and other scenes down to the last detail using CINEMA 4D. He bought a dining chair, a couch and some light fixtures online and then modeled the rest of the 3D scene from scratch. Using the Cloth functionality in MAXON’s MOCCA 3 module he created simulations that gave every piece of fabric, including napkins and a strip of police tape left on the floor, a natural, draped look.

Throughout the process, Stark worked closely with Hahn and DeFilippo on concepts, each of them contributing ideas that went into the final look. Each scene was consistently dark with a genuine sense of decay and neglect seeping into every corner. True to King’s vision, there was always a touch of the bizarre as well. In the kitchen, for example, Stark used CINEMA 4D's HAIR  module to give a life-like look to a giant “grandfather” flea sitting on the counter next to a can of chili peppers.