Grim Fandango ‘Making of’ part 3 talks textures, lighting, orchestras

I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited about shadows.

If you’re interesting in this month’s (27 Jan) release of the remastered Grim Fandango, the 2 Player Productions ‘Making of’ videos have been pretty essential viewing.

This third part examines the issues associated with transforming the original textures into higher resolutions (what’s a visual artifact, and what’s artistic intent with a limited palette?) and looks at the new lighting system. Grim Fandango’s original noir-inspired lighting was quite static, and couldn’t cast shadow across Manny’s body like in the image above, but will now do so in the remaster.

There are a few clips from recording sessions for the Developer Commentary, which appears to have reunited a healthy number of the Grim Fandango team. Tim Schafer gives a sterling defense of the game’s tank controls (optional in this remaster,) then decides that he probably just argued himself into a bad choice.

Then there’s a section about the game’s splendid score, which original composer Peter McConnell seems to be touching up in places with some live instrumentation. Speaking of which, at least some of the major tracks are being re-recorded with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (who also contributed recordings to Double Fine’s Broken Age.)

You can see all that below, in the third ‘Making of’ installment.