Bonus Content Disc/Technology: Human Items

The following are transcriptions of the artists' comments for the design gallery "The Technology of Mass Effect: Human Items" found on the bonus content disc of Mass Effect released in 2007.

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Derek Watts: So, when we start off the game, the designers quite early on give us a list of placeables: things they want to put throughout the levels. I think it was up around 100-110 items that we had to design. One thing they wanted was a terminal so they could access it, get information out of it. We take it, we concept something up and then we'll outsource it, get a place in the game and make it a placeable they can interact with. Does it have physics? Can you damage it? There's all these other things that are involved with placeables. They become quite complex in the game actually. They almost become a nightmare actually. [laughs] A lot of bugs generated by them, a lot of work involved... So, this is a terminal. It has this nice arc through it. Nice bit of red in there, to add a bit of color to it. And then in the top area would be a hologram that would turn on as you came up to it.

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Derek Watts: This is a large crate that was done for Mass Effect. This actually doesn't exist in the game anymore. We redesigned the large crate. We actually made... At this point, we had quite a few different kinds of crates. We ended up using a modification of the same design for large, medium and small crates that we could use for cover. This wasn't working too well for cover. You can see on the top, there's a curved section up there; the player would get hung up on there and kind of block the way cover would work. It was kind of annoying while playing with it. So, we decided to redesign them, so we ended up throwing this placeable out.

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Derek Watts: So, what's a game without an exploding barrel? Not much I guess. So, we have our exploding barrel. We have these cells. We had different kinds. This was a version of one of them. So, we had a few different kinds we would just change the colors on. Originally, this was done so you'd have a red light and a green light on and a green meant maybe you couldn't destroy it yet and red meant it was about to explode. It's just a container and then on the top right, that angle section was maybe where the person lifted it up and put it on a crate or stored it somehow.

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Derek Watts: Placeable done up for a crate. These were put in the game. Just an interesting design trying to get away from the box, trying some new things. Again, some of the simple panel lines we were trying to get out. A few lights here and there and a bit of type and it starts to fit in the Mass Effect world.

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Derek Watts: This is the vehicle diagnostic bench. In some of the garages, we were going to place vehicles and the guy would stand on these things and it would actually move back and forth and scan over the vehicle. That ended up becoming a problem in the game. The guy would go up there and stand on the bench and when you moved the actual bench he would stay put and you'd actually just fall off the other end. So, we ended up just making it static. You can actually shoot through that hole, there's supposed to be some holograms in there, just to get a bit of a neat design in there. Originally, we were thinking that, as you went into a level, you could maybe hit that thing with some of your powers and knock it along the rail and physics some of the enemies out of the way, but that got a bit grand for what we could do.

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Derek Watts: This is a placeable done for the uncharted worlds. These are some of the 38 worlds that we decided to do; I think it was 38. So, designers again had a list of things they wanted to find on these worlds as you landed on there with your rover; some of the junk and rubble and salvageable equipment. One of them was a satellite, and this was a concept done for a downed satellite.

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Derek Watts: Another placeable done up was a drill. We have a lot of mining areas in the game. Some of the uncharted worlds are usually mines. It always seems like some mining company is the first guys to go to the uncharted world and then they usually get wiped out by some other force and you've got to go over and save them. Never work for a mining company. So, this was a placeable done up for a drill. Those bolts are maybe areas where once you put the drill down they tie those bolts right in the ground and the drill would actually hydraulic down and maybe bore some of the material out.

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Derek Watts: This is an escape pod we did up. Pretty cool design. We had a hatch that opened up, the rockets were on the right. We all remember that famous scene in Star Wars when R2-D2 and... R2-D2 are going on through the desert and the pod's in the background stuck in the sand. That's kind of what our version was of this. We placed it in the uncharted world to maybe see a miner or some other dead person around there. You'd have some plot elements involved with this or maybe you'd have to salvage some equipment out of this.

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Derek Watts: This is one of the health terminals we concepted up. Just a bit of a different design; instead of putting it flat against a wall, we put this nice curve in there. Some nice 45-degree angles. Maybe more like a 55-degree angle. A couple of lights on there. You just go up to this, you charge up your health and that's all this was for. Good for the designers to place around areas. You play through the game, you start to figure out where areas are hard to have combat, you can place these through there to give the player a bit of health to make it easier for them to get through.

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Derek Watts: This is a concept done up for the footlocker. This is something you can place around the beds, up against the wall... You'd open it up, receive items out of it. Simple design but very effective because it got away from the box. It has some nice curved elements in there. Again, a bit of color, a bit of type on there. I think we ended up removing the type from the final game, but it was a good design.

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Derek Watts: This is a concept done up for one of the gambling machines. There's a few areas in the Citadel where we have slot machines. You'd go up to this, play it. There's some games we were trying to get working on these also.

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Derek Watts: This was a concept done up for the generator. That center part would spin around as it was turned on and stop as it was turned off. So again, this could be placed around quite a few areas. There's a lot of areas where you have to go and power this stuff back up to get doors opening or larger gates opening. So, this placeable comes in quite handy for that.

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Derek Watts: This is a piece of medical equipment. This is some kind of high-end scope you'd have in a lab. You'd look through that, look at samples and so on. This placeable became quite famous because one of the designers actually used it for a train lever, which of course we had to remove because it's not a train lever. It's a piece of medical equipment, so...

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Derek Watts: This is one of the mainframe computers. This is in a lot of the areas; put it up against the wall, kind of stack them up... Almost like, remember those old movies where you go in and there's all those mainframes working, and the wheels would be spinning around. We actually took this computer, bent it, and built Mira in Noveria. That's the same place but we just bent it around in a circle, then you go down in the lower sections of it. That one worked out really well.

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Derek Watts: One of the mechanical arms done after the levels. These things come in quite handy. We were going to put them on rails at one point so you could actually go on a level, do your powers, knock this arm flying down and it would hit all the people out of the way. But we ended up just having to put it in a ceiling and static. It gives a nice high-tech look to some of the labs. You can place these in there, and get a good science-fiction look fairly easily with these.

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Derek Watts: This is another piece of medical equipment. It was designed so that center section would actually spin around the player as he got on, and cast some kind of effect on them. Looking at some of the actual metal equipment, we looked through medical sites for some of the scanners and high-end equipment, and just kind of modify it. Again, some simple clean lines through there, and we just animated that arm spinning around. There's a few areas in "Jug" where these appear and some of the... I think "War World" also has them and they were quite effective.

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Derek Watts: This is just a piece of high-end medical equipment. It could also be some kind of diagnostic piece. Just some kind of electronic placeable that you could put throughout some of the areas that would make a lab or just add a bit of... more interest to some of the areas.

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Derek Watts: This is a power junction box, drawn up quickly. What we were doing was, I was drawing up a lot of these and then we'd get Matt Rhodes to actually paint them in really quick, and we blew through a lot of these really fast.

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Derek Watts: This is a piece of satellite equipment. Not much to that. We just put the solar cells on each side. This is a destructible element. I think there's one of these still on Virmire that you could blow up. And then they were going to be on uncharted worlds, you'd have maybe a small camp to power it up. They have a few of these around. Maybe a vehicle, a couple of these, some other placeables and you can really get the feeling that somebody's living on some of these uncharted worlds.

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Derek Watts: This is just another piece of storage equipment. Again, nice curved shape, put it up against the wall... I think this was the locker and a section would open up. They'd animate that opening up and closing. So, the designers could put a lot of different kind of equipment in here. You're going through a level; maybe this is a place where you can get some of the different kinds of armors, weapon mods and so on. Gives them a lot of freedom to really balance the areas out.

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Derek Watts: This is another piece of storage equipment. That center section would rotate around inside the large cylinder. It was a very good design also.

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Derek Watts: Another thing they wanted from the uncharted worlds was something like a transmission tower, so you could place them down. Maybe this would be spinning around. You'd have to blow in air, maybe destroy it, knock it out or even power it up. So, we came up with this design. The top part would spin around, place it on the ground, and just look like some kind of high-tech piece of equipment.

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Derek Watts: These are some of the VI units for the holograms when you're talking to some of the computers in the game. So we designed quite a few of them and an image, the person you're talking to would be at the back of it.

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Derek Watts: This is another computer terminal kind of done up. I think this was for "Prothean" or else the Citadel. Just a bit of a different shape, kind of incorporating some of the elements of that design in there, and then the computer... The hologram would be in the background.

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Derek Watts: One thing we had to do with a lot of placeables was just come up with certain placeables for cover. We had different cover heights for kneeling down, for full cover, and then stuff you'd be able to shoot over. This was a good placeable because the actual high sections are full cover and then you could actually shoot through the middle. So, we used this in a lot of the areas. It was actually built for "War World" but it was ended up using in quite a few of the uncharted worlds, and used on some of the other planets also.

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Derek Watts: This is a concept done up for a computer screen. You'd actually place that against the wall, there'd be a hologram in-between that, you get your image popping up. This was in the train in "Prologue" and we used it. You can find it in the Normandy and quite a few other areas. It was a good thing to be able to attach to a wall, and give it a bit more high-tech feeling without doing too much work.

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Derek Watts: This is a recycle container. The front end opens up. Again, it's got some of those nice curved elements in there, these 45-degree angles, some of the things we were trying to get throughout the game. So, the front would open up, you'd receive some kind of items, mods, whatever the designers felt like placing in there.