On Visualizing A Virtual Middle-Earth

Posted by simoniker on Friday August 8, 2003 @02:12PM from the gollums-and-saurons dept.

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to the Middle-Earth Online website's new developer diary, in which the PC MMORPG's production designer Marc 'Taro' Holmes talks about the "epic responsibility" of visualizing Tolkein's world. He discusses some of the visual controversies: "The debates go back and forth, seemingly without end - does the Balrog have wings or is he made of living flame? Do dwarven women really have beards? How tangible are the Nazgul? How beautiful are the elves?", and shows some early concept art for the barrow-downs at Tyrn Gorthad.

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Movies reducing your options by evilhayama · 2003-08-08 15:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

For a lot of people now, the LoTR movies will have defined exactly what many of the aspects of middle earth look like. Previously it was mostly about imagining it yourself from the books, but now elves, dwarves and even balrog have a certain look. This would be especially true for the Masses who didn't even read the book. but saw the movie and now know what a nazgul steed looks like...