In the recent patch, Sucker Punch added Photo Mode to inFamous: Second Son, a feature allowing owners of the game to easily edit their Second Son screenshots, leading to some amazing images.
Speaking with the PS Blog about Photo Mode, Sucker Punch Senior Software Engineer Matt Durasoff revealed that “the motivation for adding this feature came completely from the fans. Right out of the gate, people were sharing awesome shots, without any special tools. Giving people a way to hide the UI was an obvious patch, but then we thought, what if we could provide some more power, open up the game engine a little bit and let everybody tweak the visuals the way we already do in-house?”
Initially, Sucker Punch was only hoping “the small core of enthusiasts who motivated us to add it in the first place” would embrace it, but with the massive response to Photo Mode so far, they are “quite (pleasantly) surprised!”
Durasoff then talked about how actually implementing Photo Mode only took a few days:
Photo Mode itself is a simple tool. This was not a big R&D project – that’s what the last two and a half years were for! Camera, depth of field, color grading – the support for manipulating these already existed in our game engine, it was only a matter of creating an interface for them. The real labor behind this feature went into the construction of the game world and characters, and the engine that supports them. So, a feature for taking photos? A few days. Game full of stuff worth taking photos of? Hundreds of person-years!
As for whether Photo Mode would be a part of future Sucker Punch games, Durasoff said, “We’re proud of our artwork, and I think whatever helps show that off is important. So yeah, Photo Mode is a good starting point…”
Possibly teasing more inFamous: Second Son DLC, the next inFamous: Second Son patch, or Sucker Punch’s other project, Durasoff was asked if people at the studio had been using Photo Mode all week, to which he responded: “Most of the studio is already hard at work on what’s next! But many photos have been taken nonetheless.”
Have some inFamous: Second Son screenshots you want to share? Put them in this thread on the PSLS forums.
