Yes, but that's not the point. Why would they use the game engine to render an artwork?

the Demo Kratos looked EXACTLY like that!

I would say GoW 3 E3 demo looked as good as GoW II's CGI...and Kratos in B looks almost like the render in that poster..

The wrinkles under his left eye is a good place for comparision...the demo Kratos and this guy looks pretty much the same, so I wouldn't be surprised if this poster is, indeed, ingame..

:O

it's in game...look to the Kratos Head, in the poster, you can notice some polygons even with the blur covering it, just like in the demo.

because they can?

^^
And because it looks awesome

GodOfWar_3ever said: I would say GoW 3 E3 demo looked as good as GoW II's CGI...and Kratos in B looks almost like the render in that poster.. The wrinkles under his left eye is a good place for comparision...the demo Kratos and this guy looks pretty much the same, so I wouldn't be surprised if this poster is, indeed, ingame.. :O

The gameplay in GOWIII, is easily better then the CGI in GOWII. I am currently re-playing GOWII form the enhanced version on the Collections disk. I also have thw GOWIII demo and I have compared the two.

Born
Betrayed
Revenge

Revenge
Revenge
Revenge
Revenge

I like this

You guys have any suggestions on how I can improve the OP ?

From IGN

Modeling the Leviathan

Katon Callaway 
Charter Artist 
SCE Studios Santa Monica 

Andy Parks had done a fantastic job of concepting the Leviathan, it that was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Part horse, part crab, part hurricane; I thought to myself, “This is Insane.” My immediate second thought was, “How am I going to make a creature out of water?” In general making water realistic and believable is very hard to do in a video game, forget about making an entire creature out of it. The Art Director, Ken Feldman, and I first sat down to figure out what kind of water we wanted this to be. We did research and looked at a lot of reference footage. We wanted something that was violent, turbulent and had a lot of weight to it. We quickly fell in with the idea of white water rapids, especially since the water would be cascading around the creatures shell pieces. After some initial tests by Ken to figure out some of the more technical aspects, I started working (with a lot of help from a bunch of people) on combining materials and textures to get something that looked right. A lot of the final look of the creature came from the effects team and the water that would spray off. I went back and forth with them a lot, till we made sure that the Leviathan would have the impact it needed in game. 


While facing the challenge of the water was a little scary, sculpting the creature itself was really fun. I love the power and might that the sleek lines of a horse can portray, and adding to that the shell and coral pieces gave the Leviathan a really interesting silhouette. Again, I started the process with more research. Creatures in God of War have a stylized realism to them, so making sure that they are grounded in nature helps them feel like they could actually exist. I looked at a lot of sea creatures, specifically crabs and lobsters, and analyzed how their joints work; how the different layers of shell comes together. From there I blocked in a rough mesh so the animators could get an idea how the creature would move and provide me with feedback. The first version I did, we found out that the legs were way too long. With the creature being so big, and Kratos standing so close during the fight, there would have been no way for the legs at that length to strike. I also made sure to block in early on other pieces that would effect animation like shells and spikes, since that would determine where Kratos could walk and grapple. After some more back and forth, the overall shape was agreed upon and I was ready to start the more detailed sculpt. 



Since the Leviathan is such a large creature it presented some unique challenges. It was very important that I keep the overall creature in mind and not get bogged down by focusing on each part separately. It needed to work as whole so that it would feel cohesive. On the other hand, because of the scale, the Leviathan would need significantly more detail than a normal character. The details proved to be a careful balancing act. Adding details that were too small, like tiny barnacles, ended up making the creature too dense and busy; if I made the details too large, the Leviathan would end up looking cartoony and it would undermine how large he was supposed to appear. I also had to give special attention to the face since Kratos would be getting so close to it. This was the most fun I ever had sculpting teeth. A lot of people don’t pay attention to the teeth, but they can really add a lot of character. Too often they are clean and perfect, when in real life peoples teeth come in my different shapes and colors. I had it in my head that the Leviathan’s teeth were made from really worn rock. The weathered feel helped imply that maybe he had been chewing on some large boats. After I got the model back in the game I was surprised by how little all the detail I added was showing up. Since the creature was so large I turned to the environment artists for some of their tricks, like adding additional cracks and layers of moss that really made it pop on screen. In the end, I think we got something that is really unique, and that is in a large part thanks to all the work that went in to him from everyone on the team. I hope you have as much fun destroying him as I did creating.