At a recent presentation, Blue Castle Games showcased some of their technology behind the advanced visuals in Dead Rising 2. The entire design philosphy was driven by the goal to have the most on-screen characters ever presented in a video game.
“Dead Rising 2 deal[s] with the rendering of the greatest number of characters ever seen in a video game, everything else needed to be subordinated to this requirement.”
– Izmeth Siddeek, Character Art Lead
The visual technology behind this feat is dubbed Mental Mill which allows the developers to render many characters with personal distinctions. Mental Mill’s product manager, Laura Scholl indicated they could have as many as 6,000 characters on screen.
[Source]
