palettes and elements, with the present using desaturated colors and buildings overtaken by vegetation, while the past has brighter colors and a "luxurious, and still somehow intimidating" look. Persia still served as the main visual influence, only this time focusing on more ancient Near East locations like Babylon and its Hanging Gardens. The art was created using computers, with an incremental process of beginning with broad strokes to establish mood and then adding finer detail. The overall artistic and character design also drew inspiration from the movie adaptations of The Lord of the Rings. The Prince was redesigned, with the two artists most involved being Mikael Labat and Nicolas Bouvier. During the early stages, some hybrid designs with his appearance in The Sands of Time were created, but it was soon decided that the team was not being radical enough with the redesign. His "charisma" needed to be new, yet consistent with the events of The Sands of Time. His new armor reflected this change: it is made up of interlaced leather straps, granting him protection while giving him freedom to perform his acrobatic movements. The new character design had more variety in the enemy types. The graphic design was improved over the first game, with additional detail to character models and environments, and improvements to the lighting engine. The aim was to create as realistic a render as possible of the team's artwork, whether it was realistic or fantastical. The CGI cutscene animations were based on live action shots created during pre-production with members of Two Worlds Theatre. The team worked with minimal props and outfits, filming fifteen minutes of footage over two days. Those early movies continued to be a reference for the team when creating character movements. The panning camera shots showing large environments and interactive elements drew direct inspiration from Chan's work. Audio Pilon had worked on the previous game's sound design, and with the rest of the sound team wanted to create a darker atmosphere both in the music and overall sound design. While some sounds for the Prince's movement were reused from The Sands of Time, most of the sound design for the environment and enemies was new. The goal was to have players feel like they were cutting down real enemies, with the sound design aiming for a visceral style. There was an increased range of sounds for enemies, including some garbled voice