Elements of Game Technology, part one: game engines

Ok so this blog is entirely down to differences in game engines as some big game companies like to have their very own when developing a series of games. I guess teams must feel comfortable all working within their own engine as they will know the ins and outs and depending on the genre of the game, be able to create desired elements much faster and easier. It’s the engines that integrate all the hard work developed from 3DS Max, Maya, Photoshop, zbrush and so on but also allows the dynamic elements and intricate important details such as lighting or mechanics for opening doors, how they open, at what speed and all that.

We know Unreal is a very commercial engine that can be used and abused by anyone but must pay if they want to actually sign up and use it for personal commercial purposes. It is perhaps the reason why it has become so famous. We non commercially use it for our second and third year semesters and despite being just game artists where we thrive on 3DS Max and such, to learn exactly how an engine ticks is great for our growing development if we want to enter the industry.

I found a great little website that shows a list of game engines and a small explanation to the side of them, explaining what they were used for so please take a good look at these but for the duration of the blog I will pick out ones that interest me in what they were used for and see if I can find any differences in how they may work better or worse than each other. The famous Unreal and CryEngine is included and clicking on the links actually take you to the Wikipedia pages to explain them in more depth.

One engine I noticed is the Jade engine, originally used for beyond good and evil, and being an old time gamer, thanks to my dad, I did read up on, played and very much enjoyed this game at the time. The engine is developed by ubisoft and further games created were, surprise surprise, the whole prince of Persia series! Other games are, King Kong, a key game when the next generation of PS3 and Xbox 360 were releasing, rayman raving rabbids, naruto adventure games, avatar, and the newest prince of Persia. So usage has been from years 2003 to 2010 and the engine has been able to create content for PlayStation 2 and pc all the way up to the Nintendo Wii meaning it has a great depth and can keep up with the current gen up to this point. Although this could be due to changes in the engine and I’m sure, like unreal and any other software for that matter, they are constantly improving the way you can use them making things easier and allowing integration of improved physics, AI, dynamics, lighting and so on.

So failing to find the way the jade engine ticks, I go onto the crystal tools engine, also named the white engine, used for the newest of my most favourite series of games, Final Fantasy! Used for Final Fantasy XIII onwards (however I think the new FF Versus XIII will use an entirely new engine) this engines allows 3DS Max and Maya, standard, and XSi which I have no idea about so I’ll have to research that. Otherwise key features include, advanced audio processing, real-time physics calculations, cinema-quality special effects rendering, progressive scan loading, high quality cgi real-time rendering graphics capabilities for both cut-scenes and gameplay and seamless cut-scene to gameplay transition. Now reading this and having played final fantasy 13, I can totally understand why they would create such an amazing sounding engine like this. Final fantasy being a role playing game thrives on its storylines, battle systems, characters and animations, sounds, special effects and most importantly, cut-scenes which is all taken seriously to make an immersive emotional game. That backs up my previous point that specialist engines made for specialist genres allow companies to add features that work for them.

Think, if every company used the same engine, we would see too many similarities and common ground between transitions and the way you can actually play the game. CryEngine specialises on first person shooters and I kind of see the same with Unreal, even though you can create different kinds of games, how hard would it be to make that happen?

Refs
http://www.3d-animation.com.ar/game_engines_commercial_01.php
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=118511

Elements of game design, part eight: documentation

With this task I am not sure if I am meant to create a brief set of technical specifications and information on an existing game or a random game made up in our heads. To be slightly daring I will create a small set of specifications based on a pretty generic role playing game as it is my favourite genre and for general purposes to put my point and understanding across. So here goes:

1. Project outline – I want to create a fictional fantasy role playing game that contains close references to real life such as war and politics, city life, love, crime, stereotypes and more. I want a powerful storyline with strong characters you will be able to relate to in real life, showing the traits of a brave protagonist but the weaknesses of somebody naïve and unknowledgeable on certain situations. As I want people to perhaps think about and learn from the natural realistic goings on in this fantasy world I want my target audience to be 16+ as things may get a bit harsh and cruel early on to set the bar for the rest of the game’s attitude.

Photoshop will be used for creating wet, street, futuristic environments with loads of lights and edgy mixing styles and visual representations of decided scenes to begin with. 3DS Max will be used to create confirmed assets for specific areas, UDK will be the engine used to create simple block outs for the levels. You will play the game in third person when roaming environments in a fixed camera state. Then when you approach enemies or boss battles, they will play almost like a turn based system but characters and enemies will share an active time bar and will be able to make their move when their icon reaches the end. Role playing elements will make each battle unique and allow you to grow and manipulate the fight as you see fit and active battle sequences during important boss fights will showcase many exciting animations relevant to the scene.

Platforms for the game will be the PS3 and Xbox.

2. Lead character – Xorr (can chage), aged 18 at the beginning but is introduced celebrating his birthday and finally deciding to join the military group (a year late) his mother joined many years ago only to find out why she has been acting strange all of a sudden since current politic choices have made a turn for the worse. It’s been longer than expected since she left for a post she claimed was, “nothing serious” and so on. Like other main characters he will be on average below 10,000 tris including clothing but this may vary as clothing on a character will be open to minor changes as the story progress and characters improve classes. 1024x1024 diffuse, spec, normal and emissive textures. 1 for the character face and body and 1 for every other set of different clothing.

3. NPC – Normal person roaming the streets of the city, who you cannot interact with unless you bump into them, or run into them on other modes of transport.

4. Vehicle – Other modes of transport will be available. Mainly the protagonists main modes of transport which is a futuristic motorcycle almost mimicking heavy metal styles with over exaggerated customisable body parts but real engine, handles, wheels and such. On average 20,000 tris (may increase, decrease due to relevance and usage).

5. Scene – Typical scene is as described before, a wet city scene raining. A sort of city centre with a few dark alleys with limited lighting however the centre will be strongly lit and buildings will tower high with glowing colourful, not exactly but perhaps neon lights advertising restaurants and made-up companies advertising products. Streets will be dirty but not over the top and destroyed as it is being lived in, just hectic and busy usually. For this scene however police have blocked the centre off due to a suspected terrorist attack when it is on fact Xorr’s mother on a top secret mission to infiltrate the leading bank company nearby. Scene will be set at night or perhaps twilight as the sun is just setting and becoming dark.

6. Scenery Objects – Objects in the scene will include trash, bins, floating newspapers, heavy rain, lamp posts and sign and shop shelters dripping, burger stalls and food on the floor, loads and interesting lights placed on buildings which are relied on to light the scene. Fantasy elements come into adverts and unusual building structures and statues and floating magical pieces of “art” to show how rich the city is and show off its attractions that attract tourists. A mixture of Japanese writing, English and other languages will slide across banners to welcome everybody. Ideas currently open to change.

So that is my small, brief take on an idea I have had going through my head for ages hoping that it has some professional technical relevance to the main task at hand. This could perhaps be my final FMP if im lucky to make to the third year haha. Couldn’t find much in terms of professional examples to get ideas from but if I find any I may change things a little bit or just post the references later.

Elements of game design, part seven: level design

Those of us would relate level design to environment design and visual composition saying “are they not the same?”, when in fact they are not. Well they could be and you can take into account certain compositions of the environment and keep it consistent within the level if you know how to make this effective when designing the level anyway. My answer is they do relate, but level design is much more technical and requires more thought than just visual juiciness. You need to be able to play it and explore it and interact with it and if you had high expectations after seeing just the compositional stills, it all comes down to how well the level was designed resulting in if it will satisfy those expectations or not.

So if I had an order in which to do these relating tasks to make the previous paragraph sound less difficult. I think with the ideas and stories and documentation thrown around, yes, create some concepts and some smashing compositions with points of interest and so on until some finals are ultimately agreed on. I can imagine when given the all clear from the bosses, that is where the level design comes in. The art team must start begin blocking out simple level structures. I know some companies do this to get a feel of space, scales and potential elements of interactivity and scene manipulation (such as walls breaking or buildings blowing up and sinking to reveal more of the environment, as a small example). I can actually imagine the process of level design will require all the different teams, animators, programmers and artists to work together to achieve the right effect for the level.

The process of level design figures out how you will traverse your environment, how you will see important assets, shows you how dynamic and alive it is, tells you how it relates to the game as a whole and so on. Once the initial structure is up, it will be open to constant change in order to deliver the right feel or show those fantastic money shots in the form of cut scenes or camera fixes.

Off the more general views on the subject, it really depends on what kind of game it will be in the first place to determine how the level will be structured. Fighting games like the new Street Fighter 4 series onwards and Blazblue have 3D backdrops that some could consider as level design but isn’t really. Yes you can have dynamic elements and crazy animations but as you shift left to right it is only a visual delight that requires less “level design”. Compare with a first person shooter and you have a lot more work ahead of you. Whatever playable area you have, there needs to be more minute details and elements of interaction from computers that blow up because you just shot them to a crate you need to kick to the other side of the room to get into that vent that is too high for you. ALL 1st person games give you freedom to look about your surroundings making more of a job to grab a player’s attention. That could be in the form of sounds in a certain direction, points which take away your freedom like cut scenes while in your players view or ones that take you out of the players view and while you are playing, areas that narrow down to a linear path so you cannot avoid the an event ahead of you or you need to find a smart way of traversing without getting killed.

Finally, 3rd person games can give you that freedom camera movement (I mean the right analog sticks on xbox and ps3 and the mouse camera movement on pc games) or they can make the whole level or certain parts of that level integrate fixed camera views meaning artists can really work on a sexy visual composition for the level as you are traversing it which I personally think is the most exciting way to design a level to keep somebody hooked while appreciating the artist’s effort to make an area look amazing from different angles. Prince of Persia sands of time was a game that actually allowed free camera movement through the levels but with the press of a button (and a cool whooshing sound), you could play areas in one fixed camera view as to see different angles and perhaps discover ways to get through a puzzly bit. Niiice.

Elements of game design, part six: visual composition

To be extremely simple and straight to the point about this, visual composition is the arrangement of elements you see set out in a certain frame, photograph, painting, or perhaps even a 3D made object like a sculpture. I think without the average person  even realising it, they would be able to tell out of two pictures displaying the exact same amount of elements but placed differently, which one would be most visually pleasing according to compositional rules. However I do also think a test like that would leave you with mixed results as personal preference can change the way somebody sees and understands something. Not every artist or critic is the same and one person may even notice an element or shape you have created that you might have never even thought about. That is just the way life is and what makes it exciting.

I still think composition is important nonetheless and it is quite easy to tell if something is slightly off or if a picture could have been taken in a more appropriate position. Creating an image, constantly working on compositional technicality, is key to mastering it and this mastering process is done still during the planning and concepting stage of a game, bashing out those thumbnails and finding a pleasing end result.

So what rules do we try to follow when looking at or creating a picture? Instantly, the rule of thirds and amount of elements come to mind. I see it for everybody’s sake as two stages; the way somebody uses their eyes to scan the whole image then once focus in on a picture, observing the elements more closely. The rule itself tells you where yours elements lie within the images frame because you would visualise splitting the image into two thirds, both horizontally and vertically so that you have 9 squares. The 4 intersecting points in the middle tell you these are even points of interest. Think, if you had elements crammed to the left of an image you would think, what is the point of the rest of the space, or if you see one element slap bang in the middle, your attention Is obviously directed to it, ignoring whatever else might have meant to be interesting around it. This is not a good decision if you want to make your scene dynamic. If placed correctly, you want to be able to scan the whole scene and believe there is a good reason this is there, and that is further back there. To make a scene even more dynamic however, I have learnt that an odd number of elements may stop you from pairing objects together as we tend do this in general frequently.

Of course placing an object or objects directly on the mid sections of a 3 by 3 grid could be equally boring so it is good to consider depth and distance between objects closer up or away in the mountains. An even set negative spaces around the whole scene would indirectly attract somebody more to an image because you took thought and care into every single area you left empty around main elements. Lighting placement and shadows enhance an image greatly and give character to a scene or even be a main element to define a good arrangement and colours rules are another big point to take into account. It takes practise, practise, practise and a high quantity of studies to get the right outcome because, as I have been told on this course, working on one image for such a long time may well be a waste of your time because you got the composition all wrong in the beginning. Find your points of interest, lay out many variations of your scene, show them to others to see if they agree or what they prefer, then you can spend your time making it special. You need to make it appealing to others working in the games industry so following and mastering these rules will get you a on the right track to success hopefully.

This picture visually pleases me as the person is placed left to the centre of the image with space for his hair to flow to the right and i love the dull colour palette with specs of green to add almost an eerie aura to match his eyes. I like the background how it is lighter on the left compared to the darker space on the right where glittery specs intensify more. (did i mention i like manga? :P)

With my link below, I like a point the writer made here saying that rules are meant to be broken and following this rule doesn’t mean you have failed at making the image interesting. "a wise person once told me that if you intend to break a rule you should always learn it first to make sure your breaking of it is all the more effective!" Love It! :)

Refs
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/rule-of-thirds
http://my.deviantart.com/messages/#/d4ivpet

Elements of game design, part five: planning and concepting

Absolutely everything you see made in shops, online, on TV, heck, everything around you, begins with planning. Even the process to make something that has been planned needs to be planned out properly. Really, that begins with an idea and little jots and doodles on pen and paper to start with can go a very long way. But that is of course when you begin to concept on that idea, basically mapping out a variety of potential outcomes visually because think about it, the end result needs to be seen and needs to appeal to us humans at the end of the day so making various concepts for an idea are extremely important. That is my definition of the matter which leads me to think that everybody needs that visual understanding if they are going to work in any job role. I notice that people who do not class themselves as “artistic” will still have some sort of idea of it such as being organised or tidy noticing something that doesn’t seem right or even seeing the clothes they wear. Now, I believe you should not really call somebody artistic, just more visually aware and having that visual understanding, because as I might have explained before (can’t remember), art and design is not a talent, it is a set of rules you must give yourself the patience to learn, realise and practise like any other academic course.

So with the bottom line out of the way, planning for games, you may start with a genre in which to base the game, a story to develop off of it, characters that may be involved. It’s good to clear up the overall mood and colour palette of a game. Seeing a well layed out scene can instantly tell you what you could be getting yourself in for before playing a game. The biggest similarity to planning and concepting a game is when planning and concepting a movie or a drama TV show. I just believe games are a more difficult and complex process. A movie scene has props in the background to enhance and set the scene further that not everybody will notice. Then you have certain games where you want to explore beyond strategically set out scenes. As you have the time and ability to search your surroundings you would be more curious as to what could be around the corner of this dark room or, what happens if I hit this purple mushroom. I believe all that is relevant to planning a game scene. The more notes and explanation with your concepts, the better the point you are trying to put across to the developers showing how organised you are. You are trying to make progress after all.

You may have been given certain instructions on what kind of scene to create but with concepts, I think there is no problem in adding your own little twist which may turn out to be a good new idea to work on once everything is confirmed. It’s all about bashing out those thumbnails, throwing in some colour here and there, ditching a bit of this, adding a bit of that until, somebody goes ‘YES! I like where this is going’. Then you set bigger scenes, add some characters, some depth, some textures, some emotion and so on until you have an environment or character ready to build fully.

I absolutely love art books you get with special editions of games and concept art you unlock through playing games displaying initial ideas that were different to final ideas, for example mirror’s edge, when you collect all the bags or god of war 1 showing older concepts of their 3D character models. I love how Guild Wars would show their final digi paints on the loading screen as you enter that certain area. You just appreciate it all more when you see a progression to the outcome.

Refs:

http://trivettjames.deviantart.com/art/Doodling-115434746

Digi Paint Update 1 - How to make a digital painting using photoshop.

So I have developed some digital paintings for my year 2 visual design finals which was my main goal as most of my finals in the first year were mainly pencil drawings, one canvas acrylic painting and a watercolour painting. And this is to show progress from my appalling attempts over the summer break. I will show you my bradgate park final which I ended up saving in stages because of breaks I took inbetween, It will be quite interesting to show you the techniques I have developed over a short space of time still being a beginner and all. I will go through them step by step.

Here i blew up my brief final composition to A4 size in my sketchbook, and went over it in pen. Got it scanned and into photoshop for me to begin next step.

Here, using the drawing on an upper layer and after changing its blending options to multiply, i start blocking in the basic colours bit by bit with a big sized brush.

I begin to add more detail, preferably from the background of the the image to the front, for example, doing the sky, then the forest, then the landscape coming up to the main vocal point, the tree.

So this is my final outcome. More defining details came later as I made my brush size smaller and zoomed in adding more tonal value to where it is needed and relevant textures. I don't want to be too specific as I shouldn't be taking too long to paint this ideally. If i want it to look bang on like the photo, what is the point, i may as well hand in the photo. I prefer to be brief, stating what i am trying to achieve with the painting and giving it a style rather than realism.

adding the drawing on top just to see gives an interesting effect and even sharpens areas or shows you where you may have adjusted the image. I perhaps adjusted certain items as i believed it was better for the composition.


Hope this helps even though i am just a beginner but i tried to make it simple as there are not enough simple tutorials out there (wait since when did this become a tutorial?? 0_o). Remember it doesn't need to be perfect, if something is unnaturally off, you will know and you will fix it. The majority of your audience will not see into it as deeply as you or your critics ;) See Ya

Reflection on year one, and ambition for year two

Having had a few months to get myself together over summer, I must admit I never used all of my time to learn which I partly regret but it has allowed time for me to finish some games I was meaning to complete ages ago, come out to all my friends and family 0_o, find a wonderful bf (let’s see if anyone reads this and catches on) and enjoy days out and so on. Reflecting on year one I really wanted to improve my visual design skills, having learnt the methods and techniques and such. I want to, in the second year maintain the standard of my understanding and begin to define my own personal style. With thumbnails building up to my final I need to be more specific on what I want to achieve in my composition and start whacking out those small studies meaning, spending less time faffing on them.

Another thing is my learning to digi paint using a graphics tablet on Photoshop. So over the break I barely picked up my tablet pen but when I did, I was frustrated at how, even as I tried to develop my paintings like all these good tutorials were showing me, something wasn’t right and my results came out a disaster. I currently have a discontinued (in other words, ooooooold) Wacom A6 Volito2 tablet and pen which, before this course, was given to me by my best mate as he hardly used it and wanted a tablet laptop eventually. I never used it up to this point even though I was meaning to at the beginning of the first year of uni. Anyway, stupid flipping me never realised that, even though tablets are basically more accurate versions of a mouse or laptop touch pad for drawing, they have PRESSURE SENSITIVITY LEVELS!! And I obviously didn’t install the software to activate this because the cd it came with never worked and I thought I was all okay because plugging it in made it work. I eventually installed the bamboo tablet software from the official website and all is well. I have a few studies below that show my progress during the disastrous period and I will eventually show my progress as I improve over the second year hopefully. Once I get the hang of it I want to make my very own style, even though it may be similar to others I need to find my comfortable point, stick with it and work on it to create good shit.

First study before i knew about pressure meaning it took long as i kept pressing down on the tablet to make darker values.

Before i knew about pressure, my failed desperate attempt (on the left) to paint an apple like the tutorial version on the right.

Finally when i installed the proper software, file name: ICANBLEND.psd 

So basically colour studies with watercolours, Photoshop and fast efficient thumbnails are my main focus points for the second year as I hardly did any in the first.

I am happy with my critical studies work over the last year but it became a rush towards the end and I had NO personal or progression posts meaning nobody knows about me and what I do or feel about specific work so that is a must this year, even if I make just a few blogs.

With game production I believe I can do well once I figure out good topology then good UV building techniques as I’m not entirely confident with my character design even though I would rather be an environment or asset designer. I need to be in the know and get over those hurdles in my mind so I have a method for everything then I can start speeding up and experimenting different techniques within 3DS Max. Good textures will come with my improving digi painting skills.

Lastly I want to develop my “Cool Shit” folder into a reference learning experience. Meaning folders within, specifically showing pictures I have gathered of inspirational 3D topology and paintings all included with text files explaining tips and tricks and things to remember. Hope I can do well this year J.

Refs:
http://www.tablet4u.co.uk/product/en/2_volito2-usb-windows.html