Elements of Game Technology, part three: interaction design

I have been more of a console gamer all my life and, like my dad, have always been looking for change and improvements in the gaming world having experienced it all. In my previous blog during my first year of uni I said how I have been through all the old time console up to the newer generations and innovations so I’ll explain a little bit of how I reacted to change in game interaction.

With growing technology and intricate programming, things were bound to change as gaming became more mainstream and started to appeal to the average audience rather than computer loving techies. Somebody somewhere knew it was going to be a catch to the public and we see the birth of commercial gaming entertainment. I think back to the very first Nintendo, where there was no thought to jazz up its looks. You have a simple box with a simple blocky controller providing up, down, left, right controls, a start and select then you’re A and B action buttons. Playing games were simple and most were side scrollers in which you jump up, move left and right along a 2d plane and jump or shoot your way through obstacles, surviving on health bars or power ups. Mario and sonic are easy examples. You would also have top down games where you move or drive in any direction to give a more free movement feel but this was the only limit to what these games could do.

Computer and technology improved and more people began to show interest in games for entertainment but wanted something new. In came the next generation of consoles, super nes, megadrive containing more buttons and more programming for more detailed interaction, the kind to actually get you hooked and the kind that made games last longer. Zelda is an example of better interaction and freedom of choice within a game, trapping you until the find the right way to get from point A to B.

Then 3D graphics was introduced allowing fully explorable levels meaning an addition of analog sticks, to introduce smoother free movement, save games as opposed to passwords so you can develop your progress, become stronger and pick up where you left off. PlayStation, N64 and Sega Saturn introduced this. We saw totally new innovations of strong running franchises such as 3D Mario and so on and they worked and fans stayed loyal.

When we see the newer generations, it all looks sexy and streamlined like the future but controls are kept to simple standards while further adding extra buttons and types of detailed gameplay. However, as competitive multiplayer and online features were introduced, hardcore gamers developed and wanted to be unique and have a vast array of abilities as opposed to somebody else so developers allowed this and no one player is the same. You can play games in different ways, take preferred routes and decisions and fans want to spend more time and explore and dissect the many aspects of the game. Games to simple and too linear are now looked down upon and expectations are higher. There is the whole hardcore gamers being disappointed with games and innovations nowadays that appeal to casual or younger gamers but I say they are whinging.

Arcades introduced exiting realistic ways to play games like, Time Crisis and House of the Dead point and shoot em ups, side to side steering motorcycle games, wheel and pedal driving games, leg and foot coordination dance games and kick the ball into the goal football games. The idea to bring that all home instead of days out made games even more exciting when we now see home driving kits, guitar and drum game kits, motion and point to shoot interaction. Even touch and motion on handhelds was an exciting concept and Nintendo in particular have excelled with it all.

What I am getting at basically is the fact that game interactions are mimicking real life actions and events some of us will not be able to achieve in the real world. People perhaps get that sense of power that they could do things like fly an aircraft gunner or run a city with hardly any effort or qualifications. Now we see games on bigger screens, with better sounds, in 3D popping out at us, which we can talk to and wave our hands about for them to respond and we have a choice to do what we want, how we want in games and that is what is keeping us going. Only question is, when will it reach its limit? I think we are a long shot from figuring that out really. I hope!

Elements of Game Technology, part two: sound for games

As far as my opinion is concerned, I believe sound technology has reached its prime from the simple blips and polyphonic chirpy tones we all used to have. Technology in general nowadays has the ability to record and play crisp realistic sounds and music from small phones to consoles. It of course depends on the quality of tech you are listening to. I, only last year, bought a simple cheap 2.1 logitech speaker system to play my ps3 and xbox games and boy does it make a difference with the bass adjusted right. Logitech are good for their quality but I was blown away at how much these little pods could improve my gaming experience to a higher level, no joke.

Sound nowaways in game engines can be used so specifically for effects, assets, certain radiuses of the level you enter, having the ability to combine and transition without sounding blocky or cutting each other off. One day I would love to upgrade to 5.1 surround speakers for the whole of my room to get an even more immersive feel like I am slap bang in the middle of it all. Combine it with the improvements of picture quality and bigger TV sizes and 3D integration, sound is an important factor for games as much as movies.

I don’t believe sound could get any better than sounding real. Developers for top shooting games such as the battlefield series actually go out into the fields to experience the atmosphere of war and record as much sounds as they can from each and every specific gun. I found a video of an interview with the sound guy for the battlefield games, once I find a way to embed the YouTube video onto the blog I will do it but I have the link down below anyway. I like how he explains sound as an art, using words like “portrait” and “brighter” and the fact that in games they like to exaggerate goings on but he also mentioned how sounds are cleaner and you can locate stuff easier. Getting that balance makes for a brilliant outcome. I have been going to cinemas a lot recently and I notice how even they exaggerate sounds. Transformers for example have loud destructive dangerous sounds and build ups that get louder increasing tension and heart rates then you get otherworldly sounds that are of course made up but made to sound realistic in that world which, for me, makes it such an amazing experience.

Fantasy games like final fantasy that take reference from real life living situations and environments but escalate them also give realism to magical sounds of certain spells cast like healing and bursts of darkness or light. To give actions that do not have sound in real life their very own sound is certainly exaggerated but you know it sounds right. Healing sounds like angels rising from the sky and give a warm happy glow to offer hope that you will survive longer in the fight and that is what I love about fictional made up sounds. Final Fantasy’s musical score is also incredible, the fact that they have their own orchestra and choir to play music for certain locations of the game shown on large screens means they have worked hard to fit the right music for the right situation. Their most famous score is One Winged Angel made for Sephiroth in Final Fantasy 7 which defined him as a character, evil and twisted.

Ok so the deal with this ‘Good Times’ by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards. Yes it was in fact a pivotal song for the development of hip hop and dance at the time and became no. 1 and triple platinum selling despite the backlash of disco in 1979. What interested me is Nile Rodgers future productions such as the soundtrack album for Halo 2 and 3 (such meaningful and emotional songs) as well as a couple other games and movies I know. No wonder he was mentioned in the brief hah.

Refs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc8WQsIxhro&feature=related
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile_Rodgers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWIGrdHUxmI

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