Elements Of Game Design, Part Five: Planning and Concepting:

'Your most powerful creative tool is an organised brain allied to a healthy work ethic.

Professional game development lives and dies by effective organisation. In other

words, planning and concepting are essential to achieve successful outcomes. The

ability to demonstrate that you can generate ideas and see them through to a

successful conclusion within a fixed set of constraints and in a short period of time, is

a key professional skill you should develop.'

To begin with I agree with the initial statement that certainly the most powerful creative tool is an organised brain allied with a healthy work ethic.

Without these key areas your productivity and workflow simply fall to pieces.

The very game pipeline varied as it may be from company to company depending on desired outcome, will still always have areas and time allocated for planning and concepting. To ignore these fundamental tasks would spell chaos further down the line, imagine getting to a stage of final development and optimization tweaks and then realizing you do not have a coherent story, or rubbish game mechanics because you did not plan for it in the beginning.

Another key aspect that is mentioned is the ability to demonstrate that you can generate ideas and see them through to a successful conclusion within a fixed set of constraints and in a short period of time.

One good quote by Jeff Bezos mentioned in an article linked at the bottom from gamedev.tutsplus.com states: ‘I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out’.

This really emphasises the creativity needed within the game industry to be able to solve problems that come forth. The writer then goes on to say how time constraints are paramount stimulating creative thinking and without them, or where more freedom has been allowed it has ultimately ended up discouraging this and limiting new ways of solving problems.

A prime example of this being mentioned as well in the form of the game Daikatana:

‘Daikatana was a game created by John Romero, one of the co-founders of id Software (creators of the Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake series). In 1997 Romero enjoyed fame and fortune and decided it was time to make his dream game come true. He designed the game with great amounts of content in mind, more than 20 levels and plenty of weapons and monsters, with no limitations in budget, team or time. Initially he planned only seven months of development – but following multiple reschedules, changes in game engine technologies and code rewrites, the game ended up being released after three years.’ This proving that without the constant pressure of deadlines and constraints not to mention proper planning and concepting there is no chance of meeting desired goals or solving problems quickly and creatively, effectively overall there is no drive to keep going, and there is no structure to the work.

Yet another example is mentioned, this time in the form of Duke Nukem Forever:

After gaining success of Duke Nukem 3D in the 90s, its creator George Broussard was ready to make a sequel called Duke Nukem Forever. However after Initially announced in April 1997, the game was expected to release a year later, but constant changes in game engine technology made Broussard change his mind multiple times while trying to develop the best looking game he could. Duke Nukem Forever ended up being released 15 years later, in 2011.

In conclusion I will say again that I agree with the statement, the game industry works off an organised, structure pipeline that needs to be adhered to in order to achieve marketable results. Tools like healthy work ethic and organised minds combined with workable time constraints are a tried and tested method for success and are essential for the aspiring game artist, programmer, director, or, hell anyone that intends to work in the industry.

External References:

Gamedev.tuts article:

http://gamedev.tutsplus.com/articles/business-articles/constraints-are-an-essential-aspect-of-game-development/

Wired, downfall of Duke Nukem article:

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_duke_nukem/

Year 2: The return.

During the months I have had off from uni I've had time to reflect on the year and re evaluate my goals and aspirations.

However they have more or less stayed very consistent over the summer, I am still confident that I would like to pursue a 3D role, focusing, if possible in environment design. The reasoning behind this lies in the months I've had off, namely the games I had chance to play, titles like Fallout: New Vegas:

 Assassins creed 3:

 and the Bureau: XCOM declassified:

 really stood out to me the beautiful environments really make or break the player’s immersion in a game and make the overall experience more or less enjoyable as a result.

On top of this another contributing factor towards this decision is the way that environments are made in relation to other elements like characters. I came to this through the last project from the first year, being the UDK level creation, I really enjoyed the way that environments can be split up into many upon many of smaller projects that decorate the surroundings, I populated the level with different foliage and topology changes as well as a water piece to make the environment more entertaining to explore. As oppose to one daunting task of a whole character creation.

Now I understand the fact that I cannot simply pick one area I like and then disregard everything else,

 given the current standing of the industry I need to be capable of anything that is required, however I also know that so long I can provide these skills I can specialize in a certain area which I would like to be environment design.

My ambitions for this year are to be much more productive with the time allotted for projects, use the time not just to complete the work on time, but to complete, then re complete it with the knowledge I have gained to produce a higher standard each time. This will be a big shock from last year, however I am determined to get into this mind set and stick with it.

I would also like to spend a LOT more time in the labs as I realized I need to remove myself from distractions in order to achieve my set out goals and I believe if I can do this now it will set a very positive work ethic and ground work for the future.

One final note would be that I am looking forward to furthering my skills, especially in 3D and gaining some freedom although daunting it seems in being required to look at your work and reflect upon it and improve before handing it in, but I’m sure if I apply the above I can overcome and succeed in this too.

Well, there are the ideas and ambitions for this year, now i need to put my money where my mouth is..

External References:

Assassin's Creed 3 The Frontier Map IGN:

http://uk.ign.com/maps/assassins-creed-3/frontier 

Fallout: New Vegas screenshots:

http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/art/fnv-screenshots1.php

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified developer blog:

http://www.2kgames.com/blog/the-bureau-xcom-declassified-developer-blog-hangar-6-r-amp-d-dlc

End Of Year Feedback

Pros:

Liked the tight knit community to the course, not like other courses where your sitting in a lecture hall of 200+.
Because of this, it makes much more of family feeling to the course,

Again, because of this help from other students, 1/2/3  years was not far away and getting to know them is very beneficial.

Overall laid back approach, I say this meaning that there is no push from the tutors, if you want encouragement, or help it is there but you can work in your own time so long as work is of an acceptable standard and completed on time.

Now have a working knowledge of the industry, because of the course my goals and focuses have dramatically altered, originally wanted to go for the cliché concept artist job, now would much rather work with engines/modelling something 3D based, I have so much more fun in these areas, although I do still love 2D.

Presentation skill development, very good idea, hope it continues into 2/3rd years, being able to get feedback from mike as he has given probably hundreds of presentations and listened to more, being able to be told the positive and negative points, from that experience was very beneficial.

2D very well designed, to get everyone to the same standard, making it more equality rather than some students roaring ahead.

Liked the outings, drawing directly from life, give a much quicker, better understanding of shape, form and depth, and it also gives students a knowledge of their surroundings if they are like me and have moved to Leicester.

Love the imaginative projects that can be made unique to each student, really lets creativity flow and enthusiasm for doing the work majorly increase.

Because of this problems are found that can be individual to each student, but when solved are beneficial to the entire year as other student/friends around you can learn from each other, which is another good point for the labs, the fact that everyone can bounce ideas and or problems off each other.

Liked the second Facebook account, although it’s a tad annoying to be continuously logging in and out of two separate accounts, the use of Facebook for the course has proved tremendously useful throughout the year to get the vital course information, speak with other years outside the labs, post problems on DMU technical at obscure hours of the morning and posting your work as well as seeing other peoples work and learning from there ideas.

Cons:

3D tutorials on blackboard to be updated and made clearer, perhaps short videos, or links to YouTube videos would be good, amount of time I’ve spent trying to follow the blackboard tutorial in the 1st & 2nd  terms  that could be better explained through a video.

More frequent feedback in critical studies, I don’t really know if any of my entries were any good, what could be improved on, what  needs to be cut out because I’ve rambled on too much, or gone off topic.

Other than those two very minor things I’ve had a fantastic year and know I picked the right course in DMU, looking forward to the second and perhaps more to a summer of gaming to catch up on!

Weapon Project Update 2

Well, that’s the end of 3D!

Finished the weapon project with the completion of the 3D work, it’s getting to be business as usual J.

Didn't run into any major problems on this project, and the smaller ones were taken care of in minutes. I tried a new method to myself of baking normal maps using a high poly mesh made from the lower poly inside of 3Ds max, results were pretty  damn effective.

In the future however I will be using Zbrush to make higher poly assets to be baked as it stands it is far superior to this method, but ah well, learned something new anyway.

The main reason I wanted to finish this project ahead of time was so I could comfortably plan out and complete the what seems like a mountain of 2D work to be finished by next week, famous last words here would most likely be, ‘ I will not procrastinate now’ but only time will tell.

Update: UDK & Weapon Project

Another update, just finished the UDK project and the Visual Design portion of the weapon project, thoroughly enjoyed both, maybe more UDK, was a bit tricky in the beginning but like most programs once you get the hang of it, it was good fun to work with, well tell a lie it is apart from all the fecking error messages and light maps…

All in all though I really did enjoy using UDK and am already thinking about designing another level over the summer break.

As for the weapon project, it was not without it’s challenges, being in student accommodation I didn't have access to many tools, in fact the only tools I had to work with were duct tape, contact adhesive and a multi-tool which made combining materials a pain in the arse, what I wouldn't of done for a vice or clamps. Apart from that however, the final product came out quite well, being a three barreled assault rifle with a cooling system:

Admittedly some of my other preliminary sketches in hindsight would have been much better as a more interesting design, but I got too caught up in putting the pieces together and getting to paint the decals, ah well.

One last note would be that I had a really good life drawing session last week, no frustration at all, if this trend continues I think I’m getting the hang of it J.

Hudson River School

Recently I discovered some incredible paintings from the Hudson River School movement of landscape artists.

I'm just astounded my the attention to detail and the way they can capture each individual realistic texture in their works.

Here is just a few samples:

Easter Update 2

Finally!
The reef project is done and dusted and all that remains is to save the tree project to disc, Tomb Raider here I come!

All in all the project was quite enjoyable apart from the massive idiotic mistake I made using plasticine instead of hardening modelling clay, so the model is finished, however cannot be moved, painted or be in direct sunlight or it will look like Slimer from Ghostbusters.

I found modelling with traditional mediums had good and bad points from the PC counterparts that I’m used to, one being how much I missed the copy, paste, mirror and symmetry tools, however I really enjoyed not running into problems with knowing what I wanted to accomplish but not having the technical know how to be able to complete it, much more instinctive in a word.

The final design came about through looking at medieval professions when stuck details to add to the first idea I had which was some form of large humanoid lion fish and I began to think about Skyrim then cultists of one of the expansions and religious figures.

I didn't feel that the lion fish would fit the bill for this particular role and scoured the internet until I found the moray eel to fit perfectly. It is already quite sinister looking, lurking in the shadows of coral, waiting in ambush.

Below are the final shots of the model and design, plus a few raw images from the camera: