The Art Team

Without the art team, we would only be playing text-based games like Colossal Caverns or Pirate Adventure . The public's expectation for the artistic experience of the game is higher than it's ever been. Titles based on movie franchises such as Lord of the Rings , Spider-Man, and Star Wars already come with a built-in expectation of a visual game experience that parallels what you would see in the movie theater. This expectation spans the realism of the art, character movements, and the camera angles used to render and present game scenes on the screen.

Art Director

The title and role of art director is sometimes designated as lead artist. This person provides visual themes and leadership for the game. This usually involves leading the art team in conceiving, modeling, and evaluating a variety of visual concepts and models before dishing out specific work to the rest of the art team. The art director provides direction and standards for which art tools and middleware will be used for the project.

Storyboards are a vehicle for capturing a progression of scenes that will occur during the progression of the game. They can be used to lay out the art direction and sequence for a game with a linear storyline, such as StarWars: Knights of the Old Republic , or used to plan scenes for other game types, as shown in the sports game examples that follow. The art director's vision provides consistency and familiarity when a game is a sequel to a previous story line, follows a movie plot, or is the newest version of an ongoing franchise. Game testing needs to cause each of the different scenes to appear in order to ensure they appear in the game and are rendered properly, according to the art director's intentions.

• Football (for example, NFL) Game Scenes

  • Coin flip

  • Kickoff

  • Player on offense

  • Player on defense

  • Referee calls penalty

  • Coach argues with ref

  • Player celebration after touchdown

  • Injured player removed from field

  • Kicking an extra point or field goal

• Baseball Game Scenes

  • Batter coming to plate

  • Pitcher pitching

  • Batter reacts to being hit by pitch

  • Batter goes to first base on a walk

  • Catcher throwing out runner trying to steal

  • Catcher and runner collide at plate

  • Manager argues with umpire

  • Team in dugout celebrates

  • Manager comes out to replace pitcher

• Basketball Game Scenes

  • Opening tip off

  • Regular play on the court

  • Referee calls a foul

  • Player shoots from free-throw line

  • Player dunks

  • Bench players react to game events

  • Player substituted in

  • Attendant wipes sweat from court

  • Cheerleaders perform at halftime

• Hockey Game Scenes

  • Face-offs

  • Regular play up and down the ice

  • Players fight

  • Referee calls a penalty

  • Player reacts in penalty box

  • Player reacts to goalie save

  • Penalty shot

  • Players come on and off ice during stoppage of play

  • Injured player carried off ice

  • Player gets ejected from game

• Soccer (the "real" Football) Game Scenes

  • Teams pose for photo prior to game

  • Opening possession at midfield to start each half

  • Player reacts to being fouled

  • Referee gives yellow or red card

  • Corner kick

  • Free kick

  • Goalie reacts to letting in a goal

  • Players celebrate a goal

  • Penalty shot

  • Winning team celebrates at end of game

The art director also provides leadership for how the user interface (UI) will be integrated into the game. Again, storyboards can be used to work out how each UI screen should look and function. The end result should be consistent with the look and feel of the game, and provide the user intuitive access to and control of in-game functions.

Additionally, the art director has responsibility for the overall memory and polygon budgets for the game art. Once the various game scenes and UI screens are worked out, art tasks are listed in detail and assigned to individual artists , along with specific memory and polygon budgets for each task.

The Power of Art

"What initially grabbed our attention were the stunning visuals of the urban settings. Colorful weapon effects, smoke-trails from rockets , shields offering a shimmering wall of protection, and bodies flying through the air, propelled by bold, powerful grenade explosions."

From a preview of Snowblindin Issue #34 of the Official Xbox Magazine.

 

Artists

Artists combine drawing skills with colors, textures, shapes , and lighting with drawing tools and technologies to bring realism to the games we play and test. The various art elements in the game are referred to as "art assets." They exist in separate files from the game code, and may be combined or compressed in some way to minimize the amount of memory they use. The art in a game may be provided on a very small scale, such as individual decals to apply to a race car, or on a bigger scale such as rendering a planetary landscape.

Art elements should also be minimized in terms of the number of polygons that will be drawn by the graphics hardware. This minimization must be done within the established memory and polygon budget, and in such a way as to not create too much overhead for the game code, which would adversely affect game loading times or in - game rendering performance.

A number of games intentionally expose the art, or at least provide access to it, so that players can create their own custom modifications to the look of the game. These custom versions are known as "mods." The act of creating mods is known as "modding." Some mods are designed to supplement the existing game with behavioral and textual changes such as changing unit names or defining a new type of gun that can shoot a mortar round horizontally. Another common type of mod is to create new maps, or change existing maps to reflect major cities such as New York or Chicago. Other mods are made for the purpose of giving a whole new look and feel to the game, such as replacing existing game characters and elements with those from the Simpsons or DragonballZ .

Here is a list of the game elements that can be changed or added by mods:

• Maps

• Character models

• Character skins

• Startup screens

• Weapons

• Vehicles

The most popular games for modding are those with combat, action, first-person shooter, or role playing themes, such as StarWars: Knights of the Old Republic , Unreal Tournament , and Battlefield 1942 . Some moddable games that fall into other categories are SimCity 3000 , Midnight Club 2 , and MVP Baseball 2004 .

If the ability to create mods is supported by a game and considered one of its features, then testers need to be able to define mods to verify this capability. It's also important to check that any tools provided with the game to support modding work properly and have a friendly enough interface for non-programmers and non-artists to use. Sometimes tester-created content can end up in the released version of the game. The test team that worked on the Battle Realms map editor saw some of their skirmish maps included alongside the maps created by the professional level editors.

Some companies or projects may establish specialized artist positions with titles such as:

• 2D Artist

• 3D Artist

• Environment Artist

• Texture Artist

• Vehicle Artist

• Character Modeler

Animators

Animators add realism and motion to the game. Animations need to be smooth and properly scaled in terms of time and space, taking gravity into account. An animation is made up of a series of frames. Each frame contains a specific pose and when frames are played together, your eyes fill in the blanks between poses.

The animation may also be done at a component level, where the subject of the animation is defined as a set of connected elements. A skeleton defines the ways in which these elements connect to one another. In this case, poses are defined for each element that gets calculated and drawn independently in the game, but remain connected according to the relationship defined by the animator. Figure 4.1 shows an example of a skeleton frame with its connected elements.

Figure 4.1: 3D skeleton frame.

Characters and creatures are believable when they are properly animated. On a large scale, they are animated to walk, run, and jump. Their movement needs to be consistent with their weight, physiology, and the local force of gravity. At a smaller level, facial expressions and body language are animated to communicate emotion. Even when a character is not moving around in the game space, many games provide an in - place animation, such as small movements that accompany breathing , to maintain the sense that the character or creature has life. This standing pose, known as an "idle" animation, can also communicate the character's feelings or attitude.

In games where audio accompanies the dialog text, facial movement is sometimes animated to provide the sense that a character or creature is speaking. Animals, monsters, and aliens are easier to believe because many of their sounds don't rely on the lip and jaw movements that accompany human speech.

Inanimate vehicles are expected to behave in a manner similar to organic life forms. For example, when a car turns a corner, you expect it to dip and pull according to the speed of the car and the traction of the road surface. When the car jumps , you expect it to bounce when it lands.

In sports games, character animations are very important because there are specific expectations about how a particular action should look, such as pitching a baseball, throwing a football, or making a putt. In order not to appear robotic, there may be a variety of animations broken into different categories for each activity. For example, a baseball game could provide both sidearm and overhand throwing animations for pitchers. During gameplay, the proper animation should be chosen based on the pitcher's actual style. Some games go further by providing animations for one or more individual players based on their specific style and equipment. Pieces of sports equipment should be animated as well. Balls rotate when thrown, kicked, or hit. Bats fly apart when they break. Helmets and mouthpieces fly off after big hits. Gloves flex and rebound when receiving a ball.

Explosive and destructive effects provide excitement and urgency to the game. The explosion could come from the end of a gun or from a remote detonation. There will be a central core effect, such as an expanding ball of light, followed by after-effects such as smoke or a concussion wave. The explosion itself can send rocks, vehicles, or your opponents flying. Rocks or walls can break when a player is sent smashing into them.

Animating effects of nature help give a sense that you are part of the game environment. Leaves should spin and float as they fall, rather than drop straight down as if in a vacuum . Environmental interactions may also occur as the result of movement, such as water rippling and splashing when a character steps in or moves around in it.

Level Designers

Level designers, also known as level artists, define what goes into the various "levels" or parts of the world you explore or inhabit when playing your game. You can usually tell when you are going from one level to another because there is a pause in the game, which might also be followed by a "Loading[ ‚ ]" screen and progress bar. This is necessary because new graphic elements must be loaded into game memory so you can smoothly explore the new territory.

The level designer must make each level interesting and different, but it should also fit into the context and theme of the game or world it is a part of. This is accomplished by the following:

• Defining the shape of the level and the routes that you can take to travel around in the level.

• Choosing tiles, meshes, and textures to fit the theme of the level and the game.

• Placing objects in the world and defining which ones can be used or affected by player actions. This includes ammunition , doors, levers, traps, computer panels, and containers that themselves may hold useful items.

• Placing lighting sources and defining their attributes to create desired effects. For example, position bright sunlight to come through a window in a great hall so it highlights a statue that contains a valuable gem.

• Placing " pinch points," which slow down action and allow new game assets to be loaded.

• Placing and marking paths, doors, or gateways leading to a new level.

• Placing non-players characters (NPCs) who may provide information that advances the story line (these usually are given a unique name in the game), or who simply provide a sense of which factions are occupying the level.

A test strategy for each level should include the items listed in Table 4.1.

 

• Check the placement and behavior of objects in the level

• Check the placement and behavior of NPCs

• Check the fit and form of each unique tile, mesh, and texture used in the level

• Check the function and load times of transitions from one level to another