Task 19 Sounds in games

After having a little tinker in UDK, adding sounds to the groups level a few things appeared to me that as a gamer I had often over looked, just a tad. Games are not just a visual experience but also reach out for the other senses also, which studios have been trying to enhance ever more for a good while now, but sound is one that can add just about any mood they are after.

For example, in Team Tambra's group project, I added a sharp piano key at the time an eyeball fell from the ceiling. Ofcourse, eyes dont make piano noises when falling, but the jolt of sound, combined with the visual experiance, and build up from the rest of the level, really adds to the mood we were trying to convey. Not to mention I was trying to work towards a Resident Evil theme, which the use of piano is used through out their games.

When the budget is right, game studios can really go the mile when it comes to sound. Such as the Biowear's Jade Empire, who had a audio team of 6 workers, who recorded traditional chinese instruments to get a ancient chinese feel to their game. When you think about it, going that extra mile works wonders when it comes to game play. If you're playing a ancient chinese game, which has dominant western music, it wont fit the area youre trying to promote.
You could say, what about Omega Force's Dynasty Warriors?

A game set in ancient china, during times of war, surely this game should have a dominantly chinese sound track. Which, it doesnt, that time period didnt have electric guitars, unless im mistaken. So why does it work with this game? Well, there is still a chinese feel, with the occasional chinese instrument spliced in here and there, but the main thing to note the genre of game. Dynasty Warriors is a action beat em' up, which is relitivly fast pased and semi-real time stratagy. Traditional chinese music isnt as up tempo as western music, that upbeat tempo really helps the game move along, appear fast and like a battle is around the courner, if it was traditional chinese, the game would appear alot slower. Dynasty Warriors has a certain theme, now in its 7th series, its had a rock/chinese theme running throughout every one of their games, if the game were to change its sound track now, it wouldnt fit within the feel of the game.


I probably wouldnt enjoy Time Splitters 2's Anaconda, if it were not for its music.
In fact, I'd pay to listen to it.
Which brings me onto my next subject of game sound tracks. The quality of music in games has soared to the point where company's can literally sell their music alone. Now the average fan can enjoy their games, when theyre not even playing, which builds stronger relationships with the game. So not only can a company make dollar from the game they produce, they can also make extra pennies from the sound tracks they create, which ofcourse are cheeper to produce on mass scale.
Just taking a look at Square Einx's sale records, its obvious their fan base is pretty damned loyal. Their music is very iconic of their games, so its obvious why sales are high. Large fan base, iconic music, theres not much else to it.

Sound in games are not only good for the ambiance, genere, immersion and gameplay of a game, but also for the companys wallet.

Medal of Honour audio team
Lord of the rings audio

Interview with Yoko Shimomura
Square Einx's album sale figures

Task 18, Searchers start your engines!

Whats a game engine? Lets cut the technical jargon and go straight to " Its the empty world containing the information to fill that world. " Or this his how it feels when you open up a Softwear development kit (SDK), something like Unreal or the Elder Scrolls construction set.
Either way, the engine controls all sorts of sweet bits to put into your world. It controls everything from frame rate (to an extent) to particular systems. The game engine once started out as a simple couple lines of code, back in the golden day of pacman and asteroids, it was all that was needed. However games have evolved since than and with every engine, comes a more complex and elaborate code to run it. Many modern engines include 3D real time rendering as is expected with 3D being the front runner for games in this area. The game engine is the program that witll sort all your meshes, lighting, redering, and whatever else will effect the game so the game can be created around it.

I could continue, however Ill explain my own take on the game engine.


The Elder Scrolls construction set was my very first engine I came into contact with Back in 2004, when I got my first copy of The Elder Scrolls, Morrowind (2002), by Bethesda. Now, I was only 13 at the time and had no idea what the hell was going on, but I was heavily interested, the idea of being able to edit the game. However lack of 3d knowledge and softwere knowledge was too much for me, I would always try to work it out, but with no luck.

As a kid I wish I could have done something like that!
However last chrismas I tried using The Elder Scrolls Oblivion construction set and found out it needed 3DsMax 8 models to run, which was a pain.

My second engine which I had come to learn of was the Unity engine.
The unity engine was somethign we were goign to use in the Game art / Game programming. We were going to make a game for this big gaming compition where we would earn some nice money if we had achualy went through with the idea. But thats another story.
The Unity engine was a flash engine capable of web browser based games (something I thought was amazing) and mobile gaming, including playstation 3. Its definatly something to check out, its capable of breakable objects, full 3D rendering, ambient lighting and distance fade. The lot. A very powerful piece of kit.
http://youtu.be/MrG-ZjdosJs
A little video there showing some capabilities. Whats cool is that it isnt nintendo 3Ds Graphics, more going towards PSP and PS2. But suports normal bump mapping and various other maps.

Unreal engine, or UDK (Unreal Development kit) is one of the most widley used game engines out there. Its free and constantly updated. ( A bit too much for my liking, its not backward compatable after all)

Considering its for three generations under its belt, It would be a good engine.

I want to come back to this post after the queens project, simply because, I dont feel I fully understand UDK and the engine. After I gain a better understanding of the game engine, from practical use I will be able to write my thoughts upon it. Untill than its just regurgitated mess from others accounts.

Unreal: http://udn.epicgames.com/Main/WebHome.html
Unity Engine : http://unity3d.com/
CryEngine 3 : http://mycryengine.com/
Whats a game engine? : http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/529/what_is_a_game.php
Top 10 game engines of our time: http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/100/1003725p1.html
Elements of a game Engine:

Referance Database

I remember back to last year when I was told to make a " Cool shit " folder. And no one could manage to keep those two words together. I think I called mine the " crap " folder. And thats cool, because some of it was shit.
But than I realised all reference is good reference, after that, I started to collect cool and interesting photos from around the internet, and just in general as I go. Along with textures and whatever else.

There are folders within folders within folders.

And since than I've gathered 7GB worth of cool stuff. And I have found myself using them quite often.
Sometimes I'll save an image just so I can do a photostudy of it at a later date. (More than often)

Other times I will use multiple images to make a new image. Or just the silhouette of a woman's shape, hair or face, to make my own image out of it.

Sometimes I just like to save cool motorbikes and stuff.

 

There are better high quality photos in my database, however, these ones are just funner. I think Ill be collecting these thigns for a long time now. Also there is no Cat folder. As I can just search for anything on the internet to find those.

Task 16 Level Design

Level design and composition are two related subjects, they tie in just like the rest of the game does when you create a level. But composition is a child to the parent of Level design. Lets consider something like the human body. One could call the bones the level design, and the veins the tightening of that design and composition of the level. Without the bone structure in place, the muscles and veins have no where to wrap themselves around and the human form would be a puddle of goop. Quite like a Bad level design.

There are many ways some get around their ideas of level design.
Lets say the Copy Paste Method, which is probably what its actually called, where the level designer desides to literaly, copy one map and paste it in a nother location, or on the next floor of the same location.
Now this isnt a bad thing, there's a little thing called consistency, I mean, every room is usualy different, but in a game no ones going to care too much about two broom cupboards looking the same. Lets have a look at Persona 3!

10 to 25 floors that look exactly the same?! Than just change the textures!!! .

Now dont get me wrong, I love Persona 3, and Persona 4 too as it was also quite pretty. My problem with this game was its computer generated levels. Which to be honest, is cool! Basicaly, one floor is a randomly computer generated map, spliced together from room segments, so you can go back to the same floor you were just on, but it will never be the same map. Now thats a good design when it comes to repeating levels. Its copy paste, but never completely the same. One map is one floor, and you have to go through like 150 or so floors, which is like a billion repeated maps. But every 25 or so floors theres a cool boss, which prevents you from running up further, and you can unlock that level in the elevator. Who designs an elevator where you have to walk to that level first before you can use the elevator to get there? But in terms of a game level, its a pretty cool idea, I liked it, it was like an achievement and made me forget about the endless repetition. And after every boss the level's textures change! So its not a complete bore.

Its a corridor, but its different from the last one.

So when it comes to Persona, I like to consider that they have goods and bads. Yeah, they designed their dungeon to have computer generated maps which could be considered a bit lazy, but they managed to keep it interesting by jazzing things up a bit here and there. So its a mixed bag. You never realy feel lost in this game, but you have to find the stairs in a randomly generated room, which can be forever apart, or right in front of you, which at times makes the game feel easy, or makes the stairs being so close a god send.

Now lets look at a game that will forever be butchered and dragged trough the mud as  the disappointing series, that once was Sega's Mario to Nintendo. Sonic the Hedgehog. Now, back in the days when Sonic was on the Sega genisis, the levels were amazing, a cool fast paced plat former. It was fun, reminded me of setting up marball tracks as a kid, but a bit cooler. Each zone (or map,level) had a good 3-5 unique objects, like springs, loops, or fans, water and all other bits and bobs to keep one from remembering its going from left to right.

It was simple, you run to the right, but go back and forth, avoiding bits and bobs. Their level design was really good for the side scrolling age. Fun stuff, at no point did the game feel, blocky, it was loose. But side scrollers arn't what cause Sega's star child to look like he does. Its their choice to make every sonic game full 3d. The worst to blame is sonic heroes!

What the fuck is going on here? Can I call that a vista?

Sonic Heroes on the other hand decided to just use springs and rails everywhere! And not to mention, you've always going to fall into some stupid bottomless bit. Did you ever fall into a pit in the sega genisis versions, RARELY. This is also down to the bad controls, or lack there of. Often enough It felt like you were being thrown around the level, and you didnt really have to do anything. Its like the deisnger though " More long ass jumps here, lets put 2-no 3 loops here and than put another long jump at the end of all those loops ". This would be cool for a side scrolling game, but when it comes to 3D, is more like this : " What the fuck am I doing, oh god whats going on, I dont know what Im doing, what the fuck how did I die? ". It was all stupidly complicated for no reason at all. One of the many reasons I have never completed that game and never will.

Well, I may have to continue this at a later date. To sum it up:
A well deisgned level can immerse the player into the world. A bad level can take you out of that world, than make you turn off the computer and get on with your life.

The Only way I will play Sonic Heroes again.

  
Reading List:
Crimes agains level design

Review of sonic, which I dont completely agree with.

" Does anyone care about game designers" - Forum post

Task 15 Visual Composition

Im quite pleased to be doing this task as Its something I've spent a lot of time looking into of recent and Ive found some nice trickery and wizardry on the subject.
Composition is a amazing concept, its the method of how we see things, by cropping them and the arangment of the objects we see, so create something.
Composition can change your picture into anything you want, simply chaning the camera angle can change the whole feel of the image
Lets just delve deep into some different methods of showing an image, and how they effect they way we read it, or can read it. This is best portraid with the same image, from different angles.

Lets have a look at these speedy thumbs, thumbs being the best way to figure out what composition works best for what you are wanting to portray.
What does this image say? They say, two people, in an arena, one is attacking the other and the other is defenseless. What can we do with this visualy?
Birds eye: The birds eye view sort of shows quite a tense moment, the viewer is too far away to rach in and stop the attack, we can use this view, so get an almost a god view. This view also takes detail away from the characters, focusing on the shapes instead of details, the event is the most important thing to be see. In this particular scene, the birds eye view can make you feel nutural towards the scene, like youre floating careless, or youre in thr croud completely exiled from the action.
Worms eye: The worms eye view in comparison, rams the action right up into your face and forces you to see it. You can see this attacker is lundging in, the victim is defencless, dropping their weapon. This view is great for showing dominating power, the attacker is in complete controle, its all about the attacker, and his power. A worms eye is very good for displaying the " looking down ones nose at you " effect. Want your viewer to think your character is higher in the social lader than you? Worms eye is the way to do it.
Being the attacker For a different feel, we can set the camera behind the attacker. What does this do? This lets us be right up behind the atacker, looking right over his sholder. Its close, we can see the action, the motion, whats going to happen and enough detail to make us understand, whos doign what to who with what and how. This could also make us feel that we are a partner of the attacker, or we're just about to reach in and stop the action before this final strike.
Behind the victim This is quite a flip of what I just said, its like we are with the victim, we can see whats happening, whats coming, this sort of battle scene.

Fibonaci Spiral When I was working on my bradgate final, Chris mention a "fibonacci spiral ", this is a cool little trick which can make the viewers eye move towards an area you want, for example, a snail shell, your eye will move towards the point. This works with paintings aswell, you can easily combine multipul objects, to force the viewer to follow particular lines. For the image above, I wanted the viewer to have both the feeling of the calm landscape, to slowly pass over onto the action of this dragon fight, paying attention to the bite of the dragon than the soldier riding them in the center of this show.
Rule of thirds: The rule of thirds is almost a golden rule in photography, and can be used to give you controle over your imagery. It splits the image into a 3x3 grid, it alows you to position areas of rest and intrest in your image. Rest is a very important for the eye, if you have alot of noise, you wont notice any of the noise and youll make visual chaos, good balence will help you to create an image which is easy on the eye. Something that will let one look at your image for longer, without draining them. Simply by cropping the image, so the areas of intrest are in areas where the sections cross, you can make nice areas of rest and intrest. Sticking an image dead center, you will not be able to pay much attention to the whole image, as the main intrest, is dead center, sitting there dull and boring. The goal of this method is to get the viewer to look all over your image, so you get more time from them.

Moving objects need space to move into!
Lets have a look at a picture of a tortois toy I drew. Its a toy, but it could be real enough, like its on sand not paper lets say.

Looking at this, clearly I hadnt thought of rule of thirds. Other than that, it looks very cramped, that tortoise is looks like it wants to go over to the right, but it has no where to do, the picture feels uncomfortable. What does this picture show? That this creature wants to stand there? It ruins the picture. Too much of one subject and no space to rest the eye.

Well doesnt that feel better? That little section of uncropped gives you alot more to look at, gives you space to breath no? A place for the tortoise to move into, it no longer feels cramped. It looks like the thing could move into the space, quite hapily. Space is important, good use of space is key.


There is more I could go onto, like piramid method, combining objects of different hights togehter.
But I want to do other things, like paint and finish a model.

Task 14

Planning And Conception

The beginning stages of a project, not just Game Design but film and other tasks, is one of the most important steps in creating a finalised product. Its hard not to want to jump to the final, as I know all too well in illustration, but its important that correct planning is done before hand, in order to achieve a successful product.

In drawing an illustration, such as has been taught to us by Chris, starts with a set of thumbnails, and than slowly develops into a more detailed image. But there is something before the thumbnails even begins which is the planning. We are set a dead line, much like one would have in any practice, this is what we call the Brief. This brief is basically the planning to our project, we are told, how many thumbnails are needed, how long we have on the project and what it is we are to be creating. This could than be developed into a routine, so if we are given a week to do a full image, we can break the week down into sections and spend 2/7 days on thumbnails and preparation with the remaining 5/7 on the finalised image, or 6 days on preparation and 1 on the final image.  That one segmented day could be broken down further into hours of the day, so planning can go quite indepth, and its very important it does, because its so easy to lose time. One of my greatest guilts is not getting out of bed untill 11am on a weekend, realising half the day has gone. When one realises they do not have enough time to do something, or time has disappeared it is down to poor planning on their part. Or in the case of waking up in the morning, thats more of a will power issue.
With a scheduled and good time management, one can assure that something can be created on time, if nothing goes wrong. Something will always go wrong, but without the schedule the amount of time wasted could double or even triple the length of the project. A efficient schedule wastes no time.
Going back to my metaphor about Visual Deisgn projects. Some students jump straight to the final image and than work backwards. It raises questions, why waste time if you already have the final image? What made them think the image they created was the best outcome they could have created? If they worked backwards and realised a better image from their thumbnails, they would have wasted all the time on a final, to make a better final.

When it comes to concepting, its pictured as a golden goblet, or a prise to the young aspiring artist, however conception is all about selling an idea. Its the packaging before the product is created. To get an idea across in a visuals is far more elaborate than in text. In a concept, you can show a person on any level ( investor, director, 3D modeller, audience, ext.) what you want and what you dont want your project to be. If you create an idea which is not liked, the image is far more editable than words, the image can be tightened and refined to strengthen the idea. How I see it, concept art is to turn a chaotic, nebula of an idea, into a a smaller area, to tighten the idea, so everyone understands it, setting limitations to what it should and should not be. If everyone can see these ideas, its easier to abide by them.


Or at least thats what I think, I dont know, Im a student.

Task 13 and Paranoia in Public

Now officially a Second year I can look upon my last year and say how good or bad it was. I think it was neither, some grey in-between, its either black or white and i was somewhere in the middle. I had a good start to last year.
Over the summer holidays my productivity rose to new hights and my quality of work in 3d and 2d came with it.

Although my work on these projects had to be cut short, I am still pleased with some of the progression made. My first high to low bake and my first 15k character.
The problems I will and already have began to face this year are responsibility and sacrifices that need to be taken into account. At the moment, I have not sacrificed anything in order to spend more time working, over the past year I have gained many friends which I once had not had and am grateful for. However this also cuts down on the time I can work, I would not like to cut the amount of time I spend with them out at all, so I will have to find other enjoyment to cull. This is primarily, reddit, drunkenness, maybe even documentaries. All things I do enjoy, but are not needed. I almost wish I could stow away and work with no other worldly distraction, but than my work would be dull and lifeless as the moons surface.

The start of my new year has not gotten off to a running start, as I was at fast pace during the summer, untill I had to move, upon which my speed as been reduced to a walk. I think I will continue to walk for the next day or so (A littlel earthly pleasure, before I change the definition of pleasure), than begin a race towards my goal.

I also feel Ive become some what more bitter of recent, this is probably due to a lack of interaction with others over the summer, takes a while for me to get back into the people mood.

My goal for this year, to gain an internship, to visit and draw at every coffee shop in Leicester, to push myself.

Paranoid in Public.

Over the years as I draw people out and bout, coffee shops, pubs and clubs. I have noticed a strange almost paranoid feeling from those I draw and at times, I almost feel as if I shouldn't watch others in public, or even see them as I am trying to do through drawing. The feeling from many can almost make the work of drawing seem almost voyeuristic, but not in the sexual sence, its as if these people are in a bubble, in the public world but in a thin bubble of which ones glance is intruding into their world.
Let me explain.
In order for me to draw people in life, as they are, I need to draw them as they live, not as they pose or want to be portrait, but how I see them at the moment. So I will draw publicly and attempt to capture their life through my eyes, which is difficult if they were just sitting still at the very least.
Others do not share this mind set. Its almost as if the public, should be as private as ones own home.

Lets use example.
A few years ago, I decide to draw a family (a mother, father, two daughters and a son). No harm there. I watch them from a distance not to disturb them. One of the daughters notice me watching them and begins to freak out.
Now a freak out is how I describe someone whos actions become extremely agitated, sharp head movements, worried facical expression, whispering, pointing and sudden abrupt leaving... Oh and this is a good one, communication to others at the table with phones. (Parinoid behaviour in my books.)
Suddenly the father decides to talk to me and see what Im doing, which is fine, this isnt about people seeing my work, so I will stop there.
What I am interested in is why that girl freaked out.

Recently, a flatmate told me that her sister had recently felt " creeped out " by a man drawing her in a coffee shop in London not 2 months ago. Interested I bothered her with more questions. It seemed like this man was just drawing. But to her sister, he was " Weird " "creepy ". So the freak out was over appearance and that such a person with such appearance was looking upon her. If the description of the male was " attractive ", "cute" it would be a much different story.
So. Is the the reason for the freak out. No. What runs through the mind of someone who is being watched? " Why is this person looking at me ", " What are they doing ", " What do they want ", " Who are they. " ext.
I question, "Why do they care?".

This person is in a public place, in a world over ran with people. These people spend time and effort, making themselves look presentable, to go out into the public world. Some women take hours to get ready to leave their private domain. Im assuming they get ready and leave so people will see them, among their daily tasks.
So theres a catch 22 or whatever its called. People want to be seen and noticed. But they dont want to be seen or noticed it would seem through the eyes of an artist. But what annoys me, is they spend this time, they want to be seen and noticed, but when someone watches them for more than just a passing glance, they freak out, or begin to question why someone else is looking upon another person. Do they think I should process every characteristic of that person in just a glance, they may be able to do that, but it takes me alot longer. I'd rather be able to see the seams of a persons boot or the earing a person is waring for longer than a millisecond. So my question is why wont people let some appreciate others for simply being alive, it seems alien to me.
In some places in england, if you look at a someone for longer than a glance, they consider it a threat, questioning ones reasons for simply noticing their assistance. Looking at someone for longer than a glance, some consider flirting, and either freak out or flirt.

Ive also recently figured out why people notice you at all. People need constant stimulation. If what they are stimulated by ( a conversation ) becomes uninteresting, they will begin to glance across the room, for other things to stimulate their minds. From watching others, Ive noticed the type of people who will enjoy their companionship so much they will not notice whats going on around them, and those who are pretending to care, but never stop looking for something more interesting than the person sitting next to them. And whats more interesting than someone you know nothing about, looking at you, with a book.
I could conclude it here, people freak out, because they are bored. Ive also noticed, those that get bored talking to others, often have repetitively boring appearances, the blad man with glasses and laptop, the female fasion students, the business students (theyre easy to point out).
Theres much more on this subject, I always muddle it around in my head, so its harder to get out in text.
Lets just say, how I see it is; If a person is in public, they shouldnt feel afraid to be seen. And hell, Ill probably pay more attention to that person more than anyone else in the room/street.