Hmmm, this is a troubling subject and as a start I thought I'd go wandering around game sites and seeing what jobs they had avaliable. For Sega, all the jobs in the last 12 months ask for experienced applicants. Its a tough thing to ask for experience when those fresh out of college and uni aren't going to have any. They have the skills able to move out into their respective fields and yet can't for another 2 or 3 years because its hard to find a job unless they've worked before. Blizzard require those who have worked for a minimum of 3 years to work on WoW or a next gen MMO that they are in production with. Both LucasArts and Blizzard have added an additional requirement of having produced some games in the past. I guess it wouldn;t be too hard to meet the requirement for this in those 3 years you have worked though.
So to be honest, it is a tricky subject for educators to handle. I'm sure the smaller companies would enjoy having those individuals who are very creative to give employees some idea of what to model for the game in question. Inversely, other companies may want this creative person to imagine and create a full model of their idea.
Therefore it becomes essential for those tutors out there to consider what it is that helps students be creative and gear a course towards that. Somewhere along the way it does help to give a basic or strong knowledge in the standard software for the industry. (In ours it would be 3DSmax/Maya, Photoshop and something like Zbrush). An understanding of those programs is sure to give students an upper hand when it comes to finding a job even if it isnt something an employer looks for. It is merely a plus and shows that a person is alot more adaptable to any job or task they are given.
On the other hand, the creative hand, it is something that is hard to teach. If you tell someone exactly what they are meant to be doing,
you haven't taught creativity in the slightest. You need to get the right balance of pushing someone in the right direction to get them
going and helping with ideas along the course of the process. "Who is this/ what do they do/ where do they come from" are questions that can begin the process and give the idea of research. In essence, it is research and seeing things that inspire creativity. Somebody could see a plant one day, be completely inspired by it and adapt it into a weapon, for example. Then when you can do this for any given objective that is when creativity is achieved. Alot like enlightenment, A grades and jobs.
I suppose, as the point of this task, it is pretty hard to give somebody the qualifications to apply for all the game-y jobs straight away, especially with the hierachy, but if you can give them fundamentals and then some, they are sure to have options open to them. Of course once these options are taken, it is then up to the company and individual to provide further technical education in the industry.
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Thursday, 28 February 2008
Week 18: Sound in Games
This weeks blog task asked about Sonic Landscapes. I didn't know what such a thing was beforehand but now I do. A Sonic Landscape is the layering of sound to produce the effect of a 3D space. I found a useful link on the Bethesda website which fully explained what it was and how it was produced using the example of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. To gather an idea of what he meant, I ran to youtube to find myself a video of what he was describing and fully understood what it was. Unfortunately, the video didnt have the footsteps which were described. I was hoping for something like Kingdom Hearts where its easy to hear every footstep, even with all characters wearing oversized clown shoes. I know most games nowadays do have footsteps but KH just had them cartoony sounding. It was nice.
Of course sound is used in many other contexts during games. We have gunshots, swords clashing, firing magic, opening doors and gates and all other manner of trees and winds howling. In an ideal game, a player will not notice the sounds that go on around him. MAking things as seamless is the job of everyone in the games industry. If something stands out, it probably is wrong. When sounds are like those in real life and seem entirely natural, we become integrated in the game and fully feel everything going on around you.
When it comes to the best Sonic moment in my history, I can't really pinpoint a moment as they never really stand out to me. Thinking back, the majority of games I've played don't tend to have these Sonic Landscapes for many different reasons. If I had a 360 or a PS3 I may notice but looking at the games on my shelf I really cannot see that many that have it. In recent years I would have to go with Zelda: Twilight Princess. Riding across Hyrule field on Epona is pretty awesome, hearing those Wyverns in the sky and the constant thundering of the footsteps really immerses you into the game. Or, as I prefer, Lake Hylia. The tranquil music that plays in the background which goes perfectly with the ambient water babbling away. If you swim around in the lake towards the waterfall, the sound begins softly and turns into a loud roar while sitting right underneath it. In the middle of the lake the cannon shop, crossed with the music hut also layers into casual water and plays over the top of the lakes BGM.
ANOTHER HONOURABLE MENTION: During bosses and mini-bosses in The Wind Waker play a chord everytime Link's sword connects with the enemy. I really loved that. An example of it is shown here
Of course sound is used in many other contexts during games. We have gunshots, swords clashing, firing magic, opening doors and gates and all other manner of trees and winds howling. In an ideal game, a player will not notice the sounds that go on around him. MAking things as seamless is the job of everyone in the games industry. If something stands out, it probably is wrong. When sounds are like those in real life and seem entirely natural, we become integrated in the game and fully feel everything going on around you.
When it comes to the best Sonic moment in my history, I can't really pinpoint a moment as they never really stand out to me. Thinking back, the majority of games I've played don't tend to have these Sonic Landscapes for many different reasons. If I had a 360 or a PS3 I may notice but looking at the games on my shelf I really cannot see that many that have it. In recent years I would have to go with Zelda: Twilight Princess. Riding across Hyrule field on Epona is pretty awesome, hearing those Wyverns in the sky and the constant thundering of the footsteps really immerses you into the game. Or, as I prefer, Lake Hylia. The tranquil music that plays in the background which goes perfectly with the ambient water babbling away. If you swim around in the lake towards the waterfall, the sound begins softly and turns into a loud roar while sitting right underneath it. In the middle of the lake the cannon shop, crossed with the music hut also layers into casual water and plays over the top of the lakes BGM.
ANOTHER HONOURABLE MENTION: During bosses and mini-bosses in The Wind Waker play a chord everytime Link's sword connects with the enemy. I really loved that. An example of it is shown here
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Week 17: Game Engines
Basically a game engine is an application or software that compiles multiple elements and physics to create the game. Much in the same way that you bring graphs and words into powerpoint to produce a presentation.
Many game engines are out there in the world today and it seems they are certainly getting a lot more realistic. Using the example of the Havok engine, Valve have produced games that allow characters to go flying in the right direction after being hit by rockets and becoming limp after losing life. Then again, there are many cases where the character will become a completely limp ragdoll leading to do wierd poses, and others when characters will bend over backwards into a wall when dead. At least you can shoot these ragdolls off buildings and crowbar some corpses so they jangle around. Perhaps the character deaths arent the excel of the Havok engine but it was definitely made to have suitable physics for general items laying around the area so that they could bounce around realistically. Tires and wooden boxes react as they would if they had been fired across a room with a gravity gun.
According to what I have found on the internet this subtractive and additive editing is about how you build things. Additive editing is when you start off with nothing and put things into it. Using the example of editing video, additive is when you begin with an empty timeline and then you fill it up with clips. Subtractive editing is once you have a 5 minute movie but need to cut it down to 3 minutes. At least that was my understanding of what id read up about it.
As with most things, buying an already existing game engine it saves you the effort of having to make anything yourself and this will cut down your production times by so much as you can put things in and itll be done. However you are kinda stuck with the physics of what has been programmed into it. If this doesn't fit the game you want to make then you are kinda stuck.
Of course the advantages to making your own are the opposite. You can make things and characters move the ways you want them to but you'll need to take the time out of your project to make this engine.
As a side note, the new Euphoria engine being used on the force unleashed could well be the future. Having the character do a different motion everytime depending on whats happening. HItting a wall and showing the impact the way you really would do from any angle rather than just one wall hit animation. Characters reacting to their environment is also a large bonus and reacting to one stimuli and also reacting to another at the same time. (Stormtroopers being force-lifted and then thrown into a wall and crushed by a rock). So when The Force Unleashed comes out, I'll be able to see how great having a real life simulation is in a game compared to multiple animations.
Many game engines are out there in the world today and it seems they are certainly getting a lot more realistic. Using the example of the Havok engine, Valve have produced games that allow characters to go flying in the right direction after being hit by rockets and becoming limp after losing life. Then again, there are many cases where the character will become a completely limp ragdoll leading to do wierd poses, and others when characters will bend over backwards into a wall when dead. At least you can shoot these ragdolls off buildings and crowbar some corpses so they jangle around. Perhaps the character deaths arent the excel of the Havok engine but it was definitely made to have suitable physics for general items laying around the area so that they could bounce around realistically. Tires and wooden boxes react as they would if they had been fired across a room with a gravity gun.
According to what I have found on the internet this subtractive and additive editing is about how you build things. Additive editing is when you start off with nothing and put things into it. Using the example of editing video, additive is when you begin with an empty timeline and then you fill it up with clips. Subtractive editing is once you have a 5 minute movie but need to cut it down to 3 minutes. At least that was my understanding of what id read up about it.
As with most things, buying an already existing game engine it saves you the effort of having to make anything yourself and this will cut down your production times by so much as you can put things in and itll be done. However you are kinda stuck with the physics of what has been programmed into it. If this doesn't fit the game you want to make then you are kinda stuck.
Of course the advantages to making your own are the opposite. You can make things and characters move the ways you want them to but you'll need to take the time out of your project to make this engine.
As a side note, the new Euphoria engine being used on the force unleashed could well be the future. Having the character do a different motion everytime depending on whats happening. HItting a wall and showing the impact the way you really would do from any angle rather than just one wall hit animation. Characters reacting to their environment is also a large bonus and reacting to one stimuli and also reacting to another at the same time. (Stormtroopers being force-lifted and then thrown into a wall and crushed by a rock). So when The Force Unleashed comes out, I'll be able to see how great having a real life simulation is in a game compared to multiple animations.
Week 16: Gaming Cultures
I guess it is true to say that there are gaming cultures in the world today. The initial ones beginning with playing dungeons and dragons in a group on wednesday nights. Rolling the dice to see if you beat a monster or fell to your death from the top of a mountain. Following that there is Warhammer and other tabletop games. These can feature in large tournaments and its hidden depth being that you can choose any class and paint them however you want. (Well, according to some colour schemes).
In the spirit of tabletop games there is the faithful Trading Card Games but I will not get wrapped up in making friends during a childrens card game.
So, gaming, a very popular thing nowadays and you can't say otherwise. There are limitless groups for games, much like there are for films. People can be in cultures depending on the genre of games that they play. The majority of games today are First Person Shooters so you will have loads of people who look forward to their mute and faceless heroes trudging through all the corpses he made. Racing games which are going strength to strength visually but i don't see how you can really refresh the genre. And the Role Playing Game where unlikely hero/anti-hero goes on a daring quest to stop someone they know from ruining the world.
I personally don't play racing games apart from Mario Kart as the handling is far too realistic for my kart racing brain to handle and those neon lights. I try and avoid the FPS at the best of times but damn Valve for bringing out those awesome FPS's of theirs. I purchased the Orange Box and finished portal rather sharpish and only within the last 3 weeks have I played and finished all the current Half Life 2 games. BUT THERE IS ONE MORE: Team Fortress 2 completely changed the genre for me and got me into the FPS. Its just something to do with the graphics and playing as a team that makes it more bareable than other games. So for one, I belong to the TF2 culture. I try and remain on top of funny videos and machinima, pictures and comics and even the control point podcast (Whose group ive joined and need to play with more). I could even tell you that the Female Scout model has been released after being a WIP for so long and that it actually works fully in game. I've made some friends over the game that i play with sometimes and those who I know, namely my best friend Andy, and Phil from the class.
Finally, I am a large fan of the MMORPG. Anything that looks relatively cool and interesting will get a try or a look in from me. (as long as its free). The first MMO I played was Maple Story because it was the only thing my pc could run. I played it solo for a while before I started making friends and joined a guild who I became friends with. Mainly they lived in the US so i didn't play with them much and also that they were too high a level for me to party with. Good friends in the guild being Ann from Texas, Chris and Erica who shared an account and Meep who i've totally forgotten the name of. Finally Reese, who I've been talking to for almost a year now but never met. She only lives in birmingham too, so perhaps one day.
Next was Trickster but that became boring quickly due to it being in open beta and not many people from gamefaqs playing. It was a quiet guild and i didnt know many.
Then it was Lunia. Played that for a bit, stopped and playing it once again, in amognst all that TF2 action.
I guess thats it so in summary I belong to the RPG, MMORPG and ever so slightly, multiplayer FPS games.
Generally, as long as i don't have an overload of work to do, or I'm not entirely shattered or it's 3 in the morning I will try and play either Lunia or TF2. Lunia for long periods and TF2 if I'm in the lab or need a quick game. An addict? Perhaps but for 42 hours as a scout in 4 months, I really should have more than 15 points. T_T
In the spirit of tabletop games there is the faithful Trading Card Games but I will not get wrapped up in making friends during a childrens card game.
So, gaming, a very popular thing nowadays and you can't say otherwise. There are limitless groups for games, much like there are for films. People can be in cultures depending on the genre of games that they play. The majority of games today are First Person Shooters so you will have loads of people who look forward to their mute and faceless heroes trudging through all the corpses he made. Racing games which are going strength to strength visually but i don't see how you can really refresh the genre. And the Role Playing Game where unlikely hero/anti-hero goes on a daring quest to stop someone they know from ruining the world.
I personally don't play racing games apart from Mario Kart as the handling is far too realistic for my kart racing brain to handle and those neon lights. I try and avoid the FPS at the best of times but damn Valve for bringing out those awesome FPS's of theirs. I purchased the Orange Box and finished portal rather sharpish and only within the last 3 weeks have I played and finished all the current Half Life 2 games. BUT THERE IS ONE MORE: Team Fortress 2 completely changed the genre for me and got me into the FPS. Its just something to do with the graphics and playing as a team that makes it more bareable than other games. So for one, I belong to the TF2 culture. I try and remain on top of funny videos and machinima, pictures and comics and even the control point podcast (Whose group ive joined and need to play with more). I could even tell you that the Female Scout model has been released after being a WIP for so long and that it actually works fully in game. I've made some friends over the game that i play with sometimes and those who I know, namely my best friend Andy, and Phil from the class.
Finally, I am a large fan of the MMORPG. Anything that looks relatively cool and interesting will get a try or a look in from me. (as long as its free). The first MMO I played was Maple Story because it was the only thing my pc could run. I played it solo for a while before I started making friends and joined a guild who I became friends with. Mainly they lived in the US so i didn't play with them much and also that they were too high a level for me to party with. Good friends in the guild being Ann from Texas, Chris and Erica who shared an account and Meep who i've totally forgotten the name of. Finally Reese, who I've been talking to for almost a year now but never met. She only lives in birmingham too, so perhaps one day.
Next was Trickster but that became boring quickly due to it being in open beta and not many people from gamefaqs playing. It was a quiet guild and i didnt know many.
Then it was Lunia. Played that for a bit, stopped and playing it once again, in amognst all that TF2 action.
I guess thats it so in summary I belong to the RPG, MMORPG and ever so slightly, multiplayer FPS games.
Generally, as long as i don't have an overload of work to do, or I'm not entirely shattered or it's 3 in the morning I will try and play either Lunia or TF2. Lunia for long periods and TF2 if I'm in the lab or need a quick game. An addict? Perhaps but for 42 hours as a scout in 4 months, I really should have more than 15 points. T_T
Monday, 28 January 2008
Week 15: Game industry
In recent years the game industry has gone from strength to strength. Especially since it has only really boomed in the last 20 years which is wierd as it was only 9years since Pokemon Red came out. (Fun fact there) Gaming companies have sprung up all over the place in those 20 years with
Nintendo becoming a global franchise, same with Sega, Capcom and Square Enix. It has even grown
so large that there are now second party developers (companies owned by bigger ones) have joined
in the game.
If you ask people inside the industry what they are feeling about the direction games are taking, they'd say that it is pretty exciting. With existing hardware being able to do much more than it did before leads to so many more possibilites. This is even in all fields of development like music and marketting. Games are also reaching a larger audience than it did as those who grew up with games are now at the age they can introduce their kids to them and with more casual friendly games being made, it is certainly a more generalised industry than it was before.
To the game industry, coming from a money and audience point of view, these family games are great business but to the hardcore gamers, who do it because they like games and not bcause they are now like films, these kinds of games are a cancer. You could look forward to a game being released for your console and it would be a good game, with many good games inbetween. Nowadays, the DS is turning into a IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH station with every great game being punctuated by a brain training rip off and the Wii is unfortunately going the same way but having cheaply produced games that the whole family can get involved into. Off the Nintendo front, developers are backing away from the PS3 because its games take too long and to make and far too much effort for lacklustre profits. Which would in fact be decent profits if the PS3 wasnt such high end.
In the future we can look forward to thousands of cheaply made games with crappy touch/motion controls improving our physical and mental health.
/Rant
Nintendo becoming a global franchise, same with Sega, Capcom and Square Enix. It has even grown
so large that there are now second party developers (companies owned by bigger ones) have joined
in the game.
If you ask people inside the industry what they are feeling about the direction games are taking, they'd say that it is pretty exciting. With existing hardware being able to do much more than it did before leads to so many more possibilites. This is even in all fields of development like music and marketting. Games are also reaching a larger audience than it did as those who grew up with games are now at the age they can introduce their kids to them and with more casual friendly games being made, it is certainly a more generalised industry than it was before.
To the game industry, coming from a money and audience point of view, these family games are great business but to the hardcore gamers, who do it because they like games and not bcause they are now like films, these kinds of games are a cancer. You could look forward to a game being released for your console and it would be a good game, with many good games inbetween. Nowadays, the DS is turning into a IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH station with every great game being punctuated by a brain training rip off and the Wii is unfortunately going the same way but having cheaply produced games that the whole family can get involved into. Off the Nintendo front, developers are backing away from the PS3 because its games take too long and to make and far too much effort for lacklustre profits. Which would in fact be decent profits if the PS3 wasnt such high end.
In the future we can look forward to thousands of cheaply made games with crappy touch/motion controls improving our physical and mental health.
/Rant
Tuesday, 15 January 2008
Week11: Gameplay
Gameplay is a term that gets thrown around alot and doesnt really have any certain meaning to it. In one instance it can literally be how a game plays (fast, smooth etc.) or what kind of things youll be doing in a game (puzzling, racing etc.). So all in all its a hard term define but I prefer to thing of gameplay as what sorts of things you get to do in a game. "What is Smash Brothers Gameplay like?" "Its a large beat em up with loads of nintendo characters around a 2D stage" Or at least thats how I'd define it. The general gist of what the game is.
So when it comes down to 'do you design the gameplay or game first?' it would easily be the gameplay. Boiling it down to Half Life 2, it is much easier to say Gordon Freeman has to run and survive (To be honest I really have no idea whats going on in HL2) from the bad guys. Once youve got that point, you can easily design your bad guys and then the locations he would be running through and then your genre can be chosen from the appropriate ones. It would be much harder to say "Lets make a shooter" and then build a story around that.
Of course you will most always come up with a concept for a game before designing the other things about it and what the game will allow you to do. I read up on the Gamasutra links and a game was produced that was about flying through the clouds and making friends with all of them. Then it was designed to be a slow relaxing game rather than a time or point based game.
Much like the above game titled "Cloud" in the future games will tryand introduce new types of game play. One such title is Endless Ocean which was just released and has the player swimming through the ocean taking photos of all the speices and that is all. In the future, after all the conventional genres are burnt out, we will hopefully see new ones bringing in new and exciting game play.
So when it comes down to 'do you design the gameplay or game first?' it would easily be the gameplay. Boiling it down to Half Life 2, it is much easier to say Gordon Freeman has to run and survive (To be honest I really have no idea whats going on in HL2) from the bad guys. Once youve got that point, you can easily design your bad guys and then the locations he would be running through and then your genre can be chosen from the appropriate ones. It would be much harder to say "Lets make a shooter" and then build a story around that.
Of course you will most always come up with a concept for a game before designing the other things about it and what the game will allow you to do. I read up on the Gamasutra links and a game was produced that was about flying through the clouds and making friends with all of them. Then it was designed to be a slow relaxing game rather than a time or point based game.
Much like the above game titled "Cloud" in the future games will tryand introduce new types of game play. One such title is Endless Ocean which was just released and has the player swimming through the ocean taking photos of all the speices and that is all. In the future, after all the conventional genres are burnt out, we will hopefully see new ones bringing in new and exciting game play.
Tuesday, 11 December 2007
Week 10: Characters
Most of the time when you encounter a character on television its the same old soap characters and their unbelievable storylines where nobody is ever happy. They have character names but they are just people and thus do not really help you to connect unless you are going through the same as them. Drama series and the like will throw interesting characters at you until you drown in them. Looking at Heroes which just ended recently had so many characters that you followed and could connect with throughout the story. You cared when characters had bad things happen to them and potentially risked their very being, especially half way through upon discovering that Peter Petrelli was the one who went nuclear and destoryed half the city. His urgency to pull all the other heroes together and formulate a plan, got you hoping he would find a way to prevent the tradegy. Then finding out that is impossible and that the city still explodes is a massive shock to
the viewer.
In one of the last books I read, Akiras brother is put into a coma while playing a game and the story begins about 10 minutes before he falls under. The rest of the story after that details how Akira struggles with her real life as she gets bullied by the Tennis Team and the trounament thereafter and when she plays as BlackRose inside the game to find out what could put someone into a coma. Most of the time while in the game, you can feel Akiras urgency to discover the darkest
part of the game while helping her friends with their problems, such as Kite. Her real life however is no cakewalk due to her family falling apart after her brother didn't
wake up so she has to hold the family together and look after her other baby. It is compelling to
follow Akira to see if she suceeds or what part of her life will go wrong next.
In both of these cases, the characters befall a hardship and then more weigh them down as the story goes along. With the constant misfortunes it is easier for the viewer to pick up on the integrity of the character especially if they can no longer cope with the situation and break down. To be honest, most links with a character are based upon at least one bad thing happening to them. However this is quite difficult if a character doesnt speak such as Link or Mario which
makes it difficult to understand them and their full characters.
In conclusion, it is required for a story to put certain strains on characters and place them in certain situations for the reader/viewer/gamer to understand what they would do and what type of person they are. Without these events, characters are pretty two-dimensional like those Soap 'characters'.
the viewer.
In one of the last books I read, Akiras brother is put into a coma while playing a game and the story begins about 10 minutes before he falls under. The rest of the story after that details how Akira struggles with her real life as she gets bullied by the Tennis Team and the trounament thereafter and when she plays as BlackRose inside the game to find out what could put someone into a coma. Most of the time while in the game, you can feel Akiras urgency to discover the darkest
part of the game while helping her friends with their problems, such as Kite. Her real life however is no cakewalk due to her family falling apart after her brother didn't
wake up so she has to hold the family together and look after her other baby. It is compelling to
follow Akira to see if she suceeds or what part of her life will go wrong next.
In both of these cases, the characters befall a hardship and then more weigh them down as the story goes along. With the constant misfortunes it is easier for the viewer to pick up on the integrity of the character especially if they can no longer cope with the situation and break down. To be honest, most links with a character are based upon at least one bad thing happening to them. However this is quite difficult if a character doesnt speak such as Link or Mario which
makes it difficult to understand them and their full characters.
In conclusion, it is required for a story to put certain strains on characters and place them in certain situations for the reader/viewer/gamer to understand what they would do and what type of person they are. Without these events, characters are pretty two-dimensional like those Soap 'characters'.
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