Our university encourages the Off The Map participation, with good reason; it's a great competition. It produces some fantastic pieces of work from aspiring Game Artists and just being a part of it is fantastic.
So, within our course, we've split into groups and we've been producing our own levels fitting with their brief; The Gothic.
The brief focused on 3 main sources:
- Edgar Allen Poe's The Masque of the Red Death
- Fonthill Abbey
- Whitby
I'd studied Gothic Literature for 2 years so this was like music to my ears.
If you're interested in reading more, then head over to our group blog, The Poefessionals, to see our progress and check our our project on Crydev as well.
However, I'll post up the flythrough here, and a few screenshots. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
Let me start this off by saying I'm not a trained educator
and I have no experience within the Games Industry.
What I do have, however, is experience within the education
system, and experience on a Game Art Course.
The question asked to me is essentially:
Do graduates need to be highly trained individuals to get
employed within the industry or do they just need to be creative with a good
liberal arts background?
Different developers require
different skill sets when it comes to the Games Industry, and Game degrees are
a point of great controversy among many developers. I've read multiple articles
telling me how unbelievably useless my entire degree is. Then I've read others
that have told me it's a great idea. "When hiring junior developers, I
can't think of a single time where their educational background has been a factor
in choosing to hire them." says Raphael Van Lierop, the Creative Director
at Hinterland Games, in an article from gamesindustry.biz, " I'm often
asked whether I think aspiring developers should go to the game degree schools
vs. getting a traditional education in a field like computer science or fine
arts, and I always say go for the traditional degree, because you're going to
get a much more well-rounded experience and it's more about building the
foundational skills you need to problem solve, communicate, and apply critical
thinking skills". I suppose this line of thinking is true. You can,
technically, learn how to be a games designer in your bedroom. Get hold of the
software, watch some internet tutorials, read through forums; it's relatively
simple to get started and that is why the indie games market and the mobile
markets are booming. People are just making games for fun in their rooms.
However, there are many benefits
to a degree, depending on the quality of the degree I suppose. In fact, I'm a huge proponent. Then again, I
haven't gone into the industry yet so, my tune may change.
Sure, I could learn all of these
things in my bedroom. I could just sit away from the world, learn how to model
some stuff and that would be it. BUT. I would miss out on such an experience,
and that is really what Games Design courses, or at least my Game Art course,
offers students. It's all soft skills.
The fact of the matter is,
learning how to model and texture doesn't prepare me for what the industry will
be like. The studio environment that I can immerse myself in has helped me more
than any internet tutorial. Learning from my peers, talking about our projects,
sharing interesting articles and blogs with each other and critiquing each other's
work. It's a great learning experience that really gives you something that
bedroom learning won't.
As well as the 3D skills, there is
a huge emphasis on art. The masters are important, we learn about colour
theory, composition, life drawing and anatomy among other things. We are
encouraged to be creative, to think outside of the box. To make the briefs we
get and the projects we do fit us so we can show our best work.
Working in my bedroom is not going
to improve my knowledge of project management. It won't improve my ability to
schedule. It won't teach me how to work in a team. It won't teach me how to
delegate jobs. It won't encourage me to be creative and innovative, teaching me
new ways to problem solve. I will miss out on all of this if I just sit in my
room. My University degree, however, has taught me all of these things, with
the help and support from those who have been in the industry. Those are things
you don't get from working alone or doing a different degree.
It is true that many of these soft
skills can, perhaps, be learnt from other courses. But then there are the
industry connections we have through the University. The great thing about
being on our course is we are surrounded by people who have worked in the
industry and worked their recently. They understand what is expected of
graduates, they know the current techniques and newer workflows. The briefs we
are given are professionally written and some are even given to us by
developers. These prepare us fantastically for the industry and what it will be
like when we go into industry because we understand the standards and what we
can expect when it comes to briefs. We are also lucky to receive talks from developers
currently in the industry. They will often come around the labs and talk to us
about our work and give us tips. This can also allow us to network, one of the
most important things within the industry.
So, returning back to my original
question:
"Do graduates need to be highly trained individuals to
get employed within the industry or do they just need to be creative with a
good liberal arts background?"
Why can't we be both? Why can't courses teach both? My
degree is doing it, so it's clearly possible. I'd like to think of myself as
relatively highly trained for 2 years of experience with any 3D software at
all; I can use 3DS Max, Zbrush, Cryengine, UDK, Photoshop and numerous other programs.
I can express my ideas and come up with interesting concepts an ideas as a
response to a brief. Sure, this is stuff I probably could have done before, but
being in the community that is my course, I've received so much support and
help that I can tell you right now, I'm infinitely more skilled that I was 2
years ago and I've learnt so much more about people. I can now present in front
of people, a couple of years ago I would have rather died, but now I almost
look forwards to talking about my ideas and work. I can actually schedule and
I'm working hard to improve my time management skills with the support and help
of my classmates and tutors. I'm also creating networks and I'm exposed to
developers who offer internships and jobs. I've had my creativity and my
knowledge of the arts improved tenfold over the space of a year. It's crazy.
These things are all things I wouldn't have been able to do in
a different course. So, the answer to the eternal questions of whether or not
Games course are actually useful and whether or not they are teaching the right
things, just follow my course.
Of course there are still people who will argue "Well
you can learn project management ANYWHERE, come on". I say one other word
to you.
Portfolio.
Developers will hire people for their portfolio. If your
portfolio is good then you probably have a job. So why would you turn down
three years of constant portfolio improvement with advice and opinions on that
work from industry professionals? It's the perfect time to improve your skills
and work on your portfolios while not having to worry about getting a job or
going to work.
Look, in my opinion, we should be encouraging both. Both the
liberal arts and important 3D technological skills are both important and, at
least from my experience, my university course has helped me with both.
It can be done, I swear.
Sorry this has been a little... ranty and not very picture
heavy but I have a lot of opinions on this... especially after reading repeated
articles about how I'm wasting £27,000 and 3 years of my life.
I really didn't want to watch this... How the hell do I begin to even explain the concept of
creativity?
I suppose we should start with a definition. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as "Relating
to or involving the use of the imagination or original ideas to create
something". Unfortunately that description hasn't made this any easier
to write. In fact, John Cleese's words ring more true when it comes to this post; "The reason why it is futile for me to talk about creativity is that it simply cannot be explained"
But lets talk about it anyway.
A common misconception about creativity is that it is just about
drawing or dancing or making music. There is SO much more to being creative.
Like the definition that Oxford Dictionary gave us, it's also about imagination and original ideas and
those are not just limited to painting a picture. Problem solving requires
creativity and a lot of what we do as game artists is about solving problems.
Coming up against boundaries and figuring out how to get past them, as well as
creating beautiful assets and stunning visuals.
Being creative has always been something that I've taken
pride in. In primary school I was always the girl people would come to for
drawings. I can still remember when I would sit on a potty in my front room
with a little table, a crayon and some paper. However, when I got to secondary
school, that creativity was pulled out of me, and pulled out of me hard. My school
completely disregarded art, barely any funding was given to our department and
we weren't taken seriously. Because I was "clever" I had always been
encouraged to do essay subjects or maths and sciences but any kind of creative
subject was discouraged and written off as not useful. The worst part was, even
in my art class, my creativity was stifled. Unless the art you were producing
was the type of art that the teachers liked then you were screwed. There wasn't
a lot of room to look at stuff like Game Art then. When I'd announced to my
teachers that I was going to study Game Art Design I was told multiple times I
was making a mistake, it wasn't English Literature so it was looked down upon.
After watching Sir Ken Robinson's TEDtalk on schools killing
creativity, I completely agree with him. He made some fantastic points. My favourite
quote from this talk is "The consequence [of our current education system]
is that many highly talented, brilliant creative people think they're not
because the thing they were good at in school wasn't valued, or was actually
stigmatised". This talk happened in 2006 and these words are still true.
How much does that say about the state of our system? Game Art, in particular,
has been stigmatised because video games themselves have such a huge stigma
surrounding them. People seem to assume that you spend all your time playing, but
they don't realise, like all creative subjects, it's a huge amount of hard
graft that you need to put in.
The thing about creativity is it's about NEW IDEAS and
IMAGINATION and using those to create something. Looking at the Games Industry right now... innovation isn't
everywhere, especially in AAA titles like Call of Duty. In fact, in my opinion,
sequels are a big problem in the industry. (Well... I say that, while still
gushing all over Dragon Age Inquisition... ) My biggest problem with sequels is
the lack of innovation. Innovation is the product of creativity and titles like
Call of Duty haven't really added anything new other than improved graphics. There
isn't a lot of creativity there because you're missing part of the creative
process and you're missing the innovation. New IP however, titles that are
trying to bring new ideas into the industry are barely given any publicity.
There are a few different reasons for this
"sequelitis" that the games industry has at the moment. A lot of it
has to do with making money because, hey, that is the purpose of business. A lot of it, however, has to do
with the players. Gamers demand sequels to their favourite franchises and show companies
that beating a dead horse is acceptable because they will vote with their
money. Don't get me wrong, though. Sequels aren't always bad. Some games are
written with a trilogy planned out, or they visit something different and
interesting. A lot of games are popular because of their interesting stories,
like Dragon Age (I am really excited for Inquisiton). The difference is some
sequels are able to actually innovate and introduce new ideas to their games,
where as others just rehash the previous game in the franchise. Those kinds of
games are killing a lot of the originality and creativity the industry had.
However, there are a couple of things that might be able to
pull us out of the reboot era that we seem to be in. The first one is the next
generation of consoles. Mike Williams wrote a really interesting article about
this on gamesindustry.biz. Mark Nilsson, the producer on the Need For Speed
franchise, made a really interesting point about the power of the new machines.
"It makes us think differently," "Every time there is a
transition we start thinking about what would be possible. We are not locked
into old boundaries anymore. From that we get great innovations like AllDrive.
The systems are giving us power to do more, more AI, more particles etc. Just
turning everything up really."
As I touched on earlier, boundaries are an interesting
concept when it comes to creativity. Some people argue that they improve your
creativity, others argue that they restrict you and, I suppose in some ways
they are both true. In terms of the technological boundaries that you have to
take into account when designing a game, they can really reduce your
creativity. Like Jonathan Blow said "Creatively, we build and we assume
that we have enough power in rendering." Creatives just create so when
you've made something you just assume it'll work and if it doesn't, you've got
to break down that thing you made and occasionally reduce it in technology. The
technology might not have the power to do what it is you want.
HOWEVER, these boundaries can pave the way for some
incredibly creative solutions to these problems. Creativity is about new ideas
and these new ideas often come in the face of adversity. Problem solving is
just as valid of a creative skill as being able to paint a picture. Engineers
will create new game engines that can handle more advanced and detailed models
or effects, and will create new consoles with improved abilities to handle the
graphics. Overcoming problems with new ideas, which can, in turn, leads to new
ideas within the games. The same rings true when I look at my briefs that are
set for at University. The more defined the brief, the more creative you have
to be because you need to overcome the boundaries that are set to create
something unique. It's a big, beautiful, creative circle that leads to new and
interesting changes within the industry.
The problems come when people don't want the change and
that's when we get stagnation. However, Indie developers are saving us there.
With services like Steam Greenlight and Kickstarter, new companies are able to
come into this industry or reboots and sequels and bring us new IP with
refreshing approaches to gameplay, stories and visuals. They will take risks,
unlike many bigger developers who are willing to just carry on down the same,
stagnant path and, let's be honest, creativity is all about taking risks.
So, to sum it all up, creativity is weird. It encompasses so
much. It's hard to write about and it's hard to define. Within the industry,
the reboot era that we are stuck in is stifling the creativity that made many
of these AAA developers so successful. But with the introduction of new
consoles, the ability to explore new ideas and techniques, and the Indie Games
market becoming more and more popular, I think there is still hope for us.
Then again, this is all just my opinion. Like John Cleese
says "Telling people how to be creative is easy, it's only being it that's
difficult"
There are a variety of different companies from AAA
developers to little Indie studios and they all require a different set of
skills. Well, I say different... Slightly more/less specialised depending where
you go.
To understand why that is, you need to look at the positions
that are available within the industry and which companies require which
positions. Early on the in industry, game artists needed to be good at
everything because there were so few and far between. You needed to generalise.
Now, however, the entire industry has changed.
When looking at the jobs that AAA developers offer, you can
see a trend. For example, if we look at DICE's vacancies, we can see that the
job titles are all very specialised. Lead Character Artists, Level Artists, VFX
artists, 2D artists, not even including all the Software Engineer jobs, the Game
Engine Engineers and the Marketing. This is exactly the same when you look at
the Bioware career opportunities. The job descriptions and the responsibilities are very
specific.
One day...
Within the AAA developers, specialised jobs are key. Often,
the teams working on these games are in the 100s so there is no need for
everyone to be able to do everything. This means that the artists that work
there will be specialised in one area, whether it be character art, environment
art or visual effects. For example, the team that worked on Grand Theft Auto V was over 1000 strong and they worked for 5 years so there was no need for generalising. Because of the huge
number of people working on the team, they will be split up into various
departments that will work together on different areas of the game. One team
might have responsibility for one specific level.
In the world of Indie studios, however, it's very different.
Teams often consist of only a few people. Occasionally, like in the case of
Super Meat Boy's Team Meat, it's only two people. This means that artists in
Indie companies often have to be able to do everything, or at least a little of
everything. You don't have anyone else to rely on for your UI design so you
need to understand it. Occasionally you'll need to know how to do some basic
animations and rigging because it's cheaper to hire someone who knows a bit of
rigging rather than someone who doesn't. Applying for a job in the Indie games
industry is all about showing you can do it all.
Valve take an interesting approach
to their roles and responsibilities . In fact, the way they approach it is the
"T-shaped model employee", shown in their employee handbook, which makes for a pretty interesting read. We're taught about this in our classes and
lectures at university as well.
Be awesome at one thing, be good at everything else.
Due to the nature of the games
industry at the moment and the huge boom in Indie game development thanks to
sites like Kickstarter, the ease with which people can get hold of software to
develop their games, and the mobile market becoming a huge source of revenue
for aspiring game artists, Indie developers are quickly becoming the source of
jobs for graduates. It doesn't help that, if you look at any job description
for many AAA developers, most require you to have however many years of
experience in the industry as well as a game shipped.
As an aspiring student, this is
all incredibly important to me... Knowing the nature of the industry before I
aim to wedge my foot into the door means that I know how to tailor my
portfolio.
Maybe, one day, I'll be able to get enough experience and have
shipped enough games for Bioware to want me...
Interaction design is an interesting concept and the
questions I've been provided with have given me some food for thought. See, I
want to talk about the Kinect, the Oculus and the Wii and how we are now using
ourselves more as the controllers. HOWEVER, another question was asked in the
brief for this task.
" Games are inevitably complex entities demanding constantly changing
inputs and responses from the player. Given that Call of Duty is more demanding
than Word, how do the designers enable such complex interactions relatively
‘intuitively’? Are these interactions in fact intuitive at all?"
For some reason I suddenly want to talk about UI design
because this article on Gamasutra that was written by Anthony Stonehouse is
absolutely fantastic in explaining the different concepts of UID. UID is such a cool topic because it's about psychology
based as well as artistic ability. Menus and HUDs and such are always designed
thinking about player interaction, especially with mobile games. We previously had an talk at university from Richard Tawn, from Exient, who went into detail about the UI design behind the game Angry
Birds Go on mobile devices and it was fantastic and really informative. Use of
colour and the size of buttons are all carefully decided and tested. It's
weirdly interesting.
The other question that was asked however was this:
"Game engines can handle complex physics simulations,
but have traditionally been hindered by the limitations of
screen/keyboard/mouse interaction. What effect could the rise of the Wii and
the new generation of motion controllers have on game design? What about the
impact of 3D technology?"
This leads me on to all the various types of controllers
that the games industry has bought to us. Basic two-handed controllers,
joystick, steering wheels, pedals and keyboard control schemes are all big
examples. Even light guns and other arcade game controllers are interesting to
talk about. Obviously, motion sensors are now a big thing with the improvement
of the technology see with the Wii, then Kinect and now the Kinect 2.0 with the Xbox One. One that is often overlooked in terms of
interaction design is touch screens however.
Touch screen gaming has really come into its own recently.
Originally introduced with the Game Gear (though it flopped), the Nintendo DS
really bought it forwards into the forefront of gaming. This allows for a
different kind of interaction that you get with a controller; it's far more of
a visual experience. This has paved the way for the booming mobile gaming
market that relies solely on a touch screen experience. It could be argued that
it's a more interactive and intuitive experience than gaming with a controller
ever has been.
For example, The Room,
from Fireproof games, has been a huge success with multiple awards, selling
over 1.4 million copies as of March 2013 [x]. Clearly, the touch screen mobile
experience is inviting in a whole new group of gamers and proving them with a
unique experience to that of consoles and PC. The way in which you interact
with the objects within the room has a realistic feel, with the objects
reacting to your touch. UI Design has a big part to play in this as well as
your interface is something that players have to interact with via touch. The
constraints of the technology are what make is so interesting in the case of
games like The Room, and clears the way for some interesting and innovative
design choices within games.
Again, Gamasutra has a fantastic article about the designing
for touch screen devices and I'd highly recommend giving it a read through if
you're interested at all in this topic. They also have a good article about The Room as well.
You may have noticed I've been skirting around the topic of
motion control and the Oculus Rift's VR technology. It's been talked about so
much, but it's most definitely worth a mention because that is where gaming is
heading.
I've got experience with the Wii and both of the Kinects.
Motion control is something that still needs A LOT of work put into it.
However, the potential it has is incredible. A lot of people actually hate the
idea of motion controls. Difficult to make it work without the controls being
completely useless or without having you looking like an absolutely idiot. "Games
shouldn't just look more real but they should feel real, too, yeah? Out with
buttons. In with realistic movements. No, no, no. Terrible idea." says
Stephen Totilo from Kotaku and, in some cases I agree. However, you cannot deny
the pull that motion control has had in increasing the popularity of the games
industry. The Wii bought in so many people who had never previously been
interested in games because of that interactivity and because of the promise of
something unique. Is the same with the Kinect. The Just Dance franchise is
incredibly successful but there are few "hardcore gamers" who are
interested in it. Clearly, however, motion controls are onto something.
Just Dance 2014
After reading, yet again, another couple of Gamasutra articles about
motion controls [x][x] (seriously why are you reading my blog, just read their stuff,
it's awesome), I came across a man called Douglas Wilson, who has an
interesting view on motion controls. He is the man behind the game Johann Sebastian Joust, a multi-player game that utilises the motion controls in an
interesting way.
Just... watch the video:
Johann Sebastian Joust
This man has got some incredibly interesting theories. While
many designers swear off motion controls, he's all for them. In fact, he
believes that the only way they will improve is if everyone bands together and
talks about the problems they've encountered when designing for these games, so
they can find out what works and what doesn't.
My kind of man.
The problem with designing control schemes surrounding
motion is that we're still designing those controls with buttons in mind. "[It
revolves] around a binary kind of input – either you did the
"correct" gesture or you didn't. The system would miss the gesture
you swear you performed correctly; the system would register the gesture you
swear you didn't perform"(Kris Graft) This causes clunky controls that the
"hardcore" gaming community just make fun of, which puts companies
off designing for it. "The beauty of physical movement is that it's rich
and complex,""That is to say, physical movement is very 'analog.'
Many of the best physical games figure out how to let players move in
expressive ways, rather than prescribing exact gestures." says Wilson.
Therefore, the control schemes that we design needs to be more organic rather
than "analog" and we'll get somewhere.
God, this man knows how to use words.
Anyway, another thing attributed to the negativity surrounding such an innovative
technology is public expectation. "The rhetoric goes that motion control
is supposed to be like the Holodeck or virtual reality," says Wilson.
While the Oculus Rift is starting to provide some VR control within the
industry, he is right. People are expecting Star Trek Holodeck and we are
NOWHERE near that yet and people are disillusioned as to what they are getting.
They expect immersion but they just have clunky control schemes that need more
research and more work because the industry is still stuck in the mindset of
button-pushing.
I know Lt. Barklay... I want a holodeck too...
Now I've finishing crying over how awesome Douglas Wilson
is, I'll wrap it up.
" What effect could the rise of the Wii and the new generation of motion
controllers have on game design?"
Well. Motion control still has SO much potential but we are so far away from
where we need to be in terms of technology. As my main man, Doug, says " "It's
about getting people to do stupid crap with weird plastic controllers. … I
don't think the industry really put in the time, research or thinking to make
radical new stuff."
We need more research into the control schemes with a
more organic, fluid approach before we get the most out of the technology we
have. In terms of interaction however, it's clearly doing something right with
games like Just Dance and Kinect Sports. People enjoy them an get involved,
immersing them in the games. A little more work needs to be done to bring that
to the "hardcore market" however.
I didn't get time to talk about the awesomeness that is the Oculus Rift... Guess that means another blog post soon.
I've been a little busy lately so... here I am, back again.
There are so many Game Engines. Don't believe me, check out
this wikipedia page that literally just lists all of them.
You don't really realise that when you play video games. Or at least, I didn't.
Since starting this course I've only had a small amount of experience Game
Engines. Unreal was first. Since then I've had a little more experience with
Cryengine but that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of
different engines that all have different advantages and disadvantages. Some
are free, others are proprietary, owned by specific companies and only used
"in house" but they all do the same job.
They let you put together your game.
The first thing I said when I used UDK was "this is
just like playing the Sims" and it really is to some extent. You get to
place all these assets you've lovingly crafted into an exciting environment and
you feel very accomplished. Until you realise that the time you've spent making
those assets is literally a fraction of the time that you need to be spending
in the engine. Scripting, lighting, post-processing effects, triggers,
particles. ERGH. So many different areas to focus on, so much stuff to do.
The reason there are so many different engines is, I
suppose, because each engine has it's pros and cons. Some engines will be
better for lighting, other be better for rendering realistic materials, some
will pride themselves on the ease with which you can use them.; it all depends
on the engine. I've only had a little experience with two engines so much of
this will be my own personal experience with these engines, but I've done a bit
of research so, so far this is what I can tell.
Pros:
UDK has a wealth of tutorials for aspiring Game Artists.
Seriously, youtube videos, support forums. You name it. It's incredibly simple
to get help with any issue that you're having.
Kismet. It's not something I've had a lot of experience with but it is
essentially a scripting tool that is set out in a flowgraph within UDK. It
makes it easy for game artists which little scripting experience (like muggins
here) to create triggers etc. within the level. It's incredibly useful and is
set out much like the material editor so the interface is relatively simple to
use.
It gives a very professional look. In terms of rendering, it has a
multi-threaded rendering system called Gemini that gives you a 64-bit HDR
rendering pipeline. "The raw power behind Unreal Engine 3’s rendering
system will push your creations to new levels. Your work has never seemed as
alive as it is with Unreal Engine 3" says the Unreal site and I'd have to
agree.
It's incredibly flexible with a heavy reliance on the user inputing the exact
settings they want.
Many AAA games use UDK and look unbelievably fantastic. There is a long list
but the notable ones are (at least for me) Mass Effect 1 and 2, Mirrors Edge
and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
It's also used for some great mobile games, meaning it's got a lot of
functionality within the industry, Infinity Blade being the big one.
I really don't like the interface. I'm going to be entirely
honest, I'm not a fan. I'm not a big fan of the Material Editor or the Content
browser and they are a little confusing for beginners.
Light Maps. Again, it's all personal preference, but I really dislike making
light maps for everything and it means that my workflow takes longer.
It's complicated. The big reason why there are so many tutorials is because
it's incredibly complicated when you're a beginner. You open it up and there is
a block in the centre of a floor. "What am I doing?" was my first
reaction.
Huh?
Now, on to Cryengine.
Pros:
It is my favourite engine. (This is a matter of opinion,
but seriously I love it)
It's real time lighting system is beautiful. Seriously. It also means you
don't have to waste your time with light maps and baking lighting (I'm looking
at you here UDK...)
It is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS. The Crysis series is the best way to show this.
Cryengine is an absolutely beautiful engine. It boasts itself as the
"fastest, high-end renderer in the world" according to their website.
It's interface is lovely. It's sleek, easy to use and the flow graph system
they have, at least in my opinion, is easier to understand than that of UDK.
Cryengine has a much faster workflow. Many of the tools are ready made and
created to cut down the time you spend messing about with settings in engine.
This means quicker results.
It is also, at the moment, $10 cheaper than Unreal. That helps.
It's not as flexible as UDK. Although it has a quicker
workflow, UDK wins out over flexibility.
There... isn't that much support for new users. There is a lot of documentation
but it's so painfully out of date that it hurts. Scrolling through you can see
that buttons are referenced that no longer exist.
There aren't nearly as many tutorials
out there either so looking through google page after google page is a little
tedious.
The thing about Game Engines is, and in my research through
the internet this really holds true, you can argue for days on end about which
is better, but all these different engines serve different purposes.
If you're looking for flexibility and full control of your
project, Unreal is for you
Want hyper-realistic rendered environments and gorgeous lighting from the get go?
Cryengine is where you're heading.
Unity is more useful for beginners and also indie developers too, so I've heard, but I haven't used it so I don't feel to comfortable talking about it because I've got no experience.
Hell, there are a million different engines with a million different purposes. No
one is really better than the other. It all comes down to what project you're
working on (and what company you're working at, come to me Frostbite3, you beautiful thing)
I'll start this off by says that I havea lot of strong
feelings about video games soundtrack.
In fact, it's taking a lot of restraint to not just post 50 videos of different
soundtracks that I'm a little in love with. I could talk for hours about how
much I love Inon Zur, or Jesper Kyd, or Martin -O'Donnel, or Mike Salvatori or
Clint Mansell, or Jeremy Soule, or Jack Wall or Sascha Dikiciyan, or Cris
Velasco , Hanz Zimmer or even Trent Reznor... Well, the list goes on. However,
that's not going to answer the question "How is sound used in games?"
At least not right now it isn't.
First we should take a little look at the history of sound
in games. Chiptune. That's where it all started really. It was common place back in the day because
that's all we could afford to include with the technology we had. It improved
with sampling and the introduction of MIDI in the 1980s but still, it wasn't up
to the standard it is today.
However, the limited amount of space lead to some of the most memorable pieces
of music in gaming history, the Mario Theme or Zelda's Lullaby being the big
ones. These themes are imprinted on the minds of adults and kids alike because
they have such a strong melody; the tune gets stuck in your head. This isn't an
accident either; these memorable themes were created to define the franchises
they were a part of, helping them take up a big old chunk of video game history,
along with Koji Kondo, the man behind most of them.
Link to the Past - Zelda's Lullaby
Super Mario Theme
You ask someone today to sing you Zelda's Lullaby, chances are they can and
many musicians still sample these track and remix them, creating huge numbers
of new songs on sites like OC Remix.
Zelda's Lullaby Remix - The Triforce Has Too Many Pieces
Nowadays however, the technology has improved so much as
games have become more complex and very often cinematic experiences as well as
games. This has lead to so many beautiful soundtracks of varying genres and
styles, often rivalling film soundtracks in their quality. We've moved far away
from the old days of chiptune, which could be seen as a negative thing because
we tend to not have the solid themes that games like Mario used to have.
However, we have something entirely different; the ability to evoke strong
emotions and create incredible atmosphere within our games.
Soundtracks, at least in my opinion, are very similar to the
previous chiptune themes from the SNES era; they are brand identifiers to the
people who play them. Let a person listen to a song from the any Halo
soundtrack, chances are they know which series it is. This is done mainly using
some kind of motive or genre.
Seeing as we're on the topic of Halo,
I'll use that as my example. Martin O'Donnell, the main composer for the Halo
franchise, said in a podcast with Bungie "Master Chief is still green,
Cortana is still blue, and so you're going to hear the monks and the cellos"
on the topic of the Halo 3 soundtrack. He said he took a " orthodox,
almost formal approach to the trilogy". Essentially, the first game was
big on the orchestral pieces, the second game had more of a... guitar/rock
theme with the help of Steve Vai (MJOLNIR MIX). The third game, however,
combines these two to create something gorgeous. Like, O'Donnell says
"you're still going to hear the monks and the cellos"; Those are the
motifs. You can tell almost instantly what game it's from if you've played it.
Halo - Orchestral Theme
Halo 2 - Mjolnir Mix
This is a recurring theme with game soundtracks. Each of the soundtracks for
different games in the franchise tends to have some kind of underlying motif or
instrument involved, usually with the same composer working on it. With Halo
it's the monks and the cellos. In Dragon Age, both Origins and 2, Aubrey Ashburn
is the vocalist used on the tracks and Inon Zur composes both scores. Her voice
is fairly distinctive and there are similar hooks used in both soundtracks so,
while they are different games, you can still tell they are from the same
franchise.
Dragon Age: Origins - I Am The One
Dragon Age 2 - Rogue Heart
As well as being a brand identifier like those original
chiptune melodies, sound is a huge part of what creates the atmosphere and
emotion we feel when playing. Older games tended to have and overworld with
different levels coming off of it and each one contained its own exclusive
theme with its own unique atmosphere. Games like Pokemon also have this, with
each town having a different pieces of music to set the scene. For example,
LavenderTown famously has some of the most unsettling music with its own urban legend, involving kids getting sick and even committing suicide after listening
to it. Each of these worlds had its own atmosphere that didn't change until you
switched levels, so there tended to be one solid theme that would play
throughout.
Lavender Town Theme - Pokemon Red
However, now that the way we make games has become more
complex and we have better equipment and technology at our disposal we aren't
stuck with one song per level. In fact, there are multiple songs per level and,
in the case of open world games, the music changes all the time. Just look at
Skyrim or Oblivion. Because games have become more cinematic now, often the
music changes to help push the mood onto the player. In Dragon Age for example,
you can be wondering around a forest quite happily until you're ambushed by a
group of enemies. The music changes quickly; the contrast between the serene
theme of the forest and the brutal, aggressive theme of combat is obvious and
sets you on edge a little, letting you know this are heating up. The death of
an important character in the plot or a sad/emotional moment will be accompanied
by the music to emphasise that.
Well, I've rambled on about soundtracks long enough but I've
missed out something important. Soundtracks and music are not the only part of
sound design. Ambient sounds are just as important, if not more so in the case of
some games. You can use sounds to lead the player around a level, to create
tension and suspense and to scare them shitless. A lack of a soundtrack can
sometimes be just as effective as a regular soundtrack. A good example of this
is Slender. Almost no music involved at all, it's all footsteps, heavy
breathing, heartbeats and ambient noise; it's terrifying. See, music doesn't
follow you around in the real world so when you want to isolate a player and
create that sense of suspense, silence is a great option. Music gives too much
away. Then, when you catch a glimpse of the Slenderman, a great big sting booms
through the headphones and you jump out of your seat and sprint the opposite
way. It's clever and something that horror games especially take full advantage
of.
Slender Gameplay
One of the big things about sound that many aspiring and
working game designers overlook (and I know I certainly did) is how INCREDIBLY
important it is. The sound design can make or break your game if it's done
poorly. After reading Gamasutra's article on Sound Design (which is a great
read and way better than what I can write about it) I learnt just how important
it is. Randy Thom, a big sound designer for films such as Star Wars V and VI,
stated that "a movie must be designed for sound, rather than the other
way around" and the same can be said for video games. Sound designers to
be involved as early as possible to make sure that every part of your game
evokes the right response from the player. In the next generation of consoles
and games, sound design has such a huge potential to improve. We just need to
work harder at incorporating and planning out the scores and sound effects
parallel to the stories and levels; if we do that, we could create some truly
incredible experiences within our games.
I said I was trying hard not to post all of my favourite
video game sound tracks but... you know what. I don't care. I'm doing it.
Listen to these, just to name a few:
