desc 9188 modelling and animation for games dr. xiangyu wang tutor: roy christian demonstrator:...

DESC 9188 Modelling and Animation for Games

Dr. Xiangyu WangTutor: Roy Christian

Demonstrator: Irene ChenCourse website: will upload soon and inform

Acknowledgement: partial materials from Rob Saunders, Robert W. Lindeman, Kent Quirk, Mark

Claypool, and Mark Overmars

Xiangyu Wang

web: http://www.arch.usyd.edu.au/~xiangyu

e-mail: [email protected]

office: Room 274A, Wilkinson Building

Schedule

• Every Tuesday night (lecture/tutorial)– 6:00-6:45 lecture– 6:45-7:00 break– 7:00-8:00 lecture continued– 8:00-9:00 tutorial

• Every Wednesday night (studio)– 6:00-9:00

What is a Game?

• Movie?

• Toy?

• Puzzle?

• “A computer game is a software program in which one or more players make decisions through the control of game objects and resources, in pursuit of a goal.”

Based on notes from Mark Overmars

What is a Computer Game?

• A Computer Game is a Software Program– You lose:

• physical pieces• social interaction

– You gain: • more complexity• more immersion


What is a Computer Game?

• Playing a Game is About Making Decisions– For instance: what weapon to use, what resource to

build– can be frustrating if decision does not take effects.

• Playing a Game is About Control– Player wants to impact outcome– Uncontrolled sequences can still happen, but should

be sparing and make logical


What is a Computer Game?• A bunch of cool features

– Necessary, but not sufficient– May even be distractive by concentrating on features not game

itself

• A lot of fancy graphics– Games need graphics just as hit movie needs special effect …

but neither will save weak idea– Game must work without fancy graphics– Sometimes be fun with simple objects

• “When a designer is asked how his game is going to make a difference, I hope he … talks about gameplay, fun and creativity – as opposed to an answer that simply focuses on how good it looks” – Sid Meier (Civilizations, Railroad Tycoon, Pirates)


Types of Games• Action Games

– Arcade (Shoot’em Ups)– First-Person Shooters– Third-Person Shooters– Stealth (Sneak’em Ups)– Fighting (Beat’em Ups)– Dancing Game– Action-Adventure– Platform Games

• Role-Playing Games– Turn-Based Role-Playing

Games– Massively-Multiplayer Role-

Playing Games (MMRPGs)

• Strategy & War Games– Turn-Based War Games– Real-Time Strategy– Management Games

• Simulations– Sports Simulations– Vehicle Simulations

• Adventure Games– Text-Based Adventures– Graphical Adventures

Arcade Games

• Reaction speed is the most important aspect of the game– Examples: scrolling shooters, maze games

like Pacman, paddle games like Breakout, Pong

• Relatively easy to make

• Typically 2D


Puzzle Games

• Clever thinking is the most important aspect:– Many maze games are actually more based

on puzzle solving rather than on reaction speed.

– Typically 2D – Relatively easy to create


Role Playing Games

• Steer a character through a difficult world– Examples are Diablo and Baldur's Gate

• Development of character to learn new skills, becoming more powerful, and finding additional and better weapons

• Can create 2D or 3D• Generally harder to make because must

create the mechanism of character development


Strategy Games

• Real-time (RTS) or turn-based.• Player only indirectly controls the character.• Tactics less important than Strategy

– Examples include Age of Empires, Warcraft III…

• Generally take a lot of time to create• Require many different game objects, each with

animated images and specific behavior.


Adventure Games

• Game is about adventure and exploration– Story line is often crucial

• Can be 2D or 3D

• Actions easy (just move)

• Difficulty is in making exploration/adventure interesting

• Interesting, funny, and surprising story line


First-Person Shooters

• 3D version of many arcade-style games (move and shoot)

• Emphasis is on fast-paced action and reaction speed, not on cleverness and puzzle solving

• Examples are Doom, Quake, …• Need to be 3D• Relatively difficult to create because of

models


Third-Person Action

• Player directly controls a game character (avatar) through a hostile world– Ex: Tomb Raider

• Fast action and discovering the game world

• Some have story line, other adventure game aspects

• Can be 2D or 3D• Can sometimes be created easily


Racing Games

• Really, special type of sport game

• Drive a vehicle, as fast as possible or sometimes for exploration or combat

• Either realistic (ex: Formula 1) or focused on fun aspects (Midtown Madness)

• 2D or 3D


Simulators

• Try for realistic representation– Ex: flight simulators, Trainz

• Other simulations include world simulation– Ex: simCity or simEarth

• Relatively difficult to create since getting details right a challenge


Party Games

• Variety of types– Ex: Mario Party, DDR, Karaoke

• Social aspects important with participants in the same space

• Allow for rapid change of turns

• Allow for disparate abilities (beginners and experts, both have fun)


The Game Industry

• Computer/video game industry on par with box office sales of the movie industry

• $6.35B/year for U.S. Sales in 2001 Development

• Costs $3M to $10M to develop average game

• Takes 12-24 months

Laird and Jamin, EECS 494, Umich, Fall 2003 and Chapter 7.2, Introduction to Game Development

What Games are Played?

• Computer gamer players:– Strategy (30%), children's entertainment

(15%), shooters (15%), family entertainment titles (10%), RPG (10%), sports (5%), racing (5%), adventure (5%), and simulation (5%)

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA)

What is Game Design?

The Process of Game Design

• Imagining a possible game– What’s the “big idea” or “high-concept”?

• Describing the game elements– What are the elements that define how the game

looks?

• Defining the way it works– What are the rules that define how the game works?

• Documenting the design– Providing a blueprint for the game development

process.

Core Elements of a Game Design

Rules

• Rules define how game worlds work– Rules define the “core mechanics” of the game

• Does the player have health points or multiple lives? What are the legal moves that a player can make?

• Rules encode a designer’s vision– Rules allow designers to express their ideas in ways

that programmers can implement in software

• Rules define the game not the software– The same rules can be implemented in different ways:

as long as the rules are the same the game is the same

Story

• All games involve some sort of story– Even Tetris has a story, the story of the player playing

• Some games have a simple back story– “Aliens are invading Earth and only you can stop

them.”

• Some games are complex stories– e.g. adventure games like Grim Fandango

• Most games are somewhere in-between– e.g. first-person shooters like Half-Life

Interaction

• The experience of playing the game– Interaction design covers graphics, sounds, user

interface• The sights and sounds of the game world • The look and feel of the control system

• Bad user interfaces can kill a good game– e.g., overly elaborate menu driven systems

• Good user interfaces make games stand out– Nintendo has a long tradition of fine-tuning and

innovating with the user interfaces of their games

Play Testing

• Gameplay should balance deterministic and non-deterministic elements.– If the player doesn’t feel that they are capable of

learning how to succeed in a game then they are unlikely to enjoy playing the game or spend much time on it.

• The only method of balancing gameplay used in the games industry is play testing.– Play testing is slow, expensive and error-prone but no

other method has been found.

Game Develop Team

• Producers

• Designers

• Programmers

• Artists, modellers, animators

• Musicians, sound engineers, actors

• Game testers

Developers

• Design and implement games– Including: programming, art, sound effects,

and music– Historically, small groups– May be “full-service” developers or may

outsource some

• Motion Capture (to replicate realistic movement)

• Art and Animation (can be done by art house/studio)

Book: Introduction to Game Development

Game Development

• Development time: 18-24 months– It can take much longer, e.g. Peter

Molyneux’s Fable.

• Development team: 10-50 people– Team sizes are increasing as they get more

complex.

Game Development Process

What skills are needed for game design?

Game Design Skills

• Imagination– Game designs, like many other forms of

designing, often begin an imagined world and game designers must have the ability to develop these worlds into a fully fledged design that can be developed

• Visual – characters, environments, objects• Auditory – environments, voices, music• Dramatic – emotions• Conceptual – ideas, interactions, challenges

Game Design Skills

• Technical Awareness– A understanding of the technology is needed to work

with programmers, engineers, etc.

• Analytical Skills– Game design is an iterative process and game

designers need good analytical skills including statistics

• Aesthetic Abilities– Game designers together with the lead artist will set

the visual tone of a game

Game Design Skills

• General Knowledge– The best game designers are often specialists that

have a broad range of interests and knowledge, including:

• Mathematics• Logic• History• Literature• Art• Science• Current affairs

Game Design Skills

• Writing Skills– Writing plays an important part in game design and is

used in different during the process:• Technical writing for documenting the design• Fiction writing for developing story and narrative• Script writing for developing character dialogue

• Drawing Skills– Game designers don’t need to be great artists but

being able to sketch out ideas can sometimes be the best way to communicate them to other team members

Contents of Design Documents

• Basic Information– The premise of the game– The game’s intended audience– The target game platforms– The genre of the game– The game’s unique selling points

• Gameplay Elements– Depending on the type of document it will contain

more or less information on the story, rules, and interactions

Documenting Game Designs

• Game designers produce a series of design documents to tell others about their ideas– Game development teams all need to understand the

game design• Game design documents need to translate ideas

into rules, stories and interactions– Idea: A team will defend their flag– Design: As long as a team has its flag, at least 2

members of the team will remain within visual range of their base. If an enemy approaches within 20m of the base, the defenders will move between the enemy and the base and try to stop the attacker from advancing.


• Types of Game Design Docs– Concept Document– Proposal Document– Technical Specification– Game Design Document


• Concept Document– Used to explore game idea in more detail– Often used as a proposal within an

organization– Developed by designer or visionary– A short sales pitch - 1-3 pages– May have no art, or amateur art– Many ideas never get farther than this

Lindeman & Quirk (& Claypool) - WPI Dept. of Computer Science


• Concept Doc Must include:– Intro– Description– Key features– Genre, spin, flavor– Platform(s) / market data

• May also include:– Background / License info– Concept art



• Exercise: High Concept– Pick one of these 4 games:

• Burnout• Grand Theft Auto• Shadow of the Colossus• Dance Dance Revolution

– Write a high concept for it

• Form groups based on game choice (7-8 students in one group)

• Agree on one and briefly present in class



• Technical Specification– The ‘How’ of game design– Contains the architectural vision; technology

to be used– Engineering detail– Production detail– Owned by tech director or chief engineer– Can be exhaustive (and exhausting): 10-100

pages



• Technical Specification Must include:– Tooling– Art / Music / Sound / Production pipeline– Technology detail:

• Platform & portability issues• Networking or special tech• Server details• Software engineering info

• Key areas of technical risk



• Game Design Doc– Functional spec: The ‘What’ of the design– Describes the player’s experience and

interactions in detail– Could be quite long -- several hundred pages– but “enough” is the goal.– Artistic feel– Owned by the game designer



• Game Design Doc Must Haves– Game mechanics– User Interface– Visuals– Audio– Story (if any)– Level Specs



• Very Useful links• Chris Taylor’s sample design doc, in HTML

and .DOC format:– http://www.fafhrdproductions.com/ctaylordesign.htm– http://www.jonathanjblair.net/

ctaylordesigntemplate.zip• Tim Ryan’s excellent two-part description of

game design docs:– http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19991019/

ryan_01.htm– http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19991217/

ryan_01.htm


For the rest of today

• Tutor’s demonstration of students sample work last year.

• Work on your assignment 1