game content development (game content development)

(Game Content Development)

Diego Colombo [email protected]

Game Elements

• A scenario, for sure!

• Some characters

• Something to interact with

• Something to see

• Something to ear


Production Pipeline

Game Design 3D ModelingUV Map

generationTexturing Prelightining

Game Engine Integration

Scenography

Rigging ActorsChatacter Animation

Motion Capturing

Game Production

Painting

Game Design 3D ModelingUV Map

generationTexturing Prelightining

Game Engine Integration

Scenography

Rigging ActorsChatacter Animation

Motion Capturing

Game Production

Painting


3D Modeling for a game

Character Details and Background

Physical Protoype

3D model generation

Model Acquisition

Character Design TuningCharacter Details and

Background

Physical Protoype

3D model generation

Model Acquisition

Character Design Tuning


Texturing

• Each model can have different materials

• Each material can have different textures

• Textures can be integrate with FX code


Just a note about FX

• FX are used to achieve realistic materials

• Water

• Reflection

• Glowing


Texel, Pixel, Area, and Real world measure

• Placing a texture is similar to put a sticker on a surface

• The sticker should be as large as the surface to cover

• One common assumption is that a 64x64 texture is 1 m2


Texture and distance

• We can use a mipmap to obtain lower resolution image from a given texture

• Using lower tex when an object is far from the camera is to reduce memory allocation in favor of near objects


We need a skeleton

• The First step to get a acting character is to give it a skeleton

• This way defines matrix to be applied to each vertex biased by some weight


Rigging a character

• We need to define a tweak deformation

• Then we need to give a character some motion curves

• We would like to blend curves


Blending

• Typical approach for facial animation

• Number of polygons must match between blending shapes


Beware of interaction


MotionBuilder snapshot


RiggingChatacter Animation

Motion Capturing

KeyFrames editing

RiggingChatacter Animation

Motion Capturing

KeyFrames editing

Characterization Pipeline


Scenario tweaking

• Scenario should be as detailed as a detail is visible

• The more you tune and tweak the more cpu you can use to increase effects


Texture and Text

32 x 12816 x 64


Prelightning with image based illumination

• Vertex contains information about illumination

• Illumination is achieved through global illumination from an image


Geometry details and illumination

• We can use vertex color illumination

• Vertex shaders can be used to pertubate the value


Daylight changes


Shadows

• Shadows should be smooth

• Static shadow can be faked

• Geometry must be corrected to support good shadows


Tweaking


Almost done


Level Completed

Prelight + shadows + texturing


Low poly does not mean low detail


A beautiful ugly game(Matrix path of Neo by Atari)

• To low resolution models compensated by a rich texturing

• But an ugly character remains an ugly character


A beautiful ugly game(Matrix path of Neo by Atari)


Always Faking when possible

• We can use texture to simulate geometrical details

• This balcony is a “background” component

• With just a quad we achieve a great outcome


A game goes to the market if . .


. . It holds the 4 B of success

• Blade

• Bop

• Blood

• Breast


Did anybody say camera?

• A game is a visual interactive story telling technique

• Director makes an actor a star

• Director tells audience what to see, think, and feel

• Director is the god of camera, he is the ruler of your world


Finding similarities . .


Defining a standard palette

• Scenes must be “homogeneous” in colors

• Textures should use a common palette

• Textures should not mind about lightning

• Color definition is a key to emotion


Motion blur, another lesson

• Games are moving towards cinema

• Rendering should be performed as photorealistic as possible

• Photorealistic is something realistic seen through a realistic camera


Dead or Alive 4 (Xbox)


Cinematic . .

• Games move from one level to another through short movies

• Graphics definition should match as much as possible


DevilMayCry3(PS2) & 4(PS3)

Game

Short Movie


How To

• A good combination of– Low Poly– Textures– Reflection– Refraction– HW Acceleration– Normal Map


Ninja Gaiden XBox

Game


Effects and sparkles(God of War)

• Games arise from imagination

• Putting supernatural in game enforce the performance

• Do it when it is necessary


Masses and AI: Colossal Games(Spartan total warrior)

• Noise is noise, not duplication!


Just a shopping list for game makers

• 3D authoring tool (Maya)

• 3D Painting tool (3DPaint, 3DPaintUV)

• Character Animation tool (MotionBuilder)

• Image editing tool (Photoshop)

• Game Engine

• Exporters


Resources

• Discover the Game with AliasAlias|Learning Tools

• Maya personal training Edition

• Motion Builder personal training Edition

• http://www.alias.com

game content development (game content development)

Documents

diego colombo

game slide

image slide

tweaking slide

interaction slide

effects slide

value slide

weight slide