Task 9: Elements of game design, part two: art direction for games

In the art department of any game, There will be one
driving force that pushes the all important vehicle of art forward, this force
is in the form of an Art Director. An Art Directors general role is to set the
visual tone, quality and style to the game making it aesthetically pleasing to
the player.
An Art Director
that is confident in what he or she is doing will consider how all assets will
look, what moods they'll create and so on. Everything from main characters to
fine detail will be careful designed to create a continuous flow of design that
supports the story and setting of the game. Sometimes it's the small detail that gives a
game the appropriate illusion of realism and a good Art Director has a keen eye
for that detail. As gamers we all rely on a game looking good to make us feel
involved and apart of the realism it is attempting to convey, therefore being responsible of how people relate, react and
enjoy visuals within game is extremely in depth.
When it comes to creativity, I think a successful film or
game will come from a highly creative individual, so creativity is pretty much
what defines an art director in my opinion. For example two highly creative and
talented artists worked on the storyboarding and concepts for black hawk down,
Ridley Scott and Arthur Max. Arthur Max was the art director but both
contributed which basically made the entire look of the film from start to
finish. They produced endless amounts of storyboards and concepts, Which Max
explains in an interview I watched that the majority were scrapped. They
quickly got down visual information using simple pencil drawings picked up from
Ridleys traditionally influenced art education.
Some of the Storyboards were near enough exactly how the final shot looked in
the film. To visualise situations accurately using convincing lighting and
perspective is extremely difficult, taking a great deal of knowledge and
creativity. I should know as this is the main aspect I'm trying to master
within my game art course which I am nowhere near reaching.
To reach a similar level as the Art Directors I would in
theory be competing with if I was to become one, I would need to quicken up on
getting the visual information down on paper to generate that mass of visuals
that is needed. I'm not expecting this to come overnight because its going to
take trial and error to find out how I can through practice, and what art
materials suit my style of working most efficiently. I am quite confident when it comes to
accurately showing light and tone within my work but I do struggle with my
perspective which with practice I hope to overcome and so far it's getting a
lot better than when I first started the course.
Game and Film art direction is pretty similar in most
areas like gathering source material, storyboarding and concepting. I would say
that a difference would be the extent that they both need to concept. Some
films use characters that already exist like a US marine for example which
would only need storyboarding because we can already visualise what that
character would look like, act like etc, whereas in a game aspects like
characters are designed from scratch because their perceived identities don't
already exist, everything is new idea even if it's an alien, robot or human.
This is what I think appeals to me most, being able to harness my creativity to
form entirely new identities, in almost a 'God' like fashion.

Task 8 Elements of game design, part one: from Pong to next-gen…

I've reached the stage now where I've looked at the fundamentals of game art but now I need to read into the elements of game design and what it takes to design a successful game. First of all, what is game play? we all play these games and kind of over look what were actually doing. Game play is the action the person controlling the character for example is carrying out to achieve something, like advancing to the next level or an objective.

Development of the games we play today are undertaken by a games developer that can range from a single person to a large business. Mainstream games like Call of Duty for instance are funded by publishers and can take a considerably longer time to develop.

Games are usually developed in phases, initially with pitches, concepts, prototypes and design documents that convey all main aspects of what a developer wants to make. If the idea is approved and the developer gets funding then development gets under way. Development requires a large quantity of people working on it with different responsibilities. These responsibilities range from designers, artists, programmers and testers. The next stage is the development alpha and beta stages until they are ready to market and showcase to the public.

Like most industries out there, a minority have the final say about whether a game gets the go ahead or not, but I don't think the final say or responsibility is given to a single person with a games company because a lot of other people have influence on the game development. The standard and how well an idea for a game is portrayed is by the development team making it a responsibility as a group.

When it comes to the principles of how games of different genres are made, I no longer think that there is much difference between them. A comparison between Pac man and the fairly modern F.E.A.R 2 was brought to my attention and I saw that something as simple as Pac man is still similar to modern day games. Obviously the visual experience is completely different but they both have a story, designed characters, levels, incentive to progress for example enemies chasing you and aims to succeed within the game. In my opinion it's just the aesthetic exterior of a game that makes it different from others.