Game Content Development

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Game Content Development

• (Game Content Development)

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Game Elements

• A scenario, for sure!
• Some characters
• Something to interact with
• Something to see
• Something to ear

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Production Pipeline
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3D Modeling for a game
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Texturing

• Each model can have different materials
• Each material can have different textures
• Textures can be integrate with FX code

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Just a note about FX

• FX are used to achieve realistic materials
• Water
• Reflection
• Glowing

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Blending

• Typical approach for facial animation
• Number of polygons must match between blending
  shapes

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Beware of interaction
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MotionBuilder snapshot
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Characterization Pipeline
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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

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Texture and Text
16 x 64
32 x 128
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Prelightning with image based illumination

• Vertex contains information about illumination
• Illumination is achieved through global
  illumination from an image

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Geometry details and illumination

• We can use vertex color illumination
• Vertex shaders can be used to pertubate the value

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Daylight changes
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Shadows

• Shadows should be smooth
• Static shadow can be faked
• Geometry must be corrected to support good shadows

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Tweaking
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Almost done
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Level Completed

• Prelight shadows texturing

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Low poly does not mean low detail
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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

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

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A game goes to the market if . .
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. . It holds the 4 B of success

• Blade
• Bop
• Blood
• Breast

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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

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Finding similarities . .
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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

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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

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Dead or Alive 4 (Xbox)
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Cinematic . .

• Games move from one level to another through
  short movies
• Graphics definition should match as much as
  possible

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DevilMayCry3(PS2) 4(PS3)
Short Movie
Game
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How To

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

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Ninja Gaiden XBox
Game
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Effects and sparkles(God of War)

• Games arise from imagination
• Putting supernatural in game enforce the
  performance
• Do it when it is necessary

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Masses and AI Colossal Games(Spartan total
warrior)

• Noise is noise, not duplication!

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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

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Resources

• Discover the Game with AliasAliasLearning Tools
• Maya personal training Edition
• Motion Builder personal training Edition
• http//www.alias.com