- Feb 22, 2007
- 16,240
- 7
- 76
This is a bit long, but after encountering a new wave of recently graduated from school as 'game developers' demo reels I had to post.
I saw demo reels from people that I decided better to pretend I never saw. Usually I send people back feedback but this batch I couldn't do it. I didn't have the heart to tell someone who spent thousands of dollars and 2 years of their life at a school that it wasn't time well spent.
It isn't things that are that way because they have to be but instead are choices that have to consciously be chosen by the creator. Why they are doing them I can only assume is lack of experience .
Dark, colorless, bland environments. What is it with games that have the saturation for colors next to zero ? Unless you have some serious eye problems the world doesn't look like that. The bleak, almost black and white environments in a lot of games are good for some situations, but please stop with the muted colors.
Bloom effects. Way way way overused. When I enter a room on a level and everything white is glowing like it has its own internal power source it breaks immersion. I cannot recall any situation where I entered a room and a sheet of paper on a desk across the room was emitting its own light. The only time something should glow would be for a short time when someone goes from a dark to light environment, like from a cave onto a sandy beach. And then it shouldn't be permanent unless it is high noon with not a cloud in sight.
Texture sizes. I realize that when a game is ported from consoles to pc that there are limitations on texture sizes due to the limited ram on consoles. But when something is pc only I should not see a 96x96 texture stretched to fit a 600x400 space. I don't care how much filtering they use it will look like crap. There is no excuse for this on the pc . The difference in size is about 30KB. The only conclusion I can make is they reused assets because they were too lazy to create new ones. The same goes for textures that are aligned wrong, rotated, etc.
Bump mapping. Do they even know it exist ? The use of bump mapping is extremely rare in games for something that is so crucial to the look of graphics. When it is used it is often done like bloom where they crank it to 120% or turned down so low it has no effect.
I came from the world of cg animation and then went into doing some games work but the trend now seems to be people who are going straight to game work without a background in traditional forms of art. I think this is the root of the problem. Without that experience you are left trying to create scenes based on what you think is fine without understanding why it is not okay. The newer developers understand how the code, the engine and sdk work but not how color, light, perspective work to create a convincing scene.
People often comment that games from blizzard and bioware don't have that bland appearance and look different from the rest of the pack. There could be a very good reason for that. The artists at those companies are not people that do art because they like games and didn't learn art using only a pc, most have backgrounds with painting, sculpting, photography, sketching.
I hate to say it but expect more of the bland, lifeless games because lots of 'game' schools are popping up with an emphasis on the programs and not the art.
If you look at the difference in game schools and art schools that teach game development it is easy to see the differences.
Game schools typical curriculum - Design, organize, and build game demos.Integrate objects, environments, characters, and props into themed situations and stories for games.Demonstrate proficiency with technology related to contemporary game production.Model, texture and light 3D forms in a manner that meets industry standards.Show understanding of the physics of motion and convincingly manipulate objects, characters, fluids, semi-fluids, particles and gases.
Art schools curriculum-2-D Design,Color Theory,Survey of Western Art,20th-century Art,Aesthetics,Typography,Digital Design Aesthetics,Interactive Design and Game Development,Introduction to Game Development,Cognitive Art of Game Design,Fundamentals of Game Design
To me it is like teaching someone all about saws, hammers, fasteners and other tools and then telling them go build a house.
Unfortunately people are flocking to the game schools thinking that because they can load a model and click render that will give them a career. People that know the software 100% but can't create anything that will give them a career. The commercials and ads give the impression that anyone can be a game developer , you just learn the programs and bang you are a success. Gamers will be the one to pay the price with more of the same. Hopefully every once in a while a gem of a game will appear to break the cycle. Otherwise people might start to think that is what games are supposed to look like.
I only recommended 1 demo reel out of 34 . In that reel the person had not shown me an FPS demo or how 'cool' they thought their game ideas were, but instead it consisted of an opening with drawings of concept art, followed with a character that told me why they do art and how they hope they can bring games to life. The character on screen doing things like pulling samples of their work into the scene like a vortex opened. There wasn't a game screen shot or mention of software anywhere in the demo reel. If you are doing a demo reel don't go on and on about the software you trained on and all the details of the programs you learned, we really don't care. The guy had talent and will be hired because he gets what it is all about.
I saw demo reels from people that I decided better to pretend I never saw. Usually I send people back feedback but this batch I couldn't do it. I didn't have the heart to tell someone who spent thousands of dollars and 2 years of their life at a school that it wasn't time well spent.
It isn't things that are that way because they have to be but instead are choices that have to consciously be chosen by the creator. Why they are doing them I can only assume is lack of experience .
Dark, colorless, bland environments. What is it with games that have the saturation for colors next to zero ? Unless you have some serious eye problems the world doesn't look like that. The bleak, almost black and white environments in a lot of games are good for some situations, but please stop with the muted colors.
Bloom effects. Way way way overused. When I enter a room on a level and everything white is glowing like it has its own internal power source it breaks immersion. I cannot recall any situation where I entered a room and a sheet of paper on a desk across the room was emitting its own light. The only time something should glow would be for a short time when someone goes from a dark to light environment, like from a cave onto a sandy beach. And then it shouldn't be permanent unless it is high noon with not a cloud in sight.
Texture sizes. I realize that when a game is ported from consoles to pc that there are limitations on texture sizes due to the limited ram on consoles. But when something is pc only I should not see a 96x96 texture stretched to fit a 600x400 space. I don't care how much filtering they use it will look like crap. There is no excuse for this on the pc . The difference in size is about 30KB. The only conclusion I can make is they reused assets because they were too lazy to create new ones. The same goes for textures that are aligned wrong, rotated, etc.
Bump mapping. Do they even know it exist ? The use of bump mapping is extremely rare in games for something that is so crucial to the look of graphics. When it is used it is often done like bloom where they crank it to 120% or turned down so low it has no effect.
I came from the world of cg animation and then went into doing some games work but the trend now seems to be people who are going straight to game work without a background in traditional forms of art. I think this is the root of the problem. Without that experience you are left trying to create scenes based on what you think is fine without understanding why it is not okay. The newer developers understand how the code, the engine and sdk work but not how color, light, perspective work to create a convincing scene.
People often comment that games from blizzard and bioware don't have that bland appearance and look different from the rest of the pack. There could be a very good reason for that. The artists at those companies are not people that do art because they like games and didn't learn art using only a pc, most have backgrounds with painting, sculpting, photography, sketching.
I hate to say it but expect more of the bland, lifeless games because lots of 'game' schools are popping up with an emphasis on the programs and not the art.
If you look at the difference in game schools and art schools that teach game development it is easy to see the differences.
Game schools typical curriculum - Design, organize, and build game demos.Integrate objects, environments, characters, and props into themed situations and stories for games.Demonstrate proficiency with technology related to contemporary game production.Model, texture and light 3D forms in a manner that meets industry standards.Show understanding of the physics of motion and convincingly manipulate objects, characters, fluids, semi-fluids, particles and gases.
Art schools curriculum-2-D Design,Color Theory,Survey of Western Art,20th-century Art,Aesthetics,Typography,Digital Design Aesthetics,Interactive Design and Game Development,Introduction to Game Development,Cognitive Art of Game Design,Fundamentals of Game Design
To me it is like teaching someone all about saws, hammers, fasteners and other tools and then telling them go build a house.
Unfortunately people are flocking to the game schools thinking that because they can load a model and click render that will give them a career. People that know the software 100% but can't create anything that will give them a career. The commercials and ads give the impression that anyone can be a game developer , you just learn the programs and bang you are a success. Gamers will be the one to pay the price with more of the same. Hopefully every once in a while a gem of a game will appear to break the cycle. Otherwise people might start to think that is what games are supposed to look like.
I only recommended 1 demo reel out of 34 . In that reel the person had not shown me an FPS demo or how 'cool' they thought their game ideas were, but instead it consisted of an opening with drawings of concept art, followed with a character that told me why they do art and how they hope they can bring games to life. The character on screen doing things like pulling samples of their work into the scene like a vortex opened. There wasn't a game screen shot or mention of software anywhere in the demo reel. If you are doing a demo reel don't go on and on about the software you trained on and all the details of the programs you learned, we really don't care. The guy had talent and will be hired because he gets what it is all about.
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