NOVEMBER 2001
GAME DEVELOPER MAGAZINE 600 Harrison Street, San Francisco, CA 94107 t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6090 www.gdmag.com GAME✎ PLAN Publisher LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Jennifer Pahlka [email protected] EDITORIAL Editor-In-Chief Jennifer Olsen [email protected] Managing Editor Laura Huber [email protected] Brave Small World Feature Editor Curt Feldman [email protected] Production Editor Olga Zundel [email protected] obile gaming: the new games on such a restrictive platform. A Product Review Editor frontier. Or is it? What fresh approach to game design is the only Tor Berg [email protected] Art Director do game developers hope for groundbreaking success on Audrey Welch [email protected] know about these mobile devices and winning support from Editor-At-Large Chris Hecker [email protected] emerging platforms, and the most casual of game players, à la the Contributing Editors what do hardware manufacturers and serv- TETRIS revolution of the late 1980s. Some- Daniel Huebner [email protected] M Jeff Lander [email protected] ice carriers for mobile devices know about one has to help lead the way. Tito Pagan [email protected] games, both those who make them and There have been to date at this early Advisory Board those who play them? stage in the life of mobile gaming more Hal Barwood LucasArts Ellen Guon Beeman Beemania Entering the mobile gaming arena is promises made than promises kept. Every- Andy Gavin Naughty Dog Joby Otero Luxoflux becoming increasingly attractive to game body seems to have a differing opinion Dave Pottinger Ensemble Studios developers at companies of all sizes and about which revenue models are sustain- George Sanger Big Fat Inc. Harvey Smith Ion Storm experience levels. The mobile market able, the real potential of next-generation Paul Steed WildTangent throws open the doors to millions of new networks and when they will arrive, and ADVERTISING SALES potential game players who would other- how games fit into the broader picture of Director of Sales & Marketing Greg Kerwin e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6218 wise never play games on a PC or buy a this large, complicated, and ever-changing National Sales Manager dedicated game console. Nokia sold 128 global market. Game developers must nav- Jennifer Orvik e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6217 million mobile phones last year alone; it igate a tangled web of device manufac- Senior Account Manager, Eastern Region & Europe Afton Thatcher e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6224 took Nintendo more than 10 years to sell tures, service carriers, game publishers, and Account Manager, Northern California 100 million Game Boys. Even if only a technology providers to help them realize Susan Kirby e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6226 Account Manager, Recruitment fraction of the hundreds of millions of the importance of providing customers Raelene Maiben e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6225 mobile-device owners in the world are with content that surpasses their expecta- Account Manager, Western Region, Silicon Valley & Asia playing games on their devices, the size of tions for quality and keeps them coming Craig Perreault e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6223 Sales Associate this market and its potential for growth back for more. For whoever succeeds, Aaron Murawski e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6227 cannot be ignored. however, the trailblazing will have been ADVERTISING PRODUCTION Established game publishers and content worth it. Vice President, Manufacturing Bill Amstutz Advertising Production Coordinator providers have taken notice. THQ Kevin Chanel Reprints Stella Valdez t: 916.983.6971 announced the establishment of its Wire- Changing of the Guard GAMA NETWORK MARKETING less Division last May, and Sega recently Senior MarCom Manager Jennifer McLean partnered with Synovial to bring Sega ast month, we bade farewell to Mark Marketing Coordinator Scott Lyon Game Gear emulation to Pocket PCs; other L DeLoura, who headed this magazine Audience Development Coordinator Jessica Shultz big game companies are still flying low on for the past year. You know the old saying: CIRCULATION Group Circulation Director Catherine Flynn the radar in this arena, but are poised to You can take the boy out of game develop- Director of Audience Development Henry Fung pounce. ment, but you can’t take game develop- Circulation Manager Ron Escobar Circulation Assistant If you’re a gadget geek like me, you ment out of the boy. So Mark left the gen- Game Developer Ian Hay is BPA approved Newsstand Analyst already own a PDA and a mobile phone, eral’s post here at Game Developer and Pam Santoro SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES and have made a decision as to what level has charged out on to the front lines, from For information, order questions, and address changes of service you demand from these devices. where he’ll continue to provide us intelli- t: 800.250.2429 or 847.647.5928 f: 847.647.5972 Your contact list, calendar, and Sonic the gence as a wily informant. e: [email protected] Hedgehog can coexist happily together on As for me, it’s been my privilege for the INTERNATIONAL LICENSING INFORMATION Mario Salinas your iPaq. But what about that fellow sit- past three years at Game Developer to t: 650.513.4234 f: 650.513.4482 e: [email protected] ting next to you on the subway? What help remind our readers on a monthly CMP MEDIA MANAGEMENT about the woman who’s waiting for a cab basis that the world of game development President & CEO Gary Marshall Executive Vice President & CFO John Day at the airport? Or the young adults sitting extends far beyond your cubicle or office President, Business Technology Group Adam K. Marder in a bar waiting for their friends? What, if walls, your current project, your daily President, Specialized Technologies Group Regina Starr Ridley President, Technology Solutions Group Robert Faletra anything, do they want to play? pressures, your boss’s ego, your own meth- President, Electronics Group Steve Weitzner Game developers have been clamoring ods and expertise. We hope you’ll continue President, Healthcare Group Vicki Masseria Senior Vice President, Human Resources & Communications Leah Landro to gain access to the true mass market for to turn to Game Developer each month for Senior Vice President, Global Sales & Marketing Bill Howard years now, and bringing games to mobile both a sizeable helping of technical Senior Vice President, Business Development Vittoria Borazio Vice President & General Counsel Sandra Grayson devices is perhaps more mass market than resources and perhaps even a little moral Vice President, Creative Technologies Philip Chapnick we’ve bargained for. Catering to trusted support along the way. hardcore audiences you’ve depended on for years won’t work, as these are the last peo- ple who will be satisfied with playing
4 WWW.GAMANETWORK.COM INDUSTRY WATCH daniel huebner | THE BUZZ ABOUT THE GAME BIZJ
Following closing on the poor financial results, Midway announced the resignation of Byron Cook from the position of vice chairman of the board. Cook has been a senior executive with Midway since the company’s acquisition of Tradewest in 1994. Midway did not name an immediate replacement.
Take-Two financials. Take-Two Interac- Taldren’s new feature, STAR TREK: STARFLEET COM- tive managed higher revenue but lower MAND – ORION PIRATES, published by Interplay. profits in the third quarter. Net sales for the Sierra has shuttered TRIBES creator Dynamix as quarter increased 18 percent over last year part of a corporate restructuring plan. Changes at Interplay and Midway. to $84.5 million, benefiting from the suc- Interplay’s poor second-quarter results will cess of Remedy’s MAX PAYNE. Net income Changes are also being made in Sierra’s be its last as independent company. The was $409,000, including the retirement of corporate structure, with the elimination of company posted a net loss of $12.4 million, $1.5 million and a $651,000 gain on sale of 148 non-development positions. The up from a loss of $1.9 million in the second its Jack Of All Games distribution sub- moves are intended to better integrate Sier- quarter one year ago. Revenues slipped to sidiary. Take-Two reported net income of ra into the larger Vivendi Universal Interac- $14.8 million, down 41 percent from last $3.4 million in the same period a year ago. tive structure. “While any reorganization year’s second quarter. Interplay released just involving staff reductions is difficult, there four new titles in the second quarter. is no doubt that this is the right thing to do Interplay’s red ink comes on the heels of for the business,” said Sierra president an announcement that Titus Interactive Michael Ryder. would seek to take control of the company. Titus increased its ownership stake in Inter- Nvidia earnings jump 50 percent. play from 34 percent to 51.5 percent by Nvidia saw its second-quarter earnings exchanging 336,070 convertible bonds for jump 50 percent from the same period last over 6 million Interplay shares. Following year. Based on that result, the company the move, Interplay announced that it will raised its outlook for the coming two years change the composition of its board of and also announced a 2-for-1 stock split. directors and make additions to its senior The company’s earnings for the quarter management team. As a result of negotia- Remedy’s MAX PAYNE. published by Take-Two’s reached $33.6 million, compared with tions with Titus Interactive, three of Inter- Gathering of Developers. $22.5 million for the same period last year. play’s existing directors have resigned and Revenue for the quarter reached $260.3 three new directors nominated by Titus Jack Sorensen to head up THQ’s stu- million, up 53 percent from $170.4 million were elected to fill the vacancies. The new dios. THQ has tapped Jack Sorensen, who last year. q board consists of five individuals nominat- formerly spent six years at the helm of ed by Titus and two directors previously LucasArts, to join the company as execu- nominated by Interplay management. tive vice president of worldwide studios. Midway’s financial woes are also forcing Sorensen will oversee each of THQ’s six changes in the boardroom. The company internal development studios, including UPCOMING EVENTS posted quarterly revenues of $20.2 million Volition, Pacific Coast Power & Light Co., for its fiscal fourth quarter, down from Cedar Ridge Construction, Genetic Anom- CALENDAR $24.7 million last year. That figure includes alies, Heavy Iron Studios, and THQ’s MOBILE GAMES SECOND a charge of $8.9 million related to the com- Game Boy Advance studio, Helixe. He will INTERNATIONAL CON- pany’s departure from the coin-op business. also manage THQ’s product and studio VENTION The loss for the quarter came to $30.5 mil- acquisition activities. CONRAD INTERNATIONAL lion, compared with a loss of $30.7 in the Dublin, Ireland same period last year. For the fiscal year Sierra shuts Dynamix. Sierra has closed November 5–7, 2001 ended June 30, revenues hit $168.2 million, TRIBES developer Dynamix as part of a cor- Cost: variable down from a total of $333.8 million in rev- porate restructuring plan. The move elimi- www.ef-telecoms.co.uk/mgames enues last year. The loss for the fiscal year nates 97 jobs at the Eugene, Ore., studio. DV EXPO reached $69.3 million. Midway officials Responsibility for the TRIBES franchise, as LOS ANGELES CONVENTION CENTER attribute the poor results to a transition well as other Dynamix projects, will be Los Angeles, Calif. year, citing its move away from older plat- transferred to Sierra’s Bellevue, Wash., December 3–7, 2001 forms and arcade products. headquarters. Cost: variable wwwdvexpo.com
6 november 2001 | game developer PRODUCT REVIEWS XTHE SKINNY ON NEW TOOLS XSN Systems’ ProDG 2 for Playstation 2 by jamie fristrom
s I am accustomed to writ- The ProDG debugger does ing games for simple everything a debugger needs machines such as the PC to do: watch windows, local and Dreamcast, I found variable windows, call the alien architecture of stacks, register dumps, and the Playstation 2 to be an inhospitable TTY output. It steps into environment;A so many different processors, template code without a any of which can fail. Fortunately, we have hitch. Looking at variables SN Systems’ ProDG development system, declared anywhere in the which allows us to do source-level debug- callstack is no problem. might be used to: you can hold the cursor ging on the Emotion Engine (EE), the I/O Because the Playstation 2 is a beast with over a variable name to reveal its value, processor (IOP), or either of the vector multiple processors, the ProDG debugger and you can drag addresses between win- units (VUs). provides source-level debugging for any of dow panes. You can quickly go to any Because we do cross-platform develop- the processors you’ll be writing code for: function in your program by entering the ment for both the Xbox and Playstation 2, the IOP, both VUs, and the EE. It’s easy to function name in the Go To Address box we need an OS that can develop code for load up an IOP module, set breakpoints, — if you don’t remember the exact name both of them, which means we’re stuck and step through both main CPU and IOP of the function, ProDG offers an auto with Windows. Thus, we had a limited code. Switching from one processor to complete feature, which works in the choice of development systems for the another is as easy as pushing a button; you source, disassembly, and memory panes. Playstation 2, the most obvious choices can have panes devoted to different proces- ProDG’s memory pane is better than the being SN Systems or Metrowerks. sors open at the same time. You can split one in Visual C++; it always aligns by After being burned by Metrowerks’ and tile windows and panes to your heart’s words and can view your data as floats or Codewarrior when writing code for the content. The debugger is solid; it crashes even as fixed point. Dreamcast — we had to give up and switch less often for me than Visual C++ does. ProDG provides integration with Visual to GCC because of the number of bugs the ProDG supports hardware break-on- C++, a feature that we don’t actually use Metrowerks compiler would introduce into read and break-on-write, but the imple- on our project but which is used by anoth- our code — we were willing to try any- mentation is a little flaky. When we set a er team in our company. David Cook, the thing else for our Playstation 2 develop- hardware breakpoint that didn’t break, lead programmer on that project, said, ment needs. Because our engine was we could never be sure whether the pro- “Overall, I think it’s great. You can set up already GCC, we used the development gram was accessing that memory or if the a project with minimal effort, and you can tools that came with our T10000 and used hardware breakpoint failed. However, this stay in Dev Studio practically all the time. ProDG for debugging. Later we tried SN failing seems to be due to a limitation of You can set up dependencies between pro- Systems’ tool chain and discovered they the Playstation 2 — it will occasionally jects, so your libraries get rebuilt automat- had a faster link. reset its hardware breakpoint registers — ically as needed. You add new files to the Once we switched, we never wanted to rather than a problem on the part of the build just by adding them to the project. go back. Because GCC supports dual- compiler. Still, this quirkiness could be You can launch the Target Manager or processor compilation, a single target of better documented. Debugger from Visual Studio, or launch our 200,000-line, STL-using engine com- ProDG users can run the target manager VS edits from the debugger. You can pass piles in around six minutes on our dual and debugger from the command line, breakpoints back and forth. The main 1GHz Pentium II machines, although we which is something I couldn’t live without drawback is loss of control. You don’t had to create metafiles that contained lists because I like to schedule automated tests. have a makefile, so you are limited in of included .CPP files in order to prevent This feature also helps us run a special what you can customize about the build. the huge headers from recompiling endless- build of our program to generate some of Passing in GCC command line arguments ly. And, because it’s GCC, it has optimiza- the content that we ship. is a bit cryptic. And it’s difficult to tell tion options for inlining and unrolling ProDG has some of the slick GUI fea- what build tools (compiler, linker, and so loops, which noticeably sped up our code. tures that a Visual C++ programmer on) are being used.”
8 november 2001 | game developer XXXXX excellent XXXX very good XXX average =XXdisappointing X don’t bother
ProDG tries to emulate Visual Studio’s inspires some developer loyalty. Also, SN DIGITAL ELEMENT’S keys, with some differences (Ctrl-O to Systems is committed to improving its sys- ANIMATEK WORLD open a file in the source window, Ctrl-G tem constantly. For example, when we BUILDER 3.0 PRO goes to an address instead of a line num- first started using the ProDG debugger, by tom carroll ber). It’s frustrating that an important we found it cumbersome; there was no operation such as opening a file doesn’t way to search for text within a source file. egardless of what you’re doing for have a keyboard shortcut. Changes to your That discrepancy has since been fixed, R your next videogame — knocking font settings don’t affect the current win- and the company has also optimized the out storyboards, populating an island dow immediately; you can find yourself symbol loading in order to minimize the with rocks and trees, or constructing a with different windows showing differently turnaround between making a change and low-polygon in-game environment — sized fonts. testing it. flexible world-building tools are very ProDG’s copy protection is tied to the We’re glad we chose ProDG. We’ve pur- important. First published in 1995 by network card; we’ve found the easiest way chased many licenses for the company, and Animatek (Digital Element acquired the to hand a ProDG license from one pro- we also use SN Systems’ ProView product publishing rights earlier this year), World grammer to another is to swap the net- to run builds of our game on debug sta- Builder 3.0 Pro is a comprehensive, high- work cards in their machines, which is tions. I’m confident that we’ll stick with end package that can be used for model- annoying. ProDG for the duration of our project and ing, animating, and rendering realistic, Furthermore, ProDG lacks conditional use it for many products to come. ProDG fully functional 3D landscapes. breakpoints and the ability to evaluate hasn’t given us any reason to switch. On the surface, Animatek World Builder sizeof() expressions in the watch window. 3.0 Pro may seem lightweight — the box It can’t evaluate functions, either. Because Jamie Fristrom is a lead software engi- and contents are light as a feather. Don’t let GDB, the Playstation 2 debugger that runs neer at Treyarch LLC, currently working appearances fool you, though. This soft- under Linux, can do this (and is free), it on SPIDER-MAN: THE MOVIE for Playsta- ware is quite powerful. The Professional seems as though ProDG should have the tion 2, Gamecube, and Xbox. package includes two CDs: the program ability to evaluate functions. Still, I’ll admit CD itself, plus a bonus CD called Plants that such a feature isn’t strictly necessary in Thematic Library Disk 1. The library a debugger. And ProDG does offer a “Set comes in handy right away; let’s face it, PC to cursor” feature, so if you really want ProDG 2 for PS2 XXXX nothing says landscape better than plants. to evaluate a function, you can move the Having already used several terrain- PC there yourself. STATS building packages (most recently, the editor SN SYSTEMS LTD. One thing that has occasionally made produced by Planet Moon Studios for the 4th Floor - Redcliff Quay, 120 Redcliff Street me wistfully wonder what we might be PC version of GIANTS: CITIZEN KABUTO), I Bristol, BS1 6HU missing if we were using Metrowerks is its United Kingdom was anxious to get started with World performance analysis tools. ProDG does +44 (0)117 929-9733 Builder. The software proved easy to install have a profiler, but in the words of John www.snsys.com on my 850MHz Pentium III desktop Hall, a coder on my team, “It’s barely PRICE machine with 256MB of RAM running worth messing with.” The information the $5,000 per unit for the first 19 units (prices Windows NT. It synched up with my profiler gave us was that we were spending go down for more), including unlimited tech- copies of 3DS Max 3.1 and Lightwave 6.5, an awfully long time waiting for the GS to nical support. all the better to facilitate data exchange. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS page-flip, which is something we knew World Builder 3.0 Pro’s interface is the already. ProDG’s profiler isn’t fine-grained 486 or higher processor (Pentium II recom- very familiar quad-screen arrangement, mended) with Windows 95/98/NT/2000, enough to tell us why our slow functions with the lower right corner reserved for list- 16MB of RAM (64MB recommended, 128MB are slow. for Windows NT/2000), 300MB hard disk ings of textures, objects, scenes, terrains, The important thing about ProDG is space, CD-ROM drive. 8MB of video memory trees, and such. The right-most portion that it has rarely given us grief. We have recommended. contains the project manager, where you never torn our hair out because a line of control the parameters of all the elements source compiled incorrectly. And it has PROS in your scene. The tool buttons on the bot- 1. Debugs EE, IOP, or VU code at the source caught some bugs that our previous com- tom right are used for viewpoint control level. pilers let slip. and are pretty much just like those in 3DS 2. Offers GCC-based tool chain with fast link. As an added bonus, the employees of 3. Generates solid code and the debugger Max. Top and left-side menus complete the SN Systems are cool. When we needed to rarely crashes. interface; I began to appreciate its efficient get a build of the code running at a Sony design as I worked with it. development conference and were running CONS The first step in developing terrain in 1. Includes a mediocre profiler. into operating system hassles, they offered World Builder 3.0 Pro is to draw skeleton 2. Generates flaky hardware breakpoints. to let us use their machines and even lines within one of the viewports. Next, 3. Does not support conditional breakpoints. helped us debug our code. That attitude you skin the skeleton lines to create a sur-
www.gdmag.com 9 PRODUCT REVIEWS XXXXX excellent X XXXX very good XXX average =XXdisappointing X don’t bother
though you’ll almost certainly want to After you’ve locked the 3D object in its have 512MB or even 1GB of RAM if position in ZBrush, you can still apply you’re seriously considering swapping back materials and textures and place other 3D and forth between World Builder 3.0 and objects on its surface, but the original 3DS Max. model itself is no longer a true 3D object. World Builder 3.0 Pro is available for Think of it as modeling something in clay, Windows 98/NT 4.0/2000 for $999 (the cutting it in half, and then mounting it on Standard version is $399). On September a canvas. The 3D topology still exists, but 1, Digital Element began shipping World only from the plane of the canvas towards Builder 3.0 Pro with a plug-in to allow full you. Stay with me, it gets weirder. integration of Curious Labs’ Poser scene The user interface is like nothing I’ve files, saving further time and trouble. ever seen before, and it can be pretty con- Animatek World Builder 3.0 Pro employs the | Animatek World Builder 3.0 fusing for those of us accustomed to the familiar quad-screen interface. XXXX File/Edit/View toolbar menus in the Mac Digital Element | www.digi-element.com OS and Windows GUIs. There are plenty face. By adding more bones and increasing Tom Carroll is a 2D/3D artist who of places to get lost. For example, in order the fractal value on the skeleton lines, it’s would be quite happy if he could somehow to texture-map an object with planar coor- possible to control the overall look of the fit 25 (or more) hours in each day. Reach dinates, you must first dig through menus terrain. The last step is to add in numerous him at [email protected]. to convert it into a polymesh object, apply types of surface objects, including grass, the map, and then dig down through sever- trees, compound sky, and clouds. al more pull-down menus to find the map- You can also control animation of sur- PIXOLOGIC’S ping type. face objects. With a camera operating in ZBRUSH 1.23 One of the more useful things about this OpenGL mode, visual updates are quick program is its ability to add 3D components by spencer lindsay enough to make on-the-fly editing quite such as lights and materials in the scene and manageable. Numerous render levels are mploying aspects of both 2D and 3D affect the look of the geometry (“pixols”) available, including bounding box, skele- E applications, Pixologic’s ZBrush is on the canvas. If you’re not satisfied with ton, wireframe, OpenGL, draft, preview, one of the fastest modeling, rendering, and the lizard skin you applied to the original and production render. texturing programs I have come across. I model, simply choose another material, tex- World Builder also includes a 3DS Max was able to crank out fully finished 2D ture, or color and paint it on. Adding and plug-in that lets you make changes to mod- artwork in a fraction of the time it would changing lights is intuitive and easy and els in Max and transfer those changes to have taken with my usual tool set of affects the scene in a predictable way. the World Builder development bed in real Maya, 3DS Max, and Photoshop. How- One excellent use for this application time. You can also share such assets as ever, ZBrush also features an Everest-like would be to create and texture a character’s lights, cameras, and camera paths. I tested learning curve. head. Starting with a primitive sphere this feature and found it to be very useful Although the majority of the work that object, you push, pull, scale, and warp the and an incredible time saver. is posted on Pixologic’s web site is ren- surface with tools that make it feel very Animating objects is refreshingly sim- dered 2D images, the 3D objects created in much like sculpting with clay. Once you’ve ple. First, click on the AutoKeyFrame but- ZBrush can be exported with textures and got your geometry built, you save it into the ton, then slide the timeframe slider while coordinates to either .OBJ or .DXF for- tools menu and then begin applying texture changing some parameters (changing the mats (or Pixologic’s proprietary .ZTL for- and material. The texturing is accomplished camera makes for an easy test). World mat). ZBrush also imports .DXF and .OBJ Builder tweens smoothly from keyframe formats, and both worked well in my pre- to keyframe. And nearly every parameter liminary tests. A few developers are using can be keyframed in World Builder 3.0 this function to modify their existing mesh- Pro, enabling rivers to flow and clouds to es and textures. scud across the sky, all with a great deal The most difficult aspect of ZBrush is of realism. becoming accustomed to the fact that the Because rendering times are longer for objects that you create in 3D are tempo- complex scenes, World Builder 3.0 is com- rary. Once you create an object and posi- pliant with network and multi-processor tion it, it’s locked onto the canvas in that rendering. Although I did need to reboot orientation (scale/rotation/translation) and my system a couple of times as system cannot be moved again. It’s as if you’ve resources hit the ceiling, overall memory created text in Photoshop and then flat- With ZBrush and a warped imagination, creating management seemed fine. This kind of tened the text to your image. You can’t models such as this mutant heart is amazingly activity is de rigueur for 3D animators, change fonts once you’ve flattened the text. fast and functional.
10 november 2001 | game developer XPRODUCT REVIEWS
via a complex series of tasks involving sav- The book’s chapters can be divided into threshold of ing the mesh’s position, painting on it, copy- three categories, each worth discussing in technological ing the screen pixels to the texture map, its own right. Possibly the most enjoyable advancement. reloading the mesh, repositioning, saving the of these contains the six interviews that Similarly, position information, and then repeating for Rouse conducts with bona fide legends of his discussion all angles. This process is quite confusing at the gaming industry, including Jordan of play-testing first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s Mechner, Chris Crawford, Will Wright, is extremely affirming, and most designers amazingly fast and functional. Steve Meretsky, Ed Logg, and Sid Meier. will want to give a copy of this chapter to I found the macro-like Zscript tutorials All of the interviews are long and in-depth, their bosses. Most notably, Rouse advises to be very useful once I learned how to with detailed descriptions of the early days against using producers and marketing slow down the playback. One feature that of the industry and surprisingly candid people as official play-testers, and then might be helpful in future releases would opinions on where we are now. gives extremely obvious, logical reasons be pause and speed controls, so that one These interviews tend to contain more why this is the case. I remember the words could skip to the appropriate sequence in war stories than practical advice, and most “Preach it, brother!” leaving my lips as I the tutorial. Zscripts are somewhat like are with those from the golden age of gam- read that passage. MEL or MaxScript in the way that you ing, which means that they offer little I found my self in sharp disagreement can, as an artist, record and play back information on how to make games for with some of Rouse’s assertions. His chap- operations that would otherwise be tedious today’s audiences, with today’s larger ter on storytelling, in particular, often and time consuming. teams and budgets. Nonetheless, the inter- seemed to be in strong opposition with my The support for this product at the views are highly entertaining, and Rouse’s own opinions on the subject. A matter of Pixologic’s ZBrush Central web site more experienced readers will be wishing ideology? Perhaps. But while I prefer non- (www.pixolator.com) was invaluable. I reg- that the book had more of them. linear games, his blanket dismissal of linear ularly received three to five replies to my In the second part of the book, Rouse storytelling as a failed and outmoded con- newbie questions within a few minutes. breaks down five popular games: MYTH, cept seems to ignore both the fact that This forum is almost like a chat window; CENTIPEDE, LOOM, THE SIMS, and TETRIS. many games that have succeeded with lin- it’s that fast. Without this support, the These examinations vary in quality, with ear storytelling, and also that nonlinear process of learning this tool would have the chapter on CENTIPEDE being perhaps storytelling has enormous design challenges been too much to bear. the single most eye-opening in the book, in of its own. Similarly, his assertion that If you’ve got your character or scene terms of design insight. More useful is sim- games with strong, central, player-con- sketched out and you know what you want ply the innate importance that Rouse man- trolled characters are doomed to inferiority to create, ZBrush will have you cranking ages to place upon the examination of will fall on deaf ears to anyone who has out world-class images, models, and tex- completed games as a design tool. ever played and enjoyed DUKE NUKEM 3D. tures at a fraction of the time it takes with All the remaining chapters of the book Several subjects are surprisingly absent your traditional tools. Just put aside a few discuss, in a very broad sense, the process from the book. Rouse fails to include any weekends to learn it. of coming up with an initial design for a real, in-depth discussion on player interface | ZBrush 1.23 | Pixologic game, from conception to the completion design or multiplayer and online play. Even XXX of the design document. This final section more concerning, Rouse provides no exam- www.pixologic.com also examines certain aspects of game ination or discussion of more modern, col- Spencer Lindsay has been an art monkey design that require a high degree of design- laborative design techniques (such as Use in 3D and games for over 12 years and is er insight, such as artificial intelligence, Cases and UML). currently looking for a job. Hire him. level design, and design of the game’s tools. Overall, however, the book is very solid. Reach him at [email protected]. These chapters are a mixed bag. Rouse’s Most experienced designers will learn little chapter on AI provides an extremely strong from the book, instead finding that it merely overview of the real design-side goals of encapsulates that which experience has GAME DESIGN: artificial intelligence, all without going into already taught them. Designers who are new THEORY & PRACTICE indecipherable technical jargon. Most to the field, however, will find the book to BY RICHARD ROUSE young designers would benefit greatly from be a good primer on the art and business of reading this chapter. Even stronger is being a professional game designer. reviewed by damion schubert Rouse’s discussion of prototyping and | Game Design: Theory & Practice ey, designers: You know all those organic design — hundreds of thousands of XXX Wordware Publishing | www.wordware.com H snot-nosed high-school students, QA industry dollars would be saved if more guys, and distant cousins that ask you teams approached the initial design of their Damion Schubert was the lead designer how to break into the game industry? game in the manner that Rouse suggests. In of MERIDIAN 59 and the late ULTIMA Richard Rouse has thankfully provided an particular, Rouse counsels his readers to ONLINE 2 project. He currently acts as the answer with his solid Game Design: avoid too much detailed design work creative director of Ninjaneering. He can Theory & Practice. before the game has reached a certain be reached at [email protected].
12 november 2001 | game developer PROFILES TALKING TO PEOPLE WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE | curt feldman
Yoot Saito: SEAMAN Unbound
oot Saito’s SEAMAN was a genre-breaker when it ment to take a risk. Most of the was released on Dreamcast. Now the title is bound publishers here are public com- for Playstation 2 — and in Japan, for cell phone panies, and they can’t take such users. We talked to Yoot Saito about SEAMAN, his huge risks. They want to follow in thoughts on wireless gaming, and what it feels like the footsteps of the existing genres Yto be the owner of a brand-new puppy — and we don’t mean the and stick with FINAL FANTASY or kind that lives in a chipset. some other existing franchise. Game Developer. Congratulations on the news that SEAMAN is coming GD. How did you secure the to Playstation 2. backing for SEAMAN? Yoot Saito. Yes. Thank you. YS. We [went to banks and] GD. Will you and the Vivarium team be working on the programming? explained a nonexistent game, SEAMAN creator Yoot Saito YS. We are working with ASCII on the project. Vivarium, my and they said they could not loan company, will be focusing on the AI, voice recognition, and logic. us the money because the market was very unclear — this sort of The ASCII team is developing the graphics part and the Playstation game had never existed, and there was no data to consult. It was 2 part. The Playstation 2 environment is not easy, but ASCII has heartbreaking news, but it was also encouraging. If the bankers already been involved in Playstation 2 development. I think it’s a had liked it, it would have meant it had already existed. very good collaboration. GD. And then came Sega. GD. Where does your fascination with AI and voice recognition come YS. Yes. Based on the contract with Sega, we were able to get from? loans. YS. SEAMAN didn’t come from a fascination with voice recogni- GD. SEAMAN is also going wireless. How will SEAMAN perform in the tion or AI. I had a passion to realize my original idea — creating a wireless space? pet that talks back to its owner. YS. SEAMAN helps people deliver messages that you can’t easily GD. But this isn’t your average pet. tell. Like confessions. YS. My new dog, Ma-ru, is very cute. People are likely to think GD. It sounds kind of . . . dark. that if he could speak he would say, “Hi, Yoot, I’m Ma-ru and I’m YS. It’s not always like that. If you are not encouraged to say “I very happy today.” But one day I thought it might say, “What’s love you,” or “Would you marry me?” or “I think it’s time to get up, man? I’m not very happy today. Don’t talk to me now.” The divorced” [Seaman can help]. Seaman understands what you want process and the approach we needed was through voice recogni- to say, and on behalf of you he speaks about that and gets the tion and AI. answer and brings it back. It helps with communication. Actually, GD. One thing is for sure, Seaman ain’t cute. I don’t know if it’s helpful or disturbing. YS. Let me explain. Seaman is not speaking rudely on purpose; GD. How does it work? rather, he speaks colloquially. He’s just casual, speaking like regu- YS. With the SEAMAN program, he asks some questions and you lar people do on the street. Those people are not always rude, just tell Seaman how you want your message to be told. Seaman under- more direct than most other speakers. stands what you want to say, goes to the other side, and explains GD. Do you sense a lack, or even fear, of creativity in the game the situation in his own way. space in Japan? GD. Sounds like Seaman does a little interpretation along the way. YS. Last night I went to see Final Fantasy. The computer graph- YS. That’s right. ics were great. It was a CG demo reel. But the script, stories, and GD. How far along in the process are you? background stories were very . . . well, let’s just say they didn’t YS. We’ve done the basic R&D on the PC and we are porting that compare to the graphics. Currently, game development is getting onto a server so that all the cellular users can use it. Only the cellu- bigger and bigger. The technical part and the story part, or plan- lar program couldn’t have voice recognition, so now it’s text-based. ning part, are two different components. Fifteen years ago, say, GD. Do you view the cell phone as a new gaming console? programmers did the music, script, and everything else. But now, YS. You wouldn’t believe how many telephone calls I’ve game development is getting more like the movie industry. We received, people asking, “Are you interested in mobile games, have so many programmers, graphic designers, and hardware-ori- wireless games?” ented people, designing and the scriptwriting talents are not as GD. Do you think it is an authentic gaming platform? well developed. YS. My point of view is that the wireless platform is a tool, GD. What sort of encouragement did you get when you were working something like a PC. When new software is being developed, peo- on SEAMAN? ple get excited. After the first thousand games, after one or two YS. When you are starting a new project, you don’t want to take years, after the honeymoon is over, you’ll like games less and focus big risks, so you are likely to depend on the existing genres. When more business and more utilitarian uses. Game development on you create a brand-new genre, you need quite a lot of encourage- that platform will be a part-time job. q
14 november 2001 | game developer jeff lander GRAPHIC CONTENT Falling from the Trees t this time of year, the days that the feet will actually end up on the are becoming colder and ground. You see this all the time in games. darker (even in Southern A 3D character will jump off a ledge onto California, where I live). a flight of stairs. The collision point Children are trying to take between the feet is used to determine when advantageA of the few hours of light by the character has hit the ground. But the playing in the trees, even while the last few feet don’t know about the ground, so it is leaves are clinging on. It makes me wonder not only possible but also pretty likely that when we are going to get to the point one or both of the feet will have passed when an interactive character can actually through a step. climb a tree. Sure, BANJO-KAZOOIE had The animation system in most games is that bear that could shimmy up a tree, and kinematic, meaning that it is driven directly I think AMERICAN MCGEE’S ALICE included by animation data without any physical Limitless a section in which players jumped from interaction with the world. Generally, not branch to branch. But in that game, each much is ever done to correct the problems branch looked more like a flat concrete of kinematic animation. Most game devel- creativity, ledge with a bark texture on it. I am talk- opers feel lucky if they can get all of their ing about getting up there, really grabbing animation data exported from their anima- a branch, and swinging around from limb tion program and actually working in the to limb. The zoologists call it brachiating, game. Keeping the feet from penetrating once but for games it’s just broken. the ground is often a luxury that is the first If our primitive game characters are ever thing scratched off the to-do list when the going to swing from the trees, they’re bugs start rolling in. impossible, going to need to do some seriously quick There have been several games that use evolution. They need to evolve much more a standard, simple system to detect when sophisticated skeletal systems and methods the character has hit the ground, but then for animation. We still build characters project rays out from the base of the legs is now just largely for standing on the ground upright to detect where the feet would actually hit (in an evolutionarily ironic twist). Howev- the ground. They then can use inverse er, the “backbone” in most animated char- kinematic methods to place the feet cor- a matter of acters is a reasonable enough skeleton. rectly. An even more sophisticated system Generally, the artist that designs the would calculate the center of mass and character also creates the skeletal hierarchy make sure that the character is in balance, for that character. Art departments at as I discussed in this column last month experience, many companies have standards that dic- (“A Fine Balancing Act,” October 2001). tate how a character should be created. For example, some like to start with the Making It Happen time, and hips. It’s also fairly common for people to build skeletons with the skeletal root on s you recall from last month, I the ground, between the character’s feet. A described a system by which it is pos- This approach makes collision detection a sible to calculate the center of mass of an money. bit easier. When this position hits the articulated 3D character and then move ground, you know the character’s feet are the feet of the character so that the center fairly close. Of course, that doesn’t mean of mass is supported by the feet. This
JEFF LANDER | Jeff has decided the whole walking upright thing was a mistake, and he is heading back to trees. Luckily his laptop has a long extension cord and is scratch resistant. Swing on over to his branch at [email protected].
www.gdmag.com 17 GRAPHIC CONTENT
This type of animation setup is com- the selection of dominant foot won’t work head monly used in game production. As I said well at all. For example, you may have a before, often a root bone exists above the walk cycle where the dominant foot is in hips in the hierarchy, but generally, the the air when the character falls, or a kicking neck hierarchy in Figure 2 is what you will see animation where the character leads with ruarm luarm for animated characters. that dominant foot. The ideal solution From this structure, you can see why would be to allow the selection of a domi- rlarm llarm I’m not able to dynamically rebalance my nant foot to happen automatically, and then chest character by simply moving the hip. If the the character hierarchy can be reordered so rhand lhand position or orientation of the hip moves, you can start the balancing process. the entire rest of the tree will shift around hips as well. Thus, the feet will move and need Shaking the Tree to be repositioned using inverse kinematic ruleg luleg constraints to keep them in the same place o, I need to come up with a way to on the ground. Sdynamically change the animation Now, if I select a dominant foot to be hierarchy so that I can select the root of rlegl llegl the root of the hierarchy, I get a different the system as needed. This kind of task is a tree structure that looks like I grabbed the pretty common one. I remember that one rfoot lfoot character by a foot and let it hang there, as of my first computer classes in college had you can see in Figure 3. similar problems. Given a hierarchical tree FIGURE 1. The basic character setup. You can see from this structure that if I structure, rebalance the tree by selecting a were to manipulate the hips, most of the new root bone — basic programming 101 approach is fine if you have a situation in character would still move but the domi- stuff. Rebuilding the hierarchy is the easy which you don’t mind the feet actually nant foot that is anchored to the ground part; all you need to do is select the new moving in order to support the character. would stay in place. The secondary foot root. Then you walk through, up the hier- Many times, however, we might prefer to would still need to be placed with inverse archy, making each parent bone a child have the character just shift its weight kinematics, but at least the main support instead. All the children at each bone rather than move the feet for balance. leg wouldn’t move. remain children. Then, when you reach the This approach requires that I move the I could just build my character hierarchy current root, you are done. object from the point of view of a fixed in this form and have my animator simply This approach will get the hierarchy the support point, meaning that the root of the animate the character this way. But this way I want it. However, because the ani- animation hierarchy must be one of the approach has a few problems. The first is a mation is dependent on inheriting rota- feet. Last month, I discussed how to imple- practical production problem — the anima- tions and positions from the character ment this method simply by selecting a tor is probably going to want to strangle dominant foot as the root of the animation me. This approach is not the easiest way to system. However, this implementation is move a character, and most artists really rfoot clearly not a very easy way to animate a like having the flexibility to set up the ani- character. You would need the dominant mation system the way they want it rlegl foot to position the character, and then Another problem is that while picking a every time you moved that foot, the entire foot to be dominant will probably work character would change position. well in some cases, other cases dictate that ruleg Let’s take a look at this graphically. I have an articulated character that I want hips to represent. For simplicity, I’m going to hips pick a biped. As you can see in Figure 1, the character is composed of objects in a hierarchy that branch out from the hips ruleg luleg chest luleg chest and chest. Because all of the body parts radiate rlegl llegl ruarm luarm llegl ruarm luarm neck neck from the central point, it’s convenient to animate the character by moving the cen- rfoot lfoot rlarm llarm lfoot rlarm llarm ter points first, with all the branches fol- head head lowing along. So if I organize the character into a parent-child hierarchy based on the rhand lhand rhand lhand hip as my root point, I get the branching tree structure that you see in Figure 2. FIGURE 2. The hip as the root. FIGURE 3. The foot as the root.
18 november 2001 | game developer GRAPHIC CONTENT
freedom restrictions are also reversed in Otherwise, the dynamic hierarchy cre- the same way (more on that later). ation is an easy-to-implement and very If any children are encountered along useful tool. It will certainly become a stan- the way, they just remain children. Once I dard part of character animation systems have reached the original root, I am done. as more dynamic animation becomes com- I have just established the algorithm for mon in interactive applications. reversing a hierarchy. 1. The new root is assigned the world Parting Shot space orientation and translation of the original position. ith a bit of a heavy heart, I have 2. Each parent of the new bone becomes a W decided to take a break from this child of that bone and inherits the column. It has been an amazing experience inverse of the original translation and that I have thoroughly enjoyed since I rotation of its new parent. wrote my first piece for Game Developer 3. Children of the new bone remain chil- all the way back in January 1998. Over FIGURE 4. The character before (left) and after dren, untouched. the years, we have covered a great deal of reparenting. 4. When the original root is reached, I am ground together. I hope you have enjoyed done. following the exploits of an independent hierarchy, just rebuilding the tree is not With this algorithm, I am able to dynam- game developer as he struggled to stay on enough. Once everything is reparented, the ically rebuild the animation hierarchy with- his board and post a good score riding the entire character is completely messed up, out affecting the pose. I just select the root game technology wave. as you can see in Figure 4. that I want as the anchor position and run I cannot emphasize enough what an So what is the correct solution? I need the routine. I can then use my dynamic bal- amazing time it is to be working in this to recalculate the translations and orienta- ancing system from last month, reset the exciting and dynamic field. We finally have tions so that the original position is main- hierarchy, and blend the balanced pose the power to create worlds with limitless tained. I can begin with the root bone. right in with my regular animation. creativity. Things that were once impossi- When I select a new root bone, such as the In fact, having this algorithm available ble are now just a matter of experience, right foot, I know the final position and in my run-time animation system allows time, and money. Research in cutting-edge orientation of the foot by where it sits in for a great deal of flexibility. I am no game technology has become a hot topic world space in the initial tree structure. I longer constrained to solving inverse kine- not only at the Game Developers Confer- create the world transformation matrix for matic chains that the artist sets up ahead ence, but also at the big leagues of graph- the foot by going through the initial tree of time. I can dynamically create and then ics research, Siggraph, as well as at schools and accumulate the rotations and transla- solve an IK chain that, for example, goes and research facilities around the world. tions into a final world-space matrix. This from one of the feet to the opposite hand. Through the columns in Game Developer matrix is assigned to the foot and becomes A lot of possibilities exist. as well as articles on Gamasutra.com, game the new foot matrix. development issues have reached a world- Then I proceed up the tree, looking at It’s Always Something wide audience. I have been stunned by the the parent of each bone. So I start with amount of e-mail I receive from around the the right lower leg (RLLEG). I need to f course, as with any algorithm, there globe. People interested in games are work- determine the position for this bone. In Oare some issues. The iterative inverse ing on projects of every level in each corner order to place RLLEG correctly, I actually kinematics systems that I use for coming of the planet. At last check, I have received have to use the initial values for the right up with these dynamic poses require some e-mail from more than 100 countries, from foot (RFOOT). Originally, the right foot help. I need to define the degree-of-free- places as varied as Iran, Tonga, Siberia, and was translated down from the root posi- dom restrictions for each link. This keeps Iceland. All the international gamers have tion of RLLEG (the knee) and there was the system from ending up in a position humbled me with their amazing knowledge no initial rotation. that is not actually possible for the char- of English, as well as technology. I haven’t To reverse the position of RLLEG, I just acter to achieve in real life. been able to write back to everyone yet, but need to assign it the inverse of the transla- When the hierarchy of the skeleton is I hope to soon. tion and rotation of the new parent, reversed, the degree-of-freedom restrictions So, get out there and create. There is a RFOOT. In this case, I just negate the ini- need to be reversed as well. This step can whole lot of work to get done. Just make tial translation. If the bone also had a lead to some ambiguities. It’s possible to sure that when you come out with that rotation, I would just invert that rotation have a sequence of bones for which I great new graphics algorithm, you share it as well. In my case, I am using quaternions haven’t defined a set of degree-of-freedom with the gaming community. Write an arti- for the bone orientation, but it would be restrictions. This problem is particularly cle, give a talk, rant away on Usenet. just as easy to use Euler angles or a matrix apparent where multiple bones come Great things happen when we all learn and invert them for this step. Degree-of- together to a common parent. from each other. q
20 november 2001 | game developer tito pagán ARTIST’S VIEW RIGGING BEYOND BIPEDS
hen you want believ- you can go back at any time and address tools for object transformations and able character ani- any problems you may have with your keyframe editing. mation in your original structure for optimal animation As a time-saving animation aid within game, proper char- performances. Quite often, very subtle yet CS, you can apply footsteps (Biped’s foot- acter setup, or “rig- undesirable behaviors with a rig don’t step-driven keyframe animation feature) or ging,”W is essential, second only to good show up until the animator is well into free-form animation from one Biped char- animation talent. The general consensus creating sets of animations. One example acter to any other Biped character, regard- among seasoned animators is that a good is the correct positioning of each rotational less of height, proportion, or even structur- virtual rig for your virtual puppet is the joint. You will want an art path for creat- al differences between them. A simple yet foundation for good animation. If you cur- ing CG characters that is flexible enough useful feature is Autogrid, which lets you rently work as a character animator in to allow you to go back and make such build Biped skeletons with their feet plant- today’s frugal game industry, then you are changes without losing existing keyframed ed on top of other objects. You can also likely to be responsible for rigging your animation that took some time to create. use Autogrid to place footsteps on uneven own CG character as well. The challenge terrain. Another powerful feature is the of rigging a quadruped or something Features of Desire Motion Flow Editor, which makes it easy anatomically more complex than a biped to create long, complex animations by can be difficult using basic animation n a production environment, the right breaking them down into smaller motion tools. With a bit of creative thinking, you I tool can take the work out of work. A clips that you can link together. You do can go beyond the basic humanoid rig. common and obvious tool of choice for this by stringing together multiple Biped Having been given the responsibility for many game companies developing real- animations (based on .BIP files) using a finding reliable solutions to such chal- time character animation is Discreet’s motion flow graph that resembles a simple lenges, I’d like to share with you my find- Character Studio (CS). It has been a staple flowchart. CS also supports the use of ings and several proven approaches to tool for me on many projects for several ever-popular motion capture data. some pleasant experiences. years. CS is a plug-in for 3DS Max that Let me start by defining the term “rig- provides professional tools for building Who You Calling a Biped? ging.” Rigging is the process of outfitting a and animating 3D characters quickly and character mesh with an armature or skele- easily. CS has a broad range of tools that s game environments become more ton hierarchy that enables you to deform aid in the creation and animation of virtu- A ambitious, the number and variety of the character mesh and thus pose it for ani- ally any type of two-legged character. characters that inhabit them increases. mation. The animated skeleton is the under- With one of its two components, conve- Many fantasy, science fiction, or even true- lying structure that drives the movement of niently called Biped (the other component to-life game experiences today call for crea- geometry, thus creating a virtual character. is Physique), you can create a basic biped tures that are not humanoid or bipedal in A successful character setup for a game skeleton hierarchy instantly and then alter structure at all. This requirement presents a hero or evil creature takes into account all its structure using Biped’s parametric fig- challenge for any animator that is more of the worst-case motion sequences that the ure controls. You can add tails and pony- comfortable with human animation or soft- real-time character will encounter through- tails for animating ears, jaws, or insect ware packages or plug-ins (such as CS) that out the game. Your rigged actor should be antennae. It’s also possible to add modi- are better geared towards bipedal character ideally suited to handle all animation fiers to Biped objects for creating precise motion. Again, with a bit of creative appli- sequences that will be visible from the in- bone shapes. In addition, the software cation, animators can use a modified CS game camera’s point of view. uses many built-in 3DS Max features to Biped to get their rig work done without Unlike our counterparts in the film busi- provide a foundation for character skin changing or adding to the existing skeleton ness, game industry character animators modeling, as well as general manipulation hierarchy (Figure 1). are not as specialized and usually wear several hats during any given project. TITO PAGÁN | Tito is a seasoned 3D artist/animator work- Shortcuts and plug-ins will often help expedite and streamline an art path while ing at WildTangent and teaching at DigiPen in Seattle. His addressing some common issues experi- enced by production animators. The bene- e-mail address is [email protected], and his web site is fit of personally creating a custom rig for www.titopagan.com. each character before animating it is that www.gdmag.com 23 ARTIST’S VIEW
tem. This underlying rig deforms the mesh that is attached, or weighted, to it. Using as few bones as possible also contributes to smaller file sizes. This optimization is preferred by most real-time game develop- ers, especially those developing web-based games that still require smaller assets for a faster download. Having fewer keyframes in general also makes it much easier to manage and manipulate your keys throughout the motion creation process. When using a CS Biped, however, you are confined to a minimum set number of skeleton objects you can use in your struc- ture’s parameter setting. For example, Figure 2c actually has a Biped Spine, Neck, and Head bone in the middle of the char- acter that I’m not using. Because I can’t make them go away by setting their parameter values to 0, I hide them all or FIGURES 1A–1D (top). A Character Studio Biped structure will bend and contort to satisfy your needs. scale each one down to make it very small FIGURES 2A–2C (bottom). You can augment your skeleton rig with extra bones to accommodate a so that it is visually out of my way. I freeze more complex character design. such objects to avoid accidentally selecting them while working with their adjacent Every time I think about what I can do done. The development team also called bones. I usually avoid weighting any of my with a CS Biped, I arrive at the same con- upon the character concept work of tradi- vertices to these bones. clusions. With a bit of experimentation, I tional artist Joe Kresoja (Figure 3). Besides I find that with fewer frames to animate can create just about any rig I need. When the typical clichéd bipedal humans for this an arm wave or a tail swing smoothly, I necessary, I also link regular Max bones to game genre, Joe dreamed up many weird am challenged with ensuring that I ani- a Biped. This extends the use of a Biped and unusual beings that really challenged mate each joint rotation with a more linear structure beyond the default batch of the several artists and animators. interpolation between frames. To assist more than 75 predefined bones it normally These fantastic fictional creatures, which myself in the process, I often display the provides. But why limit yourself to just this range in status and scale from minions to trajectory for each joint, found in the set? For example, I often use my extra bosses, were given a wide range of abilities Display Properties section of the Display bones at the extremities of my skeleton by the game design. Many of their perform- panel (Figure 4). Biped offers a similar fea- structure and animate them using forward ances required much more than a typical ture for its bone objects (see the white kinematics (Figure 2). This approach makes walk cycle. Joe, I, and a few others would arrow in Figure 5) but only displays it it easier for me to continue using a Biped, model, texture, and rig each of our assigned when that bone is selected. For a smooth as I am accustomed to doing, and reap the characters and ultimately animate them and more natural motion, avoid having benefits of using all the features that come using free-form animation. Free-form ani- spikes or too much noise in your trajection with this plug-in. By doing so, I can still do mation is an option that CS gives you to lines. Sometimes your best option is to things such as save the majority of my animate character poses with or without the remove unimportant keys that don’t con- Biped motion and reapply it to the same aid of footsteps. In free-form mode, you set tribute much to the motion path shape or character or any other similar character all the keys manually. We had a blast mak- timing of the motion. physiology to save myself production time. ing characters fly, crawl, hop, swim, float, slither, run, die, attack, fidget, taunt, and Made for Real Time react to pain. We took turns acting out what our characters would do physically to s the former lead animator on Gas accomplish their individual performances. A Powered Games’ soon-to-be-released For such projects, I typically animate a RPG DUNGEON SIEGE, I was responsible for game character using 12 frames per second rigging and animating many unusual crea- instead of 15, 24, or 30. This produces less tures. This PC title is Gas Powered Games’ keyframe data, thus creating a much small- first in development and has all the mak- er file. For real-time game characters, the ings of a robust good-versus-evil real-time keyframed rotation and/or position data RPG. We used CS as well as many of the for each rotational joint of this skeleton is built-in features in 3DS Max to get the job read directly by the game’s animation sys- FIGURE 3. Joe Kresoja’s character concept.
24 november 2001 | game developer ARTIST’S VIEW
isn’t working would use only one skin modifier (Phy- properly. This sique) to attach the character mesh to the means that you skeleton (the exporter currently doesn’t must test your support using two or more). After a few new rig as much tests, I abandoned the rig in Figure 6b as you can at that uses two Bipeds linked together with every step. I can’t a link controller. stress this enough. I also knew that this character would be Get into the habit seen on a cliff overhead, so I could get of attaching your away without having the feet locked down mesh to your rig perfectly. I settled for the rig in Figure 6c. quickly and as Here I have a bone hierarchy attached to FIGURE 4 (left). Display trajectory. FIGURE 5 (right). Animation aids. often as you can. the Pelvis of my Biped with two end effec- If you are creating tors at the other end. These help to “hold If you would like to see some of these this character for a real-time game, make down” the back legs while I bob the char- finished character models up close and certain that your team can provide you acter up and down. fully animated, I have posted examples on with the internal tools, exporter plug-ins, The alternative to good planning can my web site. I invite you to view them in game or animation engine, and so on, to be painful in this line of work. Nothing is real time, as they were intended to be seen view these new assets in the intended con- more frustrating than being given a list of in a game. I use free-form animation with text. Besides the immediate gratification characters to begin cranking out without a combination of forward and inverse you will enjoy while viewing them, you first knowing certain technical issues, kinematics. A Biped supports both. and your team will appreciate knowing such as whether you are well over budget The hand and foot bones of a Biped are that your art path and character specifica- in polygon count, how many frames you similar to IK handles or end effectors. tions are optimal. can use per animation sequence, whether Whether you need them for your rig or not, Figure 6 shows a character, modeled and your character will eventually hold a having them exposed at all times makes it textured by Rick Winter, for which I recent- weapon or interact with other characters, easier for the animator to grab them and ly built a rig. Because it is a fairly complex the correct orientation for your character, animate the entire limb at once. As an ani- model, I felt I had some options about how and so on. These may seem like simple mation aid, these hands and feet can also be I could structure this model using a combi- problems, but they do add up quickly in locked down in space so that they hold nation of two Bipeds or a combination of a the loss of man-hours that become week- their position through any number of modified Biped with a few bones. end makeup time. frames (see yellow arrow in Figure 5). You I had two things to consider before I The revisions involved in this kind of can later “bake” that position in by placing could start. I knew that this model was work can put a damper on the develop- new keys in the frames where you’ve intended for WildTangent’s new web-based ment experience. It’s always fun for the anchored them via the Anchor tools. game EVILUTION and would be viewed in first few months until overcoming these The latest version of Character Studio, real time from within a web browser. First, technical issues becomes challenging. This version 3, has implemented additional fea- I had to make my rig with as few bones as is another important reason to use the tures that really improve this process, espe- possible. Then I would need to test its tools that can help make up for lost time, cially the selectable IK pivots for the feet effectiveness by laying down some keys or at least ease the pain of having to and hands. It makes free-form animations and exporting it using WildTangent’s 3DS revisit a large cast of character anima- with IK blends for the feet much more flex- Max exporter. tions over and over again. Such tools can ible, and also makes animating quadrupeds The second thing I had to be certain of make the process as iterative as possible using a biped very easy and precise. was that I could create an atypical rig that and easier to troubleshoot. q Previous versions of CS had problems with unwanted sliding of feet and feet moving through the surface they were supposed to be walking on. CS3’s improved IK key con- trol makes it easy to fix feet firmly in place. Are We There Yet?
etting up a custom rig for a new Smodel requires much trial and error. Getting it to work well isn’t a trivial issue. Don’t be afraid to try something and then FIGURES 6A–6C. There is always more than one approach you can take. Make the time to find the abandon it moments later if you find it right one.
26 november 2001 | game developer WIRELESS GAMING
It’s a Wireless World
t a time when the have heard all the analysts’ and big game industry mobile companies’ lofty statistics and stands at the thresh- assurances of astronomical global growth, old of a long-await- the magnitude of which hearken back to ed hardware transi- the early promises made about the rev- Ation that will carry us forward enue potential of e-commerce or online into next few years, why take gaming or widespread broadband adapta- this opportunity to address tion — and we know where those stand the still relatively nebulous today. But, as developers in this space world of mobile gaming? have discovered, mobile gaming presents Most game developers have come some unique opportunities unlike any to rely on the trusty tide of Moore’s law we’ve experienced before. to drive PC hardware advancement, and Whether you’re currently developing on console manufacturers to give their games for PCs or consoles, or have already hardware a respectable life cycle in the sallied forth into the mobile game develop- market in order to recoup as much of ment wilderness, the following pages pres- their hardware investments as possible. ent a circumspect view of the current state Compared to the traditional game mar- of mobile game development around the ket, there are as yet relatively few known world, from current and next-generation quantities in the rapidly developing technologies, to the reinvention of game mobile game space. design, to working and nonworking busi- Still, the market has matured just ness models, to the promises and lessons enough at this point that it is possible to that the mobile gaming markets in Europe shed a reasonably accurate light on the and Asia present. The growth of mobile state of the industry from the perspective gaming will ultimately affect the rest of the of those operating on the front lines of traditional game market, whether you’re mobile game development. These people ready for it to or not.
WIRELESS GAMING
30 Wireless Game Development: Coding Without a Net
34 Wireless Game Content: How to Think Big In A Small World
36 The Business of Mobile Games
38 The Wireless Scene in Europe
40 Japan Gets Hooked on Java
www.gdmag.com 29 WIRELESS GAMING dale crowley, maurice molyneaux, w
Wireless Game Development: Coding Without a Net
eveloping for new plat- ments. However, and although most of the QCP 3035 phone, the clumsy soft keys forms is business as usual examples herein relate to our mobile made a PC-like point-and-click cursoring in the electronic gaming phone game development, observations system difficult, and the card layouts pre- industry, but in today’s rel- about Palm and Windows CE are included cluded using the buttons to move a high- atively mature marketplace, throughout. lighter from card to card in any kind of theD number of platforms and standards to intuitive fashion. Our solution was to develop for is quite small, and new devices The Control System address the most obvious interface of the appear with a relatively low frequency. phone, the number keys. We placed small The infant field of game development evelopers of console games in partic- numbers alongside each playable card, and for wireless devices is a different story. As D ular know that control systems are players simply press the indicated button with any up-and-coming industry, there are not a strange place to begin discussing to act on the card. As cards are removed, many competitors hoping to set the new development. The controls are of such pri- these numbers “follow” the card forma- standards. Even within given platforms ority that it’s vitally important to figure tions as if on small tracks. This means no and SDKs, there are numerous variations out how the user might operate the game action in the game requires more than one in everything from screen resolution to before even considering the technical feasi- or two button presses, whereas attempting control-key layouts. bility of executing the title. After all, if to move a cursor around would have been The transition from developing titles there’s no way to control the game, there’s awkward and frustrating, if not visually for PCs and consoles to developing for no point in doing it. unpleasant due to some of the other limita- wireless and mobile devices is a challeng- For example, while a mobile phone tions of the phone’s graphics (which we’ll ing one; it is also rewarding. At Nuvo- might at first glance appear to have more discuss later). Studios, we have developed (or are in the possibilities as an input device than even Palm and PocketPC devices can be just process of developing) titles for a number a dedicated game controller due to its as bad or worse than mobile phones. of these new platforms. By the time you large number of buttons, these keys are Palm-compatible devices typically have a read this, we should have 12 titles for obviously not designed or laid out like a two-directional button pad (up and down) Binary Runtime for Wireless (BREW), 8 joypad or other game controller. The but- and four additional buttons. The buttons titles for J2ME, 7 titles for Palm OS, and tons are often recessed to prevent acci- immediately flanking the up-and-down 10 for Windows CE complete and in the dental presses and are typically clustered buttons can be used as left and right to marketplace. very tightly together. Furthermore, while simulate a typical four-way directional joy- Our primary experience in wireless many recent models have joypadlike pad, but their placement isn’t very suitable devices has been with mobile phones, prin- directional buttons, these are often small to this. And, as with the phones, they are cipally with the J2ME and BREW environ- and imprecise. often recessed and difficult to press. When we developed a suite of solitaire PocketPCs typically have a four-way direc- games for the BREW-enabled Kyocera tional pad, but these often have their own
DALE CROWLEY | As founder and CEO of NuvoStudios, Dale was responsible for the studio’s initial push into the wireless and mobile space. He established early relationships with Motorola, Nokia, and Qualcomm and has guided NuvoStudios through the production of more than 75 games on six platforms. Dale can be reached at [email protected]. MAURICE MOLYNEAUX | Maurice is the director of production for NuvoStudios. With more than 13 lucky years of game development experience, Maurice applies his extensive back- ground in art, animation, scripting, design, and project management to all of Nuvo’s games. Maurice can be reached at [email protected]. WAYNE LEE | Wayne is senior engineer at NuvoStudios and has been responsible for many of the company’s key technology innovations. Wayne can be reached at [email protected]. Lack of transparency forces use of composite RAMESH VENKATARAMAN, PH.D. | Ramesh is NuvoStudios’ CTO and has helped graphics containing all elements required for lead NuvoStudios through the many technology hurdles that an emerging-market game devel- that portion of the screen. oper faces today. Ramesh can be reached at [email protected].
30 november 2001 | game developer wayne lee, & ramesh venkataraman
problems, such as the difficulty of actually ly small. One device we considered devel- LISTING 1. On the Kyocera QCP 3035 BREW depressing the buttons. A traditional joy- oping for permitted an application size of phone, example B is an order of pad offers comparatively little resistance. no more than 10K of storage space! magnitude faster than example A. A further consideration beyond the Others are more generous, with upwards ergonomics of the available controls on of 60 to 80K. Upcoming color devices mobile and wireless devices is that the promise more memory still, but if their 8- // A: Draw background with a bitmap underlying hardware has limitations that bit color graphics take up eight times as no self-respecting game-controller designer much space, then the problem might be IIMAGE_Draw(f_bg, 0, 20); would allow. A common one with hand- just as severe. held devices is that you cannot press more Another reason application sizes have to than one key simultaneously. The iPaq remain small is that these devices typically H3650 suffers from this, and on that have limited heap space, restricting the // B: Draw equivalent background with just device the problem is so serious that it amount of dynamic memory for variables, rectangles effectively prevents the developer from stack, and graphics. using its directional pad analogously to a BREW is especially nasty with memory videogame joypad, because while both are currently, because, as on the Kyocera QCP IDisplay *d = a.m_pIDisplay; four-switch devices, the iPaq cannot read 3035, the application isn’t just executed in two switches as being pressed at once to dynamic RAM; the entire application is AEERect r; make a diagonal, whereas a joypad can. copied from storage RAM into dynamic r.x = 0; Not being able to read input from two RAM and then executed. You’re effectively r.y = 20; or more buttons simultaneously can be a penalized twice for a big application. severe limitation for action games. For The memory constraints of the Palm OS r.dx = SCREEN_WIDTH; example, when we ported a version of are nowhere near as restrictive as for r.dy = 45; TETRIS to the J2ME platform, one of the BREW, but if you’re supporting older IDISPLAY_FillRect(d, &r, RGB_BLACK); issues that arose was that the arcade and hardware and older versions of the Palm home versions of the game allow you to OS, be aware that heap space is very limit- r.y = 65; simultaneously move and rotate a piece by ed, as low as 36K for Palm OS 3.0. On the r.dy = 14; working two controls at once. Since the plus side, any Palm-powered device run- IDISPLAY_FillRect(d, &r, RGB_WHITE); target phones did not allow for two con- ning OS 3.0 only supports black and white trol inputs, we had to consider slowing or grayscale graphics, reducing your mem- down the game in order to allow the play- ory requirements. Any color Palm device r.dy = 1; er to make these moves separately. uses at least Palm OS 3.5, which has a much roomier heap. And, like the Kyocera Device Speed and 3035 phone, images stored in resources do r.y = 47; not use any of the dynamic RAM until Memory IDISPLAY_FillRect(d, &r, RGB_WHITE); they are loaded into the heap, so you he processor speeds on devices cur- should unload images as soon as you are r.y = 53; T rently on the market are obviously done using them. Also, data stored in data- IDISPLAY_FillRect(d, &r, RGB_WHITE); much lower than what we are used to bases are placed in storage memory, so r.y = 59; when writing games for PCs — with the consider putting large tables in .PDB (Palm possible exception of the newer PocketPCs. Database) files. IDISPLAY_FillRect(d, &r, RGB_WHITE); This affects everything from the speed at Since all shipping Pocket PCs have at r.y = 63; which data can be loaded to the least 16MB of RAM, storage and heap IDISPLAY_FillRect(d, &r, RGB_WHITE); frame/refresh rate, and seriously limits the space is less of an issue on these devices ability to animate characters or otherwise than others. rapidly change the screen. As with most small devices, there are Power-Save However, on some devices not only does two kinds of memory, the storage memory Considerations the power-save mode turn off the screen’s (usually flash RAM or static RAM), and backlight, but the entire device slows! We the memory in which the application runs irtually all wireless devices have first noticed this on our WWF MOBILE (dynamic RAM). V power-saving modes where they shut MADNESS game for the J2ME Motorola On mobile phones the storage RAM is themselves off, deactivate the screen, or i85s, which has a “spectator” mode that usually extremely limited, and, because turn off the screen’s backlighting. On lets you watch a match without playing. each phone allows the user to store multi- most devices this doesn’t cause any loss of Unless you thump a key now and then to ple applications, the allowable maximum data or necessarily terminate the applica- keep the phone in an active mode, the sizes for a given program can be extreme- tion running. match starts to look like a slow-motion
www.gdmag.com 31 WIRELESS GAMING
instant replay. Because the device keeps demand in the mainstream. The ability to shifting gears on players, it can be difficult draw clear, concise images in extremely for them to get into the rhythm of the low resolutions and with very small game. There’s no simple solution to this, palettes is very important. And, if you’re because while you might consider tuning animating characters at these small sizes, your game so that the maximum time you need artists who can draw dynamic, between required button presses is less easily read poses; otherwise a kick might than the inactivity timeout for the device, look like a dance step, and a punch like an fortunately, sometimes these timeouts are arm wave. Your typical Photoshop-trained user-adjustable. artist is not necessarily suited to this realm, where the placement of a single pixel is Resolution and Screen often the demarcation point between clari- Technology Test of graphics developed for multiple devices of ty and mud. different bit-depths. Naturally, the most challenging screens he limited resolution of wireless to develop for are the 1-bit black mono- T devices is as much a factor on phones for simulating it. This means that writing chrome displays. The difference between 1- as PDAs. Palm compatibles have a typical games that include traditional sprites is bit black and white and 2-bit grayscale is screen resolution of 160x160 pixels, with difficult. On some platforms, custom sprite surprising. In fact, it can be enormous. The palettes of varying ranges. Some are four engines can be used with acceptable per- antialiasing provided by the latter can grays only; some are 16 grays without OS formance hits, but on others, such as the make a huge difference in the clarity and support for 16; some are 16 with OS sup- J2ME phones, the amount of processor detail of images, especially on low-resolu- port for 16, and some are 256-color. time required for doing transparent blits tion devices. Mobile phones have resolutions as low as was prohibitive for us. 89x99 pixels in black and white, and then For WWF MOBILE MADNESS we first Portability again up to 128x142 in 256 colors. came up with the solution of keeping the However, while the difference between a characters moving on a single plane with a nother key design issue that needs to high-end phone and a low-end PDA might uniform background, and included parts of A be considered when developing games not seem so pronounced, most users of the background into the characters’ art, is the often dramatic difference among var- such devices don’t have the top-of-the-line thus giving the impression of transparent ious handhelds within the same family in models. The reality is that the mass market blitting where none exists. This worked terms of their speed, memory, and other is more likely to be in the low and middle fine on the Motorola i85s J2ME phone, specifications. For example, while there are ranges for each. but not so well on the Qualcomm QCP several BREW and J2ME phones on the The type and quality of the LCD screens 3035 BREW phone. The former could market or coming to market, the differ- is another factor. Aside from the speed at push upwards of 12 frames per second, ences between the low and high end can be which the hardware can update the screen but on the latter we were lucky to get two considerable, especially where graphics are memory, there is the issue of image persist- frames per second doing the exact same concerned. As a game developer, you do ence. Active-matrix displays refresh much animation. To eke as much speed as possi- not always have the luxury of developing more quickly than cheaper, passive-matrix ble out of the QCP 3035, we abandoned different versions of a game for each of the displays. This often leads to momentary restoring the background bitmap when target devices. Often this means that you after-images and serious blurring problems characters moved and instead used end developing for the lowest common on the passive-matrix devices. So what BREW’s rectangle-drawing function to denominator — the cheapest phone or might look fine on a Palm m505, which rebuild the background quickly, effectively PDA. That becomes your baseline, and has an active-matrix screen, will blur sig- doubling the frame rate. This kind of solu- then you make adjustments for specific nificantly on a passive-matrix device such tion requires appropriately designed art in devices. as the Handspring Visor Deluxe. This order to be feasible. Graphics are a place where a lot of means you either have to avoid having lots adjustments are necessary in both produc- of fast-moving objects or scrolling, do dif- Graphics Development tion or art assets and game code. For ferent games for different devices (which instance, the version of MUMMY MAZE we no sane product manager will allow), or hereas PC and console graphics did for JAMDAT required entirely differ- just shrug your shoulders and accept the W have become increasingly detailed ent art for the 89x99 1-bit QCP 3035 and fact that the game will look great on some and colorful, the types of graphics dis- the 128x142 8-bit Sharp TQ-CX1. devices and messy on others. playable on most wireless and mobile Furthermore, the differences in screen reso- Another big factor is that many of the devices are more akin to computers circa lution required different coordinate offsets devices in question do not have native sup- 1984 to 1989. Making good-looking for all the graphics, and even the help sys- port for images with transparency, nor do graphics with these limitations requires tem text had to be reworked to make the the SDKs available for them have any tools skills that for years have been out of best use of the larger screen.
32 november 2001 | game developer Case Studies: Developing for a New kit, there are eccentricities in the compil- Generation of Phones ers that can cause headaches for the LISTING 2. SmallerClass results in compiled developer. For example, the use of global code that is 30 percent smaller than variables was not disallowed when we BiggerClass. eveloping games with BREW. The were writing for the BREW emulator. D BREW SDK, developed by However, this was flagged by the ARM public class BiggerClass Qualcomm, is intended to facilitate the compiler and required us to rewrite some { development of applications that can be of our code. private int f_health; easily ported to various handheld devices. In general, expect the same kinds of gen- private boolean f_isGroggy; The BREW SDK consists of an emulator eral differences you would expect when private int f_forwardDir; and a set of APIs that can be used to going from one manufacturer’s C compiler private int f_index; develop the required application. With the to another. BREW toolkit (which we found only Developing games with J2ME. In J2ME, public void setHealth(int h) { works well with Visual C++) you first consider using public variables in your class- f_health = h; build binaries for the emulator, which take es, rather than using accessors (getValue(), } the form of Windows DLLs. Once the setValue(), and so on). Yes, technically doing DLL has been created you can begin test- so is “bad” programming practice, but it public void setGroggy(boolean groggy) ing the application on the emulator. saves you space because in Java, the imple- { The emulator is a Windows program mentation and the use of accessor methods f_isGroggy = groggy; that implements the BREW API. add to the size of the code. } However, we found that it does not truly To maximize performance, be extra emulate the configuration found on the careful to have things in memory only public int getIndex() phone. For example, we found that the when they’re in use. For example, if you { sound on the emulator did not corre- have a splash screen for the game intro, return f_index; spond with the sound that came out of discard it after it’s done displaying. } the phone. Similarly, we found that Furthermore, consider reducing the num- refresh rates on the emulators were differ- ber of classes used if your design allows it. public void setForwardDir(int f) ent from the actual refresh rates on the You can combine classes into one if they { f_forwardDir = f; phones. vary only slightly in behavior. There’s an } In BREW, we found it useful to put unavoidable size overhead for each class large tables into a file, because these files you use, even if it does nothing. public static void are not copied into dynamic RAM (unlike It’s also important to remember that ExampleUsage(BiggerClass obj) the code for the application itself). loading and installing applications into { When you are using bitmapped graph- J2ME phones is a relatively slow process. obj.setHealth(100); ics in BREW, loading images from a If you have to do numerous revisions in obj.setGroggy(true); resource is reasonably quick. As a plus, QA, this may result in delays because you obj.setForwardDir(obj.getIndex() images that are sitting in such a resource can’t quickly test new builds. == 1 ? 1 : -1); } don’t take up dynamic RAM, so you can } often get away with loading images only Development on the on demand and discarding them soon Edge after you’re done, even during an anima- public class SmallerClass tion. For example, if you have a large eveloping applications for small { image strip (one graphic containing many D handheld devices brings with it a public int f_health; cels), consider splitting it up into several unique set of challenges and opportunities. public boolean f_isGroggy; smaller image strips and then loading The newness of these devices means that public int f_forwardDir; each strip just as it’s needed. many questions about them (such as how public int f_index; Once you are ready to test the game on to develop for them) have not yet been the actual phone, you need to compile fully answered. Sometimes we have found public static void and link the code into ARM binary form ourselves developing for devices that do ExampleUsage(SmallerClass obj) using the ARM BREW developers’ pack, not exist outside of someone else’s lab. As { obj.f_health = 100; which includes a compiler, linker, and a result, while developing content we have obj.f_isGroggy = true; assembler. It is this binary that you actu- often found ourselves trailblazing in just obj.f_forwardDir = obj.f_index == ally download into the phone using a seri- doing things such as shaking the screen. 1 ? 1 : -1; al link. While in theory, whatever com- Frustrating, yes, but ultimately rewarding. } piles for the BREW emulator should also Such are the drawbacks and benefits of } compile when using the ARM developer working on the cutting edge. q www.gdmag.com 33 WIRELESS GAMING jay minn
Wireless Game Content: How to Think Big In A Small World hai·ku (hı´koo) n. pl. haiku, also hai·kus firms, so I won’t take the time to justify doesn’t take 2-plus years of slogging away A Japanese lyric verse form having three that claim. More importantly for the game at art, design, and programming to com- unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five development community, people with plete a project and get to market. But cre- syllables, traditionally invoking an phones are looking to fill with entertain- atively, it is the connectivity and personal aspect of nature or the seasons. ment that short sliver of time spent waiting relationships that people have with their for the bus or in line at the bank. Even cell phones that compels some of us Here’s an example: more importantly, kids will always play mobile game developers to wade through videogames on any device that has a screen the sea of incompatible standards, middle- Cell phone games are fun — just because they can. ware, and platforms to create the content. A VC falls in the woods Second, the cell phone is a personal, The challenge is to make a game that cap- Alone, will kids pay? connected communication device, making tures the imagination (often that’s all you it a truly unique platform for game get) and turns game players into addicts. eveloping for the current development. The traditional console or Early examples of WAP titles such as U.S. marketplace for wire- even the handheld videogame experience Hangman, Trivia, and Solitaire have less gaming is not far from has predominantly been a solo or at best evolved and given way to the current gen- writing three-line Japanese a very small group experience (four eration of WAP titles, all of which have poetry in terms of limita- players or fewer, unless you were lucky elements of community and/or persistent tions.D In fact, on some phones the text will enough to experience eight-player character development. Audiences have probably have to wrap and the user will be BOMBERMAN on the Saturn). In contrast, burned many minutes of their precious air required to scroll down to see the whole your average time playing games, because they were thing. O.K., on some other phones, the 96- cell phone given an opportunity to care about their pixel-wide by 30-pixel-tall black and white game player standing in the community on a high score bitmap of the tranquil forest will also be has the poten- board, for example. On the persistent- displayed above the poem. Of course, tial to be con- character development front, once players depending on the network, the phone may nected with a invests some time in a character and can also require a connect sequence between community of continue to make that character more the text and the picture, and you can burn millions of powerful by spending time playing, they another three to five seconds waiting. And other users, all will then obsessively burn time to keep that’s the way it is on WAP today. the time — going. Ask any Everquest junkie with a The BLAM! team has developed titles most people 50th-level or better character. That is true for the PC, Playstation, 3DO, desktop leave their PCs, in the wireless world as well, where popu- browsers, Palm Pilots, Commodore 64, game consoles, lar games allow users to create and build Atari ST, Amiga, and Sega Saturn plat- and even hand- their character’s power indefinitely. Even forms. Coming from today’s world of held consoles on a cell phone, players can, for example, high-end graphics, relatively large amounts at home much build up their character’s Broadsword Skill of memory, and custom processors on con- of the time. and thus, be able to take on more power- soles, it is easy to see only the limitations The growth ful enemies, thus opening up new areas of of what can be achieved on phones. Admit in the mobile the game, and then getting more items, it, on any platform it’s hard to know what phone market and so on. makes those fickle audiences out there like makes it a Remember, today’s talk about WAP is or dislike a particular game. And consider- lucrative ven- only about today’s content development. ing the extremely narrow canvas of cell ture to try to As we see phones enabled with J2ME (Java phones, you might wonder why you BLAM!'s SnapShot Live capture even a 2 Micro Edition) and BREW (Binary Run- should even try to make games on these Football, published by small part of time Environment for Wireless) become tiny devices at all. The bottom line is that Sorrent, is available on the massive adopted by the marketplace, we can easily he formula for a fun, compelling wireless SprintPCS and AT&T potential audi- expect to see cell phone games look and game title is difficult at best to define. Yet Wireless. ence. Also, it play more like Game Boy games. Soon we there are undeniably compelling reasons for making games for cell phones. JAY MINN | Jay co-founded BLAM! in 1995. He and his staff are currently focusing their First of all, the cell phone market is con- efforts on developing entertainment content for desktop browsers and mobile devices. BLAM! has tinuing to grow. The numbers are there alliances with publishers, distributors, and carriers, including JAMDAT Mobile, Digital Bridges, from the highly paid market research Pogo.com, Iwon.com, Qualcomm, Sun Microsystems, Sprint PCS, and AT&T Wireless.
34 november 2001 | game developer will be able to play almost anything that Our job, then, becomes the task of creat- adoption rate of a given title. If audiences the early handheld games were capable of ing an intuitive interface that does not don’t get it, or they have to fumble around displaying, with scrolling, tiles, sprites, col- require a whole lot of explanation on a to find which buttons to press, then the lision systems, particles, and animations. very limited screen space and hardware title hasn’t got a chance. Add to it that we And they will all be connected. while capturing the essence of connected, are also trying to capture a multiplayer, As audiences start upgrading their cell community-based games on the cell community-based experience, and therefore phones to more powerful hardware, with phones. Interface design, immediately fol- has more complex requirements for inter- more memory, color screens, Java or lowing game design and technology itself, face, we have the true challenge for game BREW enabled, and faster, always-on con- will be the make-or-break factor in the development in the wireless space. q nections, we will quickly see games reach a whole new, increased level of pervasive- ness. The choice of games that a user downloads or subscribes to will be part of the customization of their phones, as much as ring tones, background pictures, and custom plastic cases are today. The games will be with you wherever you go and will alert you, for example, if a neighboring clan of warriors is attacking your territory. You will meet your team- mates to participate in a large-scale air attack in your jet fighter as part of a mas- sive campaign. You will be part of a live soap opera, administered by a real-time editor at the server integrating your input and sending back the resulting script via SMS. This is all possible today. Farther off in the future, with global positioning information becoming part of the available technologies, we’ll get the chance to tweak the content formula. Players in a game will then be able to opt in to allow for their physical location informa- tion to be a part of the game world. As you drive away from a certain city block, you move out of range of your opponents’ virtu- al weapons, for example. Voice-activated menus or even whole adventures based on voice interactions may also be available to augment the wireless gaming experience. Finally, fatter wireless pipes will let develop- ers create truly robust games with massive client applications delivering everything from audio to streaming video. All that is coming, some say sooner, some say later. But we must develop for today, and build up for the future. In the course of doing so, we must remember that we cannot approach wireless game development from trying to figure out how to replicate the traditional videogame experience on a personal device. That approach will inevitably result in frustrat- ing, unplayable titles that do not take advantage of the uniqueness of this new medium: connected and mobile users. www.gdmag.com 35 WIRELESS GAMING mitch lasky
The Business of Mobile Games
istributing games through expect mobile gaming to fare any better? wireless networks is a new There is one key difference between the frontier for both the online mobile games market and the online games and handheld game devel- market: money. Unlike online gaming, oper. As with any new plat- which is either supported by advertising or Dform, there is a great deal of hype about which requires consumers to hand out the potential for the mobile games business their credit card numbers on the Internet, coming from hardware vendors, phone com- mobile gaming leverages the pre-existing panies, and Wall Street analysts. How does a billing relationship between consumers and game developer (or publisher) identify the wireless phone carriers. real opportunities in this nascent market? Every month wireless carriers send out millions of bills to consumers. Those bills JAMDAT’s GLADIATOR is an multiplayer wire- Rule #1: contain voice charges, as well as other serv- less experience based on ancient Rome Follow the Money ice charges (such as directory assistance calls, or monthly fees for data services). The ing hardware, develop a retail channel for he mobile games market represents the carriers’ ability to generate cash by billing software, and spend hundreds of millions T largest new interactive entertainment consumers provides the basis for the rev- of dollars on marketing. The proprietary opportunity for developers and publishers. enue opportunities of game developers and control of content and per-unit license fees Around the world, a staggering number of publishers (and I might add provides the commanded by console manufacturers consumers have access to wireless devices leverage carriers use to maintain their posi- acknowledges the huge financial risks they — currently upwards of 600 million peo- tion as gatekeepers of content). have taken to propagate their platforms. ple subscribe to wireless voice services, and In Japan, wireless carriers such as NTT In the mobile game business, no single that number is projected to grow to well DoCoMo are capable of billing on behalf company stands in the position of a Sony over 1 billion by 2005. In certain Asian of content publishers. The major European or Nintendo. Instead, handset manufactur- and European countries, wireless services and North American carriers are all work- ers, applications environment providers, have achieved population penetrations ing on their own “bill on behalf of” sys- Internet portals, component suppliers, and greater than 60 percent. tems, which will begin rolling out over the middleware companies have an interest in While wireless phone manufacturers next year. Once these systems are in place defining platforms for mobile games. In currently embed a few primitive games in around the world, game publishers will be general, publishers and developers should their devices (such as Nokia’s ubiquitous able to get paid for their content directly. be skeptical of proprietary platforms at SNAKE), the real opportunity for mobile In the absence of new billing systems, con- this early stage of market development. gaming is tied to the growth of wireless tent providers have only indirect revenue The lack of standards makes the mobile data services and the corresponding prolif- opportunities — sharing the revenue carri- games business look more like the PC eration of data-enabled phones. ers derive from per-minute or per-message games business, without a Microsoft to set Consumers can use data-enabled phones access fees, or monthly service charges. de facto standards like DirectX. For exam- to access a vast array of content and serv- ple, there are at least a half dozen incom- ices. Phone technology is advancing Where’s the Platform? patible browsers in mobile phones. Java rapidly — new phones have large color Virtual Machines are sometimes imple- screens, memory, processing power, and an erhaps the most overused term in the mented inconsistently in mobile phone always-on connection to the Internet at P wireless games business is “plat- handsets sold by the same carrier. The wide decent data rates. Games will be one of the form.” Companies large and small have diversity of wireless applications environ- leading applications driving this new mar- concentrated on creating game platforms, ments and devices, and the corresponding ket — currently, games are generating as attempting to generate predictable revenue lack of compatibility, has required compa- much as 25 percent of data usage in cer- streams through platform license fees and nies such as JAMDAT and others to invest tain territories — and some analysts have other associated toll charges. In fact, noth- heavily in middleware technologies to projected a global mobile games business ing like a console platform exists in the enable multi-platform development, data as large as $6 billion annually developing mobile games business. gathering, and billing integration. over the next five years. Most companies trying to create plat- True, we’ve all seen these kinds of pie- forms for mobile gaming misunderstand MITCH LASKY | Mitch is CEO of JAM- in-the-sky projections before in connection the way console platforms work in the DAT Mobile, a leading provider of mobile with online gaming — and that certainly videogame business. In the videogame con- entertainment and enabling technologies. Prior didn’t turn out the way the analysts pre- text, companies like Sony and Nintendo to joining JAMDAT, Lasky was executive vice dicted back in 1995. So why should we absorb massive capital losses manufactur- president of worldwide studios for Activision.
36 november 2001 | game developer Alphabet Soup component manufacturers, portals, content carrier relationships is probably the most publishers, and tools companies. important criterion. Are they getting paid? n the absence of broadly-accepted plat- The wireless carriers are the most pow- How is their reputation in the carrier com- I forms for content distribution, develop- erful players in the mobile game market- munity? Are they supplying something ers need to be familiar with the most pop- place. They not only function as the other than games (such as enabling tech- ular messaging systems, browsers, and retailer for software (like Best Buy, Wal- nology) or participating in trials of next- next-generation applications environments. Mart and Electronics Boutique in the generation systems? These technologies provide the base level retail games business), they also subsidize What about the existing retail game of functionality needed to enable mobile and sell the hardware devices that can publishers? In Japan, major publishers like games, but our view of the marketplace work on their networks. Often, they dic- Bandai, Namco, and others are distribut- today is that no one platform will domi- tate the applications environments that ing mobile games. To date, of the U.S. and nate. You will need to diversify your devel- will ship in those devices. In Asia and European publishers only THQ, a tradi- opment chops to survive. North America, carriers are particularly tional powerhouse in handheld gaming, The simplest way of distributing games powerful. In Europe, however, the wide- has announced official plans to publish to data-enabled phones is through the spread use of SIM cards to enable net- mobile games. Short Messaging Service, or SMS. An SMS work access has put handset manufactur- message is typically a 160-character mes- ers like Nokia in a much stronger posi- Taking the Plunge sage that can be read on a mobile phone. tion versus carriers. Next step up in the wireless food chain The high cost of building and maintain- s developing for the burgeoning but are data-enabled phones that contain ing nationwide wireless networks has led I untamed wireless sector for you? Internet “mini-browsers,” which offer a to a lot of carrier consolidation, leaving Creatively, mobile games offer some unique significantly better platform for gaming. only a few important carriers in each terri- advantages. The games themselves are typi- There are currently more than 40 million tory. For example, three carriers (NTT cally small (under 100KB for downloadable phones with Internet browsers (WAP or DoCoMo, KDDI, and J-Phone) control games), and it is possible for an individual HTML-derived) in the Asian markets, Japan; four carriers (Sprint PCS, AT&T, or very small development team to create a approximately 5 million in North Verizon, and Cingular) hold approximately product from scratch in a small fraction of America and perhaps 10 million in 70 percent of the U.S. market. Therefore, the time it takes to develop a full-featured Europe. in order to have a successful distribution PC or console game. Then there are the newest standards, strategy, publishers have to have solid rela- While the current audience for mobile J2ME and BREW. J2ME and BREW repre- tionships with the major carriers. It fol- games is small, it is growing rapidly. Wire- sent a transition from browser-based gam- lows that developers have to have solid less carriers are investing heavily in data ing to gaming based on downloaded, or relationships with publishers. services, because the profitability of voice pre-loaded, executables. Using phones services has been eroded by stiff competi- equipped with these applications environ- The Role of Publishers tion, and carriers view data services as the ments, consumers can download games to way to recapture this lost revenue. Thus, their phones and run them locally. ublishers (and other aggregators of carriers are aggressively promoting data The download model for J2ME and P entertainment content, like portals) capabilities and are looking for “killer BREW games also offers the most com- play an important role in the mobile game apps” — like games — to drive consumer pelling revenue model for game providers. business. Publishers maintain the hosting usage of data services. In Japan, for example, consumers can and serving environments that carriers rely Most importantly, the fundamentals of the download Java games and play them for on to provide games to end users. Also, mobile game business are very attractive. some specified amount of time for ¥100 to because carriers are unwilling to under- Mobile gaming combines the best attributes ¥300 (US$0.85 to $2.50) — with 80 to 90 write the cost of creating content, publish- of online gaming (lower development costs, percent of the purchase price flowing back ers provide capital to developers in the rapid time to market, no physical inventory) to the game publisher. A similar download form of development advances, just as in with the best attributes of the retail games and revenue model for BREW content will the retail game business. business (access to an efficient distribution launch this fall in the United States. Quality assurance testing is one of the network, the availability of paying cus- most valuable services a publisher can pro- tomers), and has the added benefit of a global Carriers Rule vide. And as in the videogame console mass market of consumers that will number business, a publisher’s experience navigat- in the hundreds of millions in the next five here are many key players in the mobile ing the certification process can be years — an order of magnitude larger than T content value chain. Developing and extremely helpful. Publishers also provide the most successful videogame consoles. publishing mobile entertainment applications access to localization services — which are The opportunities are there. Choose your involves navigating a complex web of carri- vital to reaching the global consumer base. platforms, publishers, and partners with ers, handset manufacturers, operating sys- How should developers evaluate poten- care. But don’t delay; the sector is picking tem and application environment providers, tial publishers? The quality of a publisher’s up speed with each passing day. q www.gdmag.com 37 WIRELESS GAMING brian baglow
The Wireless Scene in Europe
urope has long been at the scribers. Recent research has shown that imaginative developers have entered the forefront of the creation and most of the traffic on the wireless Internet market. adoption of the wireless in Europe to date has come through these There are several companies throughout Internet, but Europe offers operator portals. In addition, several major Europe who are already working on titles several significant differences mobile network operators in Europe cover that offer advanced new services such as fromE the other major markets in the multiple territories. massively multiplayer capability (STAR world, both technically and from a busi- These portals offer the best possibility TREK: PRIME DIRECTIVE, for one) and loca- ness standpoint. What can U.S. developers for making money from game and enter- tion-based gaming (BOT FIGHTER). Each learn from our experiences in the U.K. and tainment services, since they tend to have user connects with a central server when- on the continent? operator backing and can offer revenue- ever they make a move, therefore creating Technology. Unlike the U.S., where sys- sharing deals for inclusion on their menus. multiplayer games is much simpler on tems such as CDMA (Code Division Multi- Currently, most of the operators in mobile devices than on almost any other ple Access) and TDMA (Time Division Europe are charging users for the air time platform. Add to this the fact that all play- Multiple Access) prevail, and where moving they generate while playing games. This is ers are having the game delivered to them, between states can make your cellphone as already in the process of changing, with regardless of different devices, optimized useful and attractive as a brick, the whole most of the portals somewhere along the for different screen sizes and input devices, of Europe, as well as most of the Middle line of introducing specific payment and delivered to each player in his or her East and Africa, benefits from a single, uni- schemes such as monthly subscriptions, native language, well, you see why wireless fying standard, the Global System for micro-payments, or voucher systems. This is is going to be such as big deal globally. Mobile Communications, or GSM. This fairly important, since it creates a direct To date, Europe has suffered from a mis- provides a common underlying structure for value chain with the developer at one end guided perception that services such as all mobile communications, including voice and the end user at the other. stocks and share prices and weather reports and data calls. Users cross from cell to cell, Gaming. Almost all of the games would really pull in the punters, but this is network to network and country to country available to European mobile phone looking less likely. Recent research carried (almost) seamlessly. However, the call users to date have made use of out by the European wireless trade journal, charges will probably kill you. GSM is Short Messaging Mobile Internet found that on one of making progress in the U.S., so Americans Service (SMS) or Europe’s top WAP portals, gaming account- may yet come to know the joy of SMS. WAP services. All of ed for more than 16 percent of the total The current generation of wireless the major WAP por- traffic generated on the portal, beating Internet phones make use of the Wireless tals now offer a services such as messaging, sports, and even Application Protocol (WAP) to access the selection of both pornography in terms of popularity. Internet. Graphics are limited, with mono- types of games to The future. The European mobile market chrome screens offering an average resolu- their users. is evolving at a staggeringly fast rate. tion of approximately 90x40 pixels. To date, the SMS Before the end of 2001, new handsets with Transmission speeds throughout Europe games available have improved graphics, browsers, GPRS sup- are currently based on the standard rate of been fairly limited, port, and Java processing will be available. 9.6K per second. Networks offering so- offering a variety of The operator-run portals will be charging called 2.5G transmission using the General quizzes and adven- users via micro-payment or subscription Packet Radio Switching (GPRS) system are ture games, but schemes and advertising key titles available rolling out in many territories across more complex and through their portals. As awareness of Europe, although GPRS-enabled handsets sophisticated games mobile gaming grows, we expect the num- are not yet widely available. are due out later this ber of major publishers and media compa- Before the end of 2001, phones offering year and in early nies involved in the industry to multiply. on-board Java processing and grayscale/ 2002. Within the next 12 months, several multi- color screens should become widely avail- STAR TREK: PRIME Even WAP games national games and media companies may able throughout Europe. In the wireless DIRECTIVE developed have grown increas- set up their own branded gaming channels industry, this is as exciting as the move by Wirelessgames, ingly sophisticated to take advantage of new users. from 8 to 16 bit. No, really. being played on a over the past 12 The bottom line. Time to get over the The marketplace. Here’s where things get Panasonic GD93 months as more screen size, guys. q more familiar. As in the U.S., almost all of the operators throughout Europe have cre- BRIAN BAGLOW | Brian started his games career at DMA Design in Scotland. After ated their own portals to provide wireless spending a highly educational year and a half at Take 2, he returned to life in Scotland and the (and fixed) Internet services to their sub- cutting edge of gaming by joining Digital Bridges as global communications manager.
38 november 2001 | game developer WIRELESS GAMING daniel scuka
Japan Gets Hooked on Java
ow, don’t take it personally, Java rules. Java games appear to be well the emergence of wireless-only, Java-based, but Japan is way ahead of suited to the existing mobile infrastructure. massively multi-user games. Independent the pack when it comes to For Java game sites, a typical fee is ¥300 developer Dwango appears to have scored wireless gaming. Japan for three downloads per month. In addi- a hit with SAMURAI ROMANESQUE, in which leads the world in wireless tion, carriers earn revenue from data pack- players take on the role of 15th century Ntechnology and, more importantly, in craft- ets sent to and from handsets — which is samurai, foot soldiers, generals, and other ing mobile Internet access into a hugely one reason why Java, and in particular, archetypes from Japan’s era of the war- popular, revenue-generating industry, and data-swapping, multi-user, and role- lords. Dwango claims the game can games are poised to be one of the major playing gaming, is being pushed by the accommodate up to 500,000 players, drivers of technology adaptation and usage. carriers (developers, take note!). implying a significant degree of server-side Games coded in the Java programming The advent of mobile Java has seen a development, and making the game highly language represent ground zero of the sec- tremendous burst of activity by major and network-dependent. ond wave of Japan’s mobile game industry. smaller game developers and publishers One of the game’s most interesting fea- The past 10 months have seen the three alike this year. Two-year-old Tokyo-based tures is the integration of real-time weath- giants of the cellular space, NTT DoCoMo, Cybird is a good example of the new breed er data provided by the Japan Weather KDDI, and J-Phone, announce or roll out of mobile content developers that focus Association. Game settings vary as local, Java-based services. For the solely on wireless. The real-world weather conditions change, so first time anywhere, Java on upstart content developer when it is (really) raining, a character may Japan’s wireless Web is supports some 22 sepa- not be able to use firearms (the gun pow- enabling compelling, mas- rate sites spanning shop- der would be wet) or travel very quickly sively multiplayer games to ping, sport fishing infor- (the roads would be muddy). Bandai has be delivered direct to play- mation, surf conditions, also integrated weather information into ers’ pockets, packaged in maps, and ring tones. several of its games, using data provided tiny keitai (cell phones) and Traditional console by Weathernews. weighing in at under 50KB. and PC companies like But a realistic assessment of Japan’s NTT DoCoMo launched Bandai are also jumping mobile gaming market reveals that not all its i-Appli Java service in on Java. Bandai’s i-Appli is happiness and light. The carriers accept January 2001, and i-Appli channel features the only a few companies as official content usage has been rising with GUNDAM and YAMATO providers, who can then list their Java i-mode usage. As of July 31, series of Java games, with games on the official menu and earn DoCoMo had 26,085,000 i- Java GUNDAM being an download revenues. The rest are no better SAMURAI ROMANESQUE, a Java-based mode subscribers, and Java RPG, was developed by Dwango excellent example of co- off than on the Web at large when it users accounted for some 21 for NTT DoCoMo's branding between game comes to turning their titles into cash. percent of all i-mode users, i-mode service in Japan. platforms (versions And while wireless is fast upending the according to the company. already exist for tried-and-true console game distribution Japan’s wireless webs. DoCoMo’s i-mode, Playstation and Dreamcast), and other channels, in the new free-for-all turf of KDDI’s EZweb, and J-Phone’s J-Sky services media (there’s a cartoon series on VHS and wireless content development, independent are packet-switched, low-bandwidth, and DVD as well). game developers worry about where they always on, and all deliver text, graphics, What’s important for creating successful stand in the value chain of game content and other web content to a micro-browser games, Bandai PR executive Yukiko Taka- distribution. Absent the established devel- resident on the handset, which also serves hashi points out, are features that include oper-publisher relationship, will brand as the user interface for e-mail, short mail, player rankings (national and regional), fre- names become even more important? and telephony control functions. quent updates, integration of real-time Nonetheless, mobile gaming offers Carriers allow official site owners to information (such as location data), and tremendous opportunities for growth and charge subscribers between ¥100 and ¥300 making sure that games are “cool.” Tokyo- the subscriber numbers are certainly (US$0.81 to $2.44) per month to access based wireless analyst Andrea Hoffmann impressive — there’s no other market like their sites, which are listed on default agrees, adding that Java games are more it, anywhere. q menus preprogrammed into the phones. successful if they “have different levels and The fees are added to the monthly cell rankings, can be easily started and stopped, DANIEL SCUKA | Daniel (daniel@japan- phone bill, and, since the carrier serves as and if game status can be transferred to a inc.com) has lived in Japan since 1994. He is billing agent, the site owners pay a commis- larger PC or console version.” editor-at-large for J@pan Inc magazine and sion, presently 9 percent on i-mode, for Perhaps the most exciting development edits the magazine’s “Wireless Watch” weekly example; the balance goes to the site owner. in Japan’s mobile Java industry has been e-mail magazine covering wireless in Japan.
40 november 2001 | game developer POSTMORTEM chris charla
Digital Eclipse’s RAYMAN ADVANCE
aking sure a console When we first talked to Ubi Soft, we game is a launch title — hadn’t gotten our hands on a dev kit yet. one that’s on shelves the According to the specs we’d seen, however, day a new piece of game the system was about as powerful as a hardware goes on sale — Super Nintendo, with a couple of addition- Mcan make a difference of tens of thousands al features — scaling and rotation were of units sold. So it’s no wonder that pub- possible on sprites, not just background lishers do everything they can to get their levels. Initially, we didn’t expect to be able top-tier titles ready for launch, especially a to convert the Playstation version of the launch as hotly anticipated as that of Nin- game. Rather, we thought we’d create a tendo’s Game Boy Advance. The down new game that looked similar but was side, of course, is that making a game for done within the power of the Game Boy hardware that doesn’t yet officially exist Advance. In fact, Nintendo’s hardware can often bring a huge number of unfore- proved to hold a lot more power than we seen challenges. expected. When Ubi Soft first approached Digital In the process of determining the best Eclipse about doing a version of RAYMAN way to do the animation, the project’s lead for the GBA, there were four priorities for artist, Granted Q. Savage, tried two differ- the publisher (once we established that we ent methods. One was hand-animating a would convert the Playstation version). new version of Rayman from scratch, the First, the game had to live up to the quali- second was actually pulling the animation GAME DATA ty of Ubi’s flagship mascot. Second, it had data directly from the original game. The to be a launch title. Shipping even a day conclusion: With some work, Savage felt PUBLISHER: Ubi Soft Entertainment after Nintendo’s new handheld did was that he could get all the graphics from the NUMBER OF FULL-TIME DEVELOPERS: 6 simply not an option. Third, it needed to PSX or PC version onto the GBA, using its NUMBER OF CONTRACTORS: 1 be a faithful port of the Playstation ver- 256-color mode. The next issue was speed. LENGTH OF DEVELOPMENT: 8 months sion. The final requirement was that we Programmer Cathryn Mataga felt that the RELEASE DATE: June 5, 2001 needed to tweak the difficulty. system could be fast enough, with the big DEVELOPMENT HARDWARE: Standard fat PCs Rayman had only starred in three games question being access speeds to various (1GHz Athlons, etc.) and G3 and G4 Macs up to that point: the original 2D plat- parts of RAM. DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE: Photoshop, Debablizer, former for PC, Playstation, Saturn, and In the end, rather than propose an origi- and Nintendo's development stuff Jaguar; a Game Boy Color game; and nal game, we felt that the GBA was pow- RAYMAN 2, a 3D action adventure for erful enough to do a conversion of Dreamcast, Playstation 2, Nintendo 64, RAYMAN 1. This also made sense because and PC. Ubi Soft was interested in a 2D, of the short (less than eight-month) sched- side-scrolling version of the game for GBA, ule; by using the original game’s design, we and any design we came up with would knew that we already had a fun (and chal- have to live up to an august heritage: one lenging) game on our hands. Now all we of the last major 2D platformers, the origi- had to do was remake it. nal RAYMAN is widely regarded as one of Adding stress was the deadline — we the most challenging and well-designed knew the game couldn’t go a day late, so side-scrollers ever. almost every decision we made was irre-
CHRIS CHARLA | Chris Charla is production manager at Digital Eclipse. Prior to joining the company, he worked at Imagine Media in a number of roles, including editor-in-chief of Next Generation and Official Dreamcast Magazine.
42 november 2001 | game developer versible. Luckily, we made (near- ly) all correct decisions. Our nerves weren’t calmed, though, when Nintendo pushed the release date (and thus, our deadline) up by several days! With some herculean efforts by the art and programming teams, and tons of testing by Digital Eclipse’s internal senior producer Renée Johnson and associate producer Bill Schmidt, we made it. We’ve naturally been pleased by how the game has been received both critically and commercially. In some ways, though, we’re sometimes afraid we did too good a job: most reviews and comments describe the game as “just a straight port.” In reality, doing the conversion was anything but straightforward. What Went Right
Publisher support. Ubi 1.Soft is famous for the care that it takes with RAYMAN games (the two console games have a total of eight years of development time between them). To say that the company is fastidious about the mascot is an incredible understatement. Luckily for us, that care goes beyond lip-service. Re-creating the game on a small screen and toning down the difficulty were both major design challenges for us. While we certainly felt up to the task, when we started asking questions about various issues, Ubi Soft sent one of the designers of the original Playstation game to our door. Lionel Rico flew in from Montreal to spend a solid week consulting on a number of game- play issues. This was an incredible help in ensuring that while the gameplay in our version was easier, it would remain faithful to the feel of RAYMAN.
Smart graphics choices. The Game 2.Boy Advance has two options for color choices. You can either choose to use a single 256-color palette for all the sprites and a dif- ferent 256-color palette shared among the four background planes, or you can choose to use
www.gdmag.com 43 POSTMORTEM
16 palettes of 16 colors for each. In theo- ry, it shouldn’t matter to the hardware which you use, and because “16 16s” can be more limiting than “one 256,” we had initially planned to use two 256-color palettes, one for the sprites, and one for the background planes. Once we got our hardware, however, we quickly learned that “16 16s” has a signif- icant, though undocumented, speed advan- tage. Although it required much more work on the part of our art staff, we quickly changed plans to “16 16s.” Cathryn’s original decision to go with 256-color mode was partially for the sake of trying to do things as simply as possi- ble. Using 256 colors meant the art would look exactly like the original game. How- ever, we discovered that the 256-color art loaded too slowly and ate up too much ROM space and VRAM. Switching to 16- color RAM allowed her to page-flip the sprite VRAM, and all of sprite VRAM was reloaded each frame. It’s no understatement to say that the biggest factor in the success of the project TOP. Sprites from the PC version of the game, each rendered using a 256-color palette. was the successful conversion of the BOTTOM. Our GBA versions of the same sprites, each using a single 16-color palette. graphics from 8-bit to 4-bit color. Our CTO, Jeff Vavasour, wrote an excellent pride, not dread — at least the first time the screen versus the sprite resolution. tool that automated this process. Then they had to do it (more under What Went When a conflict occurred, some enemies Granted went in and hand-tweaked every Wrong). were removed so they wouldn’t blink. palette (around 120 different palettes of Converting the palettes was just the Luckily, since one of our goals was to 16 colors were used across all the levels first step in what needed to be done to make the game easier, the need to remove of the game, including sprites and bring the Playstation graphics to the GBA, enemies was never a major issue on any of cutscenes) to make sure the game was since the original game did things with the levels. compliant. sprites that simply weren’t possible on One of the earliest (and smartest) deci- Unfortunately, while using 16 palettes GBA. The original RAYMAN had large sions we made was to not attempt to scale of 16 colors each is faster than using a sprites that far exceed the GBA’s sprite the graphics to fit the screen. While the single 256-color palette, individual sprites limits. Cathryn developed a small utility original was 320×240 pixels, the GBA can still use colors from multiple palettes, to assemble the large RAYMAN sprites from screen is 240×160. So, not only are the and ours did. To get the final speed boost a number of differently shaped GBA aspect ratios slightly different (4:3 vs. 3:2), needed, Granted had to go in and make sprites. The code optimized for the num- but the graphics are one of the most sure that each sprite used colors from ber of tiles, rather than sprites. On the impressive things about the original RAY- only one 16-color palette. Fixing one levels where the sprites overwhelmed MAN — scaling them down would, to us, sprite usually required a palette change VRAM and the sprite limits, we switched have negated one of the best elements that broke a different sprite, and so on to low resolution for some large graphics, about the game. Even though viewable down the line. such as the save-point graphic or certain area of RAYMAN ADVANCE is smaller than The net result was a particularly brutal bosses, then scaled them up using the that of the original, with the gameplay challenge, necessitating long nights with GBA’s hardware sprite-scaling. tweaks we made (more on this later) we Photoshop and Debabelizer to get every- Although the difference is noticeable (to found a compromise by which no real thing optimized. Ultimately there’s no us, anyway), it actually looks quite good playability was lost. substitute for this kind of meticulous, on the small screen, and we were very back-breaking pixel work, and the work pleased that the graphical compromise Hacker ethic. We made some paid off in the look of the final game. As wasn’t mentioned in reviews of the game. 3.choices during development that for Granted and his assistant artist Eric The graphics were tweaked until release to probably weren’t what they teach you in Calande, they looked on the task with adjust between the number of enemies on game development school. For instance,
44 november 2001 | game developer POSTMORTEM
This comparison of actual screens from the PC (top row) and GBA (bottom row) versions shows the similarity in the final results. we had access to the original source art to be desired. We made many changes to hit, which often (especially at later levels) and to the original design tools, but all the library files, which ended up helping caused you to fly off a platform to your the art we used we actually took from the us out down the line. death. Also, enemies would frequently hit compiled game files. Cathryn did this you without you ever being able to plan because she felt it was easier to extract the Gameplay tweaking. The origi- for it (this also usually resulted in a quick data using the source code she was read- 4.nal RAYMAN is famously hard. It death). Finally, there were several audio- ing than to try to get the design tools was released at the tail end of the plat- only clues in the game. For instance, when working. This was a little bit of a pain, former genre’s heyday and may indeed be you triggered an attack from off-screen, though eventually she extracted every- the most difficult side-scroller ever you’d need to listen for a “ping” sound or thing out to .BMP files for proper color released. With platformers no longer in else you’d be caught unawares as an reduction. vogue, it was an open question at Digital enemy spawned. In most of our games, the character Eclipse as to whether or not anyone would To make the game easier, especially sprites are traditionally animated and be able to beat the original today. given the younger audience we expected saved intact to an animation file. Not so Ubi Soft was very open to tuning the the GBA to appeal to (when RAYMAN was with the Rayman character, which is con- difficulty of the game — in fact they sug- released for Playstation in 1995, the aver- structed from tiny little pieces (separate gested it. What the company did want to age age of Playstation owners was 22), we files for the hands, the head, and so on retain, however, was what Ubi Soft pro- did several things. First, we got rid of the with the rest of the body) connected via ducer Yannis Marat called the “gameplay “push” when you were hit. Second, we animation tables. And the original table integrity.” So, things like collisions, jump adjusted all the enemy placements so data was retained exactly. Although it may properties, timing and sync challenges, you’d never get hit by an unseen foe. seem that it would be better for the artists the speed of animation, and enemy The biggest thing we did, though, was to simply start with the source art, clean- attacks had to be preserved, while actual create a visual representation of the ing up and converting the “ripped” anima- platform and enemy locations changed “pings.” They are now represented tions and backgrounds turned out to be dramatically. onscreen by small sprites. When you hit a much faster. Retaining the exact position of all the ping, you know that you’ve set something Converting the code also took knowl- levels and all the items in the same place off. We also used “tings” (the game’s sec- edge of languages beyond C — many of wouldn’t have been possible anyway, since ondary collectible) to guide players on the variable names were in French. A the original played at 320×240 and the what would otherwise be “leaps of faith” modest investment in a French-to-English GBA screen is 240×160. The original off the edge of the screen. If a player sim- dictionary solved most of the problems game did several things that at the time ply aims for the tings, he will never leap there. simply made it a challenging platformer to his death. Unfortunately, some critics The initial libraries that shipped with but today would be regarded as cruel. For knocked the game for the many leaps of the GBA dev kit sometimes left something example, you flew back when you took a faith, so it’s possible that the “follow the
46 november 2001 | game developer tings” mechanic hasn’t been as well through the entire game from start to fin- versions of the hardware than what the understood for platform hopping as we ish up to four times a day, and if you’ve software developers eventually get. This had hoped. played RAYMAN, you know what an showed most dramatically in the music Rearranging platforms was also a major achievement that is. Sometimes developers driver that Nintendo supplied. Music took component of the gameplay tweaking. and testers have an adversarial relation- up far more CPU time than we were com- Putting the original levels on the smaller ship, but this was a case where the testers fortable with, but our short development GBA screen would make the game, even really came through for us in a big way. time prevented us from implementing a with tings, truly unplayable. We tried to custom sound driver. More importantly to be as unobtrusive with the gameplay What Went Wrong players, because the graphics took up so tweaking as possible, and we’ve been grat- much of the cartridge size, we were only ified to see many comments in reviews Multiplayer. We initially planned able to include a limited number of songs and from players that say the game is 1.to include a competitive multiplayer from the original game. While they sound exactly like the original, when in fact the mode in the game. It was going to be a great, the game certainly would have bene- layout of every single level has been side-scrolling version of capture the flag fea- fited from a wider variety of music. altered significantly. turing Rayman and “Dark Rayman.” While The music driver supplied by Nintendo the link capabilities on the GBA are one of also caused strange crashing problems for Adequate testing. Testing is the platform’s key strengths, the libraries Cathryn. It was tough to figure out if it 5.another element of game creation supplied by Nintendo at the time were less was us or the driver, and without access to where there’s just no substitute for hard than robust. the driver source code, there was no real work. Considering the many changes we When Nintendo moved the release date way to debug the issues. When we reduced made to the levels, we had to test constant- up, we were forced to shelve multiplayer, the amount of data transferred during the ly throughout the development process — because testing and debugging were simply vblank, the crashing went away. We didn’t not just at the end — to make sure that the taking too long. Coming by extra dev kits have time to investigate why that solved game maintained the “feel” of RAYMAN. — needed for testing two-player mode — the problem, we were just happy it did. Realizing this early, and doing it, was a was also tough in the prerelease environ- Needless to say, while we’ve all been there, major contribution to making sure the ment, where kits were strictly allocated by these kinds of “voodoo” solutions to game felt, and not just looked, like the Nintendo. problems are less than optimal. original. Associate producer Bill Schmidt tested and adjusted levels for weeks, and Music. One of the problems with Prerelease hardware. One of platform placements were changed for 2.developing for new hardware isn’t 3.the biggest things that went wrong gameplay and difficulty reasons almost just that developers have trouble coming to was that the hardware we developed the every day up until the game shipped. terms with it — the hardware makers game on was significantly different from The Ubi Soft test team in Montreal was sometimes do too, especially since they cre- the final GBA hardware. Some of our dev also excellent. Some of the guys would go ate development tools using even earlier kits simply weren’t as capable as final
The colors on the GBA version (right) are much brighter than on the PC (left); it doesn't look good on paper, but it displayed much better on the GBA screen than the original palettes did.
www.gdmag.com 47 POSTMORTEM
hardware. More damaging, though, was cartridge-size definition. That’s only 8MB — the schedule was very short. The truth is that their displays were far brighter than the the same size as a memory card for PS2. that despite our best efforts, our projec- final LCD screen that made it into the pro- The original source code alone was 2.5MB, tions for GBA development schedules duction GBA. We assume that the brighter so even when it was rewritten, getting art were woefully inadequate. While we origi- LCDs in our dev systems probably took and music assets into the remaining space nally estimated GBA development to be more power than Nintendo — legendary for was quite an achievement. twice that of Game Boy Color, it wasn’t its commitment to long battery life — was Unfortunately, we didn’t have the space until six months into RAYMAN ADVANCE willing to expend in the system. Whatever to include all the music we wanted, and that we realized it’s more like four times the reason, RAYMAN ADVANCE narrowly wrestling with cart size started early and that of GBC. missed being unplayably dark, as we had continued throughout the entire develop- With the absolute inflexibility of the spent weeks tweaking and adjusting palettes ment process. Had we been able to be less shipping date (a date that actually moved for the brighter, prerelease screens. efficient about space, we could have been up a few days near the end of the project We got Japanese units just a few days more efficient about time, which would when Nintendo moved up the release before RAYMAN ADVANCE was due to ship, have resulted in a less stressful develop- date), and the incredible art conversion along with some very dark-looking ment cycle. It’s something that’s not requirements, pressure was mounting as Japanese launch games. Running our game apparent to players, and it goes with the the final deadline approached. on Japanese launch hardware practically territory when developing for cartridge- Luckily we managed the stress well. caused a full-fledged panic attack in pro- based systems, but it remains a constant Things did get crazy now and then, but ducer Renée Johnson, who immediately challenge. Luckily, Cathryn’s compression overall everyone on the team emerged broke the news to Granted that all his and the artists’ smart tiling means that from the project unscathed, with burnout palette optimizations would need to be players see the full game just as it was on levels low. The eventual success of the “reoptimized.” the Playstation. project also helped everyone bounce back To call Granted’s reaction unprintable is A thornier issue was save RAM. We ini- relatively quickly. probably an understatement, but the net tially thought that we would have a 64K result was that, several sleepless nights EEPROM for save data, but that cartridge Looking Back later, all of the palettes had been reopti- configuration became unavailable, and we mized for the production-level GBA. We had to go with a 4K EEPROM. Unfortu- ringing RAYMAN to the Game Boy were slightly worried that Nintendo would nately, this made the save data too large to B Advance was overall a great experi- re-tweak the screens for the U.S. release, fit in the EEPROM. We solved this by ence for Digital Eclipse. Not only did it and so we were probably the only people packing some data that had been stored in enable us to get up and running with GBA on the planet who cheered when we saw bytes or long words into bits. as soon as possible, but we also considered how dark the U.S. screens were. Bad for it a big honor to be the first non-Ubi team CASTLEVANIA, but good for RAYMAN! Unrealistic scheduling. Eight to do a RAYMAN game. The original is 5.months is a fairly tight develop- truly one of the most refined and challeng- Cartridge size. The maximum ment schedule for GBA. Add the uncer- ing platform games around, and the chal- 4.cartridge size available to third tainties and false steps that always accom- lenge of bringing it intact to the GBA was parties is 64 megabits, to use the standard pany developing for new hardware, and both fun and rewarding. q
RAYMAN's whimsical graphic style should appeal to the GBA target The cart size (8MB) made fitting in the detailed graphics onto the cart quite demographics. a challenge.
48 november 2001 | game developer SOAPBOX rj mical Some Assembly Required
o what is the future of mobile Even worse, many game developers work, however, good 3D is possible in games? I’m not talking about have become lazy and fat, because RAM these performance-starved environments. SNAKE on my mobile phone; I and other resources on PCs are compara- Tight rendering loops can create reason- want to know when I will get tively plentiful and the hardware does all ably high polygon counts with textured to play QUAKE on my phone. I the hard work. When was the last time surfaces, which look quite good as long as Ssee a lot of difficulties ahead, but there’s you counted CPU cycles? Fat and lazy you’re not expecting trilinear filtering or hope that technology will improve quickly, to won’t work in the mobile game space. curved surfaces. Likewise, although audio get millions of mobile device owners playing Perhaps the biggest killer to mobile will be limited, we can make decent music excellent games on the go very soon. game development is the number of playing samples with simple mixers. There’s an inclination to compare platforms, which is large and growing The better PDAs can handle any 2D today’s mobile games with PC games, larger, with game. We can squeeze the heck out of the which is fair but unfortunate. Today’s higher-performing platforms to get pretty hottest mobile hardware is equivalent good 3D, though developers will always to the PCs of 15 years ago. My sacrifice beauty as needed for the sake of cell phone can only dream of frame rate and responsiveness to input. We being as good as a Com- soon will be playing DUKE NUKEM or NEED modore 64 one day. FOR SPEED, but UNREAL TOURNAMENT is still Clearly, we won’t be seeing off in the future. Without network support PC-quality mobile games (wireless LAN or phone), we can’t have for a while. multiplayer games, and any server-side Mobile devices have a num- methodology won’t work. We have to ber of impediments to imple- wait for future developments to menting complex games, not the support real interconnectivity. least of which is the fact that the We will need new tools, controls suck. Some devices have and new paradigms, too. thumb joysticks, but they’re tiny and Can’t have a full game in don’t behave well during passionate memory at once because gaming sessions. There are no cursor storage is so limited? No keys, and instead of a mouse we get a problem: Create that big touch-screen. Now, I think we will be able game and provide a to create some interesting games using mechanism by which touch, and soon we will start breaking our users can download a subset of touch-screens as we stab and slash at them no clear winner in sight. Yesterday’s dar- levels into the mobile device. to play our games, but still it won’t be as ling is today’s has-been. This churning is Likewise, the standard distribution and good as a joystick or a mouse. good for the consumer, but bad for the profit models for software to which game Furthermore, miserly CPU speeds will game developer. How can one make game developers have become accustomed won’t limit action, physics, enemy AI, and even development profitable when there are so work, especially with too few of any par- rendering. We’re a long way from having many hardware and OS environments? ticular target device in the market. We will mobile devices with 3D technology built in So, given these limitations, what games see more Internet distribution of game (although at Red Jade, we were building just can we make? What religions must we fol- content, and games for multiple targets such a device, and I’ll bet it’s not long before low? Well, first of all, roll up your sleeves distributed on a single CD. We can solve someone tries again). We’ve got limited and prepare to get your hands dirty. Devel- the problem of too many platforms by cre- audio. No networking means no multiplayer opers will not be able to code strictly in ating leveling technology that will make it games (though there’s room for infrared C++ or depend on hardware graphics easy to develop a single game on multiple hacks). Limited RAM means limited game accelerators and such to do their work for platforms simultaneously, just as OpenGL levels, and total game content will be much them. Mobile game coding will require us solved the problem of too many flavors of Lacalamita by Peter Illustration smaller. We will be counting mobile game to return to the old disciplines. Some graphics hardware. sizes in K, not MB, for some time. assembly required, you bet! With enough continued on page 55
56 november 2001 | game developer SOAPBOX
continued from page 56 crave 3G or its equivalent to allow us to RAM before graphics, better controls later, What about the future? In the spirit of play full multiplayer games whenever we and finally real audio. Sigh, they never lis- going back to our roots, once again there feel like it, wherever we are. Microphones ten to the game developers. will be kids in garages making killer and cameras come next, useful for both It’s a brave old world that’s coming, and games on a budget of chips and cola. communication and gaming. I’m looking forward to going back there. q Costs will be lower, team sizes smaller, If the device manufacturers would listen development cycles shorter. The mobile to me, they would improve their systems in RJ MICAL | RJ is chief architect at arena will allow us to have fun again, to this order: CPU speed, controls, RAM, Fathammer, where he is working on the soft- take risks, and to think lean and mean. graphics acceleration, network support, ware architecture and development interface We will see a return to the idea that game- and then audio (once we get graphics in for Fathammer’s mobile game engine, X-Forge. play is more important than flashy graph- hardware, we can use more of the CPU for Previously, he was vice president of software ics, and I’m looking forward to it. audio). However, they’re not yet thinking at Red Jade. He was a key member of the Meanwhile, come on, Moore’s law! We’re of these mobile devices as game systems, Amiga Computer development team, co- counting on RAM and CPU capacity to but as personal productivity enhancers. So invented the Atari Lynx handheld game sys- double and double again. We need mobile what we’ll get is improvement in tem and the 3DO entertainment console, and devices to get better LAN support, and we LAN/phone support before CPU speed, has co-developed more than 15 videogames.
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