Silent Hill 4!

Home , Akira Yamaoka, DesktopX, Introversion Software, Irrational Games, Silent Hill 2, SMU Guildhall

>>PRODUCT REVIEWS MOTIONBUILDER 6 * IMAGEMODELER 4.0 FOR MAC

MARCH 2005

THE LEADING GAME INDUSTRY MAGAZINE

>>DEVELOPERS UNITE >>DOUBLE INTERVIEW ISSUE >>MOMENT OF IMPACT ORGANIZED LABOR: BUENA VISTA GAMES & SUCCESSFUL TIPS FOR CURSE OR BLESSING? INTROVERSION SOFTWARE AN EFFECTS SYSTEM

POSTMORTEM: WHAT’S INSIDE THE ROOM? THE HORROR OF SILENT HILL 4 INVESTIGATED

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FEATURES

14 UNIONIZE NOW? Truckers, janitors, nurses, and teachers did it. Then Microsoft contract employees did it. And most of the film industry did it quite some time ago. Game developers, faced in their places of business with major quality of life issues, have realized that forming a union is an option. But would it be the best solution? By Paul Hyman 14 21 MOMENT OF IMPACT: DESIGNING AN IN-GAME EFFECTS SYSTEM Irrational Games, creator of TRIBES: VENGEANCE and SWAT 4, describes a flexible approach to managing effects within a framework, showing how developers from all disciplines can trigger complex effect events without needing to constantly rely on programmers for support. By Terrance Cohen

31 INTERVIEW: BUENA VISTA’S GOOD VIEW In the last 10 years, movie production houses that were once making games fled the interactive side of entertainment. But Graham Hopper has helped Buena Vista Games chart a new course. Hopper talks about 31 Disney’s role in allowing Buena Vista to focus on a 34 core gamer audience. By Brandon Sheffield POSTMORTEM 43 INTERVIEW: FROM UPLINK TO DARWINIA Chris Delay and Andrew Bainbridge are self- 34 WHAT’S INSIDE THE ROOM? proclaimed bedroom programmers who say they are THE HORROR OF SILENT HILL 4 INVESTIGATED the last of a dying breed. Working as part of They say it’s more Psycho, less Nightmare on Elm Street. More Introversion Software, they completed a cult PC PLINK disturbing, less shocking. What makes SILENT HILL 4so scary is its hacking simulation called U for their debut, and deep focus on psychological terror. In THE ROOM, textures, camera are now finishing their second title, DARWINIA—a name angles, lighting, characters, a mysterious story line, and alternate that aptly describes their own search for survival in realities all push the player further down that dark tunnel of fear. an evolving business. 43 Yes, what is inside the room? And how do I get out? By Kieron Gillen By Akihiro Imamura and Akira Yamaoka

DEPARTMENTS COLUMNS

4 GAME PLAN 49 INNER PRODUCT By Sean Barrett [PROGRAMMING] Enjoy the Silence Optimizing Pathfinding III: Inadmissible Heuristics

6 HEADS UP DISPLAY 55 PIXEL PUSHER By Steve Theodore [ART] EA bites Take-Two, Xbox sales figures, Stardock’s software, and more. Let There Be Light: Colored Light

8 SKUNK WORKS By James Alguire and Tom Carroll 61 NECESSARY EVIL By Hal Halpin [BUSINESS] ImageModeler 4.0 for Mac and MotionBuilder 6 Ratings Matter

62 [SOUND] 96 A THOUSAND WORDS AURAL FIXATION By Alexander Brandon The Behemoth’s ALIEN HOMINID The Line of Quality Part II: Licensing 64 GAME SHUI By Noah Falstein [DESIGN] In the Beginning

COVER ART: COURTESY OF KONAMI WWW.GDMAG.COM 3 GAME PLAN www.gdmag.com

[] CMP Media, 600 Harrison St., 6th Fl., San Francisco, CA 94107 t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6090

YOU CAN REACH US AT [email protected] EDITORIAL EDITOR Simon Carless [email protected] MANAGING EDITOR Jill Duffy [email protected] ASSISTANT EDITOR Brandon Sheffield [email protected] ENJOY THE ART DIRECTOR Cliff Scorso [email protected] CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Sean Barrett [email protected] SILENCE Alexander Brandon [email protected] Noah Falstein [email protected] Steve Theodore [email protected] ADVISORY BOARD Hal Barwood Designer-at-Large Ellen Guon Beeman Monolith Andy Gavin Naughty Dog IT'S ONE THING TO WREST A CONFESSIONAL “bedroom programmers” from the U.K., but Joby Otero Luxoflux postmortem from the callused hands of a local creators of two fascinating PC titles, UPLINK and Dave Pottinger Ensemble Studios George Sanger Big Fat Inc. Western developer, as we often do, but another the forthcoming DARWINIA. Although operating on Harvey Smith Midway thing altogether to get one from a Japanese a micro-budget, largely from the proceeds of Paul Steed Microsoft creator who explains both the triumphs and their last game, Delay and Bainbridge have been ADVERTISING SALES NATIONAL SALES MANAGER mistakes of creating a particular game. We using organic experimentation to brainstorm Afton Thatcher e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6217 ARWINIA SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER, EASTERN REGION & EUROPE managed it for our postmortem on Namco’s D ’s game design, a process frowned upon Ayrien Machiran e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6224 KATAMARI DAMACY, and luckily, we've now conspired at most larger companies, but offering some ACCOUNT MANAGER, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA & MIDWEST to get another of the biggest Japanese developers, unique opportunities. Susan Kirby e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6226 ACCOUNT MANAGER, WESTERN REGION & ASIA Konami, to contribute to this issue. The in-depth Nick Geist e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6223 postmortem of Konami’s latest, deeply unnerving ACCOUNT MANAGER, GLOBAL EDUCATION/ BIGGER, BETTER, FASTER RECRUITMENT & TEXAS psychological horror title, SILENT HILL 4: THE ROOM, Luckily, that's not all the pleasantries we have to Aaron Murawski e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6227 begins on page 34. SILENT HILL 4 is both unsettling exchange this month. Check out the feature on ADVERTISING PRODUCTION ADVERTISING PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Kevin Chanel and daring, and the creators and article authors designing effects systems (page 21) by Irrational REPRINTS Julie Rapp e: [email protected] t: 510.834.4752 Akihiro Imamura and Akira Yamaoka explain the Games, creators of TRIBES: VENGEANCE and SWAT 4. We GAME GROUP MARKETING reasoning behind this paradigm shift from previous also have a news section particularly focused on DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS STRATEGY Michele Maguire games in the franchise, now that the genre and EA and Take-Two's battle for the sports licensing DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Tara C. Gibb MARKETING COORDINATOR Yukiko Grové mood are established with obstacles like dueling market; a special business column from Hal Halpin CMP GAME GROUP realities, unkillable ghosts, and a new third- of the Interactive Entertainment Merchants VP, GROUP PUBLISHER APPLIED TECHNOLOGIES Philip Chapnick person/first-person shifting perspective. Association, discussing the issues that retailers CONFERENCE DIRECTOR, GDC Jamil Moledina face in defending the voluntary ratings system for ASSOCIATE CONFERENCE DIRECTOR, GDC Susan Marshall EDITOR, GAMASUTRA.COM Simon Carless GRAND UNION FAILSAFE games; and the conventional columns from our CIRCULATION Ever since the current controversy over “quality of standing columnists. CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Kevin Regan e: [email protected] life” in the game industry barreled into view, CIRCULATION MANAGER Peter Birmingham e: [email protected] there's been a call to do something, anything. As INDIE, SCHMINDIE? CIRCULATION COORDINATOR Jessica Ward e: [email protected] SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES a result, the concept of organized labor for game The other day, we received a particularly FOR INFORMATION, ORDER QUESTIONS, AND ADDRESS CHANGES professionals has been raised, perhaps “refreshing” letter to the editor, the subject line of t: 800.250.2429 f: 847.763.9606 e: [email protected] sometimes without full understanding what that which was “Dear CORPORATE Game Developer INTERNATIONAL LICENSING INFORMATION really means. Fortunately, Paul Hyman has helped magazine.” Once the red mist had cleared and we Mario Salinas us out. As the game industry journalist for the read the rest, we realized that the correspondent e: [email protected] t: 650.513.4234 f: 650.513.4482 EDITORIAL FEEDBACK Hollywood Reporter, Hyman neatly straddles the had underlined a good point. Although sister web [email protected] line between our industry (where unionization is site Gamasutra.com has been covering CMP MEDIA MANAGEMENT currently just a concept) and the movie business, independent games in greater depth and PRESIDENT & CEO Gary Marshall (where it's a long-time reality). In his feature frequency lately (take a look at the postmortems EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT & CFO John Day EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT & COO Steve Weitzner article on unionization (page 14), he draws some of selected Independent Games Festival entries), EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, CORPORATE SALES & MARKETING Jeff Patterson piquant views from a multitude of parties, we sometimes find it difficult to talk about the CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER Mike Mikos including EA_Spouse, high-tech union chiefs, the less well-funded but altogether more free indie SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, OPERATIONS Bill Amstutz SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCES Leah Landro IGDA, and Electronic Arts itself. market, due to the space constraints of the VP/GROUP DIRECTOR INTERNET BUSINESS Mike Azzara magazine format. But, after featuring the IGF in VP & GENERAL COUNSEL Sandra Grayson our Game Developers Conference preview last VP, COMMUNICATIONS Alexandra Raine DISNEYVERTED PRESIDENT, CHANNEL GROUP Robert Faletra The expanded size of this issue of Game Developer month and Introversion Software and ALIEN HOMINID PRESIDENT, CMP HEALTHCARE MEDIA Vicki Masseria has allowed us to slip in not one, but two in this issue, we've already been making a VP, GROUP PUBLISHER INFORMATIONWEEK MEDIA NETWORK Michael Friedenberg interviews. On the one hand, we have Buena Vista conscious effort to cover the more innovative end VP, GROUP PUBLISHER ELECTRONICS Paul Miller VP, GROUP PUBLISHER NETWORK COMPUTING ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE GROUP Fritz Nelson Interactive, the core gaming division of Disney. The of gaming, no matter how high or low on the food VP, GROUP PUBLISHER SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT MEDIA Peter Westerman company is expanding from its partner role in chain it stands. VP, DIRECTOR OF CUSTOM INTEGRATED MARKETING SOLUTIONS Joseph Braue CORPORATE DIRECTOR, AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Shannon Aronson games, such as Square Enix’s KINGDOM HEARTS, to CORPORATE DIRECTOR, AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Michael Zane more tightly control its game properties and move CORPORATE DIRECTOR, PUBLISHING SERVICES Marie Myers into the console gaming space. We spoke with Graham Hopper (page 31) to find out how the Mouse’s strategy is being accomplished. On the other, we have Chris Delay and Andrew Simon Carless Game Developer Bainbridge of Introversion Software, effectively Editor is BPA approved

4 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER WWW.CMPGAME.COM

[HEADS UP DISPLAY]

GOT NEWS? SEND US THE BIG SCOOP AT [email protected] THE BATTLE -VS- FOR SPORTS

IN THE LATEST ROUND OF CONFLICT IN THE analysts stunned. Take-Two, which recently Major League Baseball Advanced Media. Beginning sports video game market, publisher Electronic acquired Visual Concepts from Sega, made major in spring 2006, Take-Two’s deal will grant the Arts has secured an exclusive license to use the gains in sales last year by retailing its football and company exclusive rights to create baseball video NFL brand as well as player’s names and their other sports games at $20 apiece, boosting its games with official players, teams, and stats, stats. EA, whose recent expansionary moves market share significantly; this move in particular shutting out EA’s licensed baseball titles. include taking a controlling interest in BATTLEFIELD tipped EA’s hand. It could be argued that Take-Two has the short end 1942 developer Digital Illusions CE and purchasing The ESPN deal takes effect in 2006, but of the stick here, with football games traditionally a large quantity of Ubisoft stock, has also acquired interestingly, Take-Two has already announced performing much better than baseball games in a license for the smaller Arena Football League. that it will drop the ESPN branding from its 2005 retail, although it’s unclear exactly how much each EA capped off its round of sports-related license football game, as any success the title would have company paid for the licenses—estimates are into purchases by acquiring exclusive gaming rights to under the ESPN license would only serve to the hundreds of millions of dollars. But with EA and the ESPN name, which previously appeared in strengthen EA’s future ventures with the brand. Take-Two currently the only developers able to titles by EA’s only major competitor in the football In apparent retaliation, Take-Two has tightened its operate in the licensed football and baseball video simulation field—publisher Take-Two and grip on the Major League Baseball license, and game arenas, the short end, at least in terms of developer Visual Concepts. affiliated groups: Major League Baseball Properties, choice, may well be held by the consumer. This combination of deals has left many Major League Baseball Players Association, and Brandon Sheffield

IGF WINNERS SAVE SEALAB 2021

AT THE 2004 INDEPENDENT GAMES FESTIVAL 2021: SWEET MAYHEM. The game based on the cult (part of the CMP Game Group, as is Game Adult Swim cartoon, has just been released in Developer), Cartoon Network and AOL launched downloadable form, available for $9.95 through the Project Goldmaster competition, a kind of the official Adult Swim web site. Through a deal gaming industry variation on Project Greenlight. with Trymedia, interested parties can experiment Flashbang Studios, makers of BEESLY'S BUZZWORDS, with the game for 20 minutes before buying it. took home the trophy. Flashbang Studios, the winning developer, The real prize? The lucky developer was granted recently spoke to Game Developer on its the opportunity to make a Cartoon Network- experience creating the game, illuminating the sponsored PC game. The title in question? SEALAB CONTINUED ON PG 95

MICROSOFT DISCUSSES XBOX SALES AS PART OF ITS bought, 5 million in The company claims ground on its regular financial Europe, and 1.7 million that Xbox was the competitors. In terms results, Microsoft has in the Japan and Asia only platform to see of installed base, released further Pacific region. year-to-year growth however, the information on In addition, Microsoft's during the fourth PlayStation 2 worldwide sales of the European division has quarter of 2004, as continues to Xbox. The new figures released statistics well as the full dominate the current reveal that the indicating that the calendar year. generation console company has sold 19.9 European Xbox In concert with hardware—worldwide million copies of the market share for recently bullish news shipments of Sony’s console worldwide 2004 was 29.5 on the Xbox Live console reached the since its 2001 launch. percent, a 7 percent service, Microsoft is 80 million mark in In North America, 13.2 increase from the portraying its December 2004. million consoles were 2003 calendar year. machine as gaining —Simon Carless

6 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER 2004 NPD GAME SALES STATISTICS SALES BY PORTABLE SOFTWARE SALES: PLATFORM $1 BILLION (42.3 MILLION UNITS) ACCORDING TO THE NPD GROUP, VIDEO GAME and 30 percent were rated T for teen. and computer software sales set a new PC and console gamers continued to record for 2004: $7.3 billion. There were a exhibit different tastes, as the latter COMPUTER GAME SALES: record 12 games to sell over one million purchased more action and sports $1.1 BILLION (45 MILLION UNITS) units, 50 which sold over 500,000 units, and games, whereas computer gamers 197 over 250,000 units. This compares bought more strategy games, family- favorably to last year’s stats—10, 57, and 163 oriented titles, and shooter games. With a games in each respective category. total of 248 million computer and video GAME CONSOLE SOFTWARE SALES: In contrast to recent criticisms of games sold in 2004, up from 239.3 $5.2 BILLION (160.7 MILLION UNITS) widespread M-rated titles, only 16 percent of million in 2003, that long-feared industry games sold last year were rated mature. slump may be a bit of a way off. Fifty-three percent were rated E for everyone —Brandon Sheffield

WIDGET TOOLS IN SECONDS FLAT IN THE GAME DEVELOPMENT WORLD, On the software side, its newest Stardock might be best known for product is DesktopX 3 Pro. It’s a tool making the PC tycoon/simulator THE that quickly lets you build widgets— POLITICAL MACHINE, although that’s a term Stardock uses for objects hardly what keeps the company exported as programs that run afloat. As an indie gamemaker standalone as .EXEs. So you can (GALACTIC CIVILIZATIONS is in its portfolio customize your Windows desktop by as well), Stardock maintains a level- building sleek tickers and calendars, headed business model by devoting and also swiftly design and tweak a good deal of its time to software game UI screens. development, which is more likely to "DesktopX allows us to go from turn a steady profit than selling prototype to production level UI DesktopX lets you make custom widgets and gadgets quickly, like this personalized niche games alone. CONTINUED ON PG 95 Gamasutra.com RSS feeder, which was created in less than five minutes.

ALIAS RELEASES MAYA 6.5 heads up display KRI CONFERENCE (RUSSIAN GAME INCREASING ITS PERFORMANCE POWER AND DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE) speed—as any respectable point release Kosmos Hotel should—Alias focused on these areas in releasing version 6.5 of its 3D graphics Moscow, Russia application: modeling, UV manipulation, April 1–3, 2005 deformations, and 3D painting. Cost: 2,250–3,000 rubles Maya 6.5 also has added a new CAD import www.rgdconf.com feature, called a STEP translator, which creates images and animations out of the large data sets modeling, animation, visual effects, brush-based created in most CAD packages. Another new technologies, rendering, Maya API/SDK and MEL IEEE SYMPOSIUM ON COMPUTATIONAL attribute is a set of scene segmentation tools, such (scripting language), and tutorials. The Unlimited INTELLIGENCE AND GAMES as reference locking, reference editing, and proxies version adds to this all the new toys you’ve heard Essex University to give artists more control over managing Alias tout as of late: Maya’s Fluid Effects, Maya Colchester, Essex, U.K. enormous data sets, scene load times, workflows, Cloth, Fur, and Hair, and Maya Live. April 4–6, 2005 and overall scene performance. Maya 6.5 costs about $2,000 for Complete, Alias is offering Maya 6.5 in two packages, $7,000 for Unlimited, $900 to upgrade to Cost: £140–£315 Complete and Unlimited. The former includes all Complete, and $1,250 for an Unlimited upgrade. http://cscourse.essex.ac.uk/cig the basic upgrades in the tool’s interface, —Jill Duffy

WWW.GDMAG.COM 7 []SKUNK WORKS

IMAGEMODELER 4.0 FOR MAC J AMES ALGUIRE

CREATING PHOTOREALISTIC 3D MODELS of real-world objects and scenes normally SAY, “CHEESE!” involves teams of artists who are masters Each step of the modeling IMAGEMODELER of tools like Maya, 3DS Max, LightWave workflow (load images, 4.0 FOR MAC 3D, and Photoshop. The process is time- calibration, measuring, consuming and often relies on photographs modeling, texturing, and export) of objects or scenes as references for is represented by a tab in the creating the models and their textures. Workflow Toolbar containing STATS REALVIZ Corp. But what if 3D models and textures could tools specific to that step: be created directly from those same Load Images. Import images of 350 Townsend St., Suite 409 reference photos instead? the objects or scenes to be San Francisco, CA 94107 ImageModeler 4.0 for Mac from converted to 3D models. You 415-615-9800 Realviz is a terrific tool for quickly need at least two images, but www.realviz.com creating photorealistic 3D models from having more improves the Regular geometric structures, like buildings, can be 2D photographs. The tool was quality of the modeling process modeled and textured quickly in ImageModeler 4.0. PRICE introduced in 2000 and was released and texture extraction. All $1,380 full version for for Macintosh in 2002. This review images should be taken using new users; $520 specifically evaluates the Macintosh the same focal length, shot from several include defining the WorldSpace and upgrade; $690 for trade-up from version version of ImageModeler 4.0. different angles for perspective, and setting a real world reference distance 3.5 or earlier. Creating, editing, and texturing 3D showing the complete object or scene. measurement: You can actually measure models in ImageModeler is a simple six- Some images work better for the some part of the object or scene when SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS step process: calibration step while others are better shooting the photos and then plug that Macintosh OS X, version 1. Load the digital images. suited for texture extraction. You’ll get number into ImageModeler. 10.2 or later; or Power 2. Calibrate the images to define the 3D best results for texture by using the Measuring. The reference measurement PC G4. (Note: This space. highest quality images you can. applied in the Calibration step sets the review evaluates the ImageModeler for 3. Establish a real world reference ImageModeler lets you import photos scale for the calculated 3D space. Once Macintosh only.) measurement. from a digital camera or the Mac’s hard set, ImageModeler can generate accurate 1024x768 24-bit 4. Create the actual 3D geometry. drive. The software’s documentation measurements of any distance and angle minimum display 5. Extract and apply textures. provides excellent tips for capturing in the project—a great tool for architects resolution; openGL 6. Export the resulting model. images that will yield the best results. or set designers. Game developers will compatible; 256MB RAM Realviz should consider integrating with also find this handy for maintaining the (512MB recommended); 50MB free disk space. KEEPING IT CLEAN Apple’s iPhoto to improve management scale between 3D objects. ImageModeler’s Mac OS X interface is and importing of images. Modeling. Realviz put several tools in PROS clean and uncluttered (when compared Calibration. For ImageModeler to ImageModeler (many that should be 1. Step-by-step to other 3D tools), consisting of an perform its magic, you’ve got to help it familiar to experienced 3D artists) for processes are simple. integrated tabbed Workflow Toolbar and find features that appear in each photo, creating polygon-based, 3D mesh 2. Automatic texture 3D Workspace window, a Scene Browser such as identifying identical windows in a geometry, including Primitives (cubes, mapping. palette for managing scene elements and photo of a room. You use the Place Marker spheres, and other geometric shapes), 3. Can calculate changing their properties, a View Toolbar tool to identify the common features by Faces, and Point Cloud Mesh. There are accurate measurement of any for adjusting the display of objects in the clicking within those features wherever also tools to modify the mesh (Scale, distance or angle 3D Workspace, a Tool Properties palette they appear, so the more pictures used, Rotate, Translate, Split Face, and Extrude from a single for modifying tool behavior, and a Tool the longer and more tedious the process. Face) to more accurately represent the reference Assistant palette providing information A mini zoom feature facilitates accurate object or scene. The Primitive and Face measurement. on active tools, mouse operations, and placement of markers (called “locators” tools are suited to regular geometric tool tips. The palettes can be toggled on in the Scene Browser). Once at least eight shapes while the Point Cloud Mesh works CONS or off from the Window Menu and can be different features are identified in each best for organic shapes. 1. Out of price range for some developers. docked to each other and to the 3D image, ImageModeler will automatically Texturing. ImageModeler can 2. Tutorials don’t feel Workspace window to be moved as a calibrate characteristics of the camera automatically extract textures from complete. single unit. What’s missing is a way to used to create the images—focal length, photographs and apply them to the 3. Window arrangement create and manage window layouts that distortion, position, and orientation—and model’s polygon faces, creating a options could be lets users jump to their customized from that extrapolate the 3D information photorealistic appearance. Careful improved. layouts for different tasks. This would be needed to create the models. Adding selection of the images used for the more efficient than constantly moving additional locators or constraints texture extraction will yield the best and resizing palettes. enhances calibration. The final steps results. Textures created in other CONTINUED ON PG 11

8 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER

OUR RATING SYSTEM :

DA BOMB PRETTY SLICK SLICK SO-SO LAME

CONTINUED FROM PG 8 applications can be loaded from the hard TALE OF THE TAPE drive and applied to the model, too. And Complementing existing 3D programs, A WYMIWYG WORLD ImageModeler allows for editing textures: ImageModeler 4.0 for the Mac is a great Fans of MotionBuilder know that what You can change the UV mappings from tool for architects, industrial designers, you move is what you get. It’s the tool for directly within ImageModeler or more and game developers who need to create rigging and animating characters in real precisely tweak them in another program, photorealistic 3D models quickly without time, working with motion capture such as Photoshop. 3D texture artists may having to spend a year learning new (mocap) data and animation libraries, find textures extracted by ImageModeler software. The $1,380 price tag puts it out and creating previsualizations (or previs) unsuited for final rendering of objects for of reach for many people who might and game-style animation—but that’s games. Be prepared to create your own. otherwise take advantage of it. Upgrades about it. Modeling? Not on your life. Soft- Exporting. Once a model is generated, you from recent, previous versions are $520. and/or hard-body dynamics? Forget can export it to another 3D program for You can always download the trial about it! But 3D character animators, further editing or for integrating into games, version, which has limited save and especially ones that resist embracing all animations, or videos. ImageModeler export capabilities, from Realviz’s web the technical underpinnings of what they supports most common 3D file formats and site to see how it fits in your workflow. are called to do, are perfect for also generates QuickTime VR movies. 3D MotionBuilder, and version 6 is simply artists may need to rework ImageModeler JAMES ALGUIRE is a Mac the most intuitive release yet. geometry for it to function properly in their professional and Apple Certified Trainer Take the animation interface: It’s very projects when importing it into their 3D tool clean and easy to work with. In other of choice, especially Point Cloud Mesh. with more than 20 years experience in words, keyframing your own animation is New in ImageModeler 4.0 is the ability the computer industry. You can email a snap using the basic rig within your to incorporate 3D objects created in other him at [email protected]. character. However, if you need to extend programs within its projects, making it the capabilities of that basic rig, great for matching 3D elements to an MOTIONBUILDER 6 MotionBuilder 6 lets you add auxiliary existing photo. By Tom Carroll pivot points (also known as auxiliary effectors) and Handles. The easiest way GETTING UP TO SPEED RALPH WALDO EMERSON ONCE SAID, to understand auxiliary pivot points is to It’s important to learn to use a new program “What lies behind us and what lies before think of the foot. The basic rig lets you as quickly as possible, especially in today’s us are tiny matters compared to what rotate the foot at the ankle, but not from fast-paced production environments. lies within us.” the heel. By creating a new pivot point at ImageModeler’s help system is more How does this lofty quote relate to the heel, you create new controls that can than adequate, explaining the various MotionBuilder 6? Until last summer, amplify the ankle motion. You can quickly concepts, features, and tools. Tutorials MotionBuilder was the flagship product of add multiple pivot points for each toe, too. are also provided with the installation, Kaydara, which was acquired by Alias. So, Handles extend what you can do with and more can be downloaded from the the Kaydara days are behind us. What the rig you create. Handles take several Realviz web site. Tutorial materials start lies before us is whether MotionBuilder selected control points and group them off well, but lack continuity. They just someday becomes part of Maya, Alias’s don’t feel complete. A few steps are flagship 3D modeling package. Only time confusing—particularly the section on will tell. Right now, what Alias hopes will using the Define WorldSpace Tool—and lie within us (and motivate us to dish out the videos don’t have any audio. While roughly $1,000 for MotionBuilder the videos are instructive, an audio Standard) is the latest version of the narrative would have added significantly premiere, standalone animation package more to the experience. The additional on the market. online support materials delve into more In a nutshell, MotionBuilder 6 brings a complex modeling projects, but there’s more intuitive environment with a high- little in the way of explanation for the level animation editor, an updated examples; the approach is “look at the properties viewer, and the ability to make files and figure it out,” which is probably the hotkeys match your 3D flavor of choice. tolerable for experienced 3D artists but More important, the transform manipulator can be frustrating for novices. has been redesigned (for the better), and a Realviz offers limited free technical new tool (Handles) provides more support through the company’s web site, complete control over the selection and and you can purchase an annual technical manipulation of objects in a scene. The new CREATED BY CURTIS GARTON COPYRIGHT 2005 ALIAS SYSTEMS CORP. support contract for $150 per year. version’s camera controls are also much simpler, especially when working with Auxiliary pivots let animators quickly define and animate multiple rotation repetitive creation and navigation tasks. pivot points.

MotionBuilder 6 includes previs capabilities.

so that they can be manipulated more commitment it takes, however, is MOTIONBUILDER 6 easily. They can also keep various parts simply the price you pay for of a character in contact with other individuality. objects in the scene, as in a sea lion Nearly any other modeling balancing atop a rolling ball. package, such as Maya, 3DS Max, Alias MotionBuilder 6 also includes various and Softimage XSI, have much 210 King St. East Toronto, Ontario, Canada “floor contact systems,” which prevent a better tools for painting skin M5A 1J7 character’s feet from passing through a weights, which is why Alias 800-447-2542 ground plane, or its fingers and palms recommends that it be done elsewhere. analyze each scene of a movie prior to www.alias.com from interpenetrating a surface. After Again, can you do it in MotionBuilder? filming even one frame. This saves time taking on an acceptably low learning Sure. In fact, animators getting their and huge amounts of money when PRICE curve (if you’ve used MotionBuilder models from commercial libraries will filming on location. Video games are also MotionBuilder Standard $995; MotionBuilder Pro previously, that is), you can produce fluid probably be overjoyed with Motion- adopting the technique for cut scenes $4,195 animations much faster than you could Builder’s tools, but it’s an area that Alias that are as complex as scenes from have even a year or two ago. will hopefully improve as time goes by. feature films. It’s important to be able to SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Last, but certainly not least, Motion- create and use multiple cameras within Software. Microsoft Builder 6 contains “pose controls” and MO CAP, LESS TIME each animation. MotionBuilder does this Windows XP Professional or Apple Mac OS X 10.3 “move keys” commands. Pose controls Where MotionBuilder (and version 6 in and has an interface that make creating or higher; Microsoft let animators quickly build complex particular) really shines is in reusing or and using the cameras quite intuitive. Internet Explorer, animations (such as a walk cycle) by repurposing animation data from a Netscape, or Safari. combining simple poses. Parts of each widely divergent number of sources. For THE WRAP UP pose can be assigned as IK or FK (inverse example, most animations from modeling Add it up: easy animation tool sets, rapid Hardware. Intel Pentium III or higher, or forward kinematic) to help them work packages are made once and used re-use of existing animation, and previs AMD Athlon processor, best together. Move keys allow you to once—case closed. MotionBuilder, techniques utilizing multiple cameras Macintosh G4 or G5; copy the new animation, in this case a however, thinks of each animation as a and non-linear editing techniques. The 256MB RAM; CD-ROM walk cycle, in its entirety and then separate motion that can be reused, positive aspects of MotionBuilder 6 would drive; OpenGL graphics card with 16MB RAM; “move” it forward in space so it extends modified, or applied to any other seem on the surface to justify the price, 300MB hard disk space. the animation. character. For example, outside of making it the universal choice for In truth, MotionBuilder 6 contains so MotionBuilder, it would be nigh everyone. But this isn’t so. For instance, PROS many new features for creation and control impossible to apply the mocap data from take film animators who are interested in 1. Absolutely the tool for of animation, it’s simply silly. To see for a mining gnome to a seven-foot alien, creating ultra-realistic scenes. They’re repurposing existing animations. yourself, access the nine demo movies though various walk and jump going to use it only as a stepping stone to 2. Non-linear cameras Alias provides on the MotionBuilder site. If animations would find common ground other packages that allow for lattice, and edits make a picture says a thousand words, these going from one to the other. With spline, and wrap deformations, as well as previsualization movies will leave you speechless. MotionBuilder, it’s a snap. Within hair and cloth simulations. Also, users snappy. minutes, it’s possible to add the motions who see that MotionBuilder 6 allows for 3. A 30-day non- commercial trial-only LESS THAN SKIN DEEP? from small characters to large ones and fading out a scene may also demand version of Motion- It’s been said that whatever good things then, because of MotionBuilder’s system more sophisticated wipes, white-out Builder 6 is free to we build, end up building us. Despite of animation layers, selectively change fades, or even—gasp!—an iris. While download. whether this is true, MotionBuilder the mocap animations to better fit the incorporating such capabilities into CONS doesn’t demand that you build a rig taller, slimmer alien figure. MotionBuilder would certainly make it 1. Weighting tools could inside the package. While Alias Additionally, you can translate motion much more robust, it would also become be friendlier. recommends setting up the skeleton and data on the fly to effectively mimic what’s much less affordable for Alias’s 2. Game developers skin weights in your individual 3D happening in real life. For instance, what if mainstream clientele. moonlighting in film modeling package, MotionBuilder lets your mining gnome has to leap from a cliff And for the vast majority of game pine for higher-end spline and cloth you rig any character from scratch. onto a passing mine cart? The cart’s motion developers, such capabilities are very animation tools. Anyone using one of several standard vector can be added to the gnome’s position much part of what Emerson referred to 3. The nervousness felt naming conventions can stand back and data as he intersects the cart’s position, as “what lies ahead.” * by non-Maya users watch MotionBuilder generate a complete making it seem as though he’s carried off as they ponder IK/FK rig while adding in extra in-scene by the cart. “Seamless,” as they say. Alias’s ability to TOM CARROLL is a 3D environment assimilate their effectors that can help the operation of artist with Rockstar San Diego. He also favorite standalone joints, specifically. Non-standard rigs PREVIS WIZ tool into its own 3D become standard through manual For feature film directors, previsualization reviews anime and other DVDs for modeling package. assignment of bones to the software’s is rapidly becoming one of the most www.gamevortex.com. Contact him at standard rigging outputs; the time valuable tools because they can use it to [email protected].

12 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER Time to move on?

Java 3D. A new dimension in mobile gaming

Java 3D doesn’t just have the power to move the mobile gaming experience up a level. It also has the power to move your business up one too. Because once a consumer has had a taste of what it’s all about, there’s no turning back. With the exception of an occasional visit to the nostalgic games of yesteryear. No matter, Java 3D promises to be one of the fastest growing business opportunities in mobile gaming. And no one is more committed than Sony Ericsson Developer World to get you moving on the fast track from mind to market. And that’s not just because we’ve got an unparalleled line of Java 3D phones on the market, but because we’ve got everything you need to get into the development of mobile Java 3D games. From great tools and responsive tech support to exciting go-to-market opportunities. You’ll ﬁ nd us at booth number 130 at the Game Developers Confer- ence (GDC) 2005 in San Francisco where Sony Ericsson is Platinum Sponsor of GDC Mobile. You can also learn more about mobile game development with Java 3D at a sponsored seminar session on March 11th. Go to www.SonyEricsson.com/developer or visit us at GDC 2005 to move into a new dimension in mobile gaming.

www.SonyEricsson.com/developer >> paul hyman

UNIONIZE NOW?

Hollywood does it—but should game developers organize, too?

>> WHEN EA_SPOUSE POSTED HER NOW-FAMOUS OPEN old-fashioned,” he told Game Developer, “but I think it’s letter regarding working conditions at Electronic Arts, it wasn’t cathartic when people have a chance to get something off as if no one had ever complained before about the quality-oftheir chest. And obviously, in our industry, how we work is life issues plaguing the game development community. something that people need to talk about.” But she brought the discussions into the open, notes Indeed, EA_Spouse says her goal was to break the ice, to Rusty Rueff, EA’s executive vice president of human get developers talking. They are, however, talking about resources, and that, he says, is a good thing. “Maybe I’m

P AUL HYMAN writes a weekly column on the game industry for The Hollywood Reporter. He’s covered gaming for more than a dozen years. You can reach him at [email protected].

14 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER WWW.GDMAG.COM 15 UNIONIZE NOW?

Tara McPherson, chair of the more than just convincing management that conditions need to University of Southern improve. There’s now a buzz in the industry about unionizing—and California Cinema School, it’s getting louder. Critical Studies division Many industry observers see close parallels between the gripes of today’s game developers and those of workers in the movie industry in the 1930s and ’40s, particularly in the animation segment. The difference is that Hollywood unionized, and the game industry is still only talking about it.

WHO CONTROLS HOLLYWOOD? will make small changes, but not much else, if the threat of “What you saw in Hollywood’s studio era was a lot of unionization seems real.” independent producers who slowly consolidated into a few key players—we call them the Five Majors—who gained a AND MICROSOFT BEGAT WASHTECH … monopolistic control over distribution,” describes Tara Unions are, in fact, eyeing the game development community, McPherson, chair of the University of Southern California Cinema and the Seattle-based Washington Alliance of Technology School, Critical Studies division. Workers makes no bones about it. WashTech, as it is known, is a “They pretty much set the policy within the industry, local of the Communications Workers of America, having been decided what kind of product would be made, the rates that formed seven years ago by contract workers hired by Microsoft would be paid, and whether you’d have the opportunity to get through temp agencies, who at the time comprised more than your movie distributed to theaters,” she says. “I see that 50 percent of the software giant’s local workforce. being replayed pretty dramatically in the game industry. In One of those workers was Marcus Courtney, a contract test just the last few years, the number of small, independent engineer, now president of WashTech. game production companies in Los Angeles alone has “You could work for years without being converted to full-time plummeted. The possibility of distributing an independently- employee status,” says Courtney, “which meant you’d never have produced game without connection to some bigger player is any job security or decent benefits. And, in the mid-’90s, Microsoft almost nil.” was pretty much the only game in town for tech workers.” As time went on, Hollywood workers found themselves When Microsoft lobbied for changes in overtime standards— powerless to bargain with managers on the amount of pay they employees who made at least $27.63 per hour were ineligible for received and the hours they worked, and turned to unions like time-and-a-half—it sparked a spontaneous email protest to the the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America to state government and, ultimately, the launch of WashTech. represent them in negotiations. But it was a slow transition, Now, seven years later, Courtney claims that the big game says McPherson, because white-collar workers, like screen companies are trying to limit their employees’ conversations writers and editors—and game programmers and artists—see about wages and working conditions. He’s reaching out to them themselves as different from factory workers and are often via online forums and job boards “to tell them the advantages of reluctant to consider unionization. joining a union and what we have to offer because not a lot of “Oddly enough, the Hollywood managers and studio white-collar workers understand the union process.” He claims executives made very much the same arguments as the that while his is the first union dedicated to representing high- Electronic Arts executives are making right now: that unions are tech employees, he wouldn’t be surprised if other unions, like the for people who do dirty work and that they result in a kind of Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Television and group-think that destroys individual creativity and the ability to Radio Artists, and the International Federation of Professional negotiate your own wages,” McPherson says. “But I would argue and Technical Engineers, started making similar efforts. that the Hollywood unions were absolutely essential to the workers having decent jobs.” COMPLICATIONS AND CONSEQUENCES McPherson believes the same is true of the game industry— But there are those who argue that unions may not achieve that the big game publishers aren’t going to “benevolently the goals of game developers, and one of those people is change today’s abysmal work conditions without pressure. They Adam Levin, an attorney who practices labor law at the Los Angeles-based firm of Mitchell, Silberberg, and Knupp. He most often represents employers ‘what do we want?’ in the movie industry. “While there are perceived benefits to unionization, it’s very important for REMEMBER THOSE OLD NEWSREELS In my conversations, I hear Everyone in Hollywood works hard. employees to recognize the tangible from the 1930s? Ford Motor developers yearning for three things: Typically, craftsmen on a movie set consequences of bringing in a labor union,” he Company goons with baseball bats • strict limits on time worked sign up for 12-hour days. The warns. “They may include the rejection of chasing down auto workers in old •pay for time worked difference is they get paid overtime union proposals by employers, the possibility Detroit? Most of the violence in our •production organized well enough for four of those hours and we don't. of strikes, increased production costs that business takes place in our to eliminate "crunch time." Some of us believe that superior may lead to runaway production work—which imaginations, but overturning the Unions may help, but they hardly organization will contain the extra could mean layoffs—plus the expense of current work practices of studios guarantee a life of ease. A business costs of fair compensation. Are we union dues and initiation fees.” and publishers will jolt us all, so that vaguely resembles our own— right? Unless employees are willing Levin calls EA_Spouse’s open letter to the get ready for reality—struggle making movies—is heavily unionized, to duke it out, we'll never know. industry a wakeup call to employers to re- and strife. but that doesn't mean cushy jobs. —Hal Barwood, Finite Arts examine working conditions, particularly crunch times, “which used to be sporadic and

16 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER PAID ADVERTISEMENT

TAMING THE COMPLEXITY OF GAME DEVELOPMENT by Allan McNaugton

While ad hoc asset management type game, for example, solutions have been used by game you could create distinct developers and artists for many repositories for assets years, runaway complexity has of similar types such created a strong need for better as levels, characters, tools. The stakes are high. Quality and weapons, or buildings. productivity are seriously impacted Another option would be to by recurring problems, such as files create a single repository getting mysteriously dropped from the with a sub-repository for game image, or even more damaging, each level which contains mismatched versions of assets the assets for that level. appearing in the image. CHANGE TRACKING As with most things in software The code developers write development, good tools can make the depends on the assets difference between success and failure. artists create and vice The challenge is finding the right tool for versa. The challenge is the job. This paper discusses what you making sure everyone has Figure 1 Surround SCM in thumbnail mode should look for in an asset management the right version of the system and one solution that may meet assets they need. Surround helps solve not common), they still serve to clearly your needs. this problem by versioning every asset it denote a related set of assets. Snapshot ASSET CONTROL manages. Versioning ensures no change branches are used for this purpose and correspond to important milestones An unmanaged asset is an accident can occur without everyone knowing such as the first testable version, a beta waiting to happen. The most effective about it (or at least there being a history release, or gold master of the game. way to mitigate risk is to store each and of the change). Specific versions of assets every asset in a central repository. While can be grouped together so you only need Surround also offers far more it is quite possible to use a shared folder to retrieve the contents of the branch to sophisticated features than just on a network drive for this purpose, this obtain a working image of the game. snapshot branches. Developers can set approach is likely to cause more harm While branches are used less in game up private workspaces that allow work to than good. development than they are in more continue in isolation. This is useful during major infrastructure changes, such A better solution is to use an asset traditional development environments as reworking the game engine. When management system such as (maintenance releases of games are work is completed it can be pushed Surround SCMTM from Seapine forward (promoted) to the main Software. Surround intelligently branch for integration with ongoing implements asset management, with changes. full version control, for all of a game’s digital assets including source code, Because many fixes involve 3D models, textures, images, sounds, changing more than one asset, it music, and more (see Figure 1). is often useful to check them in as a single unit. This helps minimize Assets under Surround’s inconsistencies as it is easier to add control are safely stored in one or the assets to a changelist rather more server-based repositories. than checking each file in individually. Repositories can conveniently be Assets in a Surround changelist arranged in most any hierarchy are kept pending until the group is desired. In a first person shooter- Figure 2 Changelist window committed (see Figure 2).

gamedev_final.indd 1 2/4/05 4:36:27 PM PAID ADVERTISEMENT

would typically need to run a script that updates the resource file with the new model. Not only is this time consuming, it is also error prone. If you are using Surround, and take advantage of triggers, the job is done for you. A trigger is an action that occurs when a certain asset management operation takes place (e.g., check in, promotion, deletion). You could create a trigger that fires when new textures are checked in. This trigger could call a script that updates the resource file with the modified asset. This way, if an artist updates a texture map, seconds later the game engine picks up the change.

Figure 3 Side-by-side Triggers are remarkably flexible and differencing format because they use the operating system to execute scripts. This means you can write your script in any language supported by your platform. Trigger specifics such as why and how the trigger was fired are communicated to the script through environment variables. An additional benefit of triggers is that they also form the basis of Surround’s IMAGE SUPPORT differences by showing the high contrast email notification system. Instead of calling result of pixel subtraction (see Figure 3). Artists and developers live in different an external script, a trigger can fire off worlds. They often use tools unfamiliar The value of previewing images within emails to interested parties when certain to one another. While there is little need the asset manager is even applicable actions occur. It is simple to customize for the artist to see exactly what the to tools that do not generate images messages because email templates can developer is up to, it is frequently useful such as a 3D modeler. In this case, the be edited directly within Surround. for the developer to see how the artist’s asset processing script can be modified Shadow folders offer another way to work is progressing—after all, the code to capture a snapshot of the model keep the game image current. A shadow has to support it. as it is displayed in the modeling tool. folder is a user-specified directory that This snapshot is then checked in along The developer is commonly stymied in always contains the latest read-only with the corresponding model. While this task by the binary objects an artist contents of a specified branch. It is easy the image may not fully illustrate all the produces. Unfortunately, many asset to configure Surround so that when changes made to the model, it is a useful management systems simply present a an asset is checked in, the content is way to quickly identify major differences lengthy list of file names, and it’s up to the automatically copied to the shadow folder, without using the modeling tool. developer to view the asset by retrieving which just so happens to be a directory it and opening the file with an appropriate ASSET PIPELINE INTEGRATION mapped to the game image folder. tool. Surround makes this task easier Although the versioning of assets is a key ACCESS FROM ANYWHERE because it displays image files directly part of an asset management system, it within the asset manager (more than 25 While much game development work is is not the only part. It is critical that the file formats are supported). done in-house, it is not unusual for parts tool can be easily integrated within the of the project to be farmed out to an Surround lets you compare different asset processing pipeline. especially talented freelance AI wizard, or versions of checked-in images in two Consider, for example, a game that even handled by the studio’s publishing ways: a convenient side-by-side format retrieves its entire set of models, partner. This requires an asset or a view showing the images combined textures, and bitmaps from a single management system to provide secure differences. This brings to light even the resource file. The resource file is typically access to assets from anywhere. smallest change by subtracting the pixels built by a script that glues a large array of one image from the other. In addition, Surround is based on true client/ of assets together. What happens when Surround can help identify subtle color server architecture so it is equally adept a new model is checked in? Well, you

gamedev_final.indd 2 2/4/05 4:36:29 PM PAID ADVERTISEMENT

at meeting the needs of both local and remote users. The Surround client communicates with its server through a TCP/IP connection with optional 512-bit encryption. Surround does not provide a Web interface, nor does it need one because it provides a highly capable rich client that supports Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux users. Since you may not want that freelance AI wizard to romp through the rest of your source code, Surround lets you limit access at the repository and branch levels. You can also modify the default role-based security model so that only certain groups of users have access to specific commands. QA FRIENDLY It takes a Herculean effort to test a game these days. Finding and eradicating bugs is extremely important to the success of the game. Testing is often done concurrently by the game developers and by the publishing partner. It can cause much confusion if the results of these efforts are not properly tracked by a capable tool. Although bug tracking tools are certainly commonplace, you should Figure 4 TestTrack Pro image thumbnail support consider looking at Seapine’s TestTrack Pro (see Figure 4). Aside from its Teams that implement proper asset complex business and development seamless integration with Surround, management will likely benefit from processes, so they can focus on TestTrack Pro has many features shorter release cycles and increased developing quality software in less that appeal to game developers. First productivity. Seapine Software’s time. All Seapine products seamlessly and foremost, it is so easy to use that Surround SCM and TestTrack Pro integrate with each other as well as people actually don’t mind using it. provide a solid foundation for managing most popular software development TestTrack Pro offers both a robust client all of a game’s digital assets and tracking tools. Seapine’s AALM solutions adapt to interface and an equally capable Web the continually changing environment the way development teams work, giving interface that external parties, such as they exist within. them the freedom to choose the tools and processes they like. Over 6,400 a publishing partner, can use without AUTHOR requiring a finicky virtual private network. companies worldwide use Seapine tools Allan McNaughton (allan@technical- to manage their development processes, You can even link changes to assets insight.com) is a patent-holding improve performance, and deliver higher with the bug request that initiated technologist and veteran writer. He is the quality solutions. the change. With this information it is principal at Technical Insight LLC, a firm possible to quickly assess the full impact specializing in the composition of high- of modifications required to implement technology white papers. a change. An additional benefit of using TestTrack Pro is that over time ABOUT SEAPINE a complete historical record of all Seapine Software, Inc., is a market- development activities is created. leading provider of adaptable application GET GOING lifecycle management (AALM) solutions for enterprise-level software The importance of having a sound asset development. Seapine’s products are management strategy will only increase designed to help customers streamline as games become more complex. www.seapine.com/gamedev

gamedev_final.indd 3 2/4/05 4:36:31 PM more recently have extended to a kind of crunching throughout the year.” “It’s always my advice to employers that they should have an open door with their employees to [let them air their] [development studio], there needs to be specifics—what that grievances and to always try to address those grievances,” he developer is going to do and how, and how [the developer] is recommends. “The wise manager will recognize that working going to meet a certain deadline because it has such-and-such out an amicable resolution with employees is the preferred resources. That’s not what happens now, and I know that route to either litigation or unionization.” because I’ve written proposals. Now, a developer just says it Levin cautions that unionization frequently means increased wants to make such-and-such a game, and the publisher labor costs, which does no one any good. “If a publisher’s labor basically plays Russian roulette with whether that team can costs go up in such a way that it can no longer make a profit, it meet its commitments.” will have great difficulties with its shareholders. If it needs to Since her letter was posted, EA_Spouse reports that there has pass those costs along to, say, Wal-Mart [as a retail channel] been a change of tone at EA. When someone suggests that a and, in turn, to the consumer, I suggest that neither one will design team needs to go to a six-day week, the idea is accept those increases. As a result, game makers may end up immediately dismissed with a comment like “No, we can’t do going out of business or moving work to Canada or Europe that, not with all the publicity that’s going on.” where unions are less of a factor, and then there will certainly “But I don’t think that will be very long-lived,” she says. “In my be layoffs. So everyone needs to be aware that, with increased opinion, the only thing that will get publishers to budge is labor costs, which are inevitable when you have a union, there unionization, which I believe to be the best solution.” are going to be consequences.” EA_Spouse’s immediate plans are to launch GameWatch.org, a web site where game developers can share information about ‘INEVITABLE’ PROPONENTS their companies. But Tom Buscaglia, who calls himself “The Game Attorney,” begs “There are some development houses, like BioWare and to differ. The only thing he believes is “inevitable” is the Cyberlore, that are the good guys, who work hard to do right by unionization of the games industry. their people and still create good products,” she notes. “I think “I’m just not sure there’s a way around it,” admits Buscaglia, other developers need to know that. And so we’re creating a principal at Miami-based T.H. Buscaglia and Associates, who GameWatch.org, which will be like a movie review site, only once specialized in labor law but now represents independent instead of critiquing movies, we’ll critique game studios. Our game developers. “The problem is that the crunch scenario goal is to have it up by June.” has been built into the equation; in a real sense, the publishers’ backs are against the wall. If they currently need PURVEYOR OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT their people to work 60 or 80 or 100 hours a week in order to In Montreal, a man with the enviable title “VP of continuous build a game that sells for X number of dollars, there’s no way improvement” says he agrees with EA_Spouse when informed that they can now tell everybody, ‘It’s okay, we’re only going to she is in favor of fixing the game-building process. He’s Ubisoft’s have you work 40 hours a week,’ because then their Michel Allard, and he says that, without a doubt, the solution to the production costs will double. They can’t be magnanimous quality-of-life issues is changing the way games are made. because they ultimately have to answer to their shareholders. “We’ve formed an internal committee that’s going through And so, in a way, having a union come in might take the heat every type of documentation on project management in all off of them. It might be a win-win situation.” types of industries, trying to learn from them to see what can be It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when crunch “got built into the done in our business,” he explains. equation.” Certainly, it hasn’t always been so. At one time, the game industry consisted of small groups of game enthusiasts working together feverishly and endlessly to build a title they >> first person believed in. They worked long hours because they were driven by passion. But over the last 10 years, that model has pretty EA’S INDUSTRY strengths and weakness much changed to a commercially-driven industry inhabited by leadership and the critical in our processes. big, publicly-traded companies. and commercial success That said, we recognize “What you’ve got now aren’t games emerging from the of our games is a there are legitimate passion of individual developers but repetitive products driven reflection on the high concerns about work-life by economic considerations,” notes Buscaglia. “We’ve got an assembly line of people working on the fifth iteration of a caliber of people we hire balance in this industry. football game that comes out every year like clockwork and the in every job. They are The game industry is to our people and building passion is gone. They may like what they’re doing, but it’s simply the best talent in going through some a model for the best culturally inappropriate to continue the same model.” the business, period. To significant growing pains, culture and work keep our people and as the industry leader, environment in the ONE SPOUSE HAS HER SAY motivated, we need to EA is in the forefront of That’s what EA_Spouse was referring to when she posted her entertainment industry, a constantly ensure that addressing these issues. open letter regarding her fiance’s working conditions. Speaking place where the best and to Game Developer (anonymously still, at her request), she their creativity, hard work We’ve got an most creative people can reiterated how game-building needs to be fixed from both and dedication is ambitious goal: to set build and sustain long- process and management standpoints so that deadlines can be supported and rewarded. new industry standards term careers making the met without extended crunch periods. To succeed at this, we for management and world’s best games. “We’ve followed a Hollywood model and it’s become a train are committed to working recognition. At EA, we’re Rusty Rueff, executive wreck,” she says. “When a publisher takes a proposal from a with teams and listening and vice president of human individuals to identify both communicating directly resources for EA

WWW.GDMAG.COM 17 UNIONIZE NOW?

As a result, Ubisoft has put into place a project management office that supplies project coordinators for every team and that “We’ve taken every studio person in every EA location around has developed methods to better schedule and estimate tasks. the world through the process these last few months, and I “We’ve gained ground, but that think everyone is convinced that we’re serious about it,” says doesn’t necessarily manage all Rueff. “In my mind, it’s like running a marathon. You want to the types of ambitions that are make sure that you have a kick left in you at the end, and you out there,” he says. “Sometimes don’t mind having to kick if you don’t have to start the kick too the impetus to work long hours early. So we’re being very open with everyone and discussing comes more from a certain when we think the crunch is going to come, how we’re bravado or peer pressure than minimizing the crunch, how we’re working together to from management. So this is a determine what that crunch will be. Everybody at EA has been multifaceted problem, and it’s our communicated to and now understands this.” biggest challenge—to protect creativity while gaining better I WANT TO MAKE GAMES WHEN I GROW UP control over our projects.” In a soon-to-be-published study by the University of Texas at Specifically, Allard says Ubisoft Austin’s Digital Media Collaboratory, 310 middle school is paying more attention to the students in Texas were asked what they wanted to be when concept and pre-production they grew up. Of the 124 male respondents, the favorite phases of the development occupation (out of 40 choices) was professional athlete; the process. There needs to be runner-up was video game designer. someone, he notes, who says Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the International that the game will be just as good Game Developers Association (IGDA), wonders whether those without an expensive feature or a students will change their minds when they catch wind of what time-consuming addition. a game designer’s work schedule and wages are like. “I think the marketing people “This is not just an EA thing,” he says. “As word slowly gets out Adam Levin of the law would say that, yes, we need all the that regardless where you work, the conditions are all firm Mitchell, Silberberg, extras,” he adds. “But whether we really need them is not an easy miserable, how easy do you think it’s going to be for our and Knupp answer to come by. I think we have a lot of good minds getting industry to attract new talent? When people start avoiding us together on this problem and, over time, we’ll gain control of it.” because they believe us to be a bunch of slave drivers, that’s Allard wants to believe that unionization won’t take place at got long-term, industry-wide implications. That’s why the IGDA Ubisoft, adding that unions are very capable of hurting creativity. sees this as a very serious issue.” “Whether they will come is difficult to say,” he concludes. “I Last year, the association did an informal survey of game don’t think any industry is totally protected from it.” designers which revealed that about 30 percent of the respondents didn’t intend to be in the industry within five years; SYMPTOMS OF AN INDUSTRY AT LARGE more than 50 percent said they will be gone in 10. At EA, there’s no doubt whatsoever that unions represent the “That is a huge number,” says Della Rocca. “Imagine if half dark side. the people in Hollywood left every 10 years. What kind of According to Rusty Rueff, the executive VP of human experience would remain? Where would the talent come from?” resources, “There will always be people who want to step in and In terms of solutions, Della Rocca believes the industry has take a piece of the pie or get in the middle of things without to enlighten the rank and file as well as management. contributing to the growth of the business. I personally don’t “Although they have the passion, developers need to put their believe that our people are the type who actually want to have a own brakes on, and they want to have a life outside of the third party representing them and determining their wages, game industry because that will make them better game hours, or working conditions. And so it’s my job and the job of developers. We need to educate the middle managers, the the leaders inside the company to ensure that we’re doing the project managers, and the producers—or bring in outside right things so that those kinds of things aren’t necessary.” management [to] deal with the chaos and the fires and the Rueff believes that the working conditions and challenges at pressures of managing large-scale, big-budget projects.” EA are symptomatic of the entire industry, not just his company. As for unionization, the IGDA is what Della Rocca calls “union “We’re all trying to squeeze that last 10 percent out of the neutral.” He says it isn’t the IGDA’s role to condemn or condone current technology, which is a little bit less exciting than it will the creation of a union. “It’s really the choice of the workers to be a year from now when we’re working on the PlayStation 3,” he decide whether they want to unionize,” he says. says. “But I do believe that getting better at project Indeed, it’s likely the discussions will continue, the unions management, scheduling, discipline, and pre-production—those will pursue educating about the benefits of organizing, and are all things we all need to become smarter at. Those are the management will try to convince game developers that things we aren’t doing as well as we want to.” conditions will get better without unions. And some of those To that end, EA says it has recommitted to what it calls its who are talking now credit EA_Spouse for accelerating the X Process, a production practice that has the team focus on the conversations. features of a game prior to going full-speed ahead on a project. “EA_Spouse just wants her man home at night,” Buscaglia says, The process also dictates that the team build one level of a game “and I think there are a lot of people who feel the same way.” * prior to the studio committing to the project entirely in order to make certain everyone understands what the game involves.

18 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER

the evolution of 3D continues Selected for performance. Adapted for next generation productions.

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For more information: www.alias.com/maya Come visit Alias in Booth 230 at GDC 2005 © Copyright 2005 Alias Systems Corp. All rights reserved. Alias, the swirl logo, Maya and Can You Imagine are registered trademarks and the Maya logo is a trademark of Alias Systems Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. mental ray is a registered trademark of mental images GmbH in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners. >> terrance cohen

MOMENTMOMENTMOMENTMOMENTMOMENT OFOFOFOFOFOF

IMPACTIMPACTIMPACTIMPACTIMPACTIMPACTIMPACT>> DESIGNINGDESIGNINGDESIGNINGDESIGNING ANANANAN IN-GAMEIN-GAMEIN-GAMEIN-GAME EFFECTSEFFECTSEFFECTSEFFECTSEFFECTS SYSTEMSYSTEMSYSTEMSYSTEMSYSTEM

TERRANCE COHEN is a senior software engineer at Irrational Games. >>A WEAPON FIRES A BULLET. THE MUZZLE FLASHES. A SHOT RINGS OUT. A HOLE APPEARS IN THE His game credits include MEDAL OF HONOR wall. Better yet: An M4A1 fires a jacketed hollow point bullet. The signature five-point star and SWAT 4. He enjoys spending time appears at the end of the barrel and momentarily illuminates all nearby objects. There’s a loud with his wife Rena and his daughter “crack.” Chunks of wood explode from the point of impact and leave a gash in the wall’s Rebecca. You can reach him at paneling. An empty shell ejects from a port on the rifle. [email protected]. This effect event and its specialization were created with a system that provides a flexible approach to managing effects within a framework that supports rapid prototyping, smooth workflow, and immediate feedback.

WWW.GDMAG.COM 21 MOMENT OF IMPACT

FIGURE 1 Typical effect events and responses during heavy combat: The door shows responses to the C2ChargeDetonated and DoorBreached effect events. Responses to BulletHit can be seen on the pipes, on the walls, and on the sand bag. The muzzle flash and dynamic light are the result of a WeaponFired event. And the utility light's corona is the result of LightAlive. Sound effects are associated with many of these events as well.

The effects system we use at Irrational Games is a component of the VENGEANCE game engine that receives notification of an event during gameplay. It determines which effects, if any, should be played in response to those events. We used this system to manage visual and sound effects, both at design time and at run time for TRIBES: VENGEANCE and SWAT 4. Using the system, game developers of all sorts— programmers, designers, animators, and others—can trigger effects by themselves and without any need to recompile the code, “effect events” from code, animations, or gameplay scripts. which makes for a simpler workflow compared to systems that These effect events represent opportunities to play effects, always require code modification to introduce new effects. which can be visual, audible, or something else entirely, such as LAYERING AND SPECIALIZATION OF EFFECTS. Because the effects tactile feedback or vibration, and they contain information about system is a component of the game engine, it’s aware of the the context of the event. (See Figure 1 for an example.) Game game’s class hierarchy. With this knowledge, the effects system developers specify what we call the “event responses,” the can select the most specific response to an effect event. To take responses to effect events that specify which effects to play. advantage of this capability, we set a generic detonated event Irrational’s effects system is shaped by three central aspects: response, which is applied when any object triggers it. Later, when 1. Unification of configuration for different kinds of effects, for a special sound is created for a gas grenade, a specialized example, visual and audio effects. GasGrenadeDetonated event response could be created, which 2. Data-driven configuration of effects at design-time and event- would apply only when a gas grenade triggers the Detonated effect driven effects during gameplay that allow non-programmers event. Whenever anything else detonates, such as a C2 charge, the to independently incorporate new effects into the game. effects system would continue to select the generic Detonated 3. Layering and specialization that supports rapid prototyping event response, because no more specific event response and gradual introduction of effects. matches the effect event that occurred. UNIFICATION OF CONFIGURATION. The advantage of a unified This ability to specialize—or layer— effects is a powerful effects system is that it provides a simple way to coordinate feature that supports rapid prototyping early in a project, and different kinds of effects. For example, every explosion is likely to allows game developers to gradually specialize effects as new cause a sound, provided that the listener is close enough to hear it. art and sound assets become available. Notice that specializing When the same system is used to coordinate effects, for example, the GasGrenadeDetonated event response from the generic a sound designer can see when a new explosion has been added to detonated event response did not require any code or script the system and can then create a sound effect to match it. changes. Rather, this change only requires the addition of the DATA-DRIVEN CONFIGURATION OF EVENT-DRIVEN EFFECTS. Effect GasGrenadeDetonated event response, which specifies that it is events provide a convenient layer of abstraction from playing a response to the detonated effect event when it is triggered by effects, divorcing the work of the game designer from the work of a GasGrenade class of object. This kind of change can be made the effects designer, meaning that both can work effectively to a configuration file, or even better, with a GUI tool (which will without spending too much time thinking about what the other be discussed later). Programmers will note that the detonated needs. Through this separation of responsibility, the tasks of effect event can be triggered in a base class of Grenade, so invoking effects and building them become independent. specializing detonation effects for different Grenade subclasses Programmers, naturally, may trigger events from code. But the does not imply any additional code. Again, keep in mind that a primary goal of using an effects system is to empower level unified effects system means that different event responses designers, artists, animators, and the like to be able to integrate may specify effects of different types. So the detonated effect new effects without the help of a programmer. The key to taking event triggered by a grenade is likely to have an event response advantage of this separation of programmer and effects-maker is to in both a sound and visual effects subsystem. give the effects-makers various means of triggering events. To this By taking advantage of these four central aspects of the end, we provide a “trigger effect event” action that level designers effects system, developers can become more expressive in can generate from scripted gameplay events. Our reactive world configuring effects and benefit from improved workflow objects can also be configured to trigger events, and we provide an compared to other common techniques. animation key-frame action to trigger an event that animators can EXAMPLE 1. Characters make sounds when their feet hit the apply to frames of animation. By triggering effect events and by ground. The FootFell effect event type is triggered from key- configuring responses to them, developers can incorporate new frames in animation, not from code. (In fact, the name FootFell is

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added to a dynamic string table from the key-frame action, and is on concrete—all achieved without any special-purpose code. not mentioned anywhere in code.) Because the animation EXAMPLE 2. When SWAT officers exhale in the cold, their keyframe action is able to include the material below a specified breath is visible. As a character moves from one zone of the bone of the skeletal mesh when triggering the effect event, world to another, we untrigger and then retrigger the InZone responses can be specialized for different materials. The result is effect event type in code. Any contexts associated with the zone that stepping in water sounds and looks different from stepping in which an object is located are considered part of that object’s on leaves. You could further specialize the event responses such context. Our level designers can add arbitrary contexts to zones, that they apply only to particular characters, so that bar-hoppers’ such as a Cold context to areas that are both outside and have shoes sound different from SWAT officers’ boots when stepping snow. Then, our visual effects designer is able to create a response to an InZone effect event specialized for the Cold context. This event response specifies an effect that LISTING 1 periodically (with a randomized interval) emits a visible puff of breath from the officer, attached to his mouth. EXAMPLE 3. A radio initially plays content from one radio void EffectsSubsystem::OnEffectEvent( EffectEvent& effect_event, station; a response to its Used effect event causes it to select a IEffectObserver* effect_observer) different sound to play. A reactive world object can change its { appearance in reaction to being damaged. When a radio is bool anything_matched = false; adequately damaged, it untriggers the Alive event, changes its for ( Class* current_class = effect_event.source.GetClass(); appearance, and then triggers an AppearanceChanged event. current_class; When Alive is untriggered, the station content is interrupted, current_class = current_class->GetSuperClass()) { since it was played in response to the Alive event. And Array response_set; “electrical sparks” visual and sound effects are played in Name event_response_key = effect_event.type + current_class->GetName(); response to the AppearanceChanged event on a radio with a event_responses.MultiFind(event_response_key, &response_set); broken appearance. The ‘AppearanceChanged’ effect event is specialized for a radio that has a broken appearance so that a if (response_set.Num() == 0) continue; //no responses to this event on the current class LISTING 2 Array qualified_responses; Array qualified_response_scores; int qualified_high_score = 0; bool EffectsSubsystem::EventResponseMatchesEffectEvent( EffectEvent& event, for (int i=0; ilabel) { if ( if (event.source.label == response->label) current_response->source_class_name != current_class->GetName() //add constant value to response's score || current_response->effect_event_type != effect_event.type score += matches_label_score; ) else return; //disqualified: wrong class or event altogether //disqualified: label doesn't match return false; if (!EventResponseMatchesEffectEvent( } effect_event, current_response, // ... perform a similar tests for additional properties of the current_score)) // source and event, such as source.mesh, event.target_class, continue; // and event.target_material ... else qualified_high_score = Max(qualified_high_score, current_score); if (response->contexts.Num() > 0) { //current_response is qualified int current_context_count = response->contexts.Num(); qualified_responses.AddItem(current_response); qualified_response_scores.AddItem(current_score); if (current_context_count > GetNumContexts(event.source)) //disqualified: the response has at least one context that anything_matched = true; // doesn't match the current contexts } return false;

if (anything_matched) //give the response one point per matching context, { // or disqualify it for a non-matching context for (int i=0; icontexts.Get(i))) PlayEffects( //disqualified: the response specifies a context that qualified_responses.Get(i), // doesn't match the current contexts effect_event, effect_observer); return false;

//something matched, so we're done traversing the hierarchy score += current_context_count; break; } } } //for each class in source's inheritance hierarchy return true; } }

24 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER

MOMENT OF IMPACT

radio can even play different effects at different stages of highest-scoring responses are the ones that most closely match destruction, if the designer so chooses. Note that the effects the effect event that was triggered. configuration refers to the radio class, so there’s no per-instance For purposes of this discussion, an Actor is an object with a cost for effects. location in the game world, and a Name is an index into a A discussion of our reactive world objects system is beyond dynamic string table. the scope of this article. But suffice it to say, when gameplay Table 1 compares the EffectEvent structure with the events act upon an object, such as when it is used or damaged, EventResponse structure. Note that these two structures share reactive world objects can trigger effect events. For a radio, a several properties—the properties that are compared when response to its Alive effect event plays music. matching responses to events. In our system, an effect event is generally triggered by calling IMPLEMENTATION Actor::TriggerEffectEvent(event). This Actor member function The algorithm that Irrational’s effects system uses for selecting forwards the call to EffectsSystem::OnEffectEvent (self, event). responses to events is based on a score; each event response (Depending on your game engine, you may be able to use your (appropriate to the given event) is scored against others. The existing messaging or event system for this purpose.) The EffectsSystem dispatches this call to each of its EffectsSubsystems, such as the SoundEffectsSubsystem and the VisualEffectsSubsystem. EffectsSubsystem::OnEffectEvent() C++ Runtime Reflection is shown in Listing 1. Each effects subsystem executes the selection algorithm on its own collection of event responses, THE ABILITY TO TRAVERSE THE SOURCE ACTOR’S C++ reflection library, see Resources. which it maintains in a hash-map. class hierarchy described in Listing 1 requires Alternatively, there is an implementation of a The most significant parameter in selecting winning event support for runtime reflection of the inheritance similar system in which designers configure a responses is the class of the source of the event. If any event hierarchy. Runtime type identification (RTTI) is virtual hierarchy. Although this implies greater response specifies a class lower in the inheritance hierarchy not sufficient for this purpose. Languages like overhead on the part of programmers and than another qualified response, then any responses that Java, C#, and UnrealScript support runtime designers, it does provide an extra level of specify a class higher in the hierarchy can be rejected because hierarchy reflection, but support must be added customization, and avoids the requirement of they are less specific than others. For example, if a gas grenade to any C++ implementation. For an easy-to-use runtime hierarchy reflection. detonates, then the more general GrenadeDetonated event response can be rejected because the GasGrenadeDetonated

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© 2005 ATI Technologies Inc. All rights reserved. ATI is a registered trademark of ATI Technologies Inc.© 2004 Atari Interactive, Inc. RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 game © 2004 Chris Sawyer. Programming © 2004 Frontier Developments Ltd. All Rights Reserved. All other company and product names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners. 26 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER TABLE 1: Effects System Structures RESOURCES

EFFECT EVENT PROPERTIES EVENT RESPONSE PROPERTIES Adams, Arne. Property Type Property Name Property Type Property Name “Reflecting Attributes Name type Name type Actor’s hierarchy, looking for any matching and Base Classes.” Actor& source Class& source_class responses. Otherwise, for each matching event C/C++ Users Journal. response, all properties contained in it are Volume 22, Number 9, Array specifications September 2004. Array chances compared with the properties of the effect event and the source Actor. Pages 14–22. /* optional properties (default value = NULL) */ EffectsSubsystem::EventResponseMatches- Burke, Shawn. Mesh* mesh Mesh* mesh EffectEvent() is called from line 32 and is Name* label Name* label “Make Your Class* target_class Class* target_class shown in Listing 2. For each property that the Components Really Material* target_material Material* target_material event response specifies and which matches RAD with Visual the event that occurred, the response’s score Studio .NET Array contexts is incremented, indicating that the response is a Property Browser.” better match for the event. If the response MSDN Library. event response is specific to a class lower in the inheritance specifies any contextual details that do not match the event that http://msdn.microsoft .com/library hierarchy. Take a look at Listing 1, line 6. The selection algorithm was triggered, then the response is rejected. Once each event , February, 2002. traverses the inheritance hierarchy of the source of the effect response is compared against the effect event, they are scored. event until one or more matching event responses are found, or Their scores are recorded in the qualified_response_scores array. until the hierarchy is exhausted. In OnEffectEvent(), lines 49–51, if any event response matches For each class in the source Actor’s inheritance hierarchy the effect event that occurred, then the effects system plays the (until a matching response is found), the algorithm creates a effects specified by all responses with the qualified_high_score. subset of its collection of event responses, which are responses to the event type on the current class (lines 10–12). This DATABASE CONFIGURATION subset is created by performing a lookup on the subsystem’s We considered implementing the effects system configuration hash-map. The key for this hash-map (and for the lookup) is the with a database. This would have the advantage of simplifying concatenation of the name of the current class with the effect the selection algorithm by replacing it with a database query. event type, for example, GrenadeDetonated. (We create a Name But we concluded that the penalty for performing database with this key on line 11 to avoid any other string manipulations queries (potentially several per effect event) would be too in the selection algorithm.) If this lookup produces no significant, even if an embedded database were to be used. Still, responses, then the algorithm continues searching the source a GUI database front-end could have been used to configure the

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effects system data, which would have been exported into a format that could have been read-in and manipulated at runtime. While using an off-the-shelf database GUI is arguably the best approach, I chose to write a GUI front-end for our system, which I dubbed the Effects Configurator. I’m always cautious of systems that try to reinvent the wheel, as it were, and tend to lean toward using existing tools if there are ones that are right for the job. However, Animation keyframe actions can trigger different sounds there were some aspects of the system that called for footfalls on different material. for a specialized GUI. If the tool was cumbersome to use, then my goal of improving workflow would Evel Knievel remain a dream. In addition, I kept modders in lines of dialog during scripted sequences did not Superscape/GWE mind, and wanted a complete solution that could lend well to an event model. Effect events would be distributed with any finished product. have been a cumbersome abstraction for this Extreme sports/stunts For purposes of building the Configurator, I application because the particular resulting game starring Evel found C# and the .NET libraries to be an sound effects were always known. For this case, Knievel, famous excellent combination, which allowed me to the conversation manager, which was responsible daredevil and true reach my design goals. The PropertyGrid control for managing the lines of dialog among American Icon. was particularly handy for presenting the user characters, would play sound effects directly. It Jumps recreate the great with a GUI for editing properties of an object (see wasn’t necessary to create a separate system moments of his stunt Resources, page 27). And with .NET support for for this. Rather, the conversation manager entertainer career! reflection and serialization, implementing simply obtained a reference to the effects loading and saving of configuration data was a system’s sound effects subsystem and called painless process. PlayEffects() directly on it, just as the selection get your algorithm would have done. So for specific CONSIDERATIONS instances in which the effect event model was Performance was a primary concern when not an asset, the system still supported our game on designing the technical architecture of our effects needs, albeit at a more basic level. effects system. With all the matching of effect Harlem Globetrotters events to event responses, it’s easy to worry FUTURE DIRECTIONS Superscape/GWE that the simple management of effects could While developing and using the Irrational Games consume too much time. We were able to keep Effects System, I’ve considered ways to enhance Learn new tricks... work your the overhead of the effects system’s selection and extend its feature set, particularly through way up the ladder and see if algorithm to an acceptable level. In practice, additional effects subsystems. For platforms you have what it takes to be a legend... when events are triggered at a furious rate, such that support vibration, a tactile effects as in a firefight, many effects play. At those subsystem is an obvious extension of the times, the overhead of the algorithm is small effects system’s design. A caption subsystem when compared to the time spent actually would provide an integrated way of providing Ivan "Ironman" simulating and rendering the effects. textual feedback to the player. And I can also Stewart Oﬀ-road One thing that tripped-up the TRIBES: VENGEANCE imagine an animation effects subsystem in Superscape/GWE team was the practice of triggering many which effect event responses would cause the 9 oﬀ-road tracks peppered different types of effect events that had no source of the event to blend skeletal animations with obstacles, jumps & associated event responses. Despite the fact into its animation channels, for example, in power-ups, including nitro that there were no responses to these events, response to being hit by a bullet in a given limb. cans for speed bursts the effects system still needed to consider without wrecking your truck! each one. This excess overhead caused a CAUSE AND EFFECT significant decline in performance. Therefore, If you’re happy with your existing methodology, it was important to balance the desire to an effects system may not be necessary—not provide many effects hooks with the careful every studio needs one. But if you want to consideration of which types of events were streamline your workflow, allow designers and likely to deserve responses. After discovering effects creators to work remotely, prototype that many of the team’s event types were quickly and organize your effects management, going completely unhandled, they cut back on you should consider building a similar effects These mobile applications have been produced and published by Superscape Inc. and Global Wireless the number of triggered events, which system. With the growing complexity of games, Entertainment, Inc. improved the performance. increasingly sophisticated systems for © 2005 Superscape, We discovered that triggering effect events managing effects will continue to play an Global Wireless GLOBAL isn’t a convenient model for invoking effects for important role in game development. Entertainment. WIRELESS * ENTERTAINMENT All rights reserved. all purposes. For example, we found that playing

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>> brandon sheffield

BUENA VISTA’S GOOD VIEW GRAHAM HOPPER ON DISNEY’S PLANS FOR WINNING HEARTS

>> IN THE MID 1990s, MOST OF THE MOVIE PRODUCTION HOUSES developer; we tended to license all that out, so we had sort of a that were publishing or developing games made a semi-graceful dual model where we published certain things ourselves, exit from the industry. Buena Vista, as Disney’s game publishing mainly on the PC, and we licensed out the rest. Of course what arm, was one of the few that stuck around. Now in its eleventh we realized is that as the console market has become bigger year, the company has made another shift, changing the name to and more valuable, there was a real opportunity for us to Buena Vista Games, and changing the focus to the more core expand our business by starting to publish on console as well. gamer. With the power of Disney behind them, and the acquisition So that was stage one of the evolution of our business, which of a few key individuals from established development houses, went into motion in 2002 and 2003. Buena Vista Games hopes to be a major industry player in both We started looking at different genres of products, as the short and long term. Senior vice president and general opposed to just the traditional Disney branded products. So for manager Graham Hopper spoke to Game Developer about Buena example, we worked with Monolith Studios on TRON 2.0, and we Vista’s new initiatives in the core-gamer space. also started work with Capcom on developing a, shall we say, sequel to Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas. And again, B RANDON Brandon Sheffield: How has Buena Vista evolved over the we’ve started thinking about developing original properties. I years, and what has prompted this renewed interest in the think what we realized pretty quickly is that as powerful a SHEFFIELD console gaming space? brand as Disney Interactive is, it does of course limit what we’re is the assistant editor of able to do in the gaming space. And the key evolution for us was Graham Hopper: Our business started about 10 years ago; in realizing that the game business has changed from something Game Developer. E-mail fact it was 10 years ago [as of December 2004] that Disney that kids did, which would be true of 10 years ago, to something him at bsheffield Interactive was formed, and it was predominantly a PC that is now an entertainment medium which everybody enjoys. @gdmag.com. publisher for a long period of time. We did achieve a great deal You come home from work, and you can decide what you want of success on the PC platform, right throughout the 1990s. to do to entertain yourself, you can switch on the TV and watch However, we have not been known as a significant console ABC, owned by Disney—yes, please watch it (laughs)—or you

WWW.GDMAG.COM 31 BUENA VISTA GAMES

can play a game, and it makes sense for us to be able to offer GH: Yes, one of the things we did is we repositioned the entertainment that crosses whatever different choices business. Just to give you a sense of the extent of the [consumers] want to make. changeover—PC was a large portion of our business, close So we changed the name of the company to Buena Vista Games, to 60 percent three years ago. And today throughout North or BVG. Underneath that, we have two labels. Label one is Disney America it’s about 10 percent of our business. Before, we’d Interactive, which used to be the company name but now is just been invested in PC development studios. So what we did was a label of ours, in which we do all Disney-branded product. I don’t spin those studios off, but we will get back into development; like to call that kids products, because the Disney products ownership of development studios and development appeal to a very broad audience, like for example KINGDOM HEARTS. capacities will support our console strategy going forward. Our second label, our newer label, is Buena Vista Interactive. And Buena Vista Interactive is, much like we use Touchstone and BS: Will you be making developer or publisher acquisitions to Miramax within the company to distinguish between Disney- that end? branded products and non-Disney-branded products [for movies], Buena Vista Interactive allows us to do the same thing. GH: Yes, to the extent that they make financial sense. One of the things we’ve been quite involved in over the years was developing the games themselves. However, we often BS: So what will happen to those developers that previously handed them off to third parties to publish. So we had deals with worked on your licensed titles? the likes of Sony, who publishes games, but in many cases we were the ones who secured the developers, worked to develop GH: We plan to continue operating as a license business in the game, then handed a finished product over to a publisher. addition to our publishing capacity. In other words, we have an And we realized that our capabilities in publishing could easily open mind about how to approach publishing a game. If the right expand to cover the console products. Disney as a company is a way to develop a game happens to be to secure the unique Buena Vista’s top-ten vendor at Wal-Mart, for example. And so those retail expertise of a particular company that requires us to take a Graham Hopper. skills that we have give us a size and heft in the marketplace licensed approach, we’ll want to do that. I think KINGDOM HEARTS is a that is much larger than our actual size, and much larger than great example of that, where they have brought the FINAL FANTASY any other company in the game space, that’s for sure. characters together with ours. So there will be a licensing component to what we do. We have licensing arrangements with BS: Publishing aside, will you be incorporating THQ which run forward into the future, and those will continue as development as well? they are. But I think you can expect that with properties like

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32 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER business. We understand the differences. There are significant convergences, but we understand the difference in that we are trying to build a gaming company, not a company that does a bit of games on the side.

BS: How are you different from other companies, then?

GH: Well let’s think about what this means for the development community—thing is, as we enter the core gaming space, we have pretty much a blank sheet of paper. And one of the problems that developers have is getting publishers to pay CHICKEN LITTLE which come out of feature animation, we’ll be more attention to new intellectual property ideas. In many cases likely to publish those ourselves than we would be to that’s because the publisher may already have a number of automatically license them out like we would have before. driving games or shooters, and then when somebody comes up with a new twist on these. As a publisher you have to say “is this BS: What do you think about other film companies, such as cannibalistic, or is this something that I should be publishing as Warner Brothers, getting back into game development? well?” We as an organization have very few of those sorts of potential conflicts. And we’re actively looking for new GH: I think they see the same strategic value in the business intellectual properties to develop. Disney’s very renowned as a that we do—but I think the difference is that different marketing company—also renowned for developing and companies have different starting points. So the fact is that managing franchises. I mean we’ve built some of the biggest we’ve stayed around for 10 years, and we have a profitable franchises in the world, I think out of the top five, three of them business, and we have the right kind of talent, having brought are owned by Disney. And these are things that we’ve either people on board like Mike Ryder who used to head up Sierra, nurtured over the years, or simply developed in a relatively people like Ed Bainbridge out of Eidos. We view our short period of time. Our ownership of media, like television investment in talent out of the gaming industry as being the channels and so on, allows us to evolve and grow franchises in critical differentiator between us and other companies. The a unique way. We’re essentially throwing open the doors to the big lesson that we learned in that mid-’90s period where development community to come to us with great ideas. * everyone got out of the business is that this is not the film "% "%).30)2%$WITHMUSICINTHESTYLES MOODS TEXTURES TEMPOSANDRHYTHMS(%!2$YOUNEED "%).(!2-/.9WITHACCESSTOOURENTIRE #$-USIC,IBRARYONAPORTABLE GIG HARDDRIVE "%2%!,WITHPUREAUTHENTICHIP HOPFROMRESPECTEDPRODUCERSFOR&AT*OE "IG0UN THE "EATNUTSANDMORE "%!.!,, 4)-%()'(3#/2%2WITH$E7OLFE-USICnVISITUSATBOOTHATTHE'AME $EVELOPER#ONFERENCEIN3AN&RANCISCO

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WWW.GDMAG.COM 33 TO UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS OF CHANGE IN SILENT HILL 4: THE ROOM,

we should first review the SILENT HILL series, in case you aren’t familiar with the AKIHIRO IMAMURA joined franchise. The concept for the original SILENT HILL was simply a full 3D action Konami in 1994. His first project was INTERNATIONAL TRACK & FIELD ; game with a horror theme. We wanted to do something within that genre for the he worked as a programmer. PlayStation, which was still new hardware at the time. Given the limitations of the Since, he has been involved in the SILENT HILL series as the main console, we could not render objects too far off in the distance, since it would be programmer, director, and sub- too taxing for the system. But to capture the feel of a true 3D experience, we producer, as his role has differed in each title. limited the field of visibility using fog and darkness, which worked really well for AKIRA YAMAOKA also joined a horror game and has become a trademark for the series. Konami in 1994. Since SILENT HILL 3, he is he producer of the By restricting visibility with fog and darkness, we were able to instill a true sense series and created, directed, of dread in people, something they instinctively feel when encountering an unknown and performed all sounds (music and effects, but not environment. Then of course we added some lurking creatures, and some cool audio vocals) in the games. effects, and we wound up with something that was very scary. Of course creating the

34 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER GAME DATA

PUBLISHER: Konami PLATFORM: PlayStation 2 and Xbox RELEASE DATE: Japan: July 2004 U.S.: September 2004 Europe: October 2004 NUMBER OF DEVELOPERS: 70, full-time DEVELOPMENT TIME: 2.5 years LINES OF CODE: 500,000 NOTABLE TECHNOLOGIES: Motion-capture

WWW.GDMAG.COM 35 Transitioning between a “normal” reality and a horrific one heightens the sense of dread in THE ROOM.

game was not as easy as that implies, but these were the basic building blocks. To amplify this feeling of dread, we created an alternate world that was permeated with blood and rust. This visual style accentuated the horrific nature of that world by contrasting it with the standard game world. In essence, a dual world was created, in which one side was normal and the other was filled with every imaginable horror. SILENT HILL was a work that ended up using the hardware's limitations to advance the horror of the game, and one that managed to come from a different perspective, when compared to other games released at the time. Even today, people still mention that SILENT HILL for the PlayStation was a favorite game of theirs. That makes us feel great— it’s very refreshing for other people to offer their views of our games, since everyone seems to like different aspects of them. We’re so close to our projects that sometimes it’s difficult to see what’s meaningful to other people. SILENT HILL 2made the leap from PlayStation to PlayStation 2 while retaining the horror concept in the original game. This was a big endeavor because of the new hardware platform, and it required much more time and effort to develop, given the capabilities of the system. We followed up that game with SILENT HILL 3, which further refined the graphics and sound, but there were no major changes to the game mechanics. As the creators of the series, we started to feel as though the gameplay was becoming stale. With that in mind, we undertook SILENT HILL 4: THE ROOM, for which pre- WHAT WENT RIGHT production began in fall 2001 and full production in spring 2002. THE HORROR CONCEPT. While the SILENT HILL series lies firmly Even though the SILENT HILL 4project was a proper sequel to 1in the horror/action adventure genre, the root of the terror is the SILENT HILL series, our top objective for the game not a fear of being attacked and killed by horrific creatures. Rather, was "change." We wanted to make sweeping it is a psychological terror of being slowly stalked and cornered by Though ghosts are integral changes from the past titles and give players unknown beings. It’s not really about the shock value, but much to Japanese culture, the something new and fresh to play. Of course, more of a deeper sense of foreboding; you know something is development team feared changing something that has already proved its coming, but you don’t know when, and you can’t stop it. Westerners might not be worth is always a risk, but we wanted to see Comparing the game to movies, the SILENT HILL series is closer to afraid of them. what we could accomplish. The Exorcist than Friday the 13th or ANightmare on Elm Street. We took on the challenge of affecting change In thinking about how it might be possible to realize a new from many angles—from the horror concept type of horror in SILENT HILL 4 without destroying the to the game's subsystems. SILENT HILL 4 foundations of the series, we arrived at the idea of the horror of is very different from the previous being trapped within one's own room. SILENT HILL games, although to the A person’s room should be a place of refuge and comfort. We felt average eye, it may still be just a that it would really be terrifying to become trapped in that horror game. The title emerged sanctuary and to have that space gradually eroded through a from our trials and errors while succession of disturbing events. This was our main concept during trying to achieve this change. SILENT HILL 4's development. We hoped that it could become a new type of horror game that people had not seen before.

A NEW TYPE OF ENEMY. Once we established the horror 2 concept, we wanted to add innovation in how we projected it. If we wanted supernatural phenomena to happen in one's own room, we also wanted spiritual presences to appear as enemies. We therefore created ghosts, a new type pf enemy that inflicts damage on the player just by being nearby. Worse than that, they can come through walls, and even when knocked down, they rise again to relentlessly pursue the player. CONTINUED ON PG 39

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Gosh Ted... next time we should protect our software with SafeDisc Advanced! Voyeuristic elements are used to make the players feel uneasy. CONTINUED FROM PG 36 For Japanese people, the horror of ghosts is deeply entrenched in our culture. However, we weren’t confident that they would be frightening for people overseas, in America and Europe, for instance. In the end we agreed that the more general sensation of horror is shared by people worldwide, so we adopted our ghost as an enemy type after all. We believed that this enemy—an indefatigable being that ceaselessly pursues the player—is a very frightening presence to all, regardless of culture.

FIRST-PERSON VIEW. In developing any game, 3 we hope to make the experience as real and immediate as possible for the player. One effective technique for doing so is using first-person perspective. This technique is one that we have long wanted to adopt for the SILENT HILL series, but using the first-person view for the entire series proved to be impractical. In terms of weaponry, the SILENT HILL games primarily featured objects used for clubbing at the bottom part of the game screen to let the player use the enemies, which are very difficult to incorporate into a first- items and switch weapons without pausing. person mode. This system of putting the icons at the bottom of the screen With SILENT HILL 4's room setting, though, we felt that it was inspired by a similar feature found in many online games. would be possible to use the first-person view to good effect. The fact that the game time doesn't stop when selecting items In practice, we believe that the technique sufficiently was an improvement because it made for smoother gameplay heightened the sense of being there, especially when and helped sustain the tension of the scenario. Of course, SILENT supernatural phenomena occur. For the action sequences in HILL 4 is not an online game, so we still made it possible for the the other world, the view shifts back to a third-person player to interrupt gameplay with the pause button to avoid perspective, since it would be way too hard to fight enemies in needlessly distressing the player. first-person mode. PLAYABLE MOVIE SEQUENCES. In many games, movie-like REAL-TIME ITEM MENU. In past SILENT HILL games, 5 demo scenes are incorporated in key story junctures, and 4 whenever players needed to use an item or change SILENT HILL 4 is no exception. We decided to add playable movie weapons during battle, they could pause the action by opening scenes, in which the hero could be freely moved. In those the item menu, then leisurely select the needed items and instances, there are no clear transitions to the scenes—we weapons. We changed that with SILENT HILL 4. Item icons appear made the trigger an automatic one, in which the scene is set into motion when the hero approaches certain non-playable characters (NPC), who then begin conversing. In actual play, there are instances when the NPCs seem to be talking to themselves. Even so, we felt that this approach heightened the player’s immersion. We thought that these sequences worked very well and brought a different feeling to the series.

WHAT WENT WRONG ABSENCE OF MID-LEVEL BOSSES. It was disappointing that 1 we couldn’t add any mid-level bosses simply because we didn’t have enough staff. We felt that the game stood well enough without them, but as we feared, it became a game that lacked catharsis. It has to be said—mid-level bosses are an important element of any action game. By fighting mid-level bosses, the player experiences a sense of achievement and exhilaration at key points in the game. That tension compels players to keep moving forward. It’s really unfortunate that we weren’t able to budget the time for our programming staff to make even one mid-level boss. I think this hurt the game, as players wander through it without enough challenging fights at strategic points. It makes it difficult for the player to see what he or she has accomplished.

Dank interiors and terrifying vistas characterize SILENT HILL 4.

WWW.GDMAG.COM 39 GHOSTS WERE TOO OBTRUSIVE. We wanted to introduce a forward to some kind of silly 2 new type of enemy by including ghosts, but many ending with SILENT HILL 4, but we players said that rather than being frightening, the ghosts were unable to put one in. The were merely exasperating obstacles. Even when knocked UFO endings had been added to down, ghosts rise up immediately to the past titles as jokes by staff resume their pursuit of the player. who thought up something Players were irritated at constantly particularly funny and had the being on the run from them and as a time to add it. However, no one result, were incapable of fully came up with an amusing idea, appreciating the beautifully and eventually we didn’t have enough time to include anything. rendered game environments. I think that fans of the series were probably a little disappointed, In the latter half of the game, there although we did include a few different endings depending on are swords that can stun downed how people played. When making a sequel, developers usually ghosts. While these swords allow the try to include as many fresh ideas as possible; but fans of the player to counter the indefatigable titles will want the signature elements of the original game to ghosts, there aren’t enough of them. reappear in the sequels. Akihiro Imamura (left) and The concept of invincible enemies Akira Yamaoka. wasn't a bad one, but in the case of the ghosts, we made them too ROOM WITH A VIEW strong. In the retail version, the ghost becomes “unstunned” in In making SILENT HILL 4, we attempted to implement quite a 3–10 seconds. If we could change it, we would make the stunned few changes. As with all things, we had some successes, and time between 15 and 60 seconds, depending on which mode we had some elements that in hind-sight, we could have (easy, normal, or hard) the player is in, to give the player some improved. Also, some areas demanded more trial and error respite. It also might have been nice to allow players to kill ghosts, because the project was a new challenge, for example, having but at a high cost. In any case, the ghosts turned out more the player go back and forth between the room and the horrific annoying than scary for most people. world, and having the room gradually infected by the "other" world. This approach was one that perfectly suited a representation TOO MUCH DEPENDENCE ON MELEE WEAPONS. At the start of of horror. But it lacked depth as an actual building block of the 3 the project, we planned to make the main character use gameplay. We added problem-solving challenges, such as having club-like weapons for almost all the fighting. We also planned to to figure out that you need to use items brought back from the make guns and ammunition very rare and special. We did so other world to the real world to complete a task. We tried to make because we felt that one of the SILENT HILL series' more various adjustments of that type to make it more satisfying for horrifying aspects is the brutal sensation of physically clubbing players to travel between the two worlds. Before implementing enemies. So we increased the variety of battering weapons, this, it was just boring to go between the real world and the introduced a new system of charge attacks, and limited the horror world, because it seemed too much like a chore instead of availability of guns to only handguns. being fun. While we were faced with many challenges, developing However, when we developed the game with those weaponry SILENT HILL 4 was definitely gratifying to tackle. changes in mind, ammunition was too rare, making players No matter what the title, franchises are faced with the horde it for the final boss, thus rendering the gun a largely constant need to evolve. Otherwise, developers run the risk of wasted weapon. We also discovered that battering weapons turning people away from their games, due to the lack of alone made fighting too difficult, which made it tough for the innovation. (However, we also know that you need to identify Zombie dogs are enemies player to progress through the game. We quickly added more and maintain certain sustaining elements of the original game in the early stages of ammunition so the handgun could be used more regularly. For when making a sequel.) SILENT HILL 4. players of SILENT HILL 3, this was a big departure; that game had In the future, we will have to consider the possibilities of various guns and other types of weapons too. network gameplay for the SILENT HILL series, among other improvements. What that will entail we don’t know yet, but PLACEMENT OF GAUGES AND ICONS. With the SILENT HILL hopefully it will be something people want to try. Ultimately, we 4 series, we had the policy of not displaying any gauges or icons hope to keep providing the world with new entertainment by on the game screen to enable players to become immersed in the adopting new ideas for future games. Please look forward to world of horror. But we wanted to change the item selection what’s coming next! * process, so when we first started on the project, we clipped the top and bottom of the screen to make the playing field wide, and placed gauges and icons on the clipped black strips at the top and bottom. However, with the top and bottom clipped, the game screen didn’t actually feel wide, just short. It made the screen feel cramped when controlling the character. Rather than adhering to policy, we gave priority to ease of play and decided to allow the placement of gauges and icons on the game screen. If we had gone with the widescreen mode, I think people would have complained that we weren’t using the entire screen!

ABSENCE OF A UFO ENDING. From the beginning, the SILENT 5HILL series has always featured so-called UFO endings that were intended for laughs. I think a lot of fans were looking

40 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER © 1987-2005 Konami Computer Entertainment, Japan softimage.com/games United Statesand/orother countries.Allothertrademarkscontainedherein are theproperty oftheir respective owners. and Canada.SOFTIMAGE, Avid andXSIare eitherregistered trademarksorof Avid Technology Inc.inthe and are subjecttochangewithoutnotice.Contact your localAvid office orreseller forprices outsidetheU.S. © 2005Avid Technology, Inc.Allrightsreserved. Allpricesare USMSRPfortheU.S.andCanada only Starting at character creation tools,uniquereal-time shaders,the $ 495 fastest SubdivisionSurfacesintheindustryand USMSRP See For more details,visitsoftimage.com/GDC05. , SOFTIMAGE SOFTIMAGE A integrations forcore pipelinetools. vid ComputerGraphicsBooth413. I am4. time framecompared to time framecompared to | high qualitydatainashorter high qualitydatainashorter we neededtoproduce more we neededtoproduce more Design UnitGeneralManager which toconcentrateonour Design UnitGeneralManager | which toconcentrateonour XSI with abetterenvironment in with abetterenvironment in XSI Do more forless. Do more forless. XSI XSI production work. production work. by providing ourcreators by providing ourcreators the future ofanimation. superior toolforsure…” superior toolforsure…” METAL GEARSOLID METAL GEARSOLID includes innovative METAL GEARSOLID3: METAL GEARSOLID3: in actionatGDC2005: helped usachievethis helped usachievethis “For theproduction of “For theproduction of Yu Yu SNAKE EATER SNAKE EATER taka Negishi taka Negishi XSI XSI MGS 2 MGS 2 is a is a ® ® 3 3 . , . , . TRYMEDIA AND THE TRYMEDIA LOGO ARE THE PROPERTY OF TRYMEDIA SYSTEMS INC , ACTIVEMARK Smooth

Game protection should be effective and effortless. That’s why leading developers trust Trymedia’s ActiveMARK for secure digital distribution — on disc and via download. In addition to ease of integration, ActiveMARK is consumer-friendly at every point of contact. Learn all about ActiveMARK at GDC 2005, Booth 224. And don’t miss “Inside The Hacker Mind” and other Trymedia sponsored sessions. trymedia.com/gdc05 for info.

THE SOLUTION FOR SECURE DISTRIBUTION FROM UPLINK TO DARWINIA

Introversion Software’s Chris Delay and Andrew Bainbridge on indie games and why programmers can’t be squatters >>kieron >> THE GUYS BEHIND GLASTONBURY, U.K.-BASED INTROVERSION influences from modern real-time strategy titles and the DMA Software say they are the last of the bedroom programmers. classic LEMMINGS, you’ll grasp something of it. gillen That statement is, in the current market and depending upon With DARWINIA finished and on its way to online and retail release your inclination, either a glorious anomaly or a curious in the U.K., Delay and Bainbridge were free to talk about the reality anachronism. But where are they coming from? of independent development, as well as how to accomplish KIERON GILLEN We spoke with Chris Delay, the driving force of the company's innovative results while using extremely limited resources. creative machine, and Andrew Bainbridge, the latest recruit—a is an award-winning designer/coder with a perfectly complementary skill-set for the Kieron Gillen: You playfully describe yourselves as the last of British games journalist company’s vision (he rearranges source code “to make it the bedroom coders—and the first of the children. When do you and alumni of PC Gamer prettier”). They’re not the triumphalist pro-underground coders think we’ll be seeing the rest of the family? More games built you may expect. on the bedroom coder model? UK, best known for The company's first game, UPLINK, debuted in 2001 for the PC. A writing “The New Games minimalist and austere hacking title, UPLINK gathered impressive Chris Delay: I don’t think you can do games like this anymore. reviews and became something of a cause celebre in the British Journalism” manifesto. games press. Originally sold direct online via the company's web KG: But you did. He can be contacted at site (www.uplink.co.uk), the game “allows you to perform [email protected]. various acts of high-tech computer crime” through an iconic CD: We did, but we haven’t had any money for ages. And there’s interface and simulated (read: fake) online connectivity. The no real sign that we’ll have any more money after DARWINIA. hacker’s delight found its way onto the gaming retail shelves and was a considerable hit for an indie game, spawning Mac and Andrew Bainbridge: It’s been more effort than we’d have really Linux versions along the way. been happy with, if we knew about it at the start. UPLINK was enough of a hit to keep Introversion afloat and working on its second game, DARWINIA, a 3D action-strategy PC CD: Part of the problem is that it's taken so long. UPLINK came out title. While DARWINIA and UPLINK differ as much as any two games in October 2001. It’s too long, and the reason is that the game can, the former is a genuinely fascinating example of a video came out of us experimenting for ages. We probably spent a game. Rather than the stark strategy atmosphere of UPLINK, year trying out ideas. We had game prototypes, and they were there’s a fantasia of retro-flavored imagery and a form of play all fairly substandard. They sort of looked a bit like DARWINIA, but that defies easy description. If you imagine Sensible Software's that’s it. It took us so long to find something that actually CANNON FODDER versus David Braben's pre-ELITE game VIRUS, with worked—and that definitely doesn’t happen anymore.

WWW.GDMAG.COM 43 UPLINK TO DARWINIA

AB: There’s something that bedroom programming can achieve that commercial titles don’t—but I don’t think there’s going to be a spate of people trying to do this.

CD: Though, while we spent a lot of time on the game, it wasn’t actually a great deal more than a lot of games.

KG: Two people spending less than three years on a title—I suppose you only spent five man years. Compare that to a top-end Electronic Arts title that requires tangent: I know bands who, at some most we could hope for was a consistent, upward of 500 man years. point in their career, were essentially minimalist look for the game. Right from living in a squat to keep going. Why don’t the very start—with FUTURE WAR, which CD: Yes, but the problem is that EA can we see coders do that? became DARWINIA—we knew we had to go Chris Delay (top) and afford to spend 500 man years to make a for procedurally generated content, all Andrew Bainbridge. game. We can’t. UPLINK came out. It did AB: Chris would. landscapes generated mathematically and pretty well for an indie game. But it didn’t using sprites for all the characters. The make enough money for us to keep going CD: And Andy probably wouldn’t. Mark and models only came in later. We knew we indefinitely. If we had done it in two Tom definitely wouldn’t [Mark Morris and just didn’t have the resources. The hardest years, it would have been fine. Three Tom Arundel, who handle Introversion’s thing in the world to do is real people. years is stretching it. business side]. They’re far too sensible. But the thing with those bands is they KG: So you haven’t tried to get real KG: Here’s a weird, cross-cultural form know that they’ve got Glastonbury, the people? DARWINIA has some excellent AI— NME, and the gig circuit in their the ant nests for example—but isn’t it local town. There’s an about trying to simulate something that established route that most big can’t be simulated? bands went through [before they became big]. But that’s not true CD: Yes, it's got realistic AI that’s aimed about big companies. They start lower. massive. That’s the difference between games and music: Two AB: The key is to transform the problem guys sitting in their bedroom into one that we can solve. don’t really have any reason to believe that their game might be CD: There are quite a few things in successful. DARWINIA that throw away the idea of DARWINIA isn’t even on sale yet. solving the problem and give the user a We can hope, but there’s a bit more responsibility. tendency at the moment to go for realism, as realistic as possible, AB: There were plenty of times during the each generation a little further course of making the game when we toward it. And we’d like to think thought, “Can’t do that.” Then we thought, there’s a market for people who “We're not going to.” wanted to see something that was creative in a different way. KG: Did necessity make you prioritize DARWINIA isn’t realistic in any way, differently than most developers? but it does look creative. CD: The result is that we end up with KG: Not that it looks something very unusual because we’ve unprofessional, and neither did made lots of decisions that any other UPLINK, for that matter. company would never have made. We’ve ended up with ant colonies and other CD: We knew even with Uplink random things, which all have very simple that we had to carefully pick our rules inside, and all behave very reliably— battles. We couldn’t have made and die in reliable ways. It’s a game in something like DARWINIA then. We which you learn, much like classic arcade didn’t have the skill or the shooters where the enemies come in knowledge, but we knew that the

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Z-shapes. But it’s a much simpler approach than trying to get Alex in HALF- LIFE 2 to kiss her dad on the cheek.

KG: You said you experimented for a year. How much of a plan did you have during that time?

CD: We didn’t know what we were making at the start. We knew what we were aiming for: a retro game, with old values. Rather than right clicking on the factor. So far, we’ve got one game in 2001 Introversion’s first title menu and sitting back, you have to CD: (Sighs.) Yes, it is. Oh, I don’t know. It and one game in 2005. That requires each was the hacker simulation actually fight. happens again and again. I think that’s game to pay four or five people for two or UPLINK. the only reason why we do what we do. I three years. That’s like bands releasing AB: I think a lot of the visual style is a know for a fact that FUTURE WAR, long one terrible album and it being over—oh, product of wanting to look different. We before it became DARWINIA, would have we sound so negative. (Laughs.) had the visual style a lot earlier than the been canned. Because we genuinely actual game. didn’t know what we were doing. KG: Are you worried?

KG: The visual style is a key, I think. It AB: Someone could have asked us when CD: We’re not really worried. We’ll make seems like you chose something it will be finished, but we still would have something next. We don’t know what relatively achievable. been wondering what it actually is. that’s going to be. We don’t know if we’ll hire three people to help us next time, or CD: We already have regrets. If we were CD: We didn’t have anything for ages. It whether it’ll be a game with just us two. going to do a postmortem, we’d say that was so scary. At the end of the first year, I’d certainly like to think that DARWINIA making a level-based game is suicide we didn’t have a game. We had a would make enough to let us launch with a small team. Even those few that landscape generator. another game. But we certainly aren’t we have made took months and months interested in doing sequels. It seems to make the game work. But even that— KG: Which is about as far away as you such a waste to spend two years making those levels don’t look particularly can be from the design document a game that you’ve already made. heavily designed, but even that was far approach most teams use. too much for us. CD: That was definitely a deliberate thing Put that simply, it sounds obvious. Why AB: I think our advantage is that having before we started. Those design docs spend thousands of man years creating worked in game development before, aren’t the way to make games. the same game, but featuring a lead we knew roughly what we were doing character with four extra polygons on when we started. The traditional AB: They’re the way to make some her nose. Why bother? DARWINIA is, of bedroom programmers really didn’t. games. course, a harder sell than UPLINK. The They were just kids leaving school and concept of “you’re a hacker” is easy to deciding to program. CD: They’re the way to make well understand—selling something which understood existing games, definitely. people, abstractly, want already is CD: There doesn’t seem to be any real But it’s not the way to make good games, relatively easy. But it’s much trickier to reason why other small groups couldn’t because you can’t know. How can you do sell something that no one knows they bandy together and start making their it? You’ve got this huge document which want. There’s every possibility of DARWINIA own games. It doesn’t seem to happen tells you the plot of the game, and one joining brave, semi-art games marked very much. You get a lot of break-away paragraph that tells you the controls— “critical success/commercial failure.” But companies forming from bigger but the game comes out of the controls. it’s not quite that simple; commercial companies when people decide they can Even now, how would you write the success for a team of four is very do it better elsewhere—but they always design doc for DARWINIA? different from commercial success for a seem to sign to a publisher a month later. major development team. For anyone And then a year later, they get laid off. KG: What is Introversion’s place in the working like Introversion, the bottom line future of games? is making enough to have a living, KG: They never learn? working wage. CD: We really don’t know what we’re doing. Small, smart, and running around the CD: That sounds awfully smug, doesn’t it? That’s the trouble. How can we tell you? legs of dinosaurs to find enough food to We don’t know what we’re doing next. survive, bedroom programmers aren’t AB: The temptation of a salary really is There’s no indication that DARWINIA will even extinct after all. * quite great. sell as well as UPLINK—there’s a real risk

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SEAN BARRETT

>>THE INNER PRODUCT

OPTIMIZING PATHFINDING III: INADMISSIBLE HEURISTICS

A*, A GENERAL-PURPOSE AI SEARCH ALGORITHM, inadmissible search is 10 times faster than the has become the standard solution to pathfinding admissible; but for other equally long paths, in games. Enough has been written about the it's 10 times slower. The scatter plot indicates subject that it's generally assumed to be a some kind of erratic behavior that would be solved problem, with nothing more to say. In hidden if we examined averages. this series of articles, I'm taking a closer look at Figure 2 shows one of the paths that the pathfinding problem and the A* algorithm, performs poorly for an inadmissible search; as and performing a critical analysis of the the heuristic multiplier increases from k=2 to mechanisms, hopefully exposing flaws in the k=3, you can see that the search goes even general industry wisdom and even in published further “the wrong way,” and actually ends up articles on the subject. I'm driving this analysis exploring more nodes even though the heuristic by trying to solve a practical problem: how to is “more wrong.” The real failure is revealed by create a pathfinding engine that can process a FIGURE 1 The ratio of performance between two the value of n, which will take some setting up. large number of units (say, 10,000) on a very different path-finding approaches, admissible A* Dijkstra's shortest-path algorithm is large map (say, 1,024x1,024 tiles). versus inadmissible A*, shows huge variation essentially breadth-first-search extended to In part II of this series (see the January 2005 depending on the particular path. The x axis is the allow different edge weights. It relies on a Inner Product), I began examining inadmissible total path length for the optimal path. priority queue that gets updated: Sometimes it heuristics in A* searching. A* tries to prefer “adds” a node to the priority queue that's exploration in the direction of the goal using a searches were faster. I figured I needed to already there and is simply changing its heuristic estimate of the distance to the goal. implement the post-processing and account priority, which is its distance from the start If the heuristic does not overestimate the for that to keep things fair, especially since node. However, once Dijkstra's algorithm true cost to the goal, A* is guaranteed to find naive post-processing is at risk for taking “serves” a node from the queue and investigates the optimal solution. If the heuristic is O(n3) time, so making it fast might be difficult. its neighbors, that node will never be revisited; inadmissible, overestimating the true cost, When I finally got around to measuring non- Dijkstra's algorithm serves the nodes in the then A* will visit fewer nodes but may not find post-processed inadmissible A*, I was quite order of their true distance from the start. the optimal solution. surprised by the results. Thus, it cannot miss shorter paths to them. The risk is that we might end up with path- Figure 1 shows the ratio of two implementations' A* search with a heuristic of 0 is identical to following agents that look stupid, even if the path performance for various paths: admissible Dijkstra's shortest-path algorithm. With any length is within some small bounds of optimal. I search time divided by inadmissible search other heuristic, however, A* will not visit nodes distinguished two kinds of suboptimality, local time. For some of the longest paths, the in the order of their true distance from the and global. Local errors are obvious but we can post-process the path to clean it up; global errors we just have to live with.

AN INADMISSIBLE SURPRISE That's where things stood at the end of the January column; I hadn’t measured performance and just assumed inadmissible

A B C

FIGURE 2 In these three pathfinding solutions to the same problem from a point near the bottom to a point at the SEAN BARRETT develops independent games in top left, each uses the normal admissible heuristic multiplied by some constant k, and ends up expanding n Oakland, Calif., when he’s not consulting in the game nodes. Figure 2A is admissible, where k=1 and n=160,000. Figure 2B is inadmissible, where k=2 and n=80,000. industry. Reach him at [email protected]. Figure 2C is inadmissible, where k=3 and n=1,300,000.

WWW.GDMAG.COM 49 THE INNER PRODUCT

FIGURE 3 Performance ratios after fixing inadmissible A* as described in the text, with a heuristic multiplier of 3 are shown, all using log-log scales. Figure 3A shows performance for inadmissible A* versus admissible A*, using the same underlying data structures and algorithms. And Figure 3B shows performance for inadmissible A* versus admissible A*, using separately optimized data structures and algorithms. The x axis is seconds. A B

start. This is a good thing when it results in A* with slightly smaller weights if it finds yet another with only local obstacles, inadmissible heuristics exploring toward the goal, avoiding exploration of a slightly faster path. That’s what's happening in are much more effective. Using the fixed A* huge and unnecessary space. But it has a Figure 2C, which explores 70,000 unique nodes algorithm (never re-Opening Closed nodes), Figure consequence. Sometimes A* will have to revisit a but takes 1,300,000 exploration steps to do so! 5 shows the performance of the inadmissible node that was already served from the priority My testing reveals that this anomaly occurs algorithm for three weights. The k=3 case queue because it eventually found a shorter path regardless of how large the heuristic multiplier is or produces significantly inefficient paths by cutting to it; in A* parlance, nodes must sometimes be whether the terrain has varying costs. across “slow” terrain; the k=1.5 seems to offer a moved from the Closed list to the Open list. It turns better trade-off of quality for time. Table 1 out this will never occur if the heuristic has a CHANGE A* FOR INADMISSIBILITY demonstrates this by examining the performance certain property (it is “monotonic”). Although my The problem I described arises because nodes on and length of a “canonical” path (from top left to admissible heuristic has this property, I wanted to the Closed list are moved to the Open list. If we bottom right—the same end points as the keep the system general, so I made sure to simply disallow that case, the problem goes away. canonical path in the November 2004 column) for implement it anyway. Of course, we also lose the improved paths we various degrees of admissibility. When an inadmissible heuristic is used, A* is might find with this mechanism, but this matters As a final experiment in this direction, I used the over-encouraged to first search those nodes that little once we're already inadmissible. map from Figure 4 but let green and white terrain are closer (according to the heuristic) to the goal. Figure 3 shows the results of applying this fix, have the same cost. I again allowed putting nodes However, if the chosen route turns out to be using an inadmissible weight of k=3 (other weights in the Open list that were already in the Closed list, entirely blocked, A* is forced to retreat and expand are similar). Figure 3A shows the ratio of the and I was able to use inadmissible heuristics with earlier nodes. It may then find new, shorter paths performance of the inadmissible search to that of no ill consequences. The inadmissible search was to the same nodes it explored before, at which the original admissible one, using the same usually faster and never slower by more than a point it will revisit them all, finding slightly shorter implementation for both. The inadmissible one is factor of two (explainable by the use of the distances (from the start location), even though almost always better and by a significant amount different priority queue implementations). This they're all blocked in. It may then find them again (more than half the data points are twice as fast). demonstrates that the two techniques—the Figure 3B shows the ratio of the performance of correct A* implementation and the use of the inadmissible search to that of the admissible one, in which each uses an implementation optimized for that approach. The inadmissible heuristic produces priorities that are not TABLE 1 monotonically increasing and don't have a predictable range, so it requires the heap k REFINEMENT LENGTH TIME (ms) implementation. This implementation is about 1.0 - 1,686 167 twice as slow for large queues, hence long 1.5 slow 1,779 36 searches. The result is that the inadmissible 1.5 fast 1,780 24 heuristic probably speeds up about as many 1.5 none 1,827 24 searches as it slows down, but the speed-ups 3.0 slow 2,416 21 are larger than the slow-downs. However, the 3.0 fast 2,442 10 worst-case searches (the data points to the 3.0 none 2,508 9 right in Figure 3), which take the most time, get The table shows the length of the path and time slower much more often they get faster. taken to find it for admissible A* (k=1.0) and It appears that inadmissible heuristics aren't inadmissible A* (other k values) when searching helpful for this map, but that doesn't mean for the canonical path in Figure 4, using various FIGURE 4 One quarter of a new 1,024x1,024 test map and they're generally useless. They're stymied by postprocessing refinements. The primary goal of sample paths show green areas that are four times as large-scale obstacles with “maze-like” dead the refinements is not to reduce the total length, expensive as white areas. ends. However, for a map like that in Figure 4, but to remove obvious local flaws.

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k=1.5 k=2 k=3

FIGURE 5 Performance ratio of inadmissible A* to admissible A* for the paths in Figure 4, for various inadmissibility weights k.

inadmissible heuristics—are not always the pathfinding agent (it must both be open and most of those pairs won’t be in a straight line from incompatible. It depends on the map. offer walking support)—and to then test various one another and will only consume O(1) time. I pairs of nodes in that path and see if they allow a believe that if there are no shortcuts to be found, PATH POST-PROCESSING “shortcut” via pathcasting. the pathcaster will visit no more than O(n2) nodes To prevent agents looking stupid, I want to clean Applying this technique literally would require total, although I haven't proved this. up the local suboptimalities introduced by the O(n3) time. The code would need to consider all I implemented two variations of this algorithm. inadmissible heuristics. Although use of O(n2) (non-adjacent) pairs of points on the path The first one is a brute force implementation, inadmissible heuristics is frequently mentioned in and then try an O(n) pathcast between them. But referred to as “slow” in Table 1. The initial pathfind game programming literature, there is little optimal pathfinding is only O(n2)! In fact, for builds an array with one entry for each point in the detailed discussion of this sort of refinement. working on our discrete tiles, pathcasting isn't path. A doubly-nested loop compares every point However, it is closely related to the idea of even an O(n) operation, as any two points which on the path against every other point on the path to improving a path made from discrete nodes that aren't in a straight line have multiple straightest see if they're in a straight line, and if so, pathcasts approximate a more continuous space. The paths between them. We could just try one, the and checks if the straight-line cost is cheaper. solution to that problem is to use a “pathcaster”— Bresenham one, or one which does all diagonal Deleting points from the middle of the path (when a routine which scans whether a given straight movement before all straight movement, but it creating shortcuts) will be slow since deleting from line “raycast” can be successively traversed by would be rather arbitrary. an array is slow, and the length of the array is the Fortunately, this complication suggests a way out length of the path. Even if a better data structure of the O(n3) mess. My algorithm only looks for a were available that allowed efficient deletions, it’s shortcut if the two points have a perfectly straight also necessary after every refinement to update path between them—they must be axially or the costs of all the following nodes in the path, Shortcut of a 90-degree turn. diagonally aligned. If connecting any two nodes which would still take O(n) time. would require an intermediate turn, some other pair To attempt to avoid the brute force O(n2) search of nodes with a straight path between them and the expensive array updates, I also hopefully will be an equally effective shortcut implemented a method which compresses the instead. The code still has to check O(n2) pairs, but paths into a run of steps that are all in the same Shortcut of a 135-degree turn.

Shortcut of two consecutive 45-degree turns in the same direction. A

FIGURE 7 Using the three patterns from Figure 6 multiple times allows larger-scale FIGURE 6 The post-processor for compressed paths shortcuts to be created. In Figure 7A, three consecutive applications of the 90-degree searches for simple shortcuts that extend across only one rule followed by one application of the double-45-degree rule produces the obvious best or two turns, replacing a section of the original red path with shortcut. In Figure 7b, an obstacle that doesn't block the obvious best shortcut but blue. All pairs of points are tested; the best ones are shown. B does block intermediate steps prevents this algorithm from finding the best shortcut.

52 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER

THE INNER PRODUCT

FIGURE 8 Performance ratios of inadmissible searches with post-processed paths versus the inadmissible search without. In 8A, the naive implementation slows down significantly. In 8B, the run-length compressed scheme shown in Figure 6 introduces only a tiny slowdown. A B direction (into a set of line segments). Then I used much shorter so deletions and cost-updates are about 10 percent. Unfortunately, this method still a set of local turning patterns to find places where much faster. However, this approach can miss some leaves some obvious local errors like those shown there might be a shortcut, for example, on either larger scale optimizations, as shown in Figure 7B. in Figure 7B, whereas the slower one doesn't. You side of a 90-degree turn (see Figure 6). I generated this method is labeled “fast” in Table 1. might see an improvement if you use the run- candidate pairs on either side of the turn or turns, Figure 8 shows the slowdown from applying length-compressed storage scheme but and pathcast to see if they are valid shortcuts. each of these refinements to the original (more implement the full-scale all-pairs search on it. Series of such shortcuts will produce more complex maze-like) map with inadmissible k=3. The Next month, I'm going to throw a spanner into shortcuts, as shown in Figure 7. The results are slowdown from the method using an array the works and challenge the idea that A* is really similar to the ones in the non-compressed method, element for every path node is large enough to be the right algorithm for 2D pathfinding, and but the candidate pairs are generated directly a bother. The slowdown from the method using hopefully start laying the groundwork for instead of via an O(n2) search, and the array is run-length compressed paths is quite tolerable— hierarchical pathfinding. *

54 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER STEVE THEODORE

>> PIXEL PUSHER

LET THERE BE LIGHT: COLORED LIGHT

so many software packages and game The simplest kind of lighting designs BUZZWORDS LIKE “FRAGMENT engines to consider, we'll have to leave work like a kind of coloring book. With shading” and “per-pixel attenuation” the mechanical aspects for another time; strong key lights and appropriate fills, might sound like pure geekery, but this discussion will focus on strategy you can “paint” a scene to set a mood. they're going to be critical to effective rather than tactics. If terms like key light We all know the basics of color game art over the next five years. The and kicker make you scratch your head, association: red for danger, blue for most important advance in next- you might want to look at Jeremy Birn's peace, green for life, and so on. It can generation graphics quality will be a book Digital Lighting and Rendering (New be very tempting to fall back on these huge leap in quality of lighting. In most Riders Press, 2000). Although Birn's book old standbys as a shortcut to an contemporary games, lighting is has lots of technical detail that's emotion. This approach can work utilitarian at best: It helps players irrelevant to real-time artists, it's also well well—deep red emergency lights and perceive the structure of 3D spaces, stocked with useful insights into the inky shadows in the underground provides directional cues, and indicates universals of good lighting. In the bunker might be just what you need to places of concealment. In far too many meantime, let’s look at how lighting can create tension and set the player’s games, the lighting doesn't even reach help establish moods in two that basic level. In film and theater, ways: through control of color though, it’s universally recognized that and contrast. lighting isn't simply about making things visible. Lighting is the instrument NEON GENESIS that controls the emotional pitch of a Obviously, color choice is the scene. For character and environment most straightforward way to designs to engage the player’s intellect, manipulate a player’s emotions the lighting (much like music) must with lighting. Colored lights can bypass the analytical, and works provoke some emotions among directly on emotions. If that sounds artists too—we all know games extreme, play a little game of mental that outshine even Las Vegas in mix-and-match with some familiar their tackiness. The reaction? visual icons. Try to imagine Blade Some artists swear off colored Runner shot under the florescent glaze lights altogether. Neither of a Star Trek: The Next Generation set extreme position is tenable. and you'll start to get the idea. Subtlety and caution are Now that our lighting technology is certainly important, but in the finally starting to catch up to other media, end all light is colored light. it's time to revisit the fundamentals. A lot Even direct natural sunlight has of us haven't worked with sophisticated a distinctive color cast, which lighting since we toyed idly with the can vary a great deal based on MentalRay tutorials, so it’s definitely a the time of day, time of year, good idea to look back at the basics. With location, and weather. Likewise, every kind of artificial light, from a welcoming candle to a sickly fluorescent tube, has a signature tinge. If you own a digital camera, you know how STEVE THEODORE started animating on a text-only complex and arbitrary the FIGURE 1 The cold, clinical lighting aboard the Death Star mainframe renderer and then moved on to work on games process of white balancing can (bottom) creates an understated atmosphere of menace, such as HALF-LIFE and COUNTER-STRIKE. He can be reached at be. The question, therefore, isn’t but the heroes of Star Wars are usually lit with warm, [email protected]. whether to use color—it’s how. approachable tones.

WWW.GDMAG.COM 55 PIXEL PUSHER

FIGURE 2 In HALF-LIFE 2, nerves tingling. Often, though, THE KICKER the difference by comparing a typical warm lighting often dominating color schemes can When theatrical lighting designers need Hollywood blockbuster with an arthouse connotes danger rather backfire. One of the important practical to pop a character out of the “canvas” of film that relies exclusively on real-world than safety and comfort. functions of good lighting, after all, is the screen or stage, they'll add a lighting. In short, don’t be afraid to get to help the characters pop off the complementary rim light or kicker to the look you need by using whatever screen and capture the player’s provide a strong edge highlight. This collection of hacks and fakes will deliver attention. Your need for contrast separates the character from the backdrop the goods. between character and environment without undercutting the color theme. This doesn't mean that there are no can easily work against your attempt Many games shy away from overtly rules. You do need to remember that to set an emotional tone. If your villain theatrical lighting, fearing that players players are free to wander and can is clad in typically villainous purple will wonder where that helpful little light easily roam into areas where they can and green, he’s not going to stand out is coming from. Audiences rarely notice unveil our clever impostures. When particularly well if the same sickly or care, as long as the final effect makes lighting an environment, try not to place colors are washing the walls of his lair. a positive contribution to the scene. strong lights that don’t have a possible Some textures won't stand up to Lighting designers in film and theater physical source. Softer lights will usually strong colored lighting either. Without seldom, if ever, rely on the actual escape scrutiny, particularly if they are careful planning, you might find a physical lights on a set to create colored to simulate radiosity bounces. colored light reveals an annoying ambience. Only rarely is the pool of light However, the basic principle remains: repeat pattern you never noticed in below the reading lamp or the wash of Light for the effect you need, and to hell one of your textures, rather like a daylight from the window actually with physics. color-blindness test. So how do you produced by the prop or fixture. Usually set a mood with color when you also there’s a battery of theatrical lights just BLOWING HOT AND COLD have to provide visual clarity? out of sight, providing a carefully stylized Sometimes the overall ambience of your suggestion of “real” lighting. You can see game can be undone by lighting that's

56 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER %%80/ '!-%$%6 MECHPDF0- PIXEL PUSHER

too nakedly theatrical. Many of the best establishes Luke Skywalker’s character, lighting designs are so subtle that you as he watches the twin suns set on never catch the lighting designer at Tatooine, is as pink as the Barbie aisle in work. Rather than create strong color your local toy store. The warm/cool washes that hose the scene with a opposition is an extremely simple design, single dominant emotion, you can use but it’s absolutely critical for establishing the lighting to more subtly underscore the emotional underpinnings of the story. the meaning of a scene. Working on a The opening levels of HALF-LIFE 2 use the more subliminal level gives you great play of color temperature the opposite power over your audience's perceptions way: The player quickly learns to and still leaves you free to build a associate the warm colors of sunlight prosaic and realistic look. and open space with danger, while the The lighting design of the original Star blues and greens of murky sewers and Wars is a particularly brilliant example of tunnels become indicators of safety and this. In conventional color terms, you’d concealment. The very consistent expect the imperial sets to be drenched correlation between natural lighting and in reds and pooled with ominous danger reinforces the player's paranoia shadows. and sense of powerlessness. By allowing But instead, the Death Star is lit up like the bad guys to “own” the daylight, the a cross between a dentist’s office and a lighting subliminally underlines the meat locker. It’s dominated by fluorescent overwhelming menace of the pursuing haze and cool blue accent lights (see Combine forces in the early part of the Figure 1). The cool colors reflect off the game. (See Figure 2.) spotless plastic of the stormtroopers and the black vacuum of Darth Vader to ILLUMINATING CONTRASTS perfectly embody the Empire’s Obviously, color choice is only the very impersonal, bureaucratic brand of evil. beginning of good lighting design. Next By contrast, the rebels are always lit month we'll take a a look at contrast—the warmly; the classic shot that really roles that light fall-off, color blending, and shadow definition play in creating an effective lighting scheme. In the meantime, try playing with some of the GLOSSARY fancy lighting tools that real-time artists have been denied for the last decade. We game developers like to think of ourselves KEY LIGHT. In a conventional as fearless pioneers, relentlessly pushing lighting setup, the key light is the major source of light. the boundaries of our medium. In fact, Typically, the key light stands though, the last six or seven years have for the sun, the moon, or the been a very conservative period in the main room lighting. Key lights evolution of 3D graphics. The basic are frequently positioned at feature list for a standard real-time about a 45 degree elevation rendering engine— Gouraud shading, and 45 degrees to one side of colored lighting, light mapping, and so the main subject. forth—hasn't changed that much since the days of QUAKE 3 and HALF-LIFE. FILL LIGHT. Typically, the fill light is positioned about 90 degrees Our cozy little interlude of technological away from the key light, and stability is just about over. It’s exciting, generally is a complementary but it’s also going to be professionally color. The fill light is not as challenging. We'll be handed a bunch of strong as the key and is great new toys—pixel shading, dynamic intended to bring the major lights, high dynamic range images, to forms of the subject into relief. name a few—which inevitably will mean a lot of time spent learning and KICKER OR RIMLIGHT. In experimenting with new technologies. theatrical lighting, a kicker is a positioned behind the subject But to really get the most out of the new so that a glancing reflection tools, we have to stay focused on the forms a highlight around the timeless basics: making emotional subject's outline. Kickers are connections with our audience. All the usually placed opposite from technology in the world won’t ever and lower than the fill light. provide that critical window into the player's subconscious. *

58 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER B6G@NDJG 86A:C96G

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>>NECESSARY EVIL

RATINGS MATTER

THE WORDS “VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES” displays. The effort was comprehensive, evokestrong emotions both within the daunting, and significant. industry and among the general public. But One of the reasons that we have such Sting operations performed two full understanding the issue is as important to extended debates with members of months before our self-imposed deadline a soccer mom as it is to any professional congress, special interest groups, the showed a dramatic year-on-year with a stake in the business. The political media, and of late the governor of Illinois reduction, from 50 to 30 percent, in pendulum has swung from a content- is that games are interactive. Players children being able to purchase M-rated driven discussion to a ratings-enforcement experience things, and they are games—a statistically significant debate. The matter of violent games is as controlling a character onto which they number because it is the inverse of the relevant today as it was eight years ago could, theoretically, project themselves. DVD business, substantially better than when the Interactive Entertainment Like any intelligent discussion involving the music industry, and is on-par with Merchants Association (IEMA) was human anatomy and physiology, this movie theatre owners, lauded as the gold established. Despite all this discussion, one involves psychologists, standard in the field. how is it possible that awareness of the psychiatrists, educators, analysts, and a 2005 will undoubtedly be a make-or- facts—the undisputable facts—remains host of other specialists who break year for this issue, as IEMA so low? My personal take: We are doing a cumulatively can do little more than members continue to improve and the far better job of explaining the lengths to agree to disagree. No wonder politicians data begins to show that industry self- which we have collectively gone to the like this topic so much. regulation is working. The problem for general public than we have within our developers lies in what may occur own business. ADULTS ONLY before the end of the year. Why should Until December 2003, the majority of this issue be of concern now more than INFLUENTIAL MEDIA our members, the leading retailers of ever? If retailers can’t easily sell your The heart of the matter boils neatly down games, did not have strong policies and games, they won’t. Plain and simple. If to this: Games are entertainment. They procedures intended to inhibit the sale of some states pass laws that could send are art. They are science. They are Mature-rated games to minors. A few had their employees off to jail and paying interactive. And they are a new medium. some procedures, but only a handful of criminal fines in the same way that As entertainment, video and computer them enforced them well. Retailers who alcohol, tobacco, and firearms are games have penetrated the household, hadn’t yet committed to the idea were legislated, it will surely affect all game the mind share, and the market share of concerned about preventing customers sales. Washington state tried and failed consumers. Games are mass market and from buying these products because the to pass a law that was so volatile that it relevant. As a profitable enterprise, we customer has a First Amendment right to might have made some E, many T, and have taken what was once viewed with buy M-rated games. It wasn’t, and isn’t, almost all M-rated games illegal to sell little potential and regarded with illegal to sell them—therefore choosing to minors. substantially-similar reverence as any not to sell them indiscriminately could toy, and turned it into a burgeoning multi- lead to law suits of several varieties. RALLYING POINT billion business with music and movie In December of 2003 the IEMA Retailers have now done and will tie-ins, licensing, and marketing to boot. retailers announced that they would all, continue to do the right thing. It represents a full third of the packaged unilaterally, institute carding policies Publishers clearly understand the goods entertainment business, and intending to inhibit the sale of violent ramifications to their shareholders and everyone from Wall Street to Main Street games to minors. They recognized that companies. Developers need to go has taken notice. they had a social obligation and met that forward with their eyes open on this duty head-on, stating that by December matter. It can no longer be a subject of 2004 they would double their efforts or intra-industry debate. It must now be a institute new policies from scratch. They rallying point around which we spent 12 months training staff, changing collectively stand together to protect HAL HALPIN is the founder and president of the Interactive procedures, moving product assortment, our cumulative rights, businesses, and Entertainment Merchants Association, the electronic game re-labeling displays, and putting up ESRB careers, because the alternative would industry's non-profit retail trade association. He resides in signs where otherwise there would have be disastrous for our industry. * Connecticut with his wife and three children. He can be reached at been revenue-generating merchandise [email protected].

WWW.GDMAG.COM 61 ALEXANDER BRANDON

>>AURAL FIXATION

THE LINE OF QUALITY PART II: LICENSING

LET’S START WITH WHAT WE KNOW. GAMES all game music to be original, written by people who might not have even bought are more than fun one-day projects in game composers that play games and the game in the first place. Is this interest this era. There’s a lot of work involved in understand games thoroughly, and to be as measured? It can be in polls, but usually games that’s responsible and earnest adaptive and forward-thinking as the the measure is better taken in response and absolutely dull. In some cases, the games themselves. But wait, how forward to magazines, online announcements, work being done is very controversial thinking is a game based on a movie or a and most importantly, television. The within our developmental sanctum, and sports title? Then the light bulb clicks on. result is usually a minimum of 10 licensing of game soundtracks is one of The reasoning is clear. The plan is brilliant, percent more sales because of the them. Many large publishers are and the business model a thing of beauty in soundtrack, and when the numbers are incorporating popular music from its simplicity. tallied in development against this 10 hundreds of groups into games. Some percent, in the case of a big EA or Take- publishers are also hiring well-known THE LOGIC Two release, that 10 percent is easily the film composers for game soundtracks. Any publisher or game team, big or small, higher number. The game industry has gone “public,” so is a shark. It needs to keep moving to speak, along with film and television, forward to stay alive. That’s a grim THE LESSON and the public expects a certain level of metaphor, but it’s true, and the game Now that we’ve seen that licensed quality outside the circle of hardcore industry is no sheep anymore. It’s fierce soundtracks can generate a buzz and game geeks that take comfort in the and competitive. Therefore, the licensed higher sales, let’s answer this column’s SSX TRICKY shows that beeps and boops of yesteryear. soundtracks we hear in games are, in a main question: What about quality? Do soundtracks can be adaptive, way, the best thing that ever happened licensed soundtracks enhance the innovative, and still licensed. TOO MUCH QUALITY? when it comes to maintaining popularity quality of a title? How do we tell? I can Now let’s move on to what some of you and profit. Games don’t fundamentally tell you that based on initial research on might not have thought of. Those beeps change from year to year, except in such forums and discussion with casual and boops of yesteryear’s arcade games cases as KATAMARI DAMACY. What does gamers, I have talked to two groups—one were perfectly aligned with the ancient change is their music, and with the that hates licensed music and one that pixilated 2D images of PAC-MAN and DONKEY introduction of licensing, the music and likes it, depending on the music, and the KONG. Games were simple pastimes; five soundtrack make up for the lack of latter group commands a big majority. minute diversions from reality. These progress in other areas. Licensing This is an era in which licensed music is a days, does a game score that perfectly generates market interest that can tool the way an orchestra or a synthesizer matches Howard Shore’s The Lord of the roughly be measured, and this measure is a tool. Use the right tool for the right Rings film soundtrack align with adds to the profit pot at the end of the job. Take SSX TRICKY. Not only did it use facsimiles of the characters from the film day. Let’s take a look at some hypothetical licensed soundtracks, but it also used that are only 80 percent accurate? techniques that a marketing department them adaptively and yielded the best might take. example of pop music being woven into THE PROBLEM A publisher has a soundtrack for a game design ever. What has all this got to do with licensing? fighting game containing 20 tracks. The I’ll end this column by saying SSX TRICKY When I think of the idea, at times my publisher looks at the potential buyers of set an example that isn’t being done nostalgic side screams in opposition to the game based on other similar titles enough. Being able to select licensed licensing in classic partisan style, wanting and any prequels. They then identify music in a game might as well be an MP3 bands and groups that have songs that player sitting at your side. It isn’t part of have sold to a minimum number of the game, but publishers can make it people, usually in the millions, and then part of the game. They can make spend anywhere from $100K to over a soundtracks go from radio airplay into million dollars to license these tracks. something that radio listeners would ALEXANDER BRANDON has been involved with game Once that is done, press releases and rather hear. “I liked the NFL 2006 version audio since 1994 and is currently the audio manager at interviews reveal the names of the bands of that Korn song better ‘cause it went Midway in San Diego, Calif. You can e-mail him at and songs in conjunction with the game, BAM! when I tackled McNabb.” * [email protected]. generating marginal interest in those

62 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER H[mWhZ_d]?ddelWj_ed_d?dZ[f[dZ[dj=Wc[i FbWoj^[8[ij ?dZ[f[dZ[dj=Wc[ie\j^[O[Wh Wjj^[-j^7ddkWb ?dZ[f[dZ[dj=Wc[<[ij_lWb CWhY^/#''"(&&+CeiYed[M[ij9edl[dj_ed9[dj[hIWd

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FbWj_dkcIfedieh0 =ebZIfediehi0 C[Z_WIfediehi0 NOAH FALSTEIN

>>GAME SHUI

IN THE BEGINNING

link between ideas and genes. An idea can IT HAS BEEN NEARLY 150 YEARS SINCE be copied from mind to mind, spreading Charles Darwin first published The Origin by word of mouth or the media, and of Species, sparking a revolution in the mutating—and evolving—as it spreads. way people look at the development of all Understanding these “ideas as genes” living things. Evolution is a great (termed “memes” by noted biologist framework to use literally when thinking Richard Dawkins), can shed light on the Even digitized apes evolve eventually—Nintendo’s about basic game design rules and way popular interface choices in games DONKEY KONG 64. metaphorically in understanding spread among game developers. The business principles in this ever-changing principles of evolution from nature don’t games on phones also exhibit such industry. As a veritable game industry work exactly the same way in the portability and relative lack of complexity. dinosaur myself, I can vouch for the computer or the brain, but they’re a good Contrast that with the huge games on the usefulness of the evolutionary place to start. more stable ecologies of an established perspective in understanding games. platform like the PC, where a game like For a game designer, it pays off to EVOLUTION OF AN INDUSTRY GRAND THEFT AUTO or FINAL FANTASY can understand the motivations and Evolutionary principles also help us evolve over multiple generations and psychology of game players. All the most understand ways that games change build on a large installed base of popular games relate directly to our over time. The coin-op arcade business in machines. In natural evolution, drives for survival and reproduction, and the 1980s may have been the most successful adaptations like eyes have often are easily linked to our hunter- fiercely Darwinian game environment in appeared independently many different gatherer ancestors and their social history. New games appeared and times—spider eyes, squid eyes, and interactions. A sound understanding of thrived, or died in a matter of months if human eyes for example. We see this in a why people evolved to enjoy games is as they didn’t have ample sustenance more purposeful and intentional way in useful to a game designer as music (quarters). After great early diversity, that a successful game innovation like theory is to a composer. arcade games converged on a few the sandbox play of GRAND THEFT AUTO gets successful formulas that ate up all those replicated throughout the game industry. GENES TO CODE TO MEMES quarters and starved later games that Finally, the game industry itself is The basic principles of evolution apply to didn’t follow the formulas. It’s particularly often a metaphor for the evolutionary any medium with replicating information, enlightening to look at specific lineages, process. Companies grow and swallow including computers. That’s one reason as when the basic qualities of SPACE other companies; newer and smaller we have computer viruses and mutations INVADERS were improved and expanded in offspring find their own path to success (bugs) getting into the genome (game GALAXIAN, which in turn gave way to GALAGA. or fade into history, and only the ones program). Designers like Shigeru Namco’s shooter was such an efficient who adapt survive. Miyamoto, Will Wright, and Dani Bunten and fun implementation of the “shoot If I have succeeded in tempting you to have found that convincing AI for descending aliens” family that it survives learn more about evolutionary principles characters can be modeled by using the in some arcades today, 20 years later, an and brain function, there are many evolutionary biology concept of a fitness alligator remaining essentially sources of more information to pursue. I landscape, giving them simple behaviors, unchanged since the time of dinosaurs. would recommend reading The Selfish and letting emergent complexity make A modern example of a similarly Gene by Richard Dawkins (Oxford them seem realistic. turbulent environment for games is the University Press, 1976) as a starting point, Even more intriguing is the surprising mobile phone market, fragmented by followed by How the Mind Works by Steven country, mobile carrier, network Pinker (W.W. Norton & Co., 1997). They technology, and the individual phone might even help you survive the game capabilities. In nature, this corresponds industry’s next extinction event. * to the challenges of species survival in a N OAH FALSTEIN is a 25-year veteran of the game industry. fragmented and rapidly changing For a related article by Noah Falstein, read His web site, www.theinspiracy.com, has a description of The ecological niche. Such conditions favor “Natural Funativity” on Gamasutra.com at 400 Project, the basis for these columns. Also at that site is a small, adaptable species that can migrate www.gamasutra.com/features/20041110/ list of the game design rules collected so far, and tips on how to rapidly from dying or stagnant areas to falstein_01.shtml. use them. Email him at [email protected]. better climes. The more successful

64 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER

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94 MARCH 2005 | G AME DEVELOPER FLASHBANG’S SEALAB 2021 STARDOCK’S DESKTOPX 3

CONTINUED FROM PG 6 CONTINUED FROM PG 7 indie development effort that helped rigidly enforce development hours,” very quickly,” says Brad Wardell, us have one or two graphics make it. "The game was developed in he says. “I have 1,400 incremental CEO of Stardock. “We can see designers do the work of what around three and a half months," saves of the main gameplay logic file what it's going to look like in the other companies probably says Matthew Wegner, development here, so I was able to graph the time game and drag and drop things require three times as many director for Flashbang. "We had a of day that each one was saved, to into position and have them be people to do." fixed X amount of time and Y amount show at a recent IGDA talk I gave on like that in the game right away.” Beginning this month, Stardock of dollars with which to make the the title." In the indie game scene, will offer DesktopX to the public game. We're all big fans of the Sealab At the end, according to Wegner, Stardock’s ability to make its own at three levels: DesktopX run- 2021 show, too, so obviously we the result was "54 levels, 6 playable tools, like DesktopX, gives its time, which only lets you run wanted to stretch ourselves and try characters, 15 enemies, 3 bosses, developers an advantage in their widgets that others create ($15); to cram as much as we could in the over 200 lines of voice-over from the niche market space. DesktopX Standard, in which you limited amount of time we had." show's actors—it was great fun to “For us, it's the great equalizer can design desktops, widgets, "All of the artwork and music for hear the raw session files—9 minutes with the big guys,” Wardell says. and objects for personal use and the game was produced by us in- of new music (all incorporate the “We've spent six years sharing ($25); and DesktopX Pro, house,” Wegner adds. “For technology, main theme, some more subtle than developing DesktopX for non- in which you can export objects we developed the game using others), and 3 minigames." game commercial use, so it's a and widgets as “gadgets” that Virtools (www.virtools.com). Our Cartoon Network will again hold very mature product. It's the kind anyone can run ($70). team included a programmer, a lead the Project Goldmaster competition of tool that the mega studios are —Jill Duffy artist, an artist, an audio director, at the 2005 IGF Awards, this time not likely to have and hence lets and audio contractors." with increased online feedback, as Despite the limitations, Wegner the creators make a higher-profile was careful to avoid the quality-of- development diary documenting life issues plaguing the industry with their game creation. excessive crunch time. "We tried to —Simon Carless

ADVERTISER INDEX COMPANY NAME PAGE COMPANY NAME PAGE COMPANY NAME PAGE Academy of Art University ...... 85 Electronic Arts/Tiburon ...... 25 RAD Game Tools...... C4 Activision ...... 66 Expression College ...... 81 Radius360...... 92 Akamai Technologies Inc...... 2 Factor 5...... 68 Retro Studios Inc...... 81 Aladdin Knowledge Systems...... 47 Flagship Studios Inc...... 76 Rockstar Games ...... 69 Alias Systems...... 20 Full Sail Real World Education ...... 92 RTzen Inc...... C2, 1 Anark...... 30 Genemation...... 10 Savannah College of Art ...... 72 Atari Inc...... 75 IDA of Singapore ...... 9 Seapine Software Inc...... 17a–17d ATI Technologies Inc...... 23, 26 Integrity Ware Inc...... 93 Softwrap...... 54 Avid Technology—Softimage...... 41 Iron Lore Entertainment...... 68 Sony Computer Entertainment...... 70, 72 Avid Technology—NXN ...... C3 IT Global Secure Inc...... 58 Sony Ericsson Mobile...... 13 Blizzard Entertainment...... 79 Khronos ...... 93 Superscape ...... 28 Carnegie Mellon University ...... 88 LucasArts...... 81 Techexcel Inc...... 53 Center for Digital Imaging at Boston University ...... 84 Macrovision Corporation...... 38 The Art Institute Int'l ...... 82 - 83 Cerro Coso College ...... 91 Marist College...... 86 The Collective Inc...... 76 Charles River Media ...... 27 Microsoft ...... 37 The Hartecenter at SMU Guildhall ...... 91 Cogswell Polytechnical ...... 89 Midway Amusement Games ...... 71 THQ...... 67 Collins College ...... 84 Morgan Kaufmann Publishers ...... 48 Trymedia Systems ...... 42 Course PTR ...... 32 NCsoft ...... 70 Ubisoft-China ...... 78 CRI Middleware Ltd...... 92 Neversoft Entertainment ...... 74 University of Advancing Technology ...... 87 Criterion Software Ltd...... 5 New Pencil ...... 94 University of Central Florida ...... 90 Cryptic Studios...... 77 Nikitova LLC...... 27 Vancouver Film School ...... 90 Day 1 Studios ...... 80 Novodex ...... 19 Xoreax Software Ltd...... 44 DeWolfe Music ...... 33 Numerical Design Ltd...... 29 Zenimax Media...... 80 Discreet ...... 45 Perforce Software ...... 51 Electronic Arts ...... 73 Polhemus...... 94

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