From Generalist to Specialist?

One of the main things that has been introduced to us as we progress through the course is that often you are required to specialize to get a job in industry. After having more of an understanding of how big AAA companies work, it is clear why this is the case. In some companies your job role may be so specific that you may only be creating armor plates for a character or are in charge of only the foliage of a level. Yet, because the industry has developed to this point of such specialization, it seems that now it is starting to reverse slightly.

With a wave of new small companies opening, particularly with the growth of the mobile games industry, it is again seeming more like being a generalist is not exactly a bad thing. I keep hearing the phrase of 'T shaped' workers floating about, with a little bit of research it comes from the Valve Employer's handbook. The 'T shaped' worker is described as having a broad range of skills and deep expertise in one area. So for a character artist, you have a deep understanding of creating characters, but also a sound understanding of rigging, rendering, animation, etc.

Even to get into the AAA development, I still feel that it is important to keep up with lots of different skills. After speaking to past graduates who are in industry they still work on a variety of things, be that bug fixing, texturing, learning in-house engines, or just learning new programs in general. I think that one should stay flexible and keep an open mind to a variety of skills. What happens when you have done everything you can do? If they employee has other skills, they can go help in another area, someone without those skills can not. So surely the employer would see the person with more general skills as a better investment?

So as well all struggle on deciding where we want to specialize our skills, maybe it is better to stay a bit more general.

Game Engines

So, what is a game engine? My understanding of a game engine is that it is the place where all the elements come together to create a playable game. The main thing I use them for is to create a playable level to showcase assets I have been working on. Things like 3d assets, textures, terrain, sounds, AI and other scripts come together in one place to create a final product.
There are many different engines to choose from so it is important to choose correctly as things like lighting and shaders are dependent upon your choice.
The amount of different effects and elements you can achieve also depend on the engines features.

So, most engines are based on licencing and again prices can vary depending on which you are looking at. So some companies choose to create an ‘in-house’ engine; ‘In-house’ engines can be a very viable option as it gives the developer the freedom to have any features that are necessary for their game. If they have the time, money, staff and patience to create one (and make it usable for more than one title) it can be very effective in the long run as they will avoid licencing and royalty fees.

While some developers may opt for ‘in-house’ engine, a lot of companies will still choose the licencing as it may often work out easier and cheaper. The benefit of using well established engines means that the bugs have already been fixed and there are often lots of tutorials available. While some engines can limit the visuals or features of a game, more commonly used engines like Unreal Development Kit (UDK) is known to have adaptable styles. While UDK is relatively easy to use and offers great features especially for first person shooters, it may prove a challenge for other types of game (not unachievable, but more of a challenge.)

All  above created using UDK (Bioshock Infinite, Dishonored, Mass Effect 2)

So, UDK still one of the most used engines boasts a variety of different titles and different visual styles, it is popular because of its flexibility and versatility. Because it is so widely used there are plenty of online resources to help with achieving a variety of different features and styles.
Another reason it is so popular is because of its node-based shader system, the layout is somewhat similar to other texture and shader compilers and is easy to grasp.
The lighting in UDK is not real time and is baked onto a lighting map. While this does not limit the lighting effects you can achieve, plus it is a lot cheaper than real time lighting, but it does take up extra time making sure all the lighting maps are correct.

All above created in CryEngine (Crysis 3, Far Cry, Ryse)

Another popular engine is CryEngine which was originally developed as a tech demo for Nvidia, which after its potential was realised was made into a full game engine. Crytek are re-known for creating beautiful games with ground breaking graphics and their Engine sure doesn't disappoint. The real time lighting is stunning and it has an easy to use flow graph system for shaders and in-game events. While it is relatively easy to jump into (with a bit of prior knowledge of other engines) it still requires a bit of adjusting to get used to importing assets. It makes it easy to create levels that look pretty good and as an artist it is pretty simple to get triggered events and other effects working without having much knowledge of programming.
However, CryEngine is not nearly as flexible as other engines and the lighting is set up for photo realistic styles. So trying to create a more stylised or cartoon-y effect can be a challenge. Also, because of the lighting it is often easy to distinguish when a level has been created using CryEngine.

All of the above created in Unity Engine (Guns of Icarus, Kerbal Space Program, Anna)

Although I do not know much about this engine, I feel it is worth a mention; Unity. Unity has long since been regarded as an engine for hobbyists and amateurs, but since its development it has drawn the attention of many companies. It’s vast tools for mobile games and has a pretty cheap licencing fee have helped build its popularity. It is easy to access and is surprisingly versatile with plenty of shaders and tools available. Unity is also well rated as it works for browsers; the Unity web-layer enables Unity levels to be accessible via internet browsers, as well as created and played over the internet with hardly any download necessary. Another important thing to look at is the fact that it imports max and maya files which helps speed up the work flow.
However as it is still being improved the lighting is not amazing, especially when competing with CryEngine and UDK; but there are plenty of plug-ins available from companies like Marmoset, which help improve this tenfold.

Obviously there are lots of other exciting game engines out there; these are just the three I am most accustomed to. It is worth researching other engines as they can offer even more different features and effects that would be more suited for whatever project it is you are working on. It is always worth looking out for new engines as well as the market is constantly changing so new programs will be developed to suit its needs.

Level Design

Level design, would seem somewhat different to the kind of things I would usually think about when designing something. Level design is driven by player interaction, and from my research I would say it seems to be about a harmony between game mechanics and visual design. I would also argue it is also about telling a story without using words or dialog.
I read an article (by Dan Taylor on Gamasutra) on key principles to good game level design; the main points seem to be that player interaction is what keeps the player engaged. While I strongly agree that the interaction with the game is what helps drive the narrative along, I want to discuss the importance of visual design in a level and how it strongly aids the interactions in a game (as this is what is more relevant to me.)
While key triggers and events keep the gamer excited and engaged, I feel that it requires visual cues to draw the player through the level and create a sense of flow.

One of the first points made is;
‘In most cases, the player’s core method of interaction with your level will be navigation – the process of actually traversing the level.  Careful layout, lighting, signage and other visual cues should create a natural “flow” to the level that guides the player instinctively through it.  From an aesthetic aspect, a game’s levels should all work together to create a consistent visual language, through the use of colour and form, that the player can learn, to progress intuitively through the level ‘

So after the level and interactive elements have been blocked out then the visual work must support this set up by leading the player to where they need to be and without being too obvious. It is important to still leave the player with a bit of autonomy, it would make sense to still have areas hidden from the player as to make levels replayable and encourage the player to explore and be rewarded for that. Again it would seem that it is all dependent on what type of game it is as to what level of exploration verses obvious direction there is. 
The main ways of trying to lead the player with design would be with lighting, signage and clear direction. Interestingly, I would argue that this relates very well back to the visual composition I was discussing in a past post; the way a scene is composed can strongly effect where the players interest is drawn. Trying to think about it as what is the first thing the player would see, and how will we get them to look over to where the entrance to the next area is. Similar elements like high contrast areas, arabesques and coincidences can get the player headed in the right direction.



I feel that thinking about level design in this way may help to improve upon the interactive elements in a playable level. If those elements are pivotal to the progression of narrative, then we need to visual cues to get the played to the right area at the right time.  Visuals are very important to level design.