Looking at the development of games - Part 1

(Due to the amount of content in this topic, I have divided the research in two separate posts. This is Part 1, for Part 2 CLICK .) 

If you do not want to read through the entire post, rather read a brief conclusion regarding this research, GO TO PART 2 and scroll to the bottom of the post.

As an Environment Artist I am interested in working in the gaming industry as well. Understanding where everything started and how it evolve may give me a better picture of how my work relates to games. The requirements are different in this area as compared to the film industry. You have much more limitations, because everything is calculated in real-time by the user's computer, so the rules are different.

I will look back to the very beginning and study what issues arose and how the "key players" back then resolved these. Everything was still new and change was constantly happening. By better understanding the process of the game's industries development, I might be able to understand and better prepare for the upcoming changes that will occur and keep on occurring in the future.

With the birth of computers, the possibility arose as using these machines for entertainment. In 1958 the first tennis like computer game was developed, where a ball was going left to right of the screen. This was more of a test, experiment rather than a full game product.

In 1961 Steve Russell developed a punch-card driven video game, called Spacewar. It was an interactive game with two spaceships at opposing ends of the screen, floating and shooting against each other.
Around 1966 the television made it into almost every Americans' living-room. Ralph Bair, the vice-president of Sanders Associates saw a huge business opportunity in this. He was planning on creating a play-device that would fit on a shelf and could be attached to the TV in order to play. This was the birth of the concept of today's modern console gaming machines: XBox, Playstation etc. The hardware limitations were quite drastic at these times, because computers will still the size of a room. In 1971 he eventually released the gaming device, named Odyssey , which shipped with a tennis game. Two "sticks" hitting a ball left to right.

Will Wright, one of the key figures in games designs. Today, he is known for his popular franchise, The Sims, Sim City etc. In 1986 he was playing a game which had a world editor program built into it. He started experimenting with the world editor and got inspired to create a similar game, in which the focus was one building and management. I feel there is an important note to take here: a huge amount of great discoveries and new concepts were born through experimenting. It is important to look outside your own medium, play around with other things, because inspiration can happen anytime. You can't plan some things. You'r brain conjures up new ideas by looking "outside of the box" and discovering other areas outside of CG.
Of course, in the beginning the Sim City games were very "primitive" (in comparison with today's games), due to hardware and software limitations as well.

With the advancement of technology, games became more and more interactive. Gaming is a visual experience, you interact with them through visual elements. As CG evolved, so did games. A huge milestone on game-player interactivity came with a game in which you used a chopper to save civilians from tanks. After you flew the people back to safety, they started waving at you. In terms of CG they were very undeveloped as these people consisted of only 35 pixels. Even though, with this low pixel amount, the game was able to conjure up emotions within the player. This is an important thing to note, because you need to somehow connect with your user's. In this game, the players felt appreciation for their deeds, self success and emotions similar to these.

Games during the 70's and 80's used drawings for their environments. It was not possible to create a real-time surrounding, so pre-drawing a background was the only way to go. The quality of these backgrounds in terms of realism was very good. With the advancement of technology, game developers were able to build complete 3D, real-time environments. But, with every technological leap, at first there is a bit of a step back in terms of game immersion and experience. One of the drawbacks of real-time environments was quality. Now that these backgrounds had to be calculated continuously by the user's computer, the image-quality had to decrease significantly as compared to the drawings used before. Technology did not allow for great image quality, so this became a drawback at first. But, with cons there are always pros. In the end, real-time scenes paid of, because now the players could interact with the game on a whole new level. Players were able to discover the world much more intimately as before.
Although, sometimes when I think back to games with pre-drawn, static backgrounds, I remember the sheer amount of detail that was built into them. Even after days of looking at them, I've felt, that there is still so much to discover. There were so many objects, items, shades, lighting information, cracks, bumps, shadows etc. built into them, that exploring was so much fun. This amount of detail disappeared with the introduction of 3D environments and it took quite a while until it started to match up with the long gone static images. I still miss those experiences to be honest. Through my work I will definitely thrive to recreate that experience

Pre-drawn environment

The new, 3D environments posed control issues as well. Players had to get used to aiming the character appropriately if they wanted it to walk in the right direction for example. I remember when I first started playing such a game, I kept having frustrations with the controls, because it was a new experience. I had to develop as a player, so it took some time getting used to. As a conclusion I understand that with each new technological leap, there comes a frustration time of accommodation.
A good example would be silent films. Silent films in the beginning did not have to worry about audio, hence the work of the actors only focused on acting itself. With the invention of the microphone, actors had to pay attention to sounds as well. They weren't very good at it at first, avoiding sounds that might ruin a scene had to be taken into consideration which made the process that much harder. In the end, of course, audio paid off and today you could not imagine (except for some cases) a movie without sounds. Sound became a fundamental element of storytelling.

3D  real-time environment

Part 2 HERE.

Getting familiar with the past

The last couple of weeks have been quite a mix between work and research. I was working on a freelance and a private project as well. Chasing a deadline for the freelance one was a good learning experience in many ways (more on that later) and at the same time taking breaks to continue my private project kept my mind fresh. During this time, I have also started researching the history of CG. I wanted to go through it in detail and take away the elements that I think are useful to me.

Now, this post will not list the entire history that I've went through, but rather contains the important elements that I think will help me better figure out where my place is in CG. Studying history is always beneficial, because you can learn a lot from previously encountered situations. You see how the top artists of this industry solved various problems. You can gain a better perception about how to approach different situations and by studying the past you can maybe have a slight idea about where this industry is heading to. This can help you better plan your career, thus ensuring a better employability in the long run.

Going way back

1950 - 1960:

The first signs of CG date back to the 1950's, the early days of computing. You had strip charts, pen plotters etc. But, in these times everything was so ineffective and expensive that there was no use for it, only for special departments like the U.S. military etc.

1960 - 1970:

As time progressed, so did technology. In between 1960-1970 wire-frame graphics appeared. This meant that computers could draw various shapes with the help of lines. Filled polygons was still a technology of the future, but we had lines.
Nowadays, there is a very important tool at a computer graphics artists' disposal. This is the pen tablet/drawing tablet (e.g. Wacom). The birth of this wonderful equipment dates back to the times of wire-frame graphics. An MIT student named Ivan Sutherland recognized the potential of man-machine interactivity and invented a lightpen with which you could interact with the display. As you moved the pen, the computer generated a new image based on your movement.

Sutherland is also responsible for many of today's commonly used algorithms in CG.
During this era, the display processor was invented as well. Scientists realized that the entire graphical workload was a bit too much for the host computer. As a result, a special purpose computer was invented. It was called the display processor (DPU). The host computer would compile a list of the tasks needed to be calculated and sent that list to the DPU. This resulted in a significant advance in speed.

1970 - 1980:

The next big step, which is actually the basis of today's graphics, came between the 70's and the 80's. A wonderful thing called Raster graphics was invented, which set the beginning of CG standards. Raster graphics means that the image is produced as an array (the raster) of picture elements (pixels) in the frame buffer. This technology allowed us to take our wire-frame graphics and fill in the spaces between the lines that built up a shape. It's fair to say this was a huge leap forward in visualization.
Artists start to experiment with CG to create animations. CG animation had a huge advantage over the previous cell-technique in terms of speed. In 1942 Walt Disney had 1500 artists drawing the images for Bambi, whereas today, theoretically, a single person could animate an entire Shrek movie. The 70's represented the first signs of this huge leap ahead in speed.
In 1974 the first animated short, "Hunger" was released, which was nominated for Oscar.
At the University of Utah, scientists developed a 3 dimensional object, the all famous, teapot. This 3D object is very commonly used today because of its interesting shape, which makes it very useful for test-rendering. After experimenting with the teapot, people realized that it's realism was all about the lighting. Lighting is everything when it comes to presenting your work, especially today. As an Environment Artist, I need to have excellent lighting skills to present my work as appealing as I can.

During this era the workstations and personal computers came along as well. Today, we don't make much of a distinction between the two, but in reality they have evolved from different roots. Early workstations were characterized by network-connection (client-server model) and a high level of interactivity. It's beneficial to study workstations in my opinion, because a lot of VFX and film companies turn to so called "Render Farms' today to render out their work. Render Farms are basically a huge network of workstations. The calculation power of hundreds of these machines is used to render out data, which otherwise would take unacceptably long. It doesn't sound unwise to optimize my work, prepare it for the render farm.





Adulthood of CG

1980 - 1990:

Going a bit forward to the modern days: realism came to CG between the 80's and 90's. Technologies like smooth shading, environment mapping, bump mapping came along. Smooth shading was essential, because previously each polygon had their own light reflection information built into them, separated from the neighboring faces. With smooth shading, all of the polygons' light reflection information is calculated as one, so you don't get the sharp edges between them. You get a smooth, clean result.

Pixar's Renderman was developed during this period which started to bring CG to a whole new level quality.
In 1982 Walt Disney created the first feature film combining live action footage with CG: Tron. The costs to make the movie went up to 17$ million  and 4$ million alone was spent on CG. 6 animators worked 9 months to create more than 1000 shots. Even with all the technological effort, Tron was unsuccessful. People started to critize Computer Graphics for its of believability and no emotional involvement with its audience. In my opinion this was a very good lesson for future artists working with this medium. Technology by itself is NOT ENOUGH to connect with your audience. In order to convey meaning through your work, you have to prioritize storytelling and content over technology.

Advertising agencies start having a big interest in CG. More and more ads pop up which use visual effects to persuade their viewers.
In 1983 the ad called "Sexy Robot" was released, which was the first computer animation that used the movements of a real person and translated them by using reference points painted on the body to a CG figure. This, all, for tinned food ad.

1990 - 2000:

In 1992, Silicon Graphics developed one of the fundamental building blocks of today's graphics, the OpenGL API. It allowed a whole new plethora of possibilities in software development. Hardware wise texture mapping, blending and new buffers such as the stencil buffer came along. Why are these buffers and mappings important for me? These techniques are still used and applied today. My aim is to become a better and more effective artist. Speed is very important nowadays. The quicker you can produce quality work, the better for everyone. In order to speed up my work it is essential to understand as much of the technical possibilities I can. By understanding the fundamental structure of the tools I am using, I get more freedom and could maybe come up with new solutions for my workflow.

In Toronto, Canadian programmers developed a more sophisticated CG program, called Alias. Alias was used in the movie Terminator 2 and also in Jurassic Park. Both of these films received Oscars for their visual effects. Later on, Alias joins up with Californian company, Wavefront to develop one of the most commonly used CG programs of even today, Maya.

In 1995 CG went through a major test. The first full feature-length film, Toy Story was released by Pixar. It had an immense success, thus showing the capabilities of this new industry. They've found the balance between storytelling and technique which skyrocketed its success. It was a whole new experience for the audience, yet enjoyable.
Producing quality movies in CG is very hard, because of the potential consequences of failure. It is much more costly to fail in CG, one of the main reasons why it takes 3-4 years to create a movie like the Toy Story.

The modern days

2000 - present:

Photorealism becomes possible. Powerful graphics cards for PCs dominate the market. (nVIDIA, ATi/AMD etc.).
The movie "Shrek" was released in 2001. It took 300 animators 4 years to create more than 1000 to create the film. This is once again proving the point that you have to have a perfectly polished product when you present it to the audience, otherwise the downfall is going to be a massive on. Shrek used very sophisticated character interactions and physical simulations (cloth, fluid) were used for the first time quite heavily. Shrek was a huge success.

Because the quality requirements were rising, Render Farms open up, to allow a possibility for film companies to render out their work. It took 500 computer servers 100 million hours in total to render out 86 minutes of Shrek.

As technology advances in terms of hardware and software as well, the cost to produce CG (let it be animation or still images etc.) keeps going down. This creates the possibility for smaller companies and even individual artists to produce animations. As the limitations start disappearing, the focus is more and more on story telling and art itself. Studies outside of pure CG is required nowadays. E. g. a modeler needs to have a good grasp on shape, form and anatomical studies. They need to study various objects in nature in order to meet the requirements of today. Technology by itself is not enough as I've mentioned before. Fine art skills help a lot.




I did not write about how the game industry was effected by the development of CG, as I dedicate one separate post to that topic.

Reference:   -   History of Computer Animation - by Discovery Science   LINK
                  -   Computer Graphics in Games - by Computer History Museum   LINK
                  -   Computer Graphics - Lecture 1 by Barbara Hecker   LINK

Specialist Study 1 project

Specialist Study 1 is the first module of my third year studies at Birmingham City University.

The module is set to provide me with the possibility on gaining the essential skills that are necessary in a professional career. The goal is the clearly identify an area of practice I want to focus on and mastering it. This process involves: researching, concepting, refining ideas, improving techniques and methodologies etc. 

Start of a journey (or is it?)

The first step I have taken was a thorough recap about what I would love to do in my life, what makes me happy. I cannot imagine myself 20 years from now, waking up in the morning and having to do something I don’t enjoy. I think it’s worth investing time into resolving these issues and identifying my ambitions in life.
Looking at my desires, doing some self-analysis is very important professional wise as well. Most of the people I have met so far, who are doing very well in their professional life all say that they enjoy what they do. It makes sense: the effort you put into something that makes you happy is unrivaled and unique. Especially today, effort and hard work is valued over any other thing.

Obviously, Computer Graphics is the area I plan my professional future in. I`ve been spending a significant amount of my time throughout the last 7 years learning and creating work in Computer Graphics. I had the opportunity and time to go through its main areas: from conceptualizing to modeling, right down to the final render and finishing touches in compositing.
I can say that I enjoy all of these areas and in a way I will always be a Generalist. I feel that understanding the entire work pipeline and being able to perform on a certain level in all of the areas is an important trait to have.

Despite the fact that being a Generalist is an advantage, I have always wanted to be exceptionally good at one certain area. Specializing in one part of CG is something that I feel really strong about.

Self-analysis

I have taken a few steps back to review my experiences during the last 7 years. I`ve looked at almost all of the projects I have worked on so far and have taken notes of what I enjoyed mostly about each of them, what I have learned and how they changed my view on CG, if at all. I realized that modeling is where most of my strengths and ambition lie. If I think back on how much time I`ve spent on the modeling part of each project, I`d say it’s well over 60%-70%. I would always go that extra mile to make sure all the forms and shapes are beautifly created. Not only the shapes, but topology was amongst my main priorities as well. I would completely rebuild a model if I felt that there was a cleaner, a more optimized way of creating it.

I still feel the same passion towards modeling, especially environmental modeling. Creating a setting out of thin air that has its own mood, feeling and atmosphere is astonishing. It is also very hard to master, meaning it involves a lot of studying, which I actually enjoy very much. Well, this has to do with the fact that I am doing something I love, so studying it doesn’t sound daunting at all… quite the contrary.

Environmental modeling is something that requires you to be creative, but at the same time can (and most of the times is) very technical as well. These two attributes and the marriage of them is what results in a good piece of work. I like to be very technical, but at the same time use that to create something meaningful. Your work has to have meaning, a purpose, otherwise you’ve only done it for yourself. (More on this later.)

First conclusions

So, after going through a bit of self-analysis, here is what it all boils down to: I want to be an Environment Artist and a Generalist.

The next step will involve research work. I already have experience and knowledge regarding the matter, but I need to systemize these.I need to learn how to use the information I already poses and find out what I still need to look into in order to get a better understanding about the steps I have to take in order to be successful. As a result, my next task is to:

- Study the history of Computer Graphics with a focus on Environment Artists.

- Research the leading professionals of today and study their work and career-path.

- Find out what the requirements of today are in order to be successful and highly employable.        

In order to learn what is asked of Environment Artists today I will gather as many interviews, articles etc. of professionals I can. I will also look at job requirements of significant companies in the Computer Graphics industry (this involves companies in Gaming, VFX, Commercial, Film etc.) . As the industry grows, the skills to be had regarding a certain position changes quite drastically. I will need to learn what the requirements were in the past, what they are today and possibly draw some conclusions about where this line of work is heading in the future.

Here are a few inspirational work:

ZBrush anatomy study

Recommended in HD 1080p to see all the details.

After learning the basics of human skeletal anatomy, I`ve went ahead and attempted to further my understanding inside ZBrush. Trying to recreate all the bones in complete 3 dimensional space puts your mind through the next level of understanding of these shapes.

         

My aim was NOT to use reference images as image planes, rather use the methods I have learned so far to keep proportion and also look at images outside of ZBrush. I`ve done it this way to put my mind through that frustration process of trying to understand these shapes and forms on a whole new level.
Well, it was frustrating at times all right. especially when some of the references from various sources showed  confusing differences. I had to dig deeper and read up on how things worked regarding the skeletal structure.

It was a good learning experience with ZBrush as well. I wanted practice to become more comfortable with the interface and scene management. All the separate little pieces meant different subtools. In the end I`ve ended up with about 30, which had to be managed logically in order to keep a grasp on the work.

From here its on to the muscle system, first on paper. We'll see how soon I`ll be able to dwell into that area as a combination of uni work + freelance work is stealing all my free time away from me... but where's a will, there's a way :) .

Continuing with anatomy

Whilst I am working on the skeleton, university has also re-commenced. My next posts will focus mainly of the current assignment we've received, but at the moment I am going to concentrate on finishing my studies and modeling on the human skeleton.

I`ve made significant progress inside ZBrush. I`ve decided not to upload work-in-progress stuff as I will be finishing very soon, so there is no point for spoilers :) .
One thing is for sure: going ahead and sculpting the shapes and forms in 3D perspective has skyrocketed my understanding of all the different elements of the body. There were a lot of things which I could not read from my drawings. For example I could draw the basic shape of the scapula, but there were a couple of things missing from my understanding as how it fits on the body, how the head of the humerus connects to it etc.

Sculpting the skull was one of the biggest challenges. I`ve decided to re-model it several times, because I made mistakes and wanted to learn from them by recreating the model with that new knowledge. Laying down the fundamental features of the skull first, defining the main landmarks as the first step and then starting to slowly build out the whole thing from there ended up being the most rewarding approach.

I`ve took this new understanding and tried redrawing the skull in a much more detailed way. Previously I could only draw a very simple skull, but since I have a better understanding of the general planes, the little nips and tucks of it allowed me to draw something like this.

I hope you will check back soon to take a look at my final skeleton.

Drawing anatomy

Tackling an issue which you had for ages makes you so eager to see what the h*ll you were so "afraid" of before... why didn`t you try it before. These kind of thoughts were swirling inside my head just before digging myself into drawing lessons.

The lessons I`ve chosen to watch have a very good system when it comes to explaining the absolute basics of human anatomy. It is also very technical at the beginning, meaning that I`ve used formulas for everything the skeletal system is composed off. I`ve heard people saying over and over again that you need to have a loose, free approach to drawing and draw what you feel and see, but when you start at, I`ve found that technical approaches for me are better. As you progress along, these formulas will become second nature and you will realize that you didn`t even have to measure and what not, because it all comes naturally now. I`ve started understanding the fundamental rules of the proportions. I started understanding the certain areas I can experiment with, but at the same time always obey 1-2 rules so that everything looks believable.

The lessons started out with teaching me the 8-head standard formula for the human body. It went on explaining the main areas of the body and how to determine key areas like top of the skull, bottom of chin, bottom of peck muscles, naval area, crotch, knee etc. even before you actually start drawing the figure. These helpful guidelines helped me always to maintain the correct proportions of the figure. At this stage I have only used simple shapes illustrating where the rib cage will be, the pelvis, skull, legs etc.


After this I`ve moved on to investigate different parts of the body. The first element was the skull. I didn`t care how hard it was going to be, I was sure with practice and commitment I will be able to learn to draw a correct skull, but it turned out easier than expected... at least a very basic version of a skull.
The help that these formulas provide when you are at the start is amazing.. at least for me. I spent quite a lot of time before looking at people's faces, human skulls on the internet etc. but I had no system whatsoever to help me always achieve the correct proportions, planes etc.


Drawing out the skull from the front, side, back and then going ahead attempting a perspective version was quite a challenge, but it did not take a lot of time until I`ve started getting decent drawings. Thing is when you understand these basics, even if you can`t produce amazing things on a sheet of paper, inside a 3D application there is so much room for experimenting. You understand the proportions so everything will be in place and then you can mess around with the small details here and there and continue learning in your 3D package. At least this has worked out pretty good for me (stay tuned for that :) ) .

Learning the important basics of each part of the skeletal system in the end payed off, because everything started to fit together. I knew where the spine would attach to the skull, how it curved down and finally ended in the sacrum. I understood where the pelvis takes up its roll and how the legs attach to it, so the figure can stand on its legs. Examining the scapula allowed be to get a better understanding of how the back deforms because of it and also how the shoulder is built up. I had some major proportional problems around the shoulder areas before in 3D, but that is starting to go away.
Right now I have finished exploring the skeletal system.

My current goal is to go ahead and model the whole thing inside ZBrush. Now, this is going to be one heck of a challenge as it's one thing to draw something and then another to sculpt it in full perspective. This is the next stage of furthering my understanding of the skeleton and the human body in general.

Finding good reference is going to be key, because I need to see each and every bone from pretty much all the angles possible. A lot of times even those small bumps and surface details make you understand how everything works and attaches to each other.