In our booth at the Austin Game Developer’s Conference earlier this year, Spacetime Studios set up a monitor, a machine, and a Wacom tablet. David Levy (vision director) and Joe Watmough (concept artist) took turns drawing concept images in full view of the passerby on the conference room floor. A real-time tight-rope act. If the artist isn’t skilled enough to pull it off, or was just not feeling inspired, it would be embarrassing. Fortunately, it was an audacious success, one we got a lot of credit for.

Folks would gather for hours to watch our artists paint.

On the other side of the fence is the writer’s work. The legendary (and infamous) science-fiction and non-genre writer Harlan Ellison, a major and influential figure in science-fiction of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, often writes in bookstore windows for promotional appearances. Due to his fame, large crowds often form to watch the creation of stories. Some of these stories have gone on to win awards, and are still in print.

Of the two of these, which would you prefer to see? An artist weaving colored light into evocative images, or a guy tapping away at a keyboard.

Personally, I’d rather see the artist, and I’m a writer.

 Myself hard at work (minus the crowds)

The writer’s role in the primarily visual medium of computer games (especially MMOs) is an interesting and sometimes precarious position, though at its best, it is an essential part of the development process. The apostle John claimed, “In the beginning was the Word”, and as unlikely as it seems, it’s true for the computer game content development process. Despite how evocative and rich our visual design is, it has to come from somewhere, and that’s usually a writer.

Our development process has been born from the team’s rich and varied experience on a number of other games, and has served us well so far. Here’s a quick overview of the process we go through to develop our content, demonstrating the close interplay between the writing process and the concepting department.

Step One: The Requirement

First, we begin with the requirement for a concept image. This might be a zone, vehicle, character, weapon, monster, effect, or something else. Usually it’s decided by the lead designer, or its value is self-evident when we begin exploring an avenue of gameplay.

Step Two: The Content Request Package

Once this need for a concept is identified, it is assigned to the content team, who must put together a Content Request Package (a CRP). In most cases, the content team has already been working on the written part of the design prior to the request for a CRP. We do most of our written development on an internal wiki, so the CRP usually contains links to the relevant information.

Important parts of these descriptions are the general context, the story relevance, the themes it ties into, and a particular mood that the asset may evoke. These elements can apply as much to an area as to a piece of gear. We’re striving for a game with a distinct visual style, one that is iconic, unique, and evokes particular emotional responses in the players. This, we believe, will make the visual experience as engaging as the gameplay itself.

Each type of CRP is a bit different, but each will contain many of the following elements:

• A written description of the asset to be created, focusing on gameplay over aesthetics. This might be the way it’s used (for a piece of gear), its relative level, the class or race that uses it, etc.
• A written history or background information describing the purpose or origin of the asset. This can be light and focused on mood (a short piece of fiction), or very specific (exact dimensions and configuration)
• A map (for the area).
• Links to relevant race, class, or faction pages.
• Visual reference or inspirational sources if applicable.

This is then all assembled into a CRP (usually a document) that goes to the vision director, who then assigns it to one of our internal crackerjack concept team.

Step Three: Clarification (Optional)

Sometimes, the concept artist assigned to a piece of concept art might come back to the design team (usually the content writer who created the CRP) and ask for clarification, or in some cases, inspiration. This might be as informal as a concept artist walking down the hall to ask one of us what we had imagined when we described the asset, and it might be a more formal meeting where the content design team presents the concept team with the entire story and themes to an entire zone, walking them through the map and describing the area in detail.

Step Four: The Concepting Process

I am not actually sure what happens in the concept pit. The door is often closed. It is a darkened room, and occasionally strange music comes out of it. There are a lot of action figures in there, and I have heard the sounds of an acoustic guitar. Maybe someone from the concept team can do a developers blog and explain it all.

There’s a review of the concept art by the vision director and the rest of the concept team. This step ends with concept images being checked in and ready for review.

Step Five: The Review

The directors review the concepts submitted in a weekly meeting. Sometimes there are previews, such as an image being emailed around, and it’s always a cause for enthusiasm when we see something new. As a confession, the design team regularly looks at the check-ins from the concept team because we’re inevitably jazzed to see what they do. It inevitably inspires us with the other content we’re designing.

Results

From a resource perspective, after a piece of concept artwork has been approved, it then goes to the correct part of the art team for modeling and further development, either in-house or through our outsourced partnerships.

From a creative perspective, the impact of finished concept art back into the content design process is immeasurable. It energizes us, points our development of content into new and sometimes unexpected directions. In the worst cases, it forces the content writers to rethink an idea that doesn’t work, or more often than not, to focus on a better way to convey the intended concept. In the best cases, this partnership between words and images opens all new realms of ideas and infuses our content with added vibrant imagery. Either form of iteration leads to better content. The interplay between concept and writing becomes a dynamic process, and as the project matures and we deepen our exploration of the content, the process becomes easier and the results even more exciting.

It’s a tremendously exciting and rewarding process, and I’m having the best working experience of my life being a part of it.

- Jason Durall

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 3:31 am and is filed under Design Blogs, Developer Blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.