Games today, particularly MMOs, are large and complex. No matter how experienced a development team is, it is difficult to know the requirements up front. As in other areas of software development, the producers of games have gradually come to realize the need for modern, iterative development methodologies. (more…)

Hello and welcome back to Spacetime Studios art-technology blog.

Last time we talked about one of our cinematic character animation tools entitled Autoskel. The Autoskel tool is used to create perfectly named and oriented skeletons for use with our game engine. With this installment, we will talk about Autoskel’s sister tool , Autorig.

Autorig is a tool that is designed to eliminate the chore of rigging characters manually by hand and to maintain naming and orientation consistency for the development of pose tools.

Autorig produces rigging with the following capabilities: (more…)

The Concept Artist is motivated by the Designers, who provide the context and the structure within which all of our artwork is created. This is much different from other forms of art which are more freeform and limited only by the desires and imagination of an individual artist. Concept art is a thoroughly collaborative activity which is derived from Design and constrained by the physical requirements of the game play. The task is to visualize the worlds described by the designers and communicated through their design documents. Another way to say this would be that the Concept Artists creations are fundamentally story driven. “Story” in this broad sense just means that the game play (and concept art) exists within a broader dramatic structure- that there are characters, environments, events, conflicts and a set of physical rules which govern it all.

For exciting game play this provides an important ingredient: motivation. If the player is immersed within a world of believable characters and dramatic conflicts then the game play becomes personal and emotional. There is a Who, What, Where, and most importantly, a Why attached to the gaming experience. By incorporating these story elements games are borrowing from the strengths of older mediums like literature and film, and putting them to their own use. Games become immersive, interactive storylines within which the player engages in dramatic conflicts resolvable depending on his skill level.

Virtual worlds begin with Design and are visualized by Concept

(more…)