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Interview: David Glenn, Tyler Thompson, and Bill Roper on concept art implementation, programming from scratch, sounds and graphics.
Date: May 26, 2004
Source: FSSPlanet.de (Site dead.)

FSS Planet Interview

FSS Planet: For an artist out there, how do you create your concept art? Is it pen and paper and then scanned and touched up into the computer. Which program do you use for editing?

Dave Glenn: For me, it depends upon the subject matter and the purpose of the concept art. Is it to help explain an idea to others, to clarify my own ideas before spending time on creating a game asset, to show to people outside the team, or all of the above? These (and other factors) all contribute to the choice of what medium to use and how long I spend creating a concept piece.

As an environment creator, I'll generally start with a written description and then spend some time digging through reference materials. Then I do a few quick sketches to block out some basic ideas. If I'm looking to generate something to show others, I might spend a bit more time on this stage, but typically I'll just dive right into 3dsMax and begin modeling.

I'll throw in a few basic textures to establish a palette, but I'm mostly concentrating on overall proportions and a flow. Once this stage feels good, I go back and sketch over the spaces with more detail. I add some more lighting, particle effects, and just generally fine tune it. I find myself going back and forth between concept and production so much that the line tends to blur.

As an example, an entire level in the game might simply be a concept that leads to a bigger and better version of itself once its flaws are revealed through actually being able to play in it. The act of creating the space will often reveal new ideas that the original written or 2d concept didn't.

FSS Planet: I know hours are tough for programmers and game making employees as a whole, but can you tell us what kind of difficulties or large problems that a programmer might encounter when making a video game?

Tyler Thompson: Changing your design is a necessary and important part of creating a great game. You have to try things out to know if they are going to work. These changes often violate assumptions that you might have made in your code, which means that you have to rewrite some things several times before a project is finished. Sometimes you have to throw out something that is very elegant and inventive from a coding standpoint because the game design determines that it is no longer needed. While this can be frustrating, you have to always think of what is best for the game and the play experience.

FSS Planet: Game design is tough, ‘nuff said, either it’s well balanced and flows or it’s thrown together all mish-mash. Sometimes life gets hectic, how about giving us a hint of the daily life of a designer?

Tyler Thompson: We are all game designers in many ways. In fact, one of the practical reasons we all play games so that we can make better games. In terms of creating our own game, we mostly design it while making it. As an example, if I've got to get a new skill into the game, someone needs to figure out how it works. The best way for me to do this is by helping design what the skill does by both discussing and playing the game with the proposed skills in the build. It is a back and forth between designer and programmer with both influencing the design during the process.

Bill Roper: First and foremost, you really have to have a love of digging into the mechanics of a game and analyzing what makes it tick. This is more than coming up with cool item names or thinking of how the monsters should act or even laying out a level that looks nice. You have to get some grounding in what makes people tick, as well. The best games are ones that you start playing and suddenly, five hours has gone by because you were just blissfully lost in the fun of it all. That doesn’t happen by accident. It takes an understanding of how to dole out rewards and what motivates people to take that next step, for example.

We do a lot of talking about what should go into our game, and usually put together a 1-2 page “white paper” on a new idea. More importantly, we prototype the idea as soon as possible so that we can experience it in the context of the game and see if it feels fun. We like to try things out, keep them in if they feel good and toss them if they don’t. This means you spend a lot of your time working with everyone on the team to get your idea represented well if you are plugging it into the game, or by creating a physical prototype yourself. It is not uncommon to see pieces of other board games, dice, miniatures and so on lying around as we talk through ideas.

FSS Planet: This is a tough job too, you can't recycle sounds without people noticing, and it’s quite a creative job! What kind of materials have you used in previous or current jobs to get certain sound effects? I hear smushing food and using every day objects is a great way.

Bill Roper: Right now, I am handling the sounds for the game, which is a great deal of fun for me since that is how I got started in the industry! Creating sounds is a challenging process that requires the sound designer to be part scientist, part artist and part adventurer. You have to be able to look at something in the game, work with the intentions of the artist and designers and then create a sound that represents the spirit of the piece. You also have to make sure that if the sound represents a play mechanic that it will be clear to the player what is happening. You also have to make sure you think about how often the sound will be heard to determine how many variations you may need so it doesn’t become overly repetitive. Then there’s working with the programmatic guidelines imposed by the programmers. Just like artists, sound designers are always trying to push the envelope of what the engine can do.

From the standpoint of creating new sounds, this is where being an adventurer comes into play. It is absolutely true that the sound designer will bring in piles of fruits, vegetables, random weapons and a LOT of plastic sheeting into the studio to get those unique and extra juicy sounds. I’ve hacked into all sorts of melons with various medieval weapons, twisted celery inside of a shammy cloth for a nice organic crunchy sound, dropped various objects onto a wide assortment of materials for thuds, clanks and crashes, and going into the field to capture new sounds can be a blast, as well. Any and all sounds can be a part of the sound designer’s palette, just like various colors and textures are there for the artists. Almost every effect you hear in a game is a mixture of numerous sounds, so the more source materials you have to play with, the better.

FSS Planet: Since the E3 is now over and you’ve revealed an RPG game with hi-tech and demon looking people (looking post-apocalypse like), can you fill us in on any details of timeline on how your project is going? Has the storyline gotten its basic writing done, or any dialogue started, or any quests in construction?

Tyler Thompson: Things are coming along, but it is still early in the overall development of the game. We are still early in our graphics pipeline development, and there are several interface experiments going on. This is the time in the project when all things are still possible, so we can do a lot of free-form designing and implementation. Obviously this changes when you get to the middle and end of the development process, but for now we have ideas and concepts flowing constantly.

Bill Roper: We’re not revealing a lot about the game yet because when we do start talking about it, we want people to really be able to see what it is we’re making. We still have a couple of questions to answer for ourselves in terms of the design, but the foundation for the game is well in place. The story is also laid out in the broad strokes and will undergo numerous changes and tweaks as the game grows. In regards to quests, we tend to do this later in the game’s design when we have a solid idea of how our game is playing, what we can do with the engine, and how our mechanics are shaping up.