Digital Folio

Big studio vs Small studio

While looking up Infinity Ward as an example of a large studio to contrast with smaller independent studios I found an interview with Robert Bowling, Infinity Ward's community manager. He provides an interesting insight into how the studio behind the highest grossing game of all time developed Modern Warfare 2.

Back when developing Modern Warfare 2 Infinity Ward was a relatively small when say compared to DICE, the developer company behind Battlefield Bad Company who have approximately 300 employees.
Infinity Ward had a fairly limited time-frame to develop Modern Warfare 2, but apparently they used that to their advantage as a tool to drive their development. They also looked at the importance of all aspects of the development, spending a good portion of their budget on audio, hiring Hans Zimmer to provide the score.
Infinity Ward had the advantage of having such a big budget behind them. They could do something that no independent game could compete with. Despite the limited time-frame in which to work they managed to turn that into an asset as well.

The interview is short but can be found here:
http://www.develop-online.net/features/669/Interview-Infinity-Ward

Topology

When researching topology I found it originally referred to a branch of mathematics that concerned itself with spatial properties that would be subject to distortion or motion. This helped make it quite clear that facial topology is all about looking at the deformation and movement of a face.
Topology in the animating sense is all about following the actual anatomy of a face, the facial structure and muscles to see how a face would realistically distort and move.

This picture here for example shows how topology works with the muscles in a face to show how that face would move realistically.

Topology seems to be applicable to both 2D faces and 3D. However on 2D images topology is only put on there for reference for 3D modelling.

This face has lines showing the topology of the polygons used. It shows how the polygons should distort in order to create a realistic looking opening and closing mouth.
Topological lines seem to be focused around circling the eyes and mouth. This makes sense as these areas in the face have the most movement and would require more attention in how they would move in a 3D polygonal model.

Big studio vs Small studio

I've mentioned before on my blog the differences between big budget titles and small studio developments.

I spoke about how with smaller studios there is less of an obligation to provide money to stockholders thus giving the independant game developer the chance to break genre boundries and be more experimental.

Looking at Mojang Specifications (the small developer of Minecraft) first. It began with just the head developer known as Notch (Markus Persson) creating a game in Java called Minecraft. During its alpha-stage it was available to download and play for a small fee. It became so popular that Notch was able to hire 5 additional coders and form his own Company (Mojang Specifications) to focus on the development of the game.
This is quite an unusual overall development strutcture or "pipeline". First off the game was the product of a single coder working alone. The alpha being released online available for download is a very unusual step, but it raised awareness for the game and gave the creator enough money to funnel back into the game to actually create a game studio around it.

Here is an example of Minecraft

In a similar vein there is an independant game courtesy of two brothers called Dwarf Fortress. This game was designed by Toady One (Tarn Adams) and his brother ThreeToe (Zach Adams). Toady One is the sole coder of the rogue-like Dwarf Fortress and similarly to Minecraft this game was released during its Alpha stage of development after 4 years. It is still being worked on today by Toady One alone. The game was released for free and people who download it only have to make a donation to the development if they feel like it. Like Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress is still having updates released for it periodically by Toady One available to all those who are playing it.

 In Dwarf Fortress the simple ascii graphics hide a deviously deep gameplay experience

Both of these games have produced a significant income for both game designers. Largely due to the non-conventional means by way that the game is distributed.
One example of such is that one weekend the servers for Minecraft went down. This resulted in the game being available to download for free. Notch encouraged people to do this to try it out. The downloaded version of the game during this period suffered from a couple of bugs, namely sound issues. The number of downloads for the game jumped during the weekend when it was free. However this didn't mean that actual sales of the game when it cost money went down. After the free weekend Minecraft saw a boom in sales, namely from people who downloaded the game when it was free and were so impressed they bought the proper downloaded version when the servers came back up.

The fact that both of these games are located on the internet exclusively and are created by small teams also has an effect on the developer/consumer relationship. Both Notch and Toady One are easily contacted. Both have taken fan ideas and concepts into account when creating their games. This is a level of interaction that generally isnt seen with the bigger studios. Because of the smaller teams behind these games they have the time to check fan input and can change/add to their games accordingly. Although this is due in part to both of these games still being in beta-stage testing. Large companies also hold beta-tests but for the most part these are small affairs with randomly chosen participants. With Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress anyone who is playing them is a beta tester and such anyone's input is important.

With big studios consumer input is relegated to open beta tests, which aren't generally the norm. Instead big companies publish limited demos or hold massive marketing campaigns usually in relation with a website. These methods can work, but they are one-sided. There isn't a dialogue with the consumer, just a one-sided campaign to raise the consumers awareness about the product.

Animation Principles 3

Looking at good examples and bad examples of the 12 principles of animation.

8.Secondary action: The result of an action causing a second action


Good example.

In Luxo Jr the Child lamp is hopping along the tabletop which is the Primary Action. The Secondary Action is the power cord rippling along to the lamp's motion.

9. Exaggeration. Distorting an object or motion to convey an idea.

Good example.

Here the Child lamp is stamping on a ball squashing it to an exaggerated degree. This shows how the lamp is playing to roughly with the ball and sure enough within seconds the ball gets a puncture.

10. Appeal. Creating something that the audience will want to follow.

  When Pixar created Luxo Jr. They worked hard on the appeal of the characters. The Child lamp is actually modelled on the playtime of one of the animator's children. The end result being that the lamp actually does have a child like quality that is very charismatic to watch. Especially as it is juxtaposed by coming from an inanimate object. Another thing they did was ensure that the bulbs in the two lamps were the same size, despite the lamps themselves being different sizes. This was to emulate that in a child they have larger appearing eyes because their eyes are infact the same size as they will be when they are adults. This leads to the image of being "cute" because of having huge eyes.

11. Personality. The sum of all previous principles. The idea behind each one is to bring a personality to the character animation.

       Luxo Jr. Pixar Studios (1986)

Animation Principles 2

Looking at both good and bad examples of the 12 principles of animation

4. Staging - Presenting an idea so that it is clear to the audience.

Good Example.

In Pixar's short: Luxo Jr. the staging of this scene means the audience follows the ball along with the Father lamp.


 Bad Example.

In CAD: The Animated Series the main character's gaming session is interrupted by a phone call from work. However there is no phone in shot in the character has to reach off-camera to pick up the phone. The lack of staging here means that the conflict regarding the phone ringing whilst the character tries to play video games has no drama to it.


5. Follow through and over-lapping action. This is when one action seamlessly flows into a following action.

Good Example.

In Luxo Jr the Father lamp shifts backwards to avoid being hit by the Child lamp. After this action he watches the Child lamp move into shot and run after the ball.

Bad Example.

In CAD: The animated series the main character imagines he is being chased. Whilst running he stops entirely to grab a piece of chicken to throw backwards at his imaginary assailant. Then he continues to run. The lack of follow through here makes the whole scene stilted and makes it lack any sense of urgency.

6. Slow In and Slow Out. The spacing of inbetween frames to create a sense of movement that has nuance to it.


Example

In the well established ball bounce animation the placement of the inbetween frames gives the ball a sense of weight and the animation some gravity. As the ball moves slower the frames bunch up closer, whereas when the ball falls it speeds up so the frames space it out further and further.

7. Arcs. The best expression of dynamic movement when animating is through the use of an arc as that is the most efficient course of travel from one point to another in nature.

Good Example

 In Luxo Jr. When the Father lamp hits the ball the lamp's "head" goes up in an arc. It feels natural and gives a real sense of life to the inanimate lamp.