I really like the notion behind the term, "AAA indie". To me AAA has always meant a certain level of art quality and feature sets (and not team size, although up until now that's gone along with it). And if "AAA indie" is a thing, I'm down.
Great conversation so far.
Jon/Hazard: I'm there with you. As an artist I'm still excited to be making art and am excited to be doing it with new, more efficient tools. But I just don't find myself excited for it for the same reasons as I was before and thats why the 'romance' of it is gone, for me. Brand spanking new technologies & techniques are now replaced with efficient processes.
Project Eternity isn't really a part of the "indie" scene, and inXile's recent stuff isn't really either. Eternity is Obsidian and that's a pretty established studio. InXile are also a fairly well established studio.
Both are independent studios, sure, but then so is Epic Games. The new 'indie scene' isn't really defined by these kinds of players.
I don't really want to argue the definition of what it means to be indie, but I have to disagree here. Both Obsidian and InXile chose to develop these risky projects outside of the traditional publisher-develper model. That alone could make them more 'indie' than the likes of thatgamecompany, whose projects were funded by Sony.
I don't feel that technicalities such as ownership of a studio, or publisher allegiance really defines the indie scene. I feel that indies are more defined by their approach to development, design philosophy and targeting niche audiences, than anything else.
In short; come on, you know what I was trying to say in my previous comment
I for one hope there isn't a great deal of excessive hype, so that I can acquire a console for a reasonable price around its launch.
Interesting, I kind of thought the opposite happens. Less hype means the devout fanboi's will sell both legs and a kidney to get their hands on one. The more hype, the more people are attracted. Average people are more likely to complain and help drive down prices?
Also the more the hype and more people interested, the company would probably be more inclined to drop the price making it up in volume? Less people interested might mean less sales so prices need to go up?
Once my new computer arrives I'm going to jump right into next gen modeling.
I'm excited for what next gen will bring. Native 1080p means increased clarity. Tessellation and displacement maps will add lots of details to models that otherwised looked mostly flat.
I'm also looking forward to using subsurface scattering.
I think people have just gotten so used to expecting improvements, where its not really all that amazing anymore(your phone has the processing power of the first moon mission). a lot of people have lost the ability to be impressed by things.
but, I personally am really excited for a lot of different tech.
IES light support
Tessellation that is effective and (hopefully) synced to some sort of displacement baker program.
ptex support for games,(read this before complaining)
realtime implementation of reflections and materials.
kismet 2 sounds great, very excited about that.
physically based rendering, remove the need for baking AO, diffuse, cavity maps? just have to worry about normals/details and some specular stuff? sure!
Hazardous (I'm not going to quote the whole comment, because it is so long), but - yes, yes! God, if we could automate some of the more tedious stuff, so we could just focus on making better art.
I don't get how people cannot be excited about more options and the chance to continue to push what we can do as artists (whether you are into realism or not -stylized work has also benefited from all of the rendering and performance improvements)? I mean, watching the new demos companies have been putting up, and seeing the constant improvement of the work people do in this community is amazing. It's so motivating to me. People just keep blowing my mind with what is possible.
I do understand people's fear of what budgets mean to team sizes and the seemingly constant cycle of layoffs and studio closures, but from everything I've heard (from people who have been around a lot longer than I have) and from what I have seen it seems like that's been going on forever.
I think we can automate too many things, but i'm sure too many people will lose their jobs (like with substance designer). Scanning real people is the best solution for a realistic look, although is less artistic but more technical. The good thing is that you don't need a huge team, and just a good tech guy doing retopos (the texturing process is also shortened or erased, retopo, uv and bake!).
Since the beginning, i always knew that games would be like the 3D we do for illustration, TV spots, or films. It's something quite obvious, and i'm expecting to see Subdiv models in games (there are tech demos since years!) + Realtime GI with caustics and all kind of effects we actually use in 3d Rendering.
The fear of people lays on the professional profile/level of artistry of the needed artists. For example, all those artists that were very good with low poly hand painted models has less oportunities of jobs nowadays, and that's a fact. On its days there was a clean up with all the next-gen thing of normal mapped models and bakes. All the projects will need more time, and we will see more companies fighting for the best artists (paying more, in order to steal talent from other companies).
But don't expect too much progress in graphics. PS4 and Xbox 720 will offer more of the same, but with more polygons & better shaders/textures/lighting. 4k TVs will arrive soon and as much, we will only have 1080p with ultra specs .
We'll still have the same old corridor shooters with a hand full of enemies, etc.
That's publisher cowardice, in large part. I'm sure a lot of game designers would love to take bigger risks with more innovative gameplay, but good luck getting funding for it.
I think it's also partially another symptom of our industry trying too hard to mimic linear-experience cinema rather than truly leveraging the unique interactive and dynamic nature of our medium. We've learned a lot of useful things from film and television production models, but there's also a lot of that we need to shed and push back against.
And honestly, I think it's happening as we speak. Look at early television and film, which in its infancy drew very heavily from theater. It took decades for people working in that different medium to really start pushing the edges out and begin to understand its full weaknesses and strengths. I think that discovery process is going to be even more complicated and longer for interactive mediums, simply because of the fundamental unpredictability of interactivity.
simples - everything shown so far has pushed things graphically a bit, not a massive jump but still quite nicely...its same old experience in new clothes
...what weve not seen is a bit of gameplay footage that makes you go.... wow... i couldnt experience anything like that befor... maybe a new game with amazing water physics or something that was a base system would ignite that romance and capture peoples imaginations
i just had a go on an oculus rift... thats exciting NG tech if you ask me.
I think Kinect2.0 room projection could be pretty cool. Having even fuzzy peripheral vision in a shooter or driving game could be neat. Lighting up your living room when a grenade goes off, or when its a stormy night having rain effects. Being able to move some simple HUD cluttering items out of the focal area (your TV) and onto some unused space on your wall. Seeing the glint of a sniper's scope high on your wall and swinging your focused viewport to see what it is, thats cool stuff that expands the game play.
I think there is still something to get excited about, something which triggers that "romance" which Adam speaks of.
Ignore the typical publisher consoles, lets look at whats going on behind the scenes.
Valve's Steambox for starters. Sure it might not be offering anything new in terms of graphical capability and techniques for artist...it opens the door to that and much more however.
On one hand you have the Steam Workshop which allows artist like us to create content for existing games and even profit from it. The "real' next gen should include real user created content, which if done right can have a massive cause and effect.
On the other hand you have the perks of a PC system, one that is open to both linux and windows OS. This comes with perks... such as increased forms of user input. For example, the Occulus Rift. It may help us think about how we design and create our art assets, as well as breath a bit more life into them.
I think if we can move away, as an industry, from the usual consoles (which do more to limit growth and innovation than encourage it), we can get a more developer friendly platform which can adapt with emerging technologies.
Interesting, I kind of thought the opposite happens. Less hype means the devout fanboi's will sell both legs and a kidney to get their hands on one. The more hype, the more people are attracted. Average people are more likely to complain and help drive down prices?
It's always the opposite here. If there is demand for it, then it's going to be a lot harder to find it stocked in a store, and they're going to be selling for more because people are literally lined up to buy it. It's not just devout fanboys willing to shell out for it when the hype is in full throttle, it's everyone. A hot new item being released around a holiday season never equates to lower prices, and there's more hoops to jump through if you want one.
If there's no hype on the other hand, I can pretty much walk into any store and walk out with a machine in my hand for whatever the normal retail value is.
I heard from a friend of mine who has been in the industry for some time that when the last transition between generation was happening, there were tons of job opportunities. With the current state of our industry and teams relying more and more on outsourcing, there are fewer job opportunities in the US and Canada (don't know about the rest of the world). So I think it's hard to get excited for the next gen as a developer if you don't see it growing or affecting you directly in a more positive way.
Also the fact that now everyone has games on their phones and tablets has made gaming very popular so it's no longer niche to be a gamer and I think that has taken a bit of the excitement as well.
Are there numbers showing less job opportunities despite games being more popular than ever? It seems like I see studios ramping up all over the place. Outsourcing can only handle so much, I know people like to use that as the boogeyman but you can't replace your entire art team with outsourcing.
I work across the street from Bioware Austin and I hear after the layoffs it has turned into a mixed EA studio developing and supporting multiple projects, I know the parking lot has started to fill back up to pre layoff levels.
I have felt the same way lately, I think when it comes to the next gen of consoles the improvements are really behind the scenes. Very great stuff indeed! But in all honesty I think the next big leap in games(something that will give us all that magic feeling again) will be when the rigging in games gets closer to what is currently in film. At least for us character artists that's going to dramatically change the process of creating character models. (talking about when realtime simulation can give us muscle systems and games finally get blend shape rigs and all that good stuff!)
The great thing is that film stuff is moving closer and closer to realtime so hopefully when the two meet in the middle and progress hand in hand we'll get that golden age feeling again. Unfortunately I don't believe that is this generation. I think we're in something akin to the PS2/xbox transition stage. Where things are only slightly better than what came in the previous generation.
And for you low poly guys, I don't think this is anything to fear, there will always be a special place in our hearts for low poly! :P Or even just moving into a stylized version of high rez games... imagine games that look like pixar films! oh the possibilities are endless. But we'll have to wait for PS5 and xbox 1440 or whatever they will call it.
I think we can automate too many things, but i'm sure too many people will lose their jobs (like with substance designer). Scanning real people is the best solution for a realistic look, although is less artistic but more technical. The good thing is that you don't need a huge team, and just a good tech guy doing retopos (the texturing process is also shortened or erased, retopo, uv and bake!).
completely disagree, you still need character artists, it's when you get lazy and have no standards that you would do something like this (if that), at work we have 3d scans, but it's only used as a base for the character artists, as a matter of fact WE STILL need character artists...
they still need to do the clothing and sculpt ALL of those details.
and as regarding to the topic of the thread:
You can't really judge something you haven't seen, what i get to see everyday blows my mind (it's jaded me a bit, i can't play current games). and it's only the beginning, as engine programmers get better and better and engines get more and more optimized and newer features come online...
Anyone who claims there will be less jobs for video game artists in the near future is retarded. Your job may change, but the industry is still growing, and your skills are still relevant and needed. There needs to be an artistic and technical eye on all assests through the creation process. Somethings may become more automated, but that energy and workforce is going to shifted to another aspect of design, or broadening the design.
I think people are expecting the graphical leap to come at the wrong time. Yes, there is more t-flops to play with, but artists need time to adjust to this. We shouldn't be expecting graphical leaps from the end of one console to another, rather, the start of one console's cycle to its end.
I think people are expecting the graphical leap to come at the wrong time. Yes, there is more t-flops to play with, but artists need time to adjust to this. We shouldn't be expecting graphical leaps from the end of one console to another, rather, the start of one console's cycle to its end.
At least historically, that's what I've seen IMO.
Yup, the start of a console generation is like turning the settings and tech from last gen to max, new tech will happen when thousands of people are working on the hardware.
I think Kinect2.0 room projection could be pretty cool. Having even fuzzy peripheral vision in a shooter or driving game could be neat. Lighting up your living room when a grenade goes off, or when its a stormy night having rain effects. Being able to move some simple HUD cluttering items out of the focal area (your TV) and onto some unused space on your wall. Seeing the glint of a sniper's scope high on your wall and swinging your focused viewport to see what it is, thats cool stuff that expands the game play.
'cept that wouldn't be Kinect, as Kinect sits in front of you. For this to work you'd need a projector mounted on your ceiling - bit too expensive for too little for my liking
completely disagree, you still need character artists, it's when you get lazy and have no standards that you would do something like this (if that), at work we have 3d scans, but it's only used as a base for the character artists, as a matter of fact WE STILL need character artists...
err, but what kind of scanners? cheap scanners?
As far as i know, the ones used in production saves you the process of sculpting folds, texturing, etc. It's just retopo, and bake... like we do with substance designer. The needed worker do not need to have that good eye for proportions, and only a good tech knowledge is more than enough (topology, uv-mapping, etc).
If they want to save money and time, they will need to use professional scanners, and they don't need to have those standards you commented . In one day, you can have dozens of scans...
I work at a scanning company, and a top end head scan will still need to be processed by an artist. However the you are cutting about 60-70% of the sculpting time, and maybe 50% of the texturing time. You would still need to topo, unwrap, texture, model hair, whatever. This means that one or two artists could go from scan to in game head in a day or two, but you would still definitely need a good eye for proportions, texturing and so forth. (If you want a great result, and if you shelled out for a scanner, you probably do.)
I'm sure you all watched Halo 4 Spartan ops, all their models are scanned. Imo the talent required for a "trace" or retopo, is less than the required by an artist doing the model from scratch. Sure, we need an "artist" doing the retopo. We can build a production model (retopo) in less than one week, and we will have all the character mapped and textured. It's like to kill 4 birds with one stone. So we must take into consideration that a standard production model done by a human, and not a machine, takes more than a month depending of quality.
BTW, several small studios are already using IPI mocap studio without needing to invest in a very expensive mocap system. And you don't need to be an animator (specialist) to do a mocap clean, just a good "operator".
The same is happening with character artists doing realistic humans.
I'm sure you all watched Halo 4 Spartan ops, all their models are scanned. Imo the talent required for a "trace" or retopo, is less than the required by an artist doing the model from scratch. Sure, we need an "artist" doing the retopo. We can build a production model (retopo) in less than one week, and we will have all the character mapped and textured. It's like to kill 4 birds with one stone. So we must take into consideration that a standard production model done by a human, and not a machine, takes more than a month depending of quality.
BTW, several small studios are already using IPI mocap studio without needing to invest in a very expensive mocap system. And you don't need to be an animator (specialist) to do a mocap clean, just a good "operator".
The same is happening with character artists doing realistic humans.
I think I'm fine with this, if you want a real human, use a real human. There will always be a need for stylized characters and monsters/aliens. So if anything the character artists will find themselves doing a different kind of work. That's all.
I think I'm fine with this, if you want a real human, use a real human. There will always be a need for stylized characters and monsters/aliens. So if anything the character artists will find themselves doing a different kind of work. That's all.
This sums it up for me. Unless you want to hire a costume designer, prop people or a team of set builders, 3d scanning in the games industry is going end up being something like* 80% realistic human faces, 5% vehicles, and 15% location scanning (which is basically just reference for real world locals, and would require a larger team.) And that's more or less it.
Imo the talent required for a "trace" or retopo, is less than the required by an artist doing the model from scratch. Sure, we need an "artist" doing the retopo.
...
The same is happening with character artists doing realistic humans.
Don't understimate the talent required to get a good final product from a scan. Characters designs change, faces change, and while the scan is a start, even when it's processed into a game ready head, that will likely be iterated on over development. I'm an environment artist who frequently has to do character stuff with scans and I know first hand the difference between the work I do that gets handed off to vfx teams, and the work that a skilled character artist could do for game. Regardless, please dont "quote" my job title.
edit: greyed that out, I'm just being an ass, I know what you mean!
I don't think the romance is dead by anymeans, rather the goalposts have moved.
On the artistic side of things, I don't see a huge change in the way assets are generated, we'll see the obvious: Higher Polycounts, Larger Textures, Displacement, Better cloth sim and physics etc
One of the things i'm quite excited by is, I believe we'll start to see the decline of the standard Spec maps and move towards more Physical based lighting systems and the associated maps(albedo, roughness, substance, AO, Normal) Some current gen games have already made this leap.
I also hope to see a greater support for indie devs on the online stores, whilst PSN and XBL had the foundations for this, this time round its something they really should push.
This is a good summary for me.
The romance is still kinda there, but goalposts have definitely moved. Also the longer people have been in the games industry and the more cycles they may have been through, you get kinda blas
Replies
Great conversation so far.
Jon/Hazard: I'm there with you. As an artist I'm still excited to be making art and am excited to be doing it with new, more efficient tools. But I just don't find myself excited for it for the same reasons as I was before and thats why the 'romance' of it is gone, for me. Brand spanking new technologies & techniques are now replaced with efficient processes.
I don't really want to argue the definition of what it means to be indie, but I have to disagree here. Both Obsidian and InXile chose to develop these risky projects outside of the traditional publisher-develper model. That alone could make them more 'indie' than the likes of thatgamecompany, whose projects were funded by Sony.
I don't feel that technicalities such as ownership of a studio, or publisher allegiance really defines the indie scene. I feel that indies are more defined by their approach to development, design philosophy and targeting niche audiences, than anything else.
In short; come on, you know what I was trying to say in my previous comment
When has that ever happened aha?
Seems alot of interesting points being thrown around here.
Came since the killzone thread seems to shed light on the new pipeline for ps4 assets
Edit linkage;
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1825941&postcount=1
As said 20-21 mins in shows the process and materials for assets. Seems pretty straight forward tbh ;'D
Also the more the hype and more people interested, the company would probably be more inclined to drop the price making it up in volume? Less people interested might mean less sales so prices need to go up?
I'm excited for what next gen will bring. Native 1080p means increased clarity. Tessellation and displacement maps will add lots of details to models that otherwised looked mostly flat.
I'm also looking forward to using subsurface scattering.
but, I personally am really excited for a lot of different tech.
IES light support
Tessellation that is effective and (hopefully) synced to some sort of displacement baker program.
ptex support for games,(read this before complaining)
realtime implementation of reflections and materials.
kismet 2 sounds great, very excited about that.
physically based rendering, remove the need for baking AO, diffuse, cavity maps? just have to worry about normals/details and some specular stuff? sure!
I don't get how people cannot be excited about more options and the chance to continue to push what we can do as artists (whether you are into realism or not -stylized work has also benefited from all of the rendering and performance improvements)? I mean, watching the new demos companies have been putting up, and seeing the constant improvement of the work people do in this community is amazing. It's so motivating to me. People just keep blowing my mind with what is possible.
I do understand people's fear of what budgets mean to team sizes and the seemingly constant cycle of layoffs and studio closures, but from everything I've heard (from people who have been around a lot longer than I have) and from what I have seen it seems like that's been going on forever.
Since the beginning, i always knew that games would be like the 3D we do for illustration, TV spots, or films. It's something quite obvious, and i'm expecting to see Subdiv models in games (there are tech demos since years!) + Realtime GI with caustics and all kind of effects we actually use in 3d Rendering.
The fear of people lays on the professional profile/level of artistry of the needed artists. For example, all those artists that were very good with low poly hand painted models has less oportunities of jobs nowadays, and that's a fact. On its days there was a clean up with all the next-gen thing of normal mapped models and bakes. All the projects will need more time, and we will see more companies fighting for the best artists (paying more, in order to steal talent from other companies).
But don't expect too much progress in graphics. PS4 and Xbox 720 will offer more of the same, but with more polygons & better shaders/textures/lighting. 4k TVs will arrive soon and as much, we will only have 1080p with ultra specs
Go to cgtalk, or evermotion
Actually it's been pretty easy to find work - I guess less people doing it means more job opportunities.
That's publisher cowardice, in large part. I'm sure a lot of game designers would love to take bigger risks with more innovative gameplay, but good luck getting funding for it.
I think it's also partially another symptom of our industry trying too hard to mimic linear-experience cinema rather than truly leveraging the unique interactive and dynamic nature of our medium. We've learned a lot of useful things from film and television production models, but there's also a lot of that we need to shed and push back against.
And honestly, I think it's happening as we speak. Look at early television and film, which in its infancy drew very heavily from theater. It took decades for people working in that different medium to really start pushing the edges out and begin to understand its full weaknesses and strengths. I think that discovery process is going to be even more complicated and longer for interactive mediums, simply because of the fundamental unpredictability of interactivity.
...what weve not seen is a bit of gameplay footage that makes you go.... wow... i couldnt experience anything like that befor... maybe a new game with amazing water physics or something that was a base system would ignite that romance and capture peoples imaginations
i just had a go on an oculus rift... thats exciting NG tech if you ask me.
Ignore the typical publisher consoles, lets look at whats going on behind the scenes.
Valve's Steambox for starters. Sure it might not be offering anything new in terms of graphical capability and techniques for artist...it opens the door to that and much more however.
On one hand you have the Steam Workshop which allows artist like us to create content for existing games and even profit from it. The "real' next gen should include real user created content, which if done right can have a massive cause and effect.
On the other hand you have the perks of a PC system, one that is open to both linux and windows OS. This comes with perks... such as increased forms of user input. For example, the Occulus Rift. It may help us think about how we design and create our art assets, as well as breath a bit more life into them.
I think if we can move away, as an industry, from the usual consoles (which do more to limit growth and innovation than encourage it), we can get a more developer friendly platform which can adapt with emerging technologies.
Just something to consider.
It's always the opposite here. If there is demand for it, then it's going to be a lot harder to find it stocked in a store, and they're going to be selling for more because people are literally lined up to buy it. It's not just devout fanboys willing to shell out for it when the hype is in full throttle, it's everyone. A hot new item being released around a holiday season never equates to lower prices, and there's more hoops to jump through if you want one.
If there's no hype on the other hand, I can pretty much walk into any store and walk out with a machine in my hand for whatever the normal retail value is.
Also the fact that now everyone has games on their phones and tablets has made gaming very popular so it's no longer niche to be a gamer and I think that has taken a bit of the excitement as well.
I work across the street from Bioware Austin and I hear after the layoffs it has turned into a mixed EA studio developing and supporting multiple projects, I know the parking lot has started to fill back up to pre layoff levels.
The great thing is that film stuff is moving closer and closer to realtime so hopefully when the two meet in the middle and progress hand in hand we'll get that golden age feeling again. Unfortunately I don't believe that is this generation. I think we're in something akin to the PS2/xbox transition stage. Where things are only slightly better than what came in the previous generation.
And for you low poly guys, I don't think this is anything to fear, there will always be a special place in our hearts for low poly! :P Or even just moving into a stylized version of high rez games... imagine games that look like pixar films! oh the possibilities are endless. But we'll have to wait for PS5 and xbox 1440 or whatever they will call it.
completely disagree, you still need character artists, it's when you get lazy and have no standards that you would do something like this (if that), at work we have 3d scans, but it's only used as a base for the character artists, as a matter of fact WE STILL need character artists...
they still need to do the clothing and sculpt ALL of those details.
and as regarding to the topic of the thread:
You can't really judge something you haven't seen, what i get to see everyday blows my mind (it's jaded me a bit, i can't play current games). and it's only the beginning, as engine programmers get better and better and engines get more and more optimized and newer features come online...
it's going to be good. I CAN'T WAIT TILL E3!!!
At least historically, that's what I've seen IMO.
Yup, the start of a console generation is like turning the settings and tech from last gen to max, new tech will happen when thousands of people are working on the hardware.
'cept that wouldn't be Kinect, as Kinect sits in front of you. For this to work you'd need a projector mounted on your ceiling - bit too expensive for too little for my liking
err, but what kind of scanners? cheap scanners?
As far as i know, the ones used in production saves you the process of sculpting folds, texturing, etc. It's just retopo, and bake... like we do with substance designer. The needed worker do not need to have that good eye for proportions, and only a good tech knowledge is more than enough (topology, uv-mapping, etc).
If they want to save money and time, they will need to use professional scanners, and they don't need to have those standards you commented
http://ir-ltd.net/
This saves A LOT of time and money.
BTW, several small studios are already using IPI mocap studio without needing to invest in a very expensive mocap system. And you don't need to be an animator (specialist) to do a mocap clean, just a good "operator".
The same is happening with character artists doing realistic humans.
I think I'm fine with this, if you want a real human, use a real human. There will always be a need for stylized characters and monsters/aliens. So if anything the character artists will find themselves doing a different kind of work. That's all.
This sums it up for me. Unless you want to hire a costume designer, prop people or a team of set builders, 3d scanning in the games industry is going end up being something like* 80% realistic human faces, 5% vehicles, and 15% location scanning (which is basically just reference for real world locals, and would require a larger team.) And that's more or less it.
Don't understimate the talent required to get a good final product from a scan. Characters designs change, faces change, and while the scan is a start, even when it's processed into a game ready head, that will likely be iterated on over development. I'm an environment artist who frequently has to do character stuff with scans and I know first hand the difference between the work I do that gets handed off to vfx teams, and the work that a skilled character artist could do for game. Regardless, please dont "quote" my job title.
edit: greyed that out, I'm just being an ass, I know what you mean!
This is a good summary for me.
The romance is still kinda there, but goalposts have definitely moved. Also the longer people have been in the games industry and the more cycles they may have been through, you get kinda blas