Jimquisition on game studios having "their artists look at real (and traumatic) violent imagery"

ZacD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffNaGxlFDQQ

Today's Jimquisition talks about how game studios have their artists look at real (and traumatic) violent imagery for no real good reason."

Figured some artists here might have some strong opinions on the topic, this seems to be an important topic that rarely get talked about. 

poopipe

Many years ago I used to make crime and accident reconstruction/visualisations for courtroom use - the content we produced wasn't graphic but the photos we'd get of the scenes weren't always censored and depending on the subject matter it could be pretty gruelling to go through them.
Even when the images were censored, just knowing you're analysing something like a murder or domestic abuse scene is more than a little uncomfortable.

Long term I don't think it's had a negative effect on me - if anything it made me take the subject matter a lot more seriously than I did before

MikeF

If this is something mandated by the studio then of course its a problem (i've not heard of this until seeing this so it must be a thing, and thats fucked), but if the individual is voluntarily looking at horrible things to ensure accuracy then i think they need to step back a bit.

In one of his examples he mentions having to animate a realistic hanging, if someone told me to watch videos of people hanging there's no way i'd find that acceptable, but if i knew this was the end goal then i'd do my best to simulate the physics of it by looking at reference of things attached to ropes being dropped and fill in the rest.

I've created a few gory effects over the years for games but i never once looked at reference of the real thing and i don't think any of the work suffered because of that. Separation between real violence and cool/satisfying FX is important because we're making games, its supposed to be entertaining not horrifying and scarring, there's enough of that garbage in the real world.

I did once have to animate afterbirth for a medical simulation that required viewing lots of accurate reference, not exactly traumatizing but i certainly wont forget it 

oglu

Working on some game titles is no fun. A long time ago i had to model some Zombies and i refused to open the ref image folder of my Lead and told them i find my own images. He was fine with that. 

Here an Article about MK. 
https://www.google.com/amp/s/kotaku.com/id-have-these-extremely-graphic-dreams-what-its-like-t-1834611691/amp

Zi0

So people are getting PTSD and other traumas because they have to watch people die and look dead bodies as reference, sounds abusive to me.

zachagreg

I would say that a lot of this depends on whether or not is was mandated as MikeF has said. Forcing anyone to watch reference of people hanging or violence is never okay. There are some that will voluntarily seek it out as they have interest on an artistic or scientific level. However, these people are not your everyday individuals. Movies hire specialists and doctors, and consultants to work through with chosen staff and prop artists to simulate horror effects. I would hope the same goes for VFX but because they do not fall under the same rules I doubt it.

This isn't to say that these people doing this are going to be your average staff. These people are sourced for their specialties and interests in the genre. If your game has this level of body horror as a visual then the same should apply. There should also be well documented and practiced procedures in place do to stress, visuals, or just being involved to much in that medium. Procedure should include mental and physical assistance in the form of doctors and therapists due to the nature of what is being produced.

In the same vein if I needed to animate a "realistic hanging" I don't need to go to live leaks and looks up gruesome shit. I can watch any movie with a hanging scene. If it looks good enough on film then it can be applied to games. That can at least allow one to have the suspension of disbelief in that it is a movie they are watching and not someone dying. Even with that procedures should be in place and it should not be treated as if it is whole-heartedly normal. If I was at work and someone was watching a video of a hanging, that would be an immediate conversation with HR for me. If your boss is asking you to watch legit videos like that there is something wrong, now if there was an area of the office or studio which was designated as the "horror/violence" area for research or whatever that is a different story. Facilities can do this stuff for classified or sensitive projects they can do the same to respect their employees mental health and sanity.

Alex_J

It's both selfish and dumb.

You are making a product that is glorifying violence. I don't care what message you think the thing is carrying - it's a game with violence and people play it for cathartic reasons. Nobody plays COD to understand the horrors of war. It's a fantasy and it centers around violence.

So if you are glorifying violence - and I don't care if you are the director or the vertex pusher - don't be a little bitch about viewing the real thing from a safe distance and rendered safely on your computer screen. If it makes you uncomfortable, maybe that's a sign of something important?

Too much apathy and then crying about the outcome.

poopipe

I don't agree. Not everyone is mentally equipped to deal with that sort of stuff and while I'm often the first to say  'deal with it, you're getting paid' there are limits and companies need to respect the mental health of their employees - there's certainly legislation on this side of the Atlantic that'd make it very uncomfortable for a business that tried to force employees to watch hangings. 

However.. 

I don't believe for a minute that people are being forced to look at this sort of stuff on pain of dismissal and suspect that Jim is peddling a load of sensationalist bullshit so he can get moar views. 

Alex_J

i didn't mean that people should be viewing this stuff and sucking it up. I mean that if you are uncomfortable with it yet want to be complicit in the creation of the product, shame for apathy and/or hypocrisy. Having the cake and eating it too sort of situation in my mind. Person wants the studio job, the studio pay, the studio prestige, but also doesn't want exposure to uncomfortable violence while at same time participating in team that is creating violence glorifying projects.

I didn't even watch jim this time but read about this on some site awhile back. jim did make a video awhile back about how he tried to make positive videos but they don't get the views his negative ones get, so, can't really blame him. He works for the audience.

poopipe

Yeah,  there's certainly an element of that - you shouldn't go for a job at a studio making mortal kombat if you have an issue with gore.

but... there's likely to be people who've been at a studio for years making other games prior to getting the MK(or whatever) contract who are left with a choice between leaving the studio and team they (presumably) love or dealing with the nasty shit making such a title requires. 

Blaizer

If we need to model corpses for a game, we need to search/look for references. That's logical, and i'm fine with it but i must say i don't like it. I have some friends who love to work with horror/gore assets, and others with weapons and just weapons. The job must be done and someone must do it. It's a job.

You are not working in the meat industry, nor as a medic, so you will have your hands pretty clean. If you don't like the project, you can move on, and work in another studio in a different project. that's all.

Take as example upcomming games such as Scorn. Gore, death, skulls, guts, guts, and more blood, all shown in a very "organic" giger art. You must love that kind of things if you want to be in that project. Or Metro Exodus, the game have gore assets that makes more credible certain situations (the Cannibal Bunker mission).

Not all people have the guts to work as a surgeon medic for example, or worse, opening corpses in the hospital morgue. "Real things you don't like won't dissapear if you close your eyes".

If you don't like gore, you can always play my little pony .

The question for me would be: are you an urban scared little girl or not? could you cook a chicken killed by you?. Too much people is customed to live in big cities and in certain sense they are like disconnected from reality. Other people in the country side provides them all the food, and meat is just one of them. The meat you eat at your home, or at the burger king, has a "horror story" behind it. We need to deal with it.

zachagreg

There are a lot of people who are fine with it. And more power towards those people. Most of the art that is non-3d that I enjoy is horror related and weird. It's cool stuff that you don't see everyday in my opinion. There is a marginal difference though to people that sign up for it and want to make it and if someone is being held on that by their job.

Yes going into Netherrealm, probably don't apply if you don't like MK levels of gore and violence. Someone would be living in a fantasy world if they thought they never would have to deal with it could skirt around it. Same thing with Gears of War or what have you. The environments the players the action all have gore, violence and cool alien stuff.

A lot of what that video is talking about is sensationalist and while I do have empathy for the employee that couldn't sleep there is a lot of unanswered stuff to that. Did they voice concerns, were they taken off another project to work on MK? Idk if Netherrealm maintains multiple contracts in house or anything. I agree with the sentiment of having your cake and eating it too. Don't get involved with projects you don't like, the industry isn't just hiring willy nilly. If something like that is affecting your sanity and nothing is being done about start looking for another company to work at that doesn't do that level of intense violence.

I don't believe necessarily that having your hands clean protects you from having a psychological or emotional reaction and a mental health effect over time from seeing horrible things. Just look at the Facebook moderator employees that continuously had multiple stories a year ago. They were in forced to watch horrific content posted to Facebook to moderate it. Obviously these things have an effect on people regardless of background. Killing an animal for food is a much different thing than watching humans be killed. There is also the matter of how much and how often this is occurring. Working in a slaughterhouse is rough, can't deny that. Killing an animal and skinning them for food and clothes is rough. Doing it every single day is different. Seeing it happen every single day to humans is much different or anything else that would describes as senseless violence. We as humans have a natural instinct to not like the concept of murder. I just don't believe those are fair comparisons.  Any company enforcing that is in the wrong in my opinion. Sign up all you want that's fine but know what you're signing up for.

defragger

Never had a problem with gore in movies or games, but it's a whole different thing when you see pictures or videos and know that stuff is real and surrounded by human tragedy. It's not so much the brutality as the tragedy that gets you. I mean, even first responders are affected.

I choose to make games and not look at pictures of human tragedy for reference. I'd find another project to work on.

almighty_gir

Had this discussion a couple of months ago with someone at work, where i said artists shouldn't be subjected to stuff like this, and... ultimately he swayed me with his (in my opinion correct) argument:

Nobody forces artists to look at this stuff. Most times you can have a fairly good idea of what you're getting into if/when you apply to a studio based on their past titles.

You want to work on Mortal Kombat? Look at the history of those games and imagine what you'll need to look at for reference. The same goes with zombie shooters and other such stuff.

It is our responsibility as artists to decide where the line is for ourselves, and if we're not comfortable viewing the reference, we should probably find somewhere else to work.