I forgot all about blogging for a whole week and now I've got to catch up. Ha ha! Hilarious. Also forgot, mostly, to work while I was gone, but I did have a few ideas that I'll blog about elsewhere.
Tuesday the 5th
Free day!
Wednesday the 6th
Sick day! I tried to go to the Paul Tobin world builder seminar but decided that getting up every half hour to vomit, plus already coming in late due to an unfortunate incident on the outer link and my pants, was going to be too disruptive for everybody so I went home. Too bad, because it was shaping up to be really good. Concept art, as Paul defines it, isn't just painting (that swishy style that looks great but I'll never bother trying to learn) but problem solving and World Building. Everything gets discussed: the art, philosophy, economics, history, religion, and culture of the places and characters in the story. Each thing can, and does, effect the design of the props, environments, and people of the story you're populating. It's fabulous! I heart problem solving, I nearly cried when he said it. I'm encouraged to try out for those jobs if they come up.
Thursday the 7th
First day of seminars.
Aurelie is from Ubisoft in Montreal and has also worked in France. She was very excited to get to explore Hobbiton and other LOTR sets around the north island. Lol. NZ is going to be dining out of those movies for another 30 years for sure. She delivered a good keynote and was nice to chat with one to one, as well. I missed the opportunity to talk with her again at the after party, so I'll follow up via email.
Turning a story idea into a story product: This speaker made a visual novel in conjunction with a Thai artist that tells a "weird west" story set in colonial NZ. Great idea! The interactive narrative has clear "choices and consequences" for the viewer. His philosophy is "if you're good at something, you must be paid." Yes! He also said that your product should be priced to the local minimum wage and no more than 1 hour of hard work. In Thailand, that's 50 baht and NZ that's $15. This also makes sense.
Lots of these seminars had titles that did not mean what I thought they meant. The jargon in the gaming world caught me out a few times, like during the Broken Toys talk. The speaker had a great twitter handle, Tobacco Blonde, but "toys" are some sort of mechanic in a game. I was lost and didn't hear anything that I was interested in enough to take notes on. If I apply for jobs in the gaming industry, there will be a steep learning curve.
I got to chat one on one with Paul Tobin, the facilitator of the concept art workshop that I had to leave early yesterday. Very nice man. He said that most people advance one level too far in their careers and the added responsibility takes them away from what they really wanted to do and makes them unhappy. "Fail fast, fail often, learn fast! Don't sit on ideas, get them out quickly or let them go."
This talk, totally worth it, had me coming into Getting Hit by a Bus late. The gist was that getting how the game works and looks out and onto documents ASAP and making it shareable is vital so that if you or another member of the team are incapacitated, work can continue. The pacing progression diagram is a useful tool for seeing how the ebbs and flows of the game work. There has to be a balance. This is relevant for story pacing in general.
At afternoon tea, Kevin from Weta digital said "golden handcuffs" and "it's a factory" about working there. Yes, it's great that work never ends, but it doesn't sound creatively satisfying. Weta Workshop has a different problem. With only 70 employees to WD's 1700, they have to work hard to keep projects flowing so they keep their jobs. This is why they look to their employees to create new IP like "Dr. Grordbort" and Max Patte's sculptures.
Storytelling in VR: Alejandro delivered this talk at breakneck speed. Why were some sessions 50 minutes and others 20? Can't figure it out. He's with Conical Studios and says we're moving from the Information Age to the Experiential Age and VR is going to be a big part of that.
VR has a linear story and uses some narration to help guide the viewer through the story. The user is drawn in with a welcome ritual so they can get oriented in the space. Architecture, how the story's world is set up, is important because it shows the viewer how to get through the story. Think about how malls and casinos layout their spaces to direct people and prevent them from leaving without seeing as much as they possibly can. Cinematics will play when the viewer looks at a spot for long enough. Eyes follow ears- use good sound design to attract attention to the next part of the story.
When compared with traditional entertainment sectors like TV or film, 5% of AR/VR is start ups and the rest is up for grabs. There's a lot of room for new content creators to get in there.
Story is the worry that the character won't get what they want.
Problems: 360 degree video can create motion sickness.
Don't make a game OR a movie: tell a story.
Storytellers answer questions. An empowered storyteller agent character engages with the viewer and the story at the same time. Stories are like water; they will take the shape of the jug they're poured into.
Friday the 8th
Art Leadership: Emma from Runaway in Dunedin led this talk. They do super cute 2D scroller games for mobiles that use stories/characters from nature. Butterflies and fish were their first two games and now they're working on a "secret" game. And they're hiring! They were giving out flyers and asked everyone to apply. Nice to hear that they want to staff up in every area. Here's somebody else that I wanted to chat with at the after party but didn't. I will follow up via email. I liked her talk enough that I sent a message to Vy in second year about asking her down to judge the animation at Southsure/Flicks.
You're Not Lucky: I thought art meant art and it did not. The presenter Sam Batz? cracked me up. He put up a slide that had a picture of him on that exact spot in that exact red leather jacket and outfit. I couldn't figure out if that shot went in just before the presentation or was from a streaming camera but he explained that he has had that as his look for a year. His talk was on 3D animation tricks for games, which went over my head. But really, I did get a lot of this conference! I promise that SIT did not waste it's money on me.
Let's get Serious: Holy shit. So much information delivered very quickly in a very short amount of time. Every one of us went to this and nobody got anything out of it-too dense. She had 3 hours of content packed into a 50 minute talk and promised that "part 2 will be recorded in Melbourne!" Maybe it can be slowed down and parsed for more info- she absolutely knew what she was talking about and has heaps of slides to back her up. There's going to be a character design competition online but it requires 10 pages of design but to what end, I'm not sure.
I skipped Kickstarter Success and went to the Learning to be Lazy: Getting Shit done Quick talk with Kevin. @OldLoths advised us to 1. repurpose everything 2. put time into spreadsheets to track how much time everything takes to make 3. use 1st principle thinking and get to the bottom of the problem before trying to solve it 4. Don't reinvent the wheel- if going to the Assets store to get something will save you time, do it 5. Kill Your Darlings: know when to scrap a sculpt and redo it. Better to abandon a complicated fix and try again.
LUNCH WAS AWESOME!!
Hide and Seek: The gamers also have inside jokes that they all laugh at based on shared experiences playing games.
Use human biology to deliver experiences that keep gamers coming back for more.
Dopamine: it's a chemical that effects engagement and motivation- if you want another hit, you engage more.
Oxytocin: the social bonding hormone and in game design effects empathy with characters and creatures.
Endorphins: linked to a feeling of accomplishment.
Serotonin: makes us feel the highs of enorphins and dopamine. Brings them all together.
Good game design knows how to bring all of these chemical reactions together.
Humans are bad at guessing. If they come to play, they are there to be tricked. Give them what they need, not what they want.
Examples of how designers "lie": Assassins creed and doom rate the health values at the final 10% higher than the beginning 90% so you feel the rush of "just" surviving to move on to the next level. It also flatters you into thinking that you were good enough to hang on and get through against the odds.
"coyote time": player walks off a ledge and presses jump too late but the jump function still works. part of platforming games.
First shots from opposing enemy characters always miss so you can't die "out of the blue" when you first enter a game.
Frustration needs to be avoided unless the player knows how to improve.
Humans are geared towards wanting to be fooled.
Framing the Game: This one WAS what it sounded like. Ingrid and man in loud shirt took us through how the Baroque and Romantic art movements show up in video game design and how being able to talk about art will help designers describe the game they're developing to each other. How exciting would it be to have world based on the paintings of Hieronymous Bosch
or to clamber out of a forest to find a town square full of the brawling and boozing villagers of Bruegel the Elder?
That would make me happy.
Doing that Representation Thing: another short time slot that could have been much longer. Maddie focused on queer/LGBTQ representation and portrayal in games and briefly touched on ethnic representation. She wrote a masters' thesis on the topic so more information is available. Essentially: ask people from the group you want to include for feedback and know that you can't please everyone but being transparent and fixing things when you goof does make a difference.
After party: spent 2 hours talking to Kevin and Mantis. lol. Then we went home by 10 after picking up croissants to bake in the morning from the New World. Drinkers lucked out at this party because champagne was handed out to everyone for free but non-alcoholic drinks required a token. One Coke in a bottle was my limit, so no worries.
