Baf 2010 - Day One

In November we attended the Bradford Anmation Festival (BAF) on two different days. Although the festival was animation orientated, there were a lot of talks that were relevant to the games students too. We had some very interesting talks from several companies over the two days including Splash Damage, Lionhead Studios, the BBC's Doctor Who team, Ninja Theory and Assyria. Here is a more in depth look into day one at BAF.


Splash Damage- Brink

The first talk we had was by a company called Splash damage who wanted to talk to us about their 2011 release game 'Brink'. Firstly they showed us an awesome trailer from the game that gave us an insight into what the game would be about. It looked like World of Warcraft meets Left 4 Dead- a wide variety of customisable characters, each with their own unique abilities thrown into a dangerous battlefield where the odds can turn against you instantly. Then we were talked through how the characters were designed to fit a certain style, exaggerated faces and limbs with crazy costumes- I remember the spokesperson saying the character designers were seeing how many zips they could fit onto one costume.

Amazing Designs

This talk from Splash Damage was really interesting as it gave us a chance to see what real character designers do as their occupation. A lot of the characters were also very imaginative and inspiring. It was a relief to find out that there are games like this that let your imagination run wild a bit, rather than just designing average characters. However, I was disappointed to learn that there were no female avatars in the game, especially when the only excuse given not to include them was 'it was either five hundred customisable men's looks or men and women with only half that'- clearly they picked the wrong choice.


BBC - Doctor Who's Adventure Game

We had a short talk with some of key people who designed the new Doctor Who adventure games on the BBC's website. Although the speakers suffered masive technical difficulties, we did manage to see a few bits of their work including a short advert and a quick interview with the real Doctor Who cast who were walking/jumping/talking for the character designers to make modelling the game characters easier. The  amount of effort that goes into making a website game for the Doctor Who fans was astounding. Although the graphics were not top quality it was still very impressive that fans could play a decent Doctor Who game online for free.

David Hayward- Indie Games

After a break we were given a talk about 'Independant Games' (games made by small companies with usually very basic graphics that are not designed for the mainstream market). The speaker, David Hayward showed us some of his favourite indie games and told us why he liked them. The simplicity behind the games seemed to fascinate him whereas I found the games frustrating by just looking at them. One game in particular called VVVV (pronounced V as apparently the first three v are silent), made my mind want to shoot itself, the levels included you flipping the screen upside down whilst having reverse controls and moving spikes and platforms everywhere. How anyone can have enough patience to play a game like that is beyond me. However, it was a pleasant surprise to learn that independant, small companies can compete in the games market.

Why would you get yourself into these situations?

Ninja Theory- Enslaved

The next talk was about the 2010 game  'Enslaved' by Ninja Theory. The lead animator Guy Midgeley and senior animator James Stevenson gave the talk, in between their fits of laughter and general messing about. The guys seemed really fun and clearly ejoyed their work as they had no problem talking about how they had to prance up and down the studio giving each other piggy-backs to decide how one character would carry another in their game. This talk was useful as it concentrated on how the characters were designed and brought to life through movement, voice and a lot of experimentation.

Lead Character-Monkey

Second Lead Character-Trip

These were the two main characters in the game. Although I don't particularly remember much about what the two guys said these characters were like, I do remember that the male was meant to be a Tarzan like character, quite gruff and wild. Whereas the female character was stubborn and headstrong, bringing an interesting story of how these contrasting personalities can work together as a team.

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Here is a really cool piece of concept art for a boss in the game. It was a mechanical rhino creature and looks particularly beasty in this picture. They showed us the different stages of turning concept art like this into the real thing that would feature in the game.

Concept Art

3D Model

Finished Product

Lastly Ninja Theory showed us how they made their main character talk realistically. They used Andy Serkis' (AKA Gollum's) facial features and expressions. They found this was the only way to get a realistic looking, functionable mouth. I found this interesting because I thought Serkis' portrayal of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy was amazing and it was such a surprise to learn that he had also been the face that modeled Enslaved's hero. Here he is in action!

Andy Serkis as Monkey

I found Ninja Theory's presentation very interesting as their game had such imaginative landscapes, intriguing characters and a great back-story. Although i havn't yet purchased this game it is definitely on my 'must play' list.