BAF 2012 - Day One

I have been lucky enough to attend the previous two Bradford Animation Festivals and as both were quite interesting i was looking forward to going again a third time, especially since this year there were talks by some of my favourite developers including Bioware and Bethesda. Here are my notes and thoughts of all the talks i attended.

Oddworld Inhabitants - Stewart Gilray, CEO of Just Add Water

The Oddworld series by Oddworld Inhabitants has proved to be hugely successful, with universally praised games such as Abe's Odyssey and Munch's Odyssey. These games gained a lot of fans, over six million according to CEO of Just Add Water Stewart Gilray and he explained that the series is far from dead with two new heroes yet to star in their own game along with a string of sequels dedicated to each, which will finish the Oddworl quintology.

Stewart Gilray added that although the series was well loved, he was worried that the future of the games industry could hinder the game's sales. Apparently UK retail sales of games have fallen and in 2011 retail sales accounted for less than 50% of total game sales. This loss of sales is mostly due to digital downloads, which let players purchase a digital copy of the game online and play it instantly. Because of the shift in sales, Gilray explained that his company have to consider whether to make sales exclusively digital, which could also hinder their sales by abandoning customers without an internet connection or those with limited internet access.

Gilray also voiced concerns about the death of the console, stating that he suspects the next generation of consoles scheduled for a fall and winter release could be the last generation, and that PC gaming will become the only way to play games. However, he failed to show any evidence for this so i take it as pure speculation, in my opinion i think consoles will be around for many more years. For the casual gamer they offer an affordable way to play quality games without having to worry about being able to run them on a PC. Also, with Microsoft's Xbox slowly transforming into an all around home entertainment system i think console gamers have nothing to worry about.

To finish off the talk Gilray invited us to watch a sneak peek of the newest game to the series 'Abe's Odyssey: New 'n' Tasty' which looked amazing. The environment moved gracefully in the background and foreground and animations seemed seamless. Gilray explained that the the designers had envisaged a 'living environment' that acted naturally and was engaging for the player. Abe's Odyssey: New 'n' Tasty is expected to hit shelves in fall of 2013.

Gilray's talk was interesting, even if some of it seemed a little baseless. He was obviously passionate about the series and didn't want to disappoint the fans - a passion which will hopefully help him and his team to produce a top quality game. It was also interesting to hear his concerns and plans for overcoming the drop in physical retail sales of games but i didn't agree with his thoughts on consoles dying out. From the talk i learnt that producing a good quality game isn't always enough, if you don't market it properly you could abandon loyal fans or make a huge loss in sales. This could be a valuable lesson for the future.

The Creative Industry - Tomek Zawada, Lead Animator of Projekt Red's Witcher/ Witcher 2

Projekt Red is a polish company famous for creating The Witcher and The Witcher 2, both AAA titles. I was quite excited to attend this talk as i had watched a play-through of The Witcher 2 on Youtube and had loved the style of the game, especially the creative monster design and animation, my favourite being the kraken.

Tomek Zawada had flown all the way from Poland to attend the festival and had to leave again straight afterwards to attend another festival back in Poland so he was clearly very in demand. After his talk you could see why - he was very insightful and straight forward, giving great advice with first hand experiences as examples. Zawada started his presentation rather abruptly but humorously by warning everyone to never work as an animator for advertisers, with one frame dedicated to it in his slide show with just two bullet points reading: 'Horrible hours. Work is Under-appreciated', after which he quickly moved on. He also didn't spend very much time talking about animating for films, explaining that although the money was generally good, there was no room for creativity because of the strict constraints, with many employees having to animate the same scene with the same style. He also said that you will very rarely get your own scene, instead you will be given ten seconds to animate from one scene then be moved on to another. His face then lit up as he announced that his real passion is in video games.

Zawada explained that video games were the best industry to work in, in terms of animation at least. Within the games industry you can have free reign on creativity, especially when you become lead designer or animator. There is also an interactive workload, meaning that if you have an idea for an animation that is better than the one on the storyboard you can present it and if it is good enough will replace the old animation. He explained that not all games can be fun to work on, even if you are interested in the game. He gave racing games as an example, saying that although he loves playing them, the animations were very restricted and repetitive because they don't have a diverse animation pool.

RPGs are Zawada's favourite genre of game as there is such a rich animation pool, with creatures, people and environments to animate, many of which can be obscure and interesting. His favourite things to animate being serious scenes between characters that require the characters to convey a range of emotions, and creatures which can be diverse, fun and challenging. He also gave the audience some tips for working in the games industry:

• If you work in a negative environment you lose focus and become unproductive
• Aim to socialise well to create a positive atmosphere and become friends with your team after work hours
• Keep a good mentality and create content for the player, not for the profit
• Join original projects that genuinely interest you, even if they don't pay as well

Zawada's talk was very informative and his advice on only doing what you love so that it's your best work resonates with me. Hopefully this will have a positive effect on me and teach me to seek out inspiration to make my work better.

Tengami - Phil and Jennifer of Nyamyam

This presentation was given by Phil and Jennifer, creators of Nyamyam and previously both programmers for Rare games, famous for making Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country. Phil had been working at Rare for thirteen years and Jennifer had worked there for a year, when the two realised they both had the same taste in games and shared a lot of ideas they decided to set up their own company, Nyamyam, a name taken from the noise Jennifer made when she ate, with the motto:

'Create beautifully crafted games that express who we are, and bring a sense of wonder to the player'

Soon afterwards they started designing their first game 'Tengami', an adventure game for the Ipad with a pop-up book theme that focuses on puzzle solving and relaxation. The game features unique game play that relies on the player turning the pages of the book to solve puzzles and advance the story. Early on in the project they decided to focus on a Japanese theme as they both shared a passion for Japanese culture, fashion and architecture, with a focus on craftsmanship rather than ninjas and samurais that are usually found in games. My favourite visual in the game was a tree that changed colours depending on the season in the game, going from luscious greens to a cold white.

Their unique idea came with a few problems though - to start with they had no idea how to create such a game with software and didn't have enough knowledge of how pop-up books even worked. This forced them to start creating physical pop-ups and studying different techniques that they could use in the game, they had to teach themselves as any tutorial sites or books they found were far too simple and aimed at children.

They were able to find Paper Kit, a plug-in for Modo, that let them experiment with their ideas for the game and build some test levels. Unfortunately Paper Kit was still being developed so progress was slow and they were unsure what features would be left in and taken out of the finished program. After a while they realised their project was heading in the wrong direction; game play wasn't fun or engaging and there was no sense of wonder as combat was a sequence of repetitive pop-ups.

They decided to scrap their progress and instead start again, focusing on the strengths of the Ipad and a feeling of a pop-up book, rather than everything being reliant on pop-ups. This new style proved to be much more fun and engaging. Tengami is scheduled for a summer 2013 release.

This talk was insightful and gave plenty of good advice, mainly that you should aim to be unique and focus on quality throughout the project and also to not be scared of scrapping the project and starting again if you aren't happy with it. Although this is good advice that i will take into consideration, i can't help but ask what happens if you aren't able to start again, especially if you have a limited budget? But either way, i found this talk quite useful.

Book of Spells - Joel Smith of Sony Entertainment London

Book of spells is a recently released children's game for Xbox Kinect that brings the magic spells of the Harry Potter universe to families living rooms. The game was a collaboration between Sony Entertainment London and Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling. Joel Smith was appointed art director for the game and told us how he had attempted to bring a magical experience to the player of the game through authenticity, engagement and style.

Joel Smith explained that one of his first ideas for the style of the book was to make it seem as authentic as possible. Apparently the book the player encountered is supposed to be over two-hundred years old so Smith had to explore how books were written around that time. One of his biggest inspirations he discovered was the poems by William Blake, which had detailed paintings adorning the poem.

This concept proved hugely successful when play testing the game as the players had a vague understanding of what the spell did from the illustrations surrounding it. However, the highly detailed painting also hindered the overall authenticity of the book as they looked too perfect, which forced the art team to 'age' the book by adding tears to the appearance of each page and including folds and scuffs.

I should probably say now that all these aesthetic changes occurred virtually because the physical book is merely a hard plastic cover with a few symbols on each side for the kinect to read. I am guessing that pages were later added to the book but because this was a pre-release display we didn't get to see any. Although the idea of an interactive book is novel (ha), I honestly didn't like the look or feel of the physical object. It was cheap looking and seemed like a one off purchase that will only ever be needed for this one game which i wouldn't normally see a problem with, but as the game is more expensive because of the book i feel it is worth mentioning.

However, despite the feel of the physical book, its virtual counterpart was quite stunning. Each school of magic was colour coded for decoration and accessibility and the art on each page was beautifully done, with bursting flames on one page and spider webs on another. The gameplay also looked quite fun for children as the book would come to life on screen depending on what spell you used, for example a fire spell would fly from the book and temporarily scorch the screen while other spells would give life to the text.

Overall I quite liked this presentation, even if i do think the game is a bit of a gimmick. Children seemed to really enjoy the game and the art direction was perfect. Even though i doubt it was the intended message, this talk has taught me to put all your effort into your job, even if the rest of the project seems quite lazy or dull. The idea of the game is rather bland but it was nice to see how much passion Smith put into the spell illustrations and page designs.

Game Style - Lucas Hardi of Bethesds Game Studios

I was very excited to listen to Lucas Hardi as he had worked on Skyrim, one of my favourite games ever made. However, this talk was probably the most disappointing and confusing talks i attended as Hardi talked about the style in games rather than anything Bethesda related. I did manage to take some notes though so here is what i understood:

Hardi started the talk with the point that style is the most important aspect of a game. He reinforced his argument by comparing style to graphics with the example of Super Mario and Metal Gear Solid, both games that came out around the same time and originally looked very similar. However as graphics improved, the style of each game started to show and now both games couldn't be more different. This made sense to me, although i couldn't help but think that graphics surely had something to do with that.

Lucas Hardi went on to say that style is dictated by three key aspects of games: Realism, Abstraction and Meaning. He demonstrated this by drawing a triangle with each of the above aspects representing one corner, then style was written in the middle. Although the style could lean towards one aspect more than the others, the other aspects would still hold some importance over the style. For example if the style leaned solely on abstraction, then the lack of realism or meaning would reinforce the abstract style - or at least i think this is what Hardi was trying to explain... It was quite confusing.

The talk only got stranger and more disjointed as Hardi started talking about which methods of animating were the best and worst, then went back to talking about how 'demakes' (the simplification of a game to its core colours and story) were often the better version of the game and had better style. I couldn't help but heavily disagree with him - some games are made far more interesting because of their detailed styling. Eternal Sonata for example has a very whimsical and child-like style that would translate horribly into a simplified demake.

Hardi then talked about rocks. Seriously. Apparently all rocks in games looked the same or something, or didn't, i don't even know. By this point the talk was already impossible to understand and it seemed very disjointed and bizarre. Hardi then finished his talk with a saying: 'Great games are played, not made'. Thanks for that random pearl of wisdom there Hardi...

Unsurprisingly i didn't enjoy this talk and was very disappointed with what could have potentially been and amazing end to the first day at BAF. Although Hardi was trying to convince us that style was the most important aspect of game play, he didn't manage to convince me, especially since Skyrim relies far more on story and role play than style. I would like to say that his talk taught me something but it really didn't, instead it just let me down and confused me.

Black Death Britannia - Negotiated Studies One: Overview

Overall, I am fairly pleased with how this project turned out and with my contribution, although i do think it could have gone a lot smoother and could have been more impressive had we had better time management.

In terms of working in a group this project was very fun and was a great chance to experience working in a group of people with contrasting ideas. Not only did this help us to evaluate our ideas and allow us to get a second opinion on them, but it also helped us to refine them into something we all liked and were happy with.
I also liked that the work was split fairly evenly so that we could each play to our strengths and produce the best work possible.

However, working in a group also had it's fair share of hardships such as arguing over ideas and a lack of organisation. Although arguing for your ideas is a good thing as it shows you care what is being put into a game, it was a struggle when almost every idea, even minor details, were being shot down and scrutinised. Also having split the work load into different sections meant that we were left to our own devices most often, with few chances to give feedback and motivate each other but many chances to procrastinate. We did manage to get past the arguing though and eventually we were all on the same page with our ideas, and near the end of the project we did start showing each other our work and motivating each other to do work.

My two fields of work were costume design and story. Although initially I was much more interested in costume design, I did start to loose interest in the topic as it became clear that the majority of the men's costumes were simply suits, or waistcoat variations. I did have a lot of fun with the female costume design though, although I created these designs very quickly and was only left with the men's designs which left me fairly uninspired.

It wasn't until I started to write the story that i really started to enjoy the project. I found creating the character biographies much more interesting and rewarding when compared with the costume designs and the creative freedom when coming up with the main story felt great. I think you can tell from my written work that i was enjoying myself a lot, but by the time i had started to write the character bios, the project was already nearing the deadline and although i managed to finish all the biographies and story, the costume design fell short. I've never been so proud of something yet so embarrassed at the same time. I know my costume designs are far weaker than my story and I am annoyed that i let myself become unmotivated and lazy. I do like some of the designs, particularly Odette and Virginia's designs, but i think my story design is far stronger and really outshines my actual artwork.

If i were to do this project again i would definitely try to put more effort in and manage my time better. I would have aimed for turnarounds of each character with full colour costume designs as well as the detailed biographies. I think I would also now be able to pick my battles better when it comes to arguing for your ideas as looking back, a lot of what we fought about ended up being either left out or unnecessary. I would definitely work in a group again as the experience and ideas that came out of it were very helpful and creative but perhaps in future, tweaking how we worked and arranging weekly meeting where we showed each other our progress would be a good idea.

The Davenports and Van Herks

 As Jonathan and Josephine Davenport die relatively early on, I didn't give them personal costumes as they can easily be put in any of the costumes i drew whilst researching the eras. So instead here is their bio.

The Van Herks at least got some simple designs, but again as they were not major characters their designs were left and more attention was paid to their bio and the other characters.

Dr. Rivers, Winston and Sister Joy

There were three characters i didn't manage to focus on too much so sadly there is only their initial concept sketches. However, each character did receive a full biography.

Dr. Rivers was one of the first characters to be created but because our group simply saw him as the doctor and assumed his story was interesting enough, he was sidelined for the majority of the project. It was only when the end of our project was in sight that I realised how under-developed the character was. To counteract this I tried to give him a more interesting back story that showed that Rivers had a lot more history than a standard doctor.

Winston Cobblebottom

Regrettably, Winston Cobblebottom is the most under-developed character in the project. Due to disagreements on whether the character should even be in the game I was reluctant to work on him as i didn't find him very inspiring. Instead, Bas did some concept art for him and after that progress for Winston came to a halt. I did write him a biography and attempted to make the character somewhat interesting but i found it very hard to muster any interest in him. I would have preferred to have made Henry Van Herk a playable character for two reasons: because I felt Henry was a much more dynamic and interesting character and also because it would balance the age of the playable characters, since three of the four male characters are over the age of thirty. However, as time was running out Winston was allowed to stay, although if the project were to have continued, I would have liked to have scrapped the character entirely.

Sister Joy

Sister Joy was a very late entry to the character roster, being created after the simple idea of a nun with a gun which we all thought sounded cool, and since our whole project was conceived from a 'cool idea', she was added to the game and replaced the rather dull character of Adelaide Davenport, the grandmother of Odette and Edward. Adelaide is still a character, but a background character that is unseen and only referred to in the game as she is the Davenport grandmother that lives in a different city to the rest of her family. I would have loved to have thought up Sister Joy at an earlier stage as i think she had a lot of potential and could have been one of the most iconic characters. But sadly poor timing meant that Sister Joy was never to be as developed as the majority of the characters.

Odette Davenport

Odette was another character I designed very early on from the first of my sketches, and apart from some adjustments and added details she wasn't altered much because I was so happy with how she turned out.

This is page also features the one design of Queen Vicky and her zeppelin

Edward Davenport

The costume on the bottom far left was the final design

Edward Davenport was thought up fairly early on in the project but wasn't actually developed until the later stages as we didn't feel he needed much development and we were happy with our ideas about the character. I refined these ideas and added in his romance with Grace and his attitude toward his parents and upper class society in general into his biography.

Charlie Davenport

Charlie Davenport.

Charles 'Charlie' Davenport was known as 'The Uncle' for a while whilst Virginia, Odette and Grace were being created but when Virginia (who was at that point known as 'The Whore') seemed unconnected to the other survivors, I came up with the idea of marrying her into the family. To do this we needed a black sheep type character and the Uncle fit the bill perfectly. Together with my two teammates we threw around ideas of what Charlie would be like and we eventually decided on him owning a flying circus that travelled around America and eventually came back to England to visit.

Initial concepts of Charlie with Virginia

Wanting Charlie to be a bit eccentric I designed some bright and colourful waistcoats for him to wear, we eventually decided on Waistcoat #2.

Concepts of the costume and snake tattoo that was also decided on