Summation #4 - Game Art: The Graphic Art of Computer Games

In reading Game Art: the Graphic Art of Computer Games you get a inside look at artistic process that goes into creating a game from start to finish. This book was put out in 2003 so it can seem a little dated at times but the general principles remain the same. The chapters each detail a different kind of art style or part of the pipeline. With each of these parts you receive a explanation of the process and then a walk-through of a particular designers pipeline in completing that piece of the game.
There are a few pertinent parts of this book relating to my thesis. The first is the explanation of first person exploration. This explains how the movie industry at one point tried making their films in the first person view but were unsuccessful because as you continue to watch from that view you begin to grasp that although it is if you are in the film and seeing it first hand, you have not control on what is happening to the character and therefore cannot really be the character in the film, breaking the believability. On the other hand games do this quite successfully, as the player has direct control of their movements which is the reason for an increase in sales first person games compared to the over the shoulder, top down, or side scrolling counterparts. This first person view also gives more incentive from players to explore their surroundings as it is all based of the direct perspective of the camera, which only gives the player a limited scope at any point in the game.
The second interesting part of the book was the chapter on environment detailing. This chapter provides how the professionals can make a seemingly open and vast world, condensed and controllable within the gaming engine. This is done through lighting, low poly background models, sky domes, and other such tricks that can give the player a real feel of infinity. This feeling helps to establish the believability within the game, making for a more immersive and memorable experience.
Lastly the chapter about middleware was quite interesting. Middleware is a product or software that has one particular purpose or goal that is integrated into the game engine to reduce time for the developers and artist involved. This is similar to the program speed tree which is a random tree generator used in many games such as oblivion. With speed tree the artist is able to create a few trees and set parameters for those trees, then by changing a few details about the tree in speed tree the program is able to set up the whole world with random assortments of trees which all look unique.
In whole the book does a good job of breaking down parts of the art production pipeline and makes it understandable to the common reader.

Works Cited
Morris, Dave, and Leo Hartas. Game Art: the Graphic Art of Computer Games. New York: Watson-Guptill, 2003. Print.