Despite not being a game artist, I have watched the challenges they have faced over the course of many decades and many projects, and I talk about those challenges in this video.
The worst parts are the non-artist stuff, since you're not just an artist but rather a *game* artist: -Learning a new art program's tools and workflow -Figuring out file types -Exporting files to the right spot -Properly pushing or undoing commits without breaking anything -Resizing/Rotating the assets -Needing to assemble the game's UI inside the game engine -Putting assets in the game yourself and dealing with someone else's UI -Figuring out how to create proper guidelines for placing assets (rulers, snapping things to grids, etc) and not accidentally breaking them -Adjusting (or completely redoing) the timing of your animation just to fit the game's engine -Dealing with people (devs or game testers) getting attached to placeholder art (same with placeholder music) Most of problems are solvable in a short amount of time, but an artist is already exhausted from art and doesn't want to read cryptic documentation to learn the nuance. Sometimes the people that can help just aren't available and then you have to deal with it on your own.
Your videos inspire me and I really appreciate your stories. I've loved doing 2D video game sprite art and music ever since I was a kid playing on MS Paint. I also really love learning about Game Design and have studied it for ages (informally because college wasn't really an option for me for several reasons). Now I'm trying to learn programming. It seems to be the hardest part for me. I've only ever really made half of a Pokemon Romhack before and the beginnings of a fighting game that was lost to a damaged hard drive. Maybe one day I'll be able to make a full game myself. Wish me luck and have a great day!
A fine overview of some of the limitations faced by artists and developers, respectively. I've noticed that so many of these poignant discussions are also applicable to film, to creative projects in general, and to business/management. Thanks!
I do my best to keep critique to myself unless it's a compliment and even then I do my best to not compare people to other artists as that can be really demotivating, too. I know that when it comes to a commercial product the artists who worked on it have to expect at least SOME critique but there's a difference between critique and shitty opinion. People need to remember there's someone behind the pen/tablet. Thanks for offering your insight, Tim. I'm really grateful to have supported so many of your games. You've provided me with a ton of entertainment over the years and due to our shared love of your titles you have caused me to make some amazing friends. It's so very, very much appreciated.
This. People are currently dunking on the Avowed art style but it's all entirely preference and subjective. I know they feel aggrieved that the first trailer was darker aesthtically but to call the new trailer "cartoony" is just silly. The art style of Avowed is not cartoony. People just don't like it because it uses a brighter tone of palette and actually matches the art style of Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 much better than the original traile did..
Sounds all about right, really is just three groups of people in gaming industry these days, those that got in simply because they were already in it and or have connections that just want to make money, people that can work well in a group, deal with all kinds of pressure and poor working conditions, and the oddly growing yet still very small group of people that can do everything themselves and can and often are just one man teams. A shocking number of people these days are one man teams, often doing very advanced or interesting games.
I have always loved Pixel Art especially those with a VGA 256 color palette, for example the textures used in Duke Nukem 3D (Build Engine). A few of my friends would say it's outdated and bad graphics and they would compare it with Call of Duty which always bugged me. If only they saw the "outdated graphics" with a better resolution at 1080p, i think old graphics that have an increased resolution makes it look nicer and less taxing for the eyes. I also think vector graphics are smooth as hell with CRT Monitors like the game Elite and Asteroids, shame it's not used in modern gaming.
Heya Tim. Thank you very much for making these videos. It's great to get a view through your eyes on all the awesome games we loved growing up. If I ever decide to show myself where I stream... I'm wearing different shirts every video.
“I wish art could be as easy for me as it is for you”. - rough summary of how most people wave away the painstaking work involved with any commercial art project
Oh, man. You are going to be facing challenges writers in the industry never have had to face before. The industry itself is playing around with the idea at present that important quests and, even, dialogue can be automated and procedurally generated. PCGamer recently ran an interview with David Gaider about "AI-generated story and dialogue". Worth a read.
@@lrinfi Having not read that article yet and wanting to comment (sorry in advance) I think it's still the job of a writer (or group) to oversee all that. And the general fear, from what I've been seeing around, is that AI will replace writers. But no, I don't think that that's gonna happen. People will always have to look for the output, like, try and review what the bots generate as best they can (some may be a blackbox still, but companies will want to avoid not knowing if a bot will generate something offensive, for instance)... Which can definitely be a challenge, but it sounds cool to me too. Not really reviewing AI work, but trying to direct bots to do what you want.
@@allluckyseven I'm sure some do fear AI will replace this or that role on a development team. It might interest you to know that Gaider doesn't think that's going to happen, either. ;) (Really. Good article. Highly recommend, despite that it hangs on a Twitter thread like most Twitter and Reddit-inspired gaming articles today.) Another relevant Tweet from Gaider related to the challenges writers will face: "Even BioWare, which built its success on a reputation for good stories and characters, slowly turned from a company that vocally valued its writers to one where we were... quietly resented, with a reliance on expensive narrative seen as the 'albatross' holding the company back." Hopefully, that's just as much a passing trend because RPG players, et alia, must be pretty sick of utilitarian so-called storytelling in video games at this point. I'd link the most hilarious video I've ever seen on that subject, but too many people would probably take it wrong way.
@@lrinfi Aw, now I'm curious about that video. xD But hey, thanks for the reply. The thing with BioWare, though, may be related to when they were acquired by EA. Aggravated by when the two doctors left (if that happened after the acquisition, can't remember). Looks like Casey Hudson (the other BW founder) isn't there anymore either... So... yeah, that's probably an entirely different company at this point.
Unnecessary feedback happens quite often usually from an overlay picky lead that wants to appear as though they're doing their job if they can't find major faults they'll pick out little things like "Specular value is at 39,39,39 should be 38,38,38" or if there's just not enough resolution on your ID maps you can sometimes have 1 or 2 pixels of colour bleed into the different masks which isn't an issue because the player will never see that in game because its only 2 pixels but a picky lead will kick back the asset and tell you to fix it. In the end the final result post feedback looks identical to the pre feedback result because the problems pointed out were so small it's just a waste of time to fix. Worse, this can sometimes be brought up on performance reviews because a producer just sees you had feedback on an asset, they don't see it was useless feedback or an asset took more time than expected because you had to deal with useless feedback. However worst I've had to deal with is I've been been a weapon artist for almost 7 years now so I have my own preferred workflow for modelling and my own preferred software but sometimes you'll be critiqued for not doing some other type of workflow despite both being able to achieve the same end result. Being forced into a workflow I'm unfamiliar with is annoying because I know the art wont be done to the best of my abilities or be done as quickly then you have producers nagging at you about deadlines.
Surprised we didn't get a video about writing, because I feel like they share the problem with designers where *everybody* thinks they can do a better job. Thanks for the videos anyway!
One of the worst feedbacks I got in my career as an Artist/Art Director, in the poorest managed project that I worked on, was: "We are not going with that shadow because we don't know if people are going to like it". At that point I remember thinking "Then I don't know what to do". There was such a luck of trust in what we were doing because of fear of failure, that me and my (proven successful) team didn't know how to work anymore. Eventually the project got cancelled.
Artist here....yep! Although, I would only add that we can have 12 ice cream flavours, but that's out of the thousands of possible tastes. Art being good in terms of its quality is much more objective than people think. Difference between two mega masters like Frazetta and Leffel might be a matter of ones taste, but a difference between someone like Justin Sweet and myself is pretty objectively skewed against me:)
This triad of videos was great - it's the kind of thing people working in software should keep a playlist of to remind themselves of what they need to be aware of when working in a team. I do my best to encourage an environment where developers aren't interrupted all the time and get get to queries in their own time, but there's always more that could be done to ensure that. Have you considered doing a Challenges Facing Game QA video as well? I'd be interested to hear how you approach testing too, for example are Unit Tests a thing in game development these days? How do you feel about QA involvement at the design stage?
Having been watching these lately, they've been good for understanding the other side of things when it comes to gaming, but it has made me wonder, what makes a demo good? I remember there being tons of them growing up through the 90s as they'd be included in my monthly computer magazines as a kid, and the Scraptown demo for Fallout sold me so well on that era of the franchise that as soon as I could, dad was bullied into buying me the doublepack for christmas 98. I've also played both 1 & 2 every year since that christmas even when I know every path, story and playstyle variable, all because Scraptown was such a good demo. I miss the days of demos.
I went to college for game art design, got to road trip to e3 three years in a row. So much fun. But then I went to go get a job w my academic portfolio and it was super clear I didn't have, like, a life perspective to fill my portfolio with. That was the call to act. A confidence-plumping journey that continues today!
Hey Tim, these last three videos have been great. I was wondering if you have any 'kill your darlings' instances where you had to remove an element from a game that you really liked but ultimately didn't work for what the project outside of just budget or time constraints?
When someone gives me feedback like "I don't like it." I respond with "Anything specific? what about X or Y?" I usually approach feedback with the thought "tell me what you hate about this."
As an amateur artist who has done a few commissions and frequently talk to more active artists, a lot of these things apply to artist work in general. Clients just don't know how to word out what they want or dislike in something, so a lot of the interaction with them is trying to talk, sketch and suggest about what exactly should be changed. I think a lot of it boils down to art classes in basic education just not teaching any fundamental concepts. People are generally clueless about things like value, saturation, composition, perspective and line weight and are unable to pinpoint and communicate what bothers them in something they see. It's a similar case in music, if I had to work with a composer I'd struggle to give any worthwhile feedback because of how clueless I'm at the subject.
The biggest challenge for game artists is our own selves xD Whether it's Ego (Project Goals > Ego) or the Imposter Syndrome, or casually jumping between these two extremes. Unconstructive critique is an overall issue for all game dev types, probably comes with the territory. We just learn to sift through it, as well as give specific and constructive feedback to art peers. And another huge challenge is seeing a game stumble/fail, despite the art being done very well by all production standards. It' a universal challenge, of course. But you can imagine how often we run into it nowadays. When the art quality and its scope has advances in unimaginable ways, every little detail is being put under scrutiny for perfection. While the game design etc are often stuck in what we've had a decade ago, or, worse, are leaning toward predatory practices that harm the company/product reputation. But we have no input on any these matters in larger companies, because "we are not game designers or producers". It's no wonder that many artists grew detached from the product after a while. Luckily, technology has advanced to the point where artists are now empowered to make their own games, too. Now we can fail or succeed ourselves xD
i think that feedback from a person who is colorblind can be a lot useful to make games more accessible. Of course would limit the artist in some way, but obstacles inspire creative solutions.
One challenge I personally had to face, not with games, but with, let's say, software, was working with a programmer which did some "art" of his own (so going over something that it wasn't his job), thinking that that was great, when it was pretty terrible and unjustified (and unjustifiable). But yeah, that aside, I think that people in general think that your field (be it design, art, programming) is easy. And fixing whatever it is that you did IS easy. Whatever "fixing" would mean in that specific context.
Hi Tim! You often talk about note-taking in your videos -- would you mind sharing some tips/your methods? I'm about to start grad school, and would like to hear what works for you. Thanks! Great video, as always.
Hello Tim. I'd like to ask why Enclave soldiers kill vault people in Fallout 2 intro? They supposed to be non-mutants and have "pure" dna. Or it was someone's else idea?
I think Chris Avellone's addressed this previously in the Fallout bible. Basically, they'd been waiting around for days and were bored / annoyed for having to wait that long and took it out on the Vault Dwellers.
5:16 Seeming and being, though, are not one and the same. It does have a correlation to the sale of games whether the sales statistics and reviews readily reflect it or not, but that doesn't alter the validity of the point you're trying to make. BattleBit Remastered is the best-selling game on Steam, atm, and I don't get the impression it's because the artwork was the highest priority for the four man team who developed it. Artists themselves do face unique challenges, especially if their vision of and for the project doesn't match up perfectly with the client's or producer's or director's or fellow artist's, ad infinitum. And it rarely does. Opinions of art are, indeed, subjective, but I'd have to push back against the idea that there can be no objective consensus about various video games and, especially, that this or that title is a "masterpiece." If enough people think and say it's a mastepiece, no critique whatsoever of that video game is allowed or will be entertained and that is a disservice not only to players, but to the very studio, artists, developers and programmers who created and developed it. I've read critiques of Elden Ring, for example -- an exceedingly successful game by industry standards, especially -- that validated my own experience as a first-time Soulsborne player to such an extent that From Software might want to seriously consider specific design decisions and trends in development-- that probably aren't at all obvious to them -- during the development of future titles, especially if they're now trying to appeal to a wider audience. I hope you get what I'm saying. If studios set out to make a video game and want it to resonate with as many people as possible, they probably don't want to consider their work impervious to criticism. At the same time, I've seen studios and publishers themselves allow the highly subjective and personal tastes of subsets of players to pretty much ruin what is otherwise a solid project and not even notice (or care?) how many players they're losing, permanently or otherwise, as a direct result.
Adding languages to games is great, but I think keeping everything in English is great too in its own way. That's how people are inclined to learn English sometimes. I learned most of English as a kid, because of Fallout (1 and 2) because I first played it in my native Czech language and then switched to original. And then in my English classes, I knew the new words and sentences already and about 80% of my English knowledge that time was from Fallout. I even used the word "bullshit" once when I was 12 and my teacher wondered where I got it from xD
I'll never understand the people who can't find at least one thing to appreciate in art :o And at the same time, it's weird that they react so weirdly to a lack of art in the early version of a game Maybe there should be mandatory critique courses or maybe an evaluation to be taken before someone can make a comment on such things
People thinking their opinion is fact is one of the most consistently frustrating things to me. I listen to a wide variety of music and in every single sphere there are people who just say it's horrible and don't ever give any good reason (read: they just don't like it). And it's so frustrating since you are allowed to just not like something and say 'it's not for me', but many people seem to feel the need to attribute this to some problem with the song itself. Can't imagine what dealing with this in the professional world would be like.
Day I 4 of asking how fallout4s power armor compares to the original idea and vision of power armor from fallout also day 4 of saying please keep these videos coming they're great
In my experience the problem isn't that the director/design isn't able to communicate the idea in their head. The problem is often that they just have a vague FEELING, not even a fully formed idea. Then it's up the artist/developer to come up with the actual concept that invoke the feeling they're looking for. /facepalm
In case he won’t see the question, no, he’s working on Outer Worlds 2 with Boyarsky as a design contractor, but not full-time. He talked about this in his “Frequently Asked Questions” video-my understanding is that his role is somewhat minor this time.
@@awgv thanks for the reply. He mentioned in that very same video (I think!) that he's working not only on TOW2 but another project (maybe two). He couldn't name it at the time because it wasn't yet announced. Hence my question. I am aware he's a contractor on Outer Worlds 2.
Tim, honestly a lot of these just sound like people being assholes. With few exceptions, all of these could be avoided by just having competent, thoughtful and upright people. The times where it can't be avoided due to misunderstandings wouldn't even need to be so severe by comparison.
I am no Fan of new games. I llllove oldfashioned, good and fun games, withbnit the best graphics. But therefore tons of Love in the Detail and Story and litte gimmics that make me, think, laugh, cry, whatsoever.
On the other side I would say that producing constructive criticism takes effort, which I usually only bother putting when I think that: 1. my opinion has value (usually it doesn't) 2. it will be considered As a player I often just say "I don't like this" because I don't expect anybody to read my youtube comment essay and make something of it, you know? why am I writing this comment then?
You sometimes talk about your color blindness, many games have one or many settings for color blind mode (I assume is different kind of color blindness). I want to know one thing... that crap is working for you? or is just some legal box check that publishers must have, in order to sell the games in EU? If those mode work, they really restore colors completely in your eyes? 🎨
The point of colour-blind modes isn't to "restore colours" for colour blind people. It's to convey the same information the colours convey to folks with full colour sight.
You... actually think that 'color blind' mode is just a checkbox that actually has no function, but is just there for some kind of legal reason? You... actually believe this? As stated already, the point isn't to "restore colors".
Damn, this really hit home for me. Especially 4:35 - 5:10. I do art commissions, logos, etc for clients, and it's always an uphill battle to get what they want. I always make a point to my clients to make it as clear as possible from the get-go as to what they want, but that seems to fail as well.
The worst parts are the non-artist stuff, since you're not just an artist but rather a *game* artist:
-Learning a new art program's tools and workflow
-Figuring out file types
-Exporting files to the right spot
-Properly pushing or undoing commits without breaking anything
-Resizing/Rotating the assets
-Needing to assemble the game's UI inside the game engine
-Putting assets in the game yourself and dealing with someone else's UI
-Figuring out how to create proper guidelines for placing assets (rulers, snapping things to grids, etc) and not accidentally breaking them
-Adjusting (or completely redoing) the timing of your animation just to fit the game's engine
-Dealing with people (devs or game testers) getting attached to placeholder art (same with placeholder music)
Most of problems are solvable in a short amount of time, but an artist is already exhausted from art and doesn't want to read cryptic documentation to learn the nuance. Sometimes the people that can help just aren't available and then you have to deal with it on your own.
"there is No Fudge Here!"
I'm sure the mouse cursor was very cool, tim.
Narrator: the mouse cursor was not cool.
@@CainOnGames hahahahaha I actually heard this in my head
sometimes dissonance can be a deliberate artistic choice and sometimes accidents turn into inspiration.
hm
Dang, wish i could work for Tim Cain. Seems like a great guy, understanding, professional, and knows how to work with artists
The advantage artists usually have is we've been through art school, and art school critiques can be far more brutal than clients. 😅
I don't know why but I appreciate that you say "Hi everyone" at the start of your videos its nice.
In my opinion a real compliment an artist can get is:
"Wow, how did you do that?" -it means your art is good enough people want to imitate you.
Your videos inspire me and I really appreciate your stories.
I've loved doing 2D video game sprite art and music ever since I was a kid playing on MS Paint. I also really love learning about Game Design and have studied it for ages (informally because college wasn't really an option for me for several reasons). Now I'm trying to learn programming. It seems to be the hardest part for me. I've only ever really made half of a Pokemon Romhack before and the beginnings of a fighting game that was lost to a damaged hard drive. Maybe one day I'll be able to make a full game myself.
Wish me luck and have a great day!
Go get em tiger/dragon
A fine overview of some of the limitations faced by artists and developers, respectively. I've noticed that so many of these poignant discussions are also applicable to film, to creative projects in general, and to business/management. Thanks!
I do my best to keep critique to myself unless it's a compliment and even then I do my best to not compare people to other artists as that can be really demotivating, too. I know that when it comes to a commercial product the artists who worked on it have to expect at least SOME critique but there's a difference between critique and shitty opinion. People need to remember there's someone behind the pen/tablet. Thanks for offering your insight, Tim. I'm really grateful to have supported so many of your games. You've provided me with a ton of entertainment over the years and due to our shared love of your titles you have caused me to make some amazing friends. It's so very, very much appreciated.
This.
People are currently dunking on the Avowed art style but it's all entirely preference and subjective. I know they feel aggrieved that the first trailer was darker aesthtically but to call the new trailer "cartoony" is just silly. The art style of Avowed is not cartoony. People just don't like it because it uses a brighter tone of palette and actually matches the art style of Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 much better than the original traile did..
Cute pfp by the way o.o
Sounds all about right, really is just three groups of people in gaming industry these days, those that got in simply because they were already in it and or have connections that just want to make money, people that can work well in a group, deal with all kinds of pressure and poor working conditions, and the oddly growing yet still very small group of people that can do everything themselves and can and often are just one man teams. A shocking number of people these days are one man teams, often doing very advanced or interesting games.
I have always loved Pixel Art especially those with a VGA 256 color palette, for example the textures used in Duke Nukem 3D (Build Engine). A few of my friends would say it's outdated and bad graphics and they would compare it with Call of Duty which always bugged me. If only they saw the "outdated graphics" with a better resolution at 1080p, i think old graphics that have an increased resolution makes it look nicer and less taxing for the eyes. I also think vector graphics are smooth as hell with CRT Monitors like the game Elite and Asteroids, shame it's not used in modern gaming.
Pixel art doesn't get enough respect. People think just because it's 'easier' to make a game with it means it's 'easy' to make overall.
@@DanielFerreira-ez8qd I agree, Pixel Art takes time and isn't an easy process... especially choosing the right palette
It is late at night here in Germany. I cant sleep.... Again.
And watching Timothy Cain, talkin interesting Stuff
Thank you Tim.
Dear Tim, thank you as always!
Could you do video about challenges audio people would face? Composers and sound designers i mean
Heya Tim. Thank you very much for making these videos. It's great to get a view through your eyes on all the awesome games we loved growing up. If I ever decide to show myself where I stream... I'm wearing different shirts every video.
“I wish art could be as easy for me as it is for you”. - rough summary of how most people wave away the painstaking work involved with any commercial art project
Will you talk about writing in games? Narratives, characters, lore, etc. I'd love to work as a writer in the gaming industry
Oh, man. You are going to be facing challenges writers in the industry never have had to face before. The industry itself is playing around with the idea at present that important quests and, even, dialogue can be automated and procedurally generated. PCGamer recently ran an interview with David Gaider about "AI-generated story and dialogue". Worth a read.
@@lrinfi oh, gawd 😱
@@lrinfi Having not read that article yet and wanting to comment (sorry in advance) I think it's still the job of a writer (or group) to oversee all that. And the general fear, from what I've been seeing around, is that AI will replace writers. But no, I don't think that that's gonna happen. People will always have to look for the output, like, try and review what the bots generate as best they can (some may be a blackbox still, but companies will want to avoid not knowing if a bot will generate something offensive, for instance)... Which can definitely be a challenge, but it sounds cool to me too. Not really reviewing AI work, but trying to direct bots to do what you want.
@@allluckyseven I'm sure some do fear AI will replace this or that role on a development team. It might interest you to know that Gaider doesn't think that's going to happen, either. ;) (Really. Good article. Highly recommend, despite that it hangs on a Twitter thread like most Twitter and Reddit-inspired gaming articles today.)
Another relevant Tweet from Gaider related to the challenges writers will face: "Even BioWare, which built its success on a reputation for good stories and characters, slowly turned from a company that vocally valued its writers to one where we were... quietly resented, with a reliance on expensive narrative seen as the 'albatross' holding the company back."
Hopefully, that's just as much a passing trend because RPG players, et alia, must be pretty sick of utilitarian so-called storytelling in video games at this point. I'd link the most hilarious video I've ever seen on that subject, but too many people would probably take it wrong way.
@@lrinfi Aw, now I'm curious about that video. xD
But hey, thanks for the reply.
The thing with BioWare, though, may be related to when they were acquired by EA. Aggravated by when the two doctors left (if that happened after the acquisition, can't remember). Looks like Casey Hudson (the other BW founder) isn't there anymore either... So... yeah, that's probably an entirely different company at this point.
Unnecessary feedback happens quite often usually from an overlay picky lead that wants to appear as though they're doing their job if they can't find major faults they'll pick out little things like "Specular value is at 39,39,39 should be 38,38,38" or if there's just not enough resolution on your ID maps you can sometimes have 1 or 2 pixels of colour bleed into the different masks which isn't an issue because the player will never see that in game because its only 2 pixels but a picky lead will kick back the asset and tell you to fix it.
In the end the final result post feedback looks identical to the pre feedback result because the problems pointed out were so small it's just a waste of time to fix. Worse, this can sometimes be brought up on performance reviews because a producer just sees you had feedback on an asset, they don't see it was useless feedback or an asset took more time than expected because you had to deal with useless feedback.
However worst I've had to deal with is I've been been a weapon artist for almost 7 years now so I have my own preferred workflow for modelling and my own preferred software but sometimes you'll be critiqued for not doing some other type of workflow despite both being able to achieve the same end result. Being forced into a workflow I'm unfamiliar with is annoying because I know the art wont be done to the best of my abilities or be done as quickly then you have producers nagging at you about deadlines.
Surprised we didn't get a video about writing, because I feel like they share the problem with designers where *everybody* thinks they can do a better job. Thanks for the videos anyway!
One of the worst feedbacks I got in my career as an Artist/Art Director, in the poorest managed project that I worked on, was: "We are not going with that shadow because we don't know if people are going to like it". At that point I remember thinking "Then I don't know what to do".
There was such a luck of trust in what we were doing because of fear of failure, that me and my (proven successful) team didn't know how to work anymore.
Eventually the project got cancelled.
Artist here....yep! Although, I would only add that we can have 12 ice cream flavours, but that's out of the thousands of possible tastes. Art being good in terms of its quality is much more objective than people think. Difference between two mega masters like Frazetta and Leffel might be a matter of ones taste, but a difference between someone like Justin Sweet and myself is pretty objectively skewed against me:)
This triad of videos was great - it's the kind of thing people working in software should keep a playlist of to remind themselves of what they need to be aware of when working in a team. I do my best to encourage an environment where developers aren't interrupted all the time and get get to queries in their own time, but there's always more that could be done to ensure that. Have you considered doing a Challenges Facing Game QA video as well? I'd be interested to hear how you approach testing too, for example are Unit Tests a thing in game development these days? How do you feel about QA involvement at the design stage?
Having been watching these lately, they've been good for understanding the other side of things when it comes to gaming, but it has made me wonder, what makes a demo good?
I remember there being tons of them growing up through the 90s as they'd be included in my monthly computer magazines as a kid, and the Scraptown demo for Fallout sold me so well on that era of the franchise that as soon as I could, dad was bullied into buying me the doublepack for christmas 98. I've also played both 1 & 2 every year since that christmas even when I know every path, story and playstyle variable, all because Scraptown was such a good demo. I miss the days of demos.
I wish I had that shirt.
I went to college for game art design, got to road trip to e3 three years in a row. So much fun. But then I went to go get a job w my academic portfolio and it was super clear I didn't have, like, a life perspective to fill my portfolio with. That was the call to act. A confidence-plumping journey that continues today!
Hey Tim, these last three videos have been great.
I was wondering if you have any 'kill your darlings' instances where you had to remove an element from a game that you really liked but ultimately didn't work for what the project outside of just budget or time constraints?
When someone gives me feedback like "I don't like it." I respond with "Anything specific? what about X or Y?" I usually approach feedback with the thought "tell me what you hate about this."
I will say this much, you do rock that hat in your picture.
I named one of my vault dwellers after you in Fallout shelter
As an amateur artist who has done a few commissions and frequently talk to more active artists, a lot of these things apply to artist work in general. Clients just don't know how to word out what they want or dislike in something, so a lot of the interaction with them is trying to talk, sketch and suggest about what exactly should be changed. I think a lot of it boils down to art classes in basic education just not teaching any fundamental concepts. People are generally clueless about things like value, saturation, composition, perspective and line weight and are unable to pinpoint and communicate what bothers them in something they see. It's a similar case in music, if I had to work with a composer I'd struggle to give any worthwhile feedback because of how clueless I'm at the subject.
The biggest challenge for game artists is our own selves xD
Whether it's Ego (Project Goals > Ego) or the Imposter Syndrome, or casually jumping between these two extremes.
Unconstructive critique is an overall issue for all game dev types, probably comes with the territory. We just learn to sift through it, as well as give specific and constructive feedback to art peers.
And another huge challenge is seeing a game stumble/fail, despite the art being done very well by all production standards.
It' a universal challenge, of course. But you can imagine how often we run into it nowadays. When the art quality and its scope has advances in unimaginable ways, every little detail is being put under scrutiny for perfection.
While the game design etc are often stuck in what we've had a decade ago, or, worse, are leaning toward predatory practices that harm the company/product reputation.
But we have no input on any these matters in larger companies, because "we are not game designers or producers".
It's no wonder that many artists grew detached from the product after a while.
Luckily, technology has advanced to the point where artists are now empowered to make their own games, too.
Now we can fail or succeed ourselves xD
i think that feedback from a person who is colorblind can be a lot useful to make games more accessible.
Of course would limit the artist in some way, but obstacles inspire creative solutions.
One challenge I personally had to face, not with games, but with, let's say, software, was working with a programmer which did some "art" of his own (so going over something that it wasn't his job), thinking that that was great, when it was pretty terrible and unjustified (and unjustifiable).
But yeah, that aside, I think that people in general think that your field (be it design, art, programming) is easy. And fixing whatever it is that you did IS easy. Whatever "fixing" would mean in that specific context.
Hi Tim! You often talk about note-taking in your videos -- would you mind sharing some tips/your methods? I'm about to start grad school, and would like to hear what works for you. Thanks! Great video, as always.
Hello Tim. I'd like to ask why Enclave soldiers kill vault people in Fallout 2 intro? They supposed to be non-mutants and have "pure" dna. Or it was someone's else idea?
I think Chris Avellone's addressed this previously in the Fallout bible. Basically, they'd been waiting around for days and were bored / annoyed for having to wait that long and took it out on the Vault Dwellers.
There is an answer to this question on any Fallout site or wiki. Also Fallout 2 itself answers it. So I can only wonder... Wtf.
thanks for these, fallout is legendary
5:16 Seeming and being, though, are not one and the same. It does have a correlation to the sale of games whether the sales statistics and reviews readily reflect it or not, but that doesn't alter the validity of the point you're trying to make. BattleBit Remastered is the best-selling game on Steam, atm, and I don't get the impression it's because the artwork was the highest priority for the four man team who developed it. Artists themselves do face unique challenges, especially if their vision of and for the project doesn't match up perfectly with the client's or producer's or director's or fellow artist's, ad infinitum. And it rarely does.
Opinions of art are, indeed, subjective, but I'd have to push back against the idea that there can be no objective consensus about various video games and, especially, that this or that title is a "masterpiece." If enough people think and say it's a mastepiece, no critique whatsoever of that video game is allowed or will be entertained and that is a disservice not only to players, but to the very studio, artists, developers and programmers who created and developed it. I've read critiques of Elden Ring, for example -- an exceedingly successful game by industry standards, especially -- that validated my own experience as a first-time Soulsborne player to such an extent that From Software might want to seriously consider specific design decisions and trends in development-- that probably aren't at all obvious to them -- during the development of future titles, especially if they're now trying to appeal to a wider audience.
I hope you get what I'm saying. If studios set out to make a video game and want it to resonate with as many people as possible, they probably don't want to consider their work impervious to criticism. At the same time, I've seen studios and publishers themselves allow the highly subjective and personal tastes of subsets of players to pretty much ruin what is otherwise a solid project and not even notice (or care?) how many players they're losing, permanently or otherwise, as a direct result.
Adding languages to games is great, but I think keeping everything in English is great too in its own way. That's how people are inclined to learn English sometimes.
I learned most of English as a kid, because of Fallout (1 and 2) because I first played it in my native Czech language and then switched to original. And then in my English classes, I knew the new words and sentences already and about 80% of my English knowledge that time was from Fallout.
I even used the word "bullshit" once when I was 12 and my teacher wondered where I got it from xD
I'll never understand the people who can't find at least one thing to appreciate in art :o
And at the same time, it's weird that they react so weirdly to a lack of art in the early version of a game
Maybe there should be mandatory critique courses or maybe an evaluation to be taken before someone can make a comment on such things
I wish you were my boss, man.
Sup
Edit: the style of Fallout and Arcanum is the stuff of legends
People thinking their opinion is fact is one of the most consistently frustrating things to me. I listen to a wide variety of music and in every single sphere there are people who just say it's horrible and don't ever give any good reason (read: they just don't like it). And it's so frustrating since you are allowed to just not like something and say 'it's not for me', but many people seem to feel the need to attribute this to some problem with the song itself. Can't imagine what dealing with this in the professional world would be like.
I make Archvis renders and product designs. We call it pixel fucking.
My personal highlight was an email just saying, "This is wrong".
Well, have you tried making a render which wasn’t wrong?
@@mina86There are people out there that would say I haven't 😂
Well I will let you know that I personally think that pixel fucking is in fact wrong!
For multiple reasons!
Day I 4 of asking how fallout4s power armor compares to the original idea and vision of power armor from fallout also day 4 of saying please keep these videos coming they're great
Hi Tim.
I'd argue that you are an artist Tim, with code at least!
Wait! You haven't covered all of development.
You forgot our brothers/sisters in QA!!!!!! lmao
In my experience the problem isn't that the director/design isn't able to communicate the idea in their head.
The problem is often that they just have a vague FEELING, not even a fully formed idea.
Then it's up the artist/developer to come up with the actual concept that invoke the feeling they're looking for. /facepalm
I’ve noticed there’s no ads on your videos. Is that intentional?
You know who DOESN'T give not constructive critique a la "I hate it"?
Other artists :)
Hi Tim, one question, are you working on Clockwork Revolution with Jason Anderson and Chad Moore?
In case he won’t see the question, no, he’s working on Outer Worlds 2 with Boyarsky as a design contractor, but not full-time. He talked about this in his “Frequently Asked Questions” video-my understanding is that his role is somewhat minor this time.
@@awgv thanks for the reply. He mentioned in that very same video (I think!) that he's working not only on TOW2 but another project (maybe two). He couldn't name it at the time because it wasn't yet announced. Hence my question. I am aware he's a contractor on Outer Worlds 2.
I need to see the mouse cursor
Show the cursor!
Tim, honestly a lot of these just sound like people being assholes. With few exceptions, all of these could be avoided by just having competent, thoughtful and upright people. The times where it can't be avoided due to misunderstandings wouldn't even need to be so severe by comparison.
I am no Fan of new games.
I llllove oldfashioned, good and fun games, withbnit the best graphics.
But therefore tons of Love in the Detail and Story and litte gimmics that make me, think, laugh, cry, whatsoever.
On the other side I would say that producing constructive criticism takes effort, which I usually only bother putting when I think that:
1. my opinion has value (usually it doesn't)
2. it will be considered
As a player I often just say "I don't like this" because I don't expect anybody to read my youtube comment essay and make something of it, you know?
why am I writing this comment then?
I don't like this RUclips comment essay because it's too short for me to make anything of it.
@@MotorbreathChannel :|
Hi Tim, can You give Your opinion how AI wil affect gaming for code and images, models etc generation? Thank You
I only have "problem" with cartoon art style . I simply dont like it in any game.
You sometimes talk about your color blindness, many games have one or many settings for color blind mode (I assume is different kind of color blindness). I want to know one thing... that crap is working for you? or is just some legal box check that publishers must have, in order to sell the games in EU?
If those mode work, they really restore colors completely in your eyes? 🎨
The point of colour-blind modes isn't to "restore colours" for colour blind people. It's to convey the same information the colours convey to folks with full colour sight.
You... actually think that 'color blind' mode is just a checkbox that actually has no function, but is just there for some kind of legal reason? You... actually believe this? As stated already, the point isn't to "restore colors".
This has to be a joke...
@@krellend20 I understand, thanks
@@thebigvlad st.fu
Damn, this really hit home for me. Especially 4:35 - 5:10. I do art commissions, logos, etc for clients, and it's always an uphill battle to get what they want. I always make a point to my clients to make it as clear as possible from the get-go as to what they want, but that seems to fail as well.
Hi Tim.
Hi Deb