Back to school, for an afternoon.

Before I left the Netherlands for Crytek I had a part-time job at my old university. I was teaching an introduction class in game art and 3d modeling and a few weeks back I had the pleasure going back for an afternoon and talk about my new job and working on Crysis 3.

Although I had been in that classroom many times before both as a student and as a teacher it was the first time I was actually kind of nervous. It would be the first time in 1,5 years and in that time a lot has changed.

After catching up with former teachers/colleagues I stepped into a classroom that I, quite honestly, had never seen so full before. During that afternoon I did two talks, one about working on crysis 3 and one on getting the job and what I did leading up to that point. After an initial dry throat I had a lot of fun sharing my experiences with the people and giving them a little bit of insight in what went into making a game like Crysis 3. Most interesting part was the Q&A round at the end of the session which was a lot of fun to do. This is also the part where you notice how hungry people are for more information and how excited they are about making games.

It's amazing how much this excitement can also recharge your own energy and passion for your work. During a big production there will always be a moment where you move into an end phase and start to wrap things up. You fix bugs, create those last remaining LOD's, collision models and make sure everything runs smoothly. Although part of the job, it's not very creative or exciting work but it all needs to be done when the deadline hits. It is at this point that it's easy to lose sight of what makes your job so awesome.

I also mentioned the hunger for more information, and I get emails with the same question on a regular basis. Most people who are already working in the industry have probably found their sources. But whether you're a student looking for more or a working professional looking to learn something new or brush up on things, here's a list of sources that can be useful:

- The Gnomon Workshop offers a wide range of online training in digital and more traditional art.
- Digital-Tutors has a great selection of software training for movies, games & digital art
- Eat3D has a great selection of more game specific tutorials ranging from software training to getting started with various game engines.
- 3dmotive offers a range of training similar to Eat3D

- World Of Level Design is a great website by Alex Galuzin, filled with all kinds of useful articles and videos.

- Polycount probably one of the biggest and most active sites/forums focused on all things game art. A lot of information and inspiration can be found here. It's also a good place to share your progress, get feedback and interact with others.

If you are a working professional and have the opportunity to do a talk at a university/school think about doing it. Even if you consider the content of your potential talk to be "common knowledge" or "not really special". Keep in mind you're not doing the talk for peers at a GDC and that for students these things might be new & interesting (always check the level of the audience however). Or think about doing a Q&A session or portfolio review.

If you are a student and have the chance to attend a talk, go. Maybe think of some things you would like to ask. Even if the talk is not that informative, in a lot of cases it's at least going to be inspiring!

I will most likely pay another visit to my old university somewhere in the future. But for now I will keep this blog going and maybe actually make use of my youtube account.

Till next time,
Michel

Reboot! A new country and a new job!

Looking at the last entry date of this blog I realized little more than 2 years passed since I last posted. In the past 2 years I got nowhere near the amount of content I imagined I'd put up here. But that doesn't mean the pasts years have been unproductive...

Before I truly restart this blog I feel I need to give a quick update of what I've been doing in the past few years. 

Somewhere 4 years ago I decided to fully commit myself to becoming a 3d/environment artist with the goal to one day work on awesome games. Ever since I've been working really hard, learning, practicing and absorbing every little piece of information I could find.

After the competitions over at Eat3D (older post in this blog) and the surprising results, I got a lot of positive responses to my work, and this really helped me getting noticed.

As a result I got the offer to work for Interceptor Entertainment as an environment artist, working on
Duke Nukem: Reloaded. Although the project got put on hold indefinitely in September 2011 there was a lot of passion in the team and it was a great experience working on what would have been a great remake of a classic. I moved on after the project stopped but it is awesome to see how Interceptor Entertainment and its team has grown and is kicking ass with the Duke Nukem platformer pack and Rise Of The Triad, which should release later this month!

The biggest change in my life was shortly after, when I joined the team at Crytek Frankfurt, in December 2011. I got an offer to do environment art on Crysis 3 and I took it.

Moving to Germany and leaving my hometown was probably the hardest thing I ever did in my life. And certainly the biggest step I ever took. At the same time it was also the easiest decision I ever made. Luckily Frankfurt is only 3-4 hours away from Arnhem and hometown friends visit on a regular basis. I achieved the goal I set for myself 4 years ago and the ride up until now has been great! In the past 1,5 years that I have been here I've met and worked with great people and on exciting things but the best is yet to come.

With this recap out of the way, last restart this blog! Although I'm not going to promise a constant stream of new posts I have a few drafts lined up to work on so keep an eye on this page!

My 3D toolkit

Every now and then people ask me about the kind of tools I use during my asset workflow. There's a lot of great tools out there, but here's a list of handy tools (physical and software) I can recommend from personal experience. Small and free (or relatively cheap), things that make my everyday work a little bit easier and saves me a bunch of time.

Peripherals:

Apart from having a decent pc system (there's always room for improvement) and a dual monitor set-up I use some extra input devices next to my keyboard/mouse set-up:

3D mouse

Awesome, quick and easy to use, universal 3d navigation in every program. I use a 3d mouse from 3D Connexxion everyday. Got this one 3 years ago as a present and I'm still very very happy with it. Fast and smooth navigating in your viewport without the strain on your wrist holding down Alt, middle mouse for jerky inaccurate rotations around your model. Also helps again repetitive strain injury.

Wacom tablet

Must have, best piece of equipment for sculpting and texturing. I currently use an Wacom Intuos 3 A5 Wide at this moment. There are other brands that supply tablets but nothing can really compete with the robust quality of a Wacom. As with the 3d mouse it will save you some RSI.

Smudgegaurd

Great, cheap addition for tablet users, removes friction and keeps your tablet clean. I know it looks like something Micheal Jackson would wear, but really, you should try it.
http://www.smudgeguard.com

Software:

Realtime viewport shader

After baking out my base textures I like to work on the texturing whilst checking my progress in the max viewport. For this I use a realtime viewport shader that shows me how the model will basically look inside a game engine. Rendering out your models and texture updates isn't really representative of how it will look in a game engine and takes way too much time. I can really recommend Xoliul's Viewport shader made by Laurens Corijn which comes with a ton of options and is also great for setting up final presentation shots.
Xoliul's Viewport Shader can be found here
And a quick and simple video on how to set it up can be found here

Meshlab - FREE

Great tool for optimizing meshes, reducing polycount and a bunch of other functions. Stand-alone application. Although if you have acces to 3ds max 2010 and above I recommend using the Pro Optimizer modifier found under your modifiers tab. More info on how to use it can be found at the Eat3D site in a quick free tutorial video
Software can be found here

nDo - FREE

A set of Photoshop functions great for generating normalmaps, it has a great bunch of options to help with your normalmap/texturing workflow.
nDo can be found here
With some great getting started info here

Nvidia Normalmap Filter - FREE

Is a bit older and can have some compatibility issues with more recent versions of Photoshop but nonetheless is a great helper in your normalmapping/texturing workflow.
The Nvidia tools can be found here

Xnormal - FREE

A stand-alone application that can be used to bake out your maps from your highpoly models. Also comes with a bunch of extra features that help in your texturing workflow, these are available in the application as well as a bunch of options under the Photoshop filters. Xnormal works very fast compared to native baking options in 3ds Max and Maya. Andy Davies over at Eat3D did a great video about using Xnormal found here
Xnormal can be downloaded here

Crazybump - PAID - trail version

Stand-alone application that can generate a variety of maps with realtime preview options and precise control through sliders. Also the option to copy/paste from and to the clipboard make it very easy to use in combination with Photoshop. Crazybump can be found here

Marmoset Toolbag - PAID - trail version

The Marmoset Toolbag is a great application for getting those great presentation shots of your models and small scenes. It has a lot of options for setting up different materials, lighting conditions and post-proces settings. You can quickly output high resolution screenshots of your model and even render out a turntable animation of your model. The Marmoset Toolbag can be found here

Max scripts

Functionality for 3ds Max and Maya can be further expanded by using custom scripts made by yourself or others. Polycount recently posted a great overview of some of the most useful scripts for 3ds Max available found here

So, this is my short list of handy tools I use on a daily basis. A lot of people will already be familiar with most of them but if you're not, I'd recommend checking these out. Also software will continue to evolve so always be on the lookout for new things that might make your everyday easier.
I'm sure in a while this list will be updated, if there's anything I should try, please let me know.

Another 1st place over at Eat3D!

I competed in another Eat3D Contest and was awarded another 1st place for my work.

This time around the contest challenged us to make a small scene with a budget of 10.000 triangles and a total texture space of 4096x4096. A requirement was using at least four different materials and material properties.

Although I was very busy these last months with other stuff, I was able to find some time in the last week of 2010 to work on my entry. I just love having these periods of going in overdrive and loose myself in a creative vibe just being "wired-in" like the programmers in the movie The Social Network. The end result can be seen in the pictures below.

EAT3D Contest Entry

EAT3D Contest Entry

As with the pillar, I tried to incorporate story elements into the scene setting out small hints in the environment to tell a story. There's always room for improvement but I think these storytelling elements really helped to sell the scene.

I'll try to give you some insight in my process for these kinds of things in one of the upcoming articles. Until then check out the great entries for the Eat3D Contest here.

Open up your world and expectations will follow

It’s been some time since Mafia 2 has been released (end of august) and I absolutely loved it. But being a regular reader of various game blogs and EDGE magazine I was confronted with a variety of reviews that where disappointing.

Before I go any further let me make it clear, in no way are reviews affecting my own opinions about games. In most cases I’ll be able to pick up on some games that passed my radar unnoticed or inform me on some extra background information and mechanics that I hadn’t picked up on before.

Sometimes I agree, sometimes I strongly disagree. For example, EDGE lost some credibility with me when they rated Bayonetta a 10 out of 10. This, as far as I can remember, was the first time since I started reading it 2 years ago. There were some absolutely great games released in the past years that all scored lower. I’m not saying Bayonetta is a bad game but it’s certainly not the best game released in the past 2 years! The review score gave me the impression the reviewer just had a massive nerdgasm looking at the protagonist (some special attacks make her clothes come off.. really..). Anyway, I take the reviews with a grain of salt and will always try to get some time with the game before I form my opinion on it.

Coming back to my starting point about the Mafia 2 reviews, sometimes it’s not so much the final score that feels off but the actual words in the review leading up to it. With a metacritic score of 74 (out of 100) for the Xbox, 77 for the PC and 75 for the PS3 the scores seem pretty solid but in reading the actual reviews and user comments on various blogs and sites there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what Mafia 2 is trying to do as a game.

Mafia 2 is an “open-world” game, one without artificial barriers in which the player is allowed to walk around free. The open-world in this case refers to Empire bay, the city in which main protagonist Vito Scaletta’s story is played out. There’s an important difference between the term open-world and sandbox. Both are often used interchangeably but are not the same thing. Although sandbox games are also most of the times open-world, open-world games aren’t always sandbox games.

The term sandbox refers to the gameplay options and possibilities offered to a player in an open-world game. It’s best comparable with a real sandbox filled with lots of options for the children to play with eg. scoops, buckets etc. The amount of options allows the player to play around with them and to do whatever they feel like. Probably the best known sandbox games are the GTA series which are filled with a lot of diverse, fun and crazy stuff the player can do.

And it’s at this point people are starting to get confused. They confuse a game like Mafia 2 with games like GTA. In all fairness Mafia 2 has a lot less options in its open-world and because of this it has been said the world is useless, empty, boring and what not. One of the things that made Mafia 2 very enjoyable to me seems to be putting others off. So what is the added value of the open-world that is Empire Bay?

It does not have the added gameplay options of a sandbox game but to me it offers a strong feeling of immersion into the time period, the world; and with that, the story of Vito. It does a great job of making you experience the story instead of simply telling you the story.

If you look at a game like Uncharted (which I absolutely love) I think Mafia 2 has some things in common. Even if uncharted doesn’t have an open world but does have a tighter path and narrative structure, story wise it takes the player on a rollercoaster ride filled with cinematic action comparable with the best action/adventure movies out there. One could say Mafia 2 does the same thing; it delivers the experience of being in a mafia movie. So why doesn’t it follow the same straight level structure as Uncharted?

The pacing and tempo of a mafia story is very different from an action packed action/adventure. It makes use of the charm of the time-period. Of the wise-guy dialog.
And a lot of the tension in the movies is in the parts where no shooting is even involved. Mafia has an open world which gives you the option to role play in the most basic form; playing the role of a mob member in a living world. Change into a different suit, eat a sandwich and drive around listening to the radio. It doesn’t motivate player actions that are incongruent with the story being told. In fact the feeling of freedom further pulls the player into the world and Empire Bay, following one of the basic principles of writing for crime stories in which the city is just as important a character as the living cast members.

The player actions mentioned earlier also have gameplay benefits; changing clothes will make it harder for the police to spot you, eating a sandwich will restore health and listening to the radio will give the player more information about the city and the gameworld, even reflect on some of the player’s recent actions. These elements further expand the player options beyond jump, run, climb, punch and shoot. These options also expand the role playing element of the game and allow you to stay in the character of Vito Scaletta.

Because Mafia 2 offers an open world a lot of players expected extra side-missions and although there are some options for making an extra buck and pimping out your rides. It sticks closely to the story it wants to tell. That of a well written, although filled with cliché, mafia story. And to be honest, the cliché doesn’t bother me at all. Looking back at some of my favorite mafia flicks it’s exactly those things I want and expect to experience when playing a game like Mafia. What would happen to the delivery of Mafia’s story would it have been a real GTA style game?

Personally I think GTA’s story impact is strongest when the player ignores a lot of the side options and follows the main missions. While all the extra stuff available is a lot of fun, it does not add anything to the story of the game and even creates a gap between the main character as portrayed in the main story and the character acted out by the player.

So one could ask; If you want to tell a very specific story and make the player feel like he’s part of a big mafia flick. What’s the added value of extra side missions if they will only break the pacing of the story being told and allow for player actions that would go against the character of Vito Scaletta?

The game reminds you that you should behave in public, enforcing the style of play through the world around you. For example: Joe comments on your reckless driving. Acting like a homicidal maniac around town is not really what being a mobster is about, petty theft and crimes against the public are below your standards; your business is not with them.

The game doesn’t go as far as prohibiting these kinds of actions but there are no rewards or benefits for killing civilians. (Although I must admit punishing some AI driver, who just drove into my freshly painted and tuned car, with death felt really good at that moment). While in GTA4 killing a civilian will provide money or even the occasional weapon or ammo.

I’m not saying one game is better than the other for it because both games are unique in their own way. Therefore I think comparing the two any further would be useless. Both games tell a story and both choose a different path to do so. Both offer a different game experience. So in the end it comes down to personal preference and you are free to pick what you want.

In the DLC package called Jimmy’s Vendetta the player is given a free roaming/sandbox experience playing as Jimmy. Players are rewarded points in an arcade style of play for driving fast, pulling stunts while driving and killing people. It further expands the options for fun to be had in Empire Bay, making it a more well-rounded experience. Whether 2K had this planned all along or succumbed to the responses and reviews I don’t know. I think keeping these two experiences separate was the best choice they could have made. I’m all for expanding the gameplay options but I’m very happy they left the experience of Vito’s story untouched.

Mafia 2 (Jimmy’s Vendetta excluded) offers not a sandbox to play in but an open world to experience. Even though it doesn’t provide with all the extra toys given in a game like GTA, to say it’s just empty would be shortsighted. It feels more alive than ever and the best part is; it stays in character.

1st Place in the Eat3D Old & Damaged Contest!

While the next real article for this blog is almost finished, I would like to share an update with everybody.

I recently competed in a 3D contest hosted by Eat3D and won 1st place!
For those of you unfamiliar with Eat3D, they make great tutorials about things like sculpting, modeling, texturing and working in UDK so check it out!

The contest asked us to create a game asset that is “Old & Damaged” with a budget of 2.000 triangles and a maximum texture resolution of 2048x2048. Because of other tasks, I only had time in the last two weeks of the competition and instantly going into crunch I worked my ass off to give it my best. The end result is displayed in the picture below.

EAT3D Contest Entry

When working on my model I tried to add little story elements and show how the pillar was build up and how it got to the point it looks now. The things I kept in the back of my mind while working on the model are some of the things I was planning to talk about in upcoming articles so keep your eye on this space. It’s great to see in the feedback that the judges picked up on these things:

“The damage is believable, tells a rich story of what this column has experienced in its lifetime, and really has a strong sense of materials it's constructed from.

The damage and age on this piece doesn't seem arbitrary as in other pieces. Every ding and dent seems to "fit" and have a reason for being there. Specifically, the bumped section of bricks at the top, that subsequently pushed the drainpipe out of its channel. Expertly done here.

The color choices on this piece are something I'd like to call attention to. They are subtle, finely contrasting, and well matched to themselves. On the whole, I think this piece is the best of the finalists.”

The contest has been a great experience and I think there were a lot of awesome entries, you can check them out here.

The next article should be up soon so check back soon!

nDo normalmapping tool, check it out!

While I'm still working on new entries for this blog I would like to share a new tool with you all for creating normalmaps in Photoshop.

Fellow artist Ron Kamphuis pointed me to a recently released tool created by Teddy Bergsman called nDo.
It's a set of scripts and actions that can be used in Photoshop to create normalmaps, it also allows you to easily convert shapes and brushwork to normal information without ever leaving Photoshop. After playing around with it for a bit I can see this is going to be a great addition to the existing tools out there and a big time saver in normalmap creation workflows.

Just head over to the nDo website to download the tool. To get you started Philip Klevestav made some great tutorials on how to set this up in Photoshop and how to use the tool.

So, thank you Ron for the heads-up, thank you Teddy for this great tool and thank you Philip for getting me started with it! This rocks!