design + production
DESCRIPTION
Design + Production. Presented by Robin Walker. Design + Production. Half-Life 2 development process Half-Life The cabal. Design + Production. HL2 Massive This talk: Iteration & collaboration Decentralized design Game-wide passes Symbolic links Choreo scenes. HL2 Team Overview. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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Design + ProductionPresented by Robin Walker
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Design + Production
Half-Life 2 development process Half-Life
• The cabal.
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Design + Production
HL2 • Massive
This talk:• Iteration & collaboration• Decentralized design• Game-wide passes• Symbolic links• Choreo scenes
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HL2 Team Overview
~30-40 People, 5 years 3 Cabals
• Programmers & Level Designers
Art Team• Artists & Level Designers
Choreo Team • Artists, Level Designers, & Writer
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Cabals
Goal: Chapter production Design (~3 months)
• Story• Brainstorming• Level Layout
Iteration (~3 months)• Playtest -> Revise -> Playtest
Art passes
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Chapter Production
Constraints: schedule, story Better focus
• Faster iteration
He who designs it, builds it Driven to reduce dependencies
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Problem: Consistency
More interactive Competing designs Bad design economy Assumptions about previous chapters
• Player training
Chicken & Egg: Chapter transitions
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Solution
3 game-wide passes• First: Chapter production• Second: Experience density
• Cross-pollination & training• Story• Cuts
• Third: Game-wide quality
A better method for building games How?
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Symbolic Links
A named link between pieces of content. Allows:
• Specialists.• Consistency.• Painless game-wide iteration.• Implementation abstraction.
Run-time links. Symbol saving.
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Examples
Game sounds Materials Props Scripting Response rules
• Contextual link
Choreo scenes
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HL1: Scripted Sequences
Animations for a set of NPCs, played in unison.• Monolithic animations.• Level placed sounds / dialog.
Costly to produce: • ~30 sequences (~10 minutes total running time)• Rarely re-usable.• Single owner. • Easily “stalled”.
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Problem: Interactivity
Undefined world state• Player / NPCs• Objects
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HL2 Choreo Scenes
A scene for a set of NPCs• AI commands, facial animation, game events,
sounds, etc.
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HL2: Choreo Scenes
Robust• Independent content creation & iteration • Late features, scenes untouched
Powerful• Traditional, multiple character acting scenes
• Responsive
• Improved minor interactions• Gender independent speech• Model independent animation
• Emotional states
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HL2: Choreo Scenes
Massive improvement: • ~1800 scenes (~3 hours total running time)• Re-usable:
• Code• Gestures
• Higher quality• Production rarely stalled.
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In Summary
HL2: Iteration & collaboration• Multiple game-wise passes• Symbolic links
Future:• Code solutions, process solutions.
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Questions?
Questions?
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Methodology
3 game-wide passes• A better production method
Symbolic links• Iteration, consistency, abstraction
HL2 choreo scenes vs HL1 scripted sequences• Better & cheaper
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Interactive Scenes
Scene timeline is flexible• Scene pausing to wait for game events• Faking NPC intention through event anticipation• Synchronisation between animations and timeline.
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Physics Gameplay
Real work begins after integration of physics engine.
Every time we build a new physics puzzle, we write code.• Fan Puzzle
Balancing physics reality with player desires.• 180 turns with held items• Players think everything is "physics".