Getting realistic with games

In the session Next Gen Art- Direction in Games Digital Content, Henry LaBounta, Chief Visual Officer, Electronic Arts spoke about the increasing need of making characters in games realistic and believable.

Henry says, "Games are getting more and more expensive to make, gamers want a lot more today, they don't buy many titles, they buy one game at a time and want to have everything in it. We measure games on metacritic rating and for the game to click with gamers the game play has to be amazing and the visuals have to be great."

In movies today VFX artists and technicians have created CG characters like Benjamin Button and Gollum in Lord Of the Rings which are so photo real and believable, this will be possible in games also eventually. Interactive characters in games are generally very mechanical and not that believable today. They should look realistic and create that suspension of disbelief visually. And its not only about visuals alone, as they can hold up as long a they are still but in game the characters have to also move. So to make them work they have to move realistically and the actions have to be convincing and believable. Proper foot planting has been one of the basic animation challenges in games says Henry.

He elaborated on the improved physics, bio mechanics, improvised body gestures that are applied to characters these days to make their actions closer to life. He also demonstrated the procedural way used to change animation and physique of the character. "Interaction between the players is one of the key things and it has to look natural. There are systems today that can make the player track the motion of objects and other characters around him and also react to it naturally. If the character is able to track different objects it gives the impression of certain level of intelligence. With the help of the AI in the game engine, we can set the emotions for the ways he should react to different people and objects in the game. The AI also makes the characters aware of not being aware," he added.

When designing a game one needs to create a distinctive look and style and one needs to focus on what's visually important in the game. All the elements in the game should support and enhance game play. Games like movies should have a distinctive look. Movies like Transformers and Aviator have a distinct color palette which makes the look of the film stand out. Henry shared, "This is something that isn't seen in many games apart from titles like Assassin's Creed, Resident Evil 2, Mirror's Edge and some others. Also the image should be composed well to draw attention to the central object, the objects should have proper textures and getting the material right is critical. For example, understanding that the color of something as common as a road is not black, this attention to detail is important. If you make it the right color, the car pops out especially with good contact shadows"

"Our audience sees cars in a different way in car commercials where the image is treated to give it a distinctive style, what if we make our games look like car commercials. For 'Need for Speed Most Wanted' Henry simulated a bleach bypass treatment to give the game a distinctive look."

At the end of the session Henry shared some quick tips, "Getting skin tones correct on characters is important, humans are very sensitive to light it cannot be too saturated or too pale skin. Like all the textures these should be based on the actual correct daylight color balanced values. Lighting is also very important and in most outdoor games the sky is the primary source of light, the look of the sky and lighting have to match. Notice that shadows also have color. The value structure of brightness and darkness should be balanced. One should avoid flat shaded areas and maintain the contrast as it makes the images more dynamic. Ambient occlusion helps a lot to give shape to models. Often the image is too noisy and busy, to avoid this play down the texture details and use lighting and contrast instead to make a better image."