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Game Art: Creation, Direction, & Careers
Game Art: Creation, Direction, and Careers is written to give 3D artists who want to move into the games industry the tools and techniques they need to be successful. It is also written for practicing game artists looking to increase their knowledge and skills so they can advance to the next level. As the gap between GFX programmers and artists continues
to grow, it is more important than ever for artists to understand how and why art works in games. This doesnt mean you have to become a programmer, but if you can understand the terminology and know why the technical details of your art are so important, youll have the skills every studio wants. This book teaches you these skills. The first two parts define the artistic process involved in creating game art, including the basic knowledge and skills you need to solve common problems artists face. The last two parts cover technical performance information and the more advanced techniques for game art creation. Due to the similar workflows in todays 3D packages and the many in-house programs used in game development, the book teaches game-industry methods from a non-program specific perspective. The book does assume a working knowledge of at least one major 3D program (3ds max or Maya) and Photoshop.
CONTENTS:
CONTENTS
FOREWORD xvii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xix
PREFACE xxi
PARTI INDUSTRY AND THE ARTIST 1
CHAPTER1 THE GAMES INDUSTRY 3
Game History 4
The People and the Industry Today 6
An Industry on the Move 7
References 8
Summary 8
CHAPTER2 GAME ARTISTS 9
Artists in the Game Industry 10
How to Become a Game Artist 10
Home School 11
In School 12
Expectations from the Studio 13
A Career as an Artist 14
Technical Art Director 15
Art Director 16
Lead Artist 17
Modeler 18
Texturer 19
Level Designer 19
vii
Environment Artist 20
Animator 20
Effects Artist 21
Concept Artist 22
Cut Scene Artist 23
Keep Up or Give In 23
Summary 24
CHAPTER3 YOUR PORTFOLIO - INTERVIEW - CONTRACT 25
What to Include in Your Portfolio 26
Art Test 27
The First Interview 28
Art Salary 28
The Contract and the First Six Months 29
Summary 30
CHAPTER4 GAME CREATION 31
The Team 32
Preproduction 32
From an Idea to a Game 32
Concept and Pitch to the Publisher 32
Scheduling/Production 33
Proof of Concept 33
Production 33
Milestones/Deadlines/Crunch Times 34
Alpha 34
Bug Testing/Fixing 34
Art Freeze 35
Beta 35
Quality Control/Game Localization 36
Gold 36
In Between Projects 36
Summary 37
PART II GENERAL ART CREATION 39
CHAPTER5 GROWING AS AN ARTIST 41
Evolve and Expand 42
Emotional Images 44
viii Contents
Contents ix
Photographing/Composition 46
Research and Reference 48
Light and Darkness 49
Color Schemes 51
Dirt and Scratches 56
Less Is More 57
Kill Your Darling 58
Game Visuals 59
Team Work Processes (Style Guide) 60
Personal Workflow and Speed 61
Technical Limitations 62
Copyrighted Material 62
Summary 63
CHAPTER6 GAME MODELING 65
Model after Reference 66
Polygonal Objects 71
Polygon Limits 72
Low-Polygon Modeling 73
Polygon Placement 73
Modeling Theory 76
Modeling Using Polygons or Faces 77
Arc Flow Edge Technique 77
Subdivided Technique 80
Model for Lighting 80
Modeling for UV Reuse 82
Characteristic Technique 83
Shape 83
Quantity of Objects 84
Optimizing Objects 85
Open-Edge Objects 85
Edge Rotation 86
Smoothing Groups 87
Cleanup and Exporting 88
Clean Mesh 89
Double-Sided Polygons 89
Merging Vertices 89
Z Fighting 89
Animation Setup 89
In Production 90
Box Modeling 90
Optimizing 92
Summary 93
CHAPTER 7 UV LAYOUT 95
UV Setup 96
UV Resolution 97
Object versus Object 97
UV Pixel Ratio 99
Projecting UV 101
Planar Projection 101
Automatic Unwrap 103
Planning UV Layout 103
UV Editor 104
Tiling UVs 107
Mirror/Overlay UVs 108
Summary 109
CHAPTER8 IN PRODUCTION: MODEL/UV 111
Low-Polygon Modeling 112
Modeling 113
Right Side 116
Left Side 118
Magazine and Normal Mapping 119
Finishing the Model 119
Overlook Quality 120
Setting Up the UVs 121
Stitch, Move, and Sew 121
Straighten the UVs 122
Arranging the UV Layout 122
Summary 128
CHAPTER9 TEXTURE CREATION 131
Color Channels (RGB) 132
Diffuse Map 132
Color Map 135
Alpha Channel 136
Transparency Map 136
Gloss/Specular Map 139
x Contents
Contents xi
Sky and Environment Map 142
Tiling Textures 143
Detail Map 144
Practical Photoshop Tricks 145
Layers 145
Dirt and Scratches 147
Cleaning Up Textures' Highlights 150
Texture Quality 151
Color Matching, Histogram 152
In Production 154
References 154
Import the Object UV 155
Work Layers 155
Main Color 156
Fill Lights, Shadows, and Highlights 156
Scratches, Edges, and Dirt 157
Summary 160
CHAPTER 10 SPECIAL EFFECTS 161
Emitters 162
Particles 162
Sprites 162
Mesh 163
Textures 164
Animated Textures 165
Animated UVs 166
Blending Modes 166
Performance 167
Decals 167
Water 168
Summary 168
CHAPTER 11 CHARACTER ANIMATION IN GAMES 169
Animation: Games versus Movies 170
Controlling the Mesh 171
Blending and Cycles 172
Motion Capture 173
Physics 173
Summary 174
CHAPTER 12 COLLISION 175
Programmer-Controlled Collisions 176
Object Collision 176
Mesh Collision Setup 176
Performance 178
Summary 180
PART III TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE 181
CHAPTER 13 GAME ART OPTIMIZATIONS 183
Memory versus Performance 184
Rendering Performance 184
Polygons versus Vertices 184
Culling/Clipping Plane 185
Object Culling 186
Level of Detail 186
Tri-Stripping/Tri-Listing 188
T-Junctions 189
Fan Polygons 189
Noncontinuous or Intersecting Meshes 190
UV and Material Borders 191
Vertex Splitting by Surface Smoothing and Prelighting Vertices 191
Draw Calls 192
Clustering of Objects 192
Reusing UVs and Textures 192
Atlas Textures 193
Alpha Blend/Alpha Ref/Sorting 193
Sprites and Billboards 195
Ambient Objects - Grass 196
In Production: Object Instancing 198
Summary 202
CHAPTER 14 TEXTURE TECHNOLOGIES 203
Colors 204
Color-Indexed 204
Color Depth 204
Raw Image 206
Targa (TGA) 207
Direct Draw Surface (DDS) 207
xii Contents
Contents xiii
High Dynamic Range Image (HDRI) 208
Volume (3D) Textures 208
Texture Resolution for Games 210
Texels versus Pixels 211
Mipmapping 212
Summary 214
CHAPTER 15 GAME LIGHTING 215
Per-Vertex Lighting 216
Vertex Controlling 220
Vertex Color 220
Vertex Alpha 222
Precalculated Vertex Lights 222
Vertex Soft/Hard Edges 223
Per-Pixel Lighting 224
Bloom 225
GI Lighting 226
Dynamic Lighting 226
Game Shadows 226
Code Shadows 227
Vertex Shadows 228
Texture Shadows 228
Mesh Shadows 230
In Production 231
Summary 234
CHAPTER 16 HARDWARE AND GAME ENGINES 235
PC Technology 236
Graphics Cards 236
Gaming Consoles 237
Microsoft Xbox 238
Sony PlayStation 2 238
Game Experience 239
License Engines 239
MOD 240
Summary 240
PART IV ADVANCED GAME ART PRODUCTION 241
CHAPTER 17 IN PRODUCTION: MULTITEXTURING 243
Multiple Textures 245
Base Texture - Color Map 245
Multiple UVs 247
Setting Up Multitexturing Blend in 3D 248
Layered Texture Nodes and Textures 248
Multiple Mesh UV Sets 250
Connect UV Sets to the Layers 250
In Production 251
Arranging Texturing 252
Layout UVs 258
Summary 264
CHAPTER 18 HIGH-RESOLUTION MODELING 265
Edge Modeling 266
SubD 269
The Next Step, Paint in 3D 271
Modeling Hi-Res for Games 272
In Production 272
Edge Modeling 272
High-Polygon Modeling in ZBrush 274
Summary 281
CHAPTER 19 NORMAL MAPPING 283
Adoption Color Map 284
Normal Map Color Information 285
Tangent Space 286
Object (World) Space 288
Normal Maps in the 3D Viewport 290
Maya 290
3ds max 7 291
Standard Shader 291
Metal Bump9 Plug-In 292
DirectX9 Shader 292
Creation 293
Painting Normal Maps 293
xiv Contents
Contents xv
Photoshop Plug-In 295
High-Resolution Mesh Calibration 297
Maya 6 297
3ds max 7 297
ZBrush 2 298
ATI and NVIDIA 299
In Production 300
Old House 300
AK-47 304
Creature Head 310
Parallax Displacement Mapping 315
Summary 315
CHAPTER 20 SHADERS 317
Vertex Shaders 318
Pixel Shaders 319
Shaders for Programmers 319
DirectX, Microsoft 319
OpenGL 319
NVIDIA CG Shaders 320
Shaders for Artists 320
In Production 320
Color, Specular, and Normal Maps 322
Multitexturing House Shader 325
Summary 330
ABOUT THE CD-ROM 333
INDEX 337
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