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xzzy posted:Anecdotally, AC games have the longest credit roll I've ever seen in a game. And it wasn't just one of them, all of them have been like that. The list of names never loving ends. You've never played a Kickstarter game (this is the correct position) have you? Played one for work that had 45 minute long credits.
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Jun 12, 2014 23:33
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ceebee posted:If you don't think a good quality game can come out of a 100-200 person team you're insane. There's no reason for 1500 employees on one game except for a massive risk for all involved. The risk is not greater, because their salaries are not dependent on one game, and they do not each work on only one game. Not that Ubisoft could afford for AC:U to flop, mind you.
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Jun 12, 2014 23:41
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ceebee posted:If you don't think a good quality game can come out of a 100-200 person team you're insane. There's no reason for 1500 employees on one game except for a massive risk for all involved.
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Jun 12, 2014 23:59
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theflyingorc posted:The risk is not greater, because their salaries are not dependent on one game, and they do not each work on only one game. That's what's becoming increasingly insane about this. AC:4 was 900 people, Watch_dogs was 1000+ and they were both over a significant number of years in development (sure, not at that size the whole time but long enough.) The approach of 'just throw more people at the problem until it's not a problem anymore' approach to studio management and AAA development isn't sustainable. Most of the managers I've worked with start to develop real structural issues with management styles when they have to directly manage more than 8 people at a time - your lead manages 8 directors, your directors manage 8 heads and your 8 heads manage 8 artists/coders/QA/whatever. poo poo starts to get really fuckin' weird when you add that many layers to a process though and adding more just makes it weirder. There are some freaky reddit posts about the development of the entire homestead thing in AC:3 basically being this thing that everyone forgot there were designs for until the last minute until someone asked 'hey, who's working on this?' and everyone realised that no one was working on it. It seems really risky that a company can throw such a huge number of people at a project and have their sole plan for it be 'god, I hope we stick the landing on this.' 
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Jun 13, 2014 00:12
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^^This too.theflyingorc posted:The risk is not greater, because their salaries are not dependent on one game, and they do not each work on only one game. Yeah exactly...can you imagine if Watch Dogs or an AC game flopped? There's no doubt in my mind that people wouldn't be laid off. This is the mentality that needs to stay the hell out of the industry. Just because you have the numbers and you have all this outsourcing resources doesn't mean you should put them all on one project. It's just plain ridiculous, and I hope this trend dies out and larger companies realize this so that jobs are a bit more stable in this industry when one project flops. EA is trying it out with some of their smaller teams working on projects like Dawngate but because it doesn't run massive numbers and the game has heavy competition they believe as a business it's not worthwhile. When in reality they're just doing it wrong by trying to compete with companies that have already secured their large player base and spent years growing. It is not healthy for the evolution of our industry, and hopefully none of you learn this the hard way when your company lays off your entire team because one game didn't do so hot. ceebee fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Jun 13, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 00:16
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ceebee posted:
So what you're saying is you hope none of us work for Activision?
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Jun 13, 2014 00:22
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Activision isn't the only culprit. I'm getting a bit off topic. I just wish instead of making AC they focused on more modest projects and more of them, Child of Light is a good step in the right direction and I hope they continue with the Ubisoft Arts team thing. I'm the kind of guy that would take a semi open world with amazing unique art styles and stories instead of a fully modeled photo real city to wander through. ceebee fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Jun 13, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 00:26
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ceebee posted:Activation isn't the only culprit. I know but I just felt like putting in a lovely one liner :/
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Jun 13, 2014 00:26
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I agree with a lot of the "health of the industry" sentiments, but I also love bigass open world games like Grand Theft Auto, so I can see both sides of this, obviously. On the other hand, Skyrim's team was about 70 people, so there are obviously better ways to make AAA blockbusters than the Zerg Rush Method.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:31
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E3 might've impressed me the most this year with how much indie stuff I saw. Pretty excited though I guess I'm in this weird rear end position of sorta being in games but yet not. For all I know it might've been one of the worst for someone else but there's some sweet stuff in my opinion!
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Jun 13, 2014 02:58
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Mega Shark posted:I hope it's for a junior position then? Why would you hope it's for a junior position? It's a test to see my skills on "low level programming" which isn't something I do on a day to day basis. Still, thank you for the topics to look at 
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Jun 13, 2014 08:54
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Enjoy this pretty cool article! http://boingboing.net/features/morerock.html
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Jun 13, 2014 09:48
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ceebee posted:Yeah exactly...can you imagine if Watch Dogs or an AC game flopped? There's no doubt in my mind that people wouldn't be laid off. There's no doubt in my mind that you are wrong.
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Jun 13, 2014 12:27
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Jan posted:There's no doubt in my mind that you are wrong. I- are- have we doubled our negatives somewhere?
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Jun 13, 2014 13:53
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I'm not really sure whether to ask this in the CG thread or here seeing as most of the people who post in the CG thread seem to be in an industry outside of games. Does anyone know if there are any animal fur/hair shaders or tutorials for Marmoset Toolbag or Unity or UDK4 or similar? It would probably be some kind of UV Shell creation shader; Nintendoware has something similar. I'm having difficulty finding anything.
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Jun 13, 2014 14:22
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Jan posted:There's no doubt in my mind that you are wrong. I remember this discussion from a while back, where Ubi was actually quite good at not laying off hundreds at a time?
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Jun 13, 2014 14:45
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Aliginge posted:I remember this discussion from a while back, where Ubi was actually quite good at not laying off hundreds at a time? Well, for Ubisoft Montreal specifically, I don't recall there being any significant post-project layoffs in the studio's entire history. None of my friends there know of any, and Google turns up empty. There have been some relative flops coming out in that time period, too. I think they're just "too big to fail", in a different sense. On the subject of Ubisoft's femalegate, I think Penny Arcade is taking the piss today.  And so is Bioware.
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Jun 13, 2014 14:59
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LabiaBadgerTickler posted:Why would you hope it's for a junior position? It's a test to see my skills on "low level programming" which isn't something I do on a day to day basis. Because that's not the type of question you ask if you're more experienced. I'm not being mean, I'm telling you the truth.
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Jun 13, 2014 15:36
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Jan posted:On the subject of Ubisoft's femalegate, I think Penny Arcade is taking the piss today. I am in agreement with the general overriding sentiment that there isn't enough gender diversity in our games, Ubi not only let down gamers when they failed to include more diverse characters in AC:U but the excuses are more worrying. A gripe I have otherwise this E3 is that I disagree with the outcry over the female hostage in the Rainbow Six Seige demo, as if R6 in it's long history as a series hasn't had plenty of hostages and player characters of both genders. Their crime seems to be of timing and creating a convincingly terrified AI character. GeeCee fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Jun 13, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 16:12
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Aliginge posted:I am in agreement with the general overriding sentiment that there isn't enough gender diversity in our games, Ubi not only let down gamers when they failed to include more diverse characters in AC:U but the excuses are more worrying. Also having the female voice over character be the sniper that gets killed off screen. Like, that's not really that big of a deal but the whole 'haha no, get thee to a safe spot woman, front line man shooting is no place for you' subtext is there and it's really fuckin' poor timing. Havok MVP, by the way. Sion fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Jun 13, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 16:59
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The best thing about E3 is watching Police Academy in the hotel the morning after the event and just relaxing.
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Jun 13, 2014 17:41
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Sion posted:Also having the female voice over character be the sniper that gets killed off screen. Like, that's not really that big of a deal but the whole 'haha no, get thee to a safe spot woman, front line man shooting is no place for you' subtext is there and it's really fuckin' poor timing. Possibly? But didn't the Division have a woman player pretty much front and centre directing the group around? Didn't everyone bar the last standing OPFOR in the R6 video get roundly wrecked in some way or other? If it turns out that unlike previous games that R6:S has majority female hostages or no female playable characters (we don't see the woman sniper's character model after all) then I'll be among the loudest calling out such bullshit but it's so early days on the info front as to sound like premature criticism from those without prior knowledge of the series and what it does.
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Jun 13, 2014 19:11
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Jan posted:On the subject of Ubisoft's femalegate, I think Penny Arcade is taking the piss today. Apparently coincidental, from reading the newspost, but still funny that it doesn't change anything at all about the rest of the content, proving (however inadvertently) that "It's too hard to do females" is bullshit.
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Jun 13, 2014 19:16
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GetWellGamers posted:Apparently coincidental, from reading the newspost, but still funny that it doesn't change anything at all about the rest of the content, proving (however inadvertently) that "It's too hard to do females" is bullshit.  That proves absolutely nothing about the difficulty of creating custom animations for different models in a video game.
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Jun 13, 2014 19:35
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I was referring more to the content, since the jokes were exactly the same without making any "HEY THIS IS FOR GIRLS" labels everywhere. The technical aspect has already been thoroughly debunked as well, though, most notably from one of ubi's own Modelers/riggers.
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Jun 13, 2014 19:43
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GetWellGamers posted:The technical aspect has already been thoroughly debunked as well, though, most notably from one of ubi's own Modelers/riggers. How so? Just curious.
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Jun 13, 2014 20:25
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One of them posted that it would take about "Two or three days" to get a female assassin rigged and working properly, especially given that they've already done so on the PS Vita. (AC: Liberation)
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Jun 13, 2014 21:04
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Sure, it takes 2-3 days to rig, then it's a week of programmer time to implement everything to let you switch, three weeks of QA time to play through the entire game with both characters, another week of art time to fix the various clipping issues with the animations caused by the body type change, another couple days of programmer time to implement custom animations for certain things, another day of art time because....
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Jun 13, 2014 21:26
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mastermind2004 posted:Sure, it takes 2-3 days to rig, then it's a week of programmer time to implement everything to let you switch, three weeks of QA time to play through the entire game with both characters, another week of art time to fix the various clipping issues with the animations caused by the body type change, another couple days of programmer time to implement custom animations for certain things, another day of art time because.... Tough poo poo really, it shouldn't be treated as an optional feature anymore and its not like ubisoft of all people lack the manpower to implement it.
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Jun 13, 2014 21:28
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Stux posted:Tough poo poo really, it shouldn't be treated as an optional feature anymore and its not like ubisoft of all people lack the manpower to implement it. It's always legitimately possible that there wasn't really room in the production schedule to implement it. Assassin's Creed games have to have a nearly impossible time coming out each year as it is! Are the co-op Assassins even customizable, have different personalities, whatever? Diving into the code and taking every reference where you assumed 1 model and making it deal with selecting from a list is non-trivial as well if you didn't develop with that in mind. Again, they should probably have it. That doesn't change the fact that most people complaining don't understand game production pipelines worth a drat.
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Jun 13, 2014 22:33
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I totally agree they should have had it, but I also totally agree that trivializing the cost of doing it and doing it well and to a next-gen standard (which means not allowing terrible Mass Effect Shoulder Syndrome on a playable character that is supposed to gracefully move throughout an environment). The amount of disregard for making high quality assets is pretty much game development fanfiction at this point. If anything, I would imagine they pushed the fidelity of their male character too far and had previously assumed that they could use male on female and it would live up to their quality bar, trivializing the process as everyone else is here, only to discover too late that it wouldn't.
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Jun 13, 2014 22:50
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The production schedule doesn't sound like the real issue, it's priority. Women characters are apparently low enough on the dev priorities of AC:U to the point where they felt they could be cut and that's a problem. Even going the Mass Effect route and using male animations and rig for a female character is better than just cutting out playable women characters, however much it may bother the animators. The question would then be why are women considered secondary priority for animation, but at least they'd be represented. GeeCee fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Jun 13, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 22:52
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ceebee posted:Just because you have the numbers and you have all this outsourcing resources doesn't mean you should put them all on one project. Re: layoffs, Ubisoft is fairly stable because they rely on co-dev a lot (FC4 has 5 studios working on it), so resource allocation is really fluid. theflyingorc posted:Are the co-op Assassins even customizable, have different personalities, whatever?
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Jun 14, 2014 05:05
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Okay haven't been in this thread in a while. I'd like some clarification. It seems I was under the (mistaken) impression that software like Unity and Unreal were level/stage editors, but they're not. So if I want to learn level design, what software should I be using?
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Jun 14, 2014 11:37
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Mr Interweb posted:Okay haven't been in this thread in a while. I'd like some clarification. It seems I was under the (mistaken) impression that software like Unity and Unreal were level/stage editors, but they're not. So if I want to learn level design, what software should I be using? I'm still learning Unity so I'm unsure how that would function as just a level editor but this list here is still mostly relevant and the follow up article explains the difference between SDK, engine and level editor. Source is basically making primitive shapes and mashing them together into objects and areas. UDK is basically taking premade shapes from a library and fitting them together like LEGO to make a level. If you choose Source to learn on, you will learn universal design skills that would translate to anything else but the way you construct in the editor is considered outdated. At its core, it's the same level editor that was used to make the original Half-Life. I personally dumped several dozen hours into learning the Source Hammer editor to try my hand at a CS:GO map and it's a little under halfway done. I find it extremely tedious but the big draw to using Source to learn level design is the huge community around TF2, CS:GO, and L4D2. There's always a big pool of willing testers and server admins who will help you set up a match for your map which is invaluable in helping you learn how players think and the type of crazy poo poo they'll try to do. I don't know how big the communities are around any other game/engine that has an available level editor.
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Jun 14, 2014 12:05
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Mr Interweb posted:Okay haven't been in this thread in a while. I'd like some clarification. It seems I was under the (mistaken) impression that software like Unity and Unreal were level/stage editors, but they're not. So if I want to learn level design, what software should I be using? GeeCee fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Jun 14, 2014 |
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Jun 14, 2014 12:12
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Sigma-X posted:If anything, I would imagine they pushed the fidelity of their male character too far and had previously assumed that they could use male on female and it would live up to their quality bar, trivializing the process as everyone else is here, only to discover too late that it wouldn't. mastermind2004 posted:Sure, it takes 2-3 days to rig, then it's a week of programmer time to implement everything to let you switch, three weeks of QA time to play through the entire game with both characters, another week of art time to fix the various clipping issues with the animations caused by the body type change, another couple days of programmer time to implement custom animations for certain things, another day of art time because.... I kind of wonder if that's the issue - their management has difficulty grasping the scope of their budget, and the size of costs as percentages of the modern massive budget. If their instincts haven't caught up, they'd have huge issues understanding what was a minor vs major cost. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Jun 14, 2014 |
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Jun 14, 2014 14:56
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Mr Interweb posted:Okay haven't been in this thread in a while. I'd like some clarification. It seems I was under the (mistaken) impression that software like Unity and Unreal were level/stage editors, but they're not. So if I want to learn level design, what software should I be using? UDK and UE4 are definitely fully fledged level editors. There isn't any game specific logic out of the box, but that's kind of the point. Shalinor posted:I'm increasingly skeptical gamers care as much as we think they do. Well, there was a ridiculous amount of complaining about Watch Dogs not being "next gen" enough. But if we disregard that fringe element, sure.
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Jun 14, 2014 15:02
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Jan posted:Well, there was a ridiculous amount of complaining about Watch Dogs not being "next gen" enough. But if we disregard that fringe element, sure. ... and all of that is relatively cheap. Super hard to do in a giant game, probably wasn't viable in Watch Dogs, etc, but it isn't the time/man-hour sink that high end art is. You can apply high end lighting algorithms to lower fidelity meshes and textures, and it looks neat, AAA just hasn't gone that route much yet. Though in their defense, this gen has barely started, so we've barely even seen games that take advantage of any of it. (Mind, I'm in no way downplaying the importance of art - I'm just saying I might argue that more lower-fidelity art is better than limited high-fidelity art, going by the examples of Mass Effect, Skyrim, Saints Row, etc) Shalinor fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Jun 14, 2014 |
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Jun 14, 2014 15:09
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Shalinor posted:(Mind, I'm in no way downplaying the importance of art - I'm just saying I might argue that more lower-fidelity art is better than limited high-fidelity art, going by the examples of Mass Effect, Skyrim, Saints Row, etc) There are gameplay reasons why we'd want to limit art-tech-gasms on triple-A games too, dunno how many of you have played the Battlefield games as long as I have but the emergence of a spotting system which allows you to mark players has come about as a direct result of not being able to identify enemy players because of advancing realism in graphics, sun glare, elaborate foliage, so much HD detail making the landscape so busy that people hide and camp way more often than they used to. Not saying games like BF have to come back to looking like BF1942, but tech and art decisions serving the gameplay* rather than being something just to make E3 videos look nice would be ace as hell. *This is something Valve owns at completely, especially in L4D2. GeeCee fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Jun 14, 2014 |
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Jun 14, 2014 15:23
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