Comments for "How It's Made - Video Games" Video at VideoSift.com

By LordByron

LordByron (http://www.videosift.com/member/LordByron) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 23:13:36 -0700

This was a nice primer, thanks!

By Nebosuke

Nebosuke (http://www.videosift.com/member/Nebosuke) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 16:29:30 -0700

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was one of my favorites games ever. That game studio would be Ubisoft Montreal. They did the latest 3 PoP games and are now working on Assassin's Creed.

By CrushBug

CrushBug (http://www.videosift.com/member/CrushBug) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 17:37:38 -0700

That was pretty accurate, but I will call out that not all companies plan their dev schedules like that. It looked like they were mainly using a waterfall approach and that is just one of many methods that can be used.

What they described about motion capturing was basically correct, but they did not show motion capturing in the video. MoCap is done by performers (not the animators) in black suits with what looks like ping pong balls glued on all over, and on any weapons they are using. Scanners capture the movements and the animators get these MoCap files to edit and filter and massage to create very realistic animations in their animation software. My cousin actually works at on of EA's MoCap studios. What they showed on the video was traditional hand animation where all the animation is done by hand.

That looked like Ubisoft's Montreal studio there, and I have to say that place is beautiful. Upvote!

By daxgaz

daxgaz (http://www.videosift.com/member/daxgaz) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 18:46:48 -0700

I'll up-vote too. It's ROUGHLY accurate to kinda get the gist of how a studio works, but the animation emphasis was very high. I'm a big fan of "how it's made" so I know that they only have a small amount of time to get across a complex idea and for that, I forgive a lot. But, they barely mentioned level designers, system designers, producers, all the sub divisions of engineering, texture artists, terrain artists and many other talented people that put a lot of effort in to the game.

To put it a bit more in to perspective: On my last project, there were 150+ total developers. Of those, 3 were full time animators. When I was at Lucas Arts, they had a staff of around 5 animators for the entire company. I know animators do an important job and I also know it's easy to show what they do, but the emphasis was a bit disproportional in this segment.

anyhow, I like that they gave a nice overview of some stuff and did not try and vilify the industry

By teebeenz

teebeenz (http://www.videosift.com/member/teebeenz) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 01:05:59 -0700

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, was just released for free (among other games). It has a few ads here and there but its a pretty good deal.

By siftbot

siftbot (http://siftbot.videosift.com) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 04:49:25 -0700

Tags for this video have been changed from 'prince of persia, discovery, how to, development' to 'prince of persia, Sands of Time, discovery, how to, development' - edited by ant

By ant

ant (http://www.videosift.com/member/ant) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 04:49:45 -0700

Yeah, Sands of Times was fun. Don't forget the old school 2D scroller. Fun too!

By ant

ant (http://www.videosift.com/member/ant) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 04:59:13 -0700

Ha, 1:33.

By CrushBug

CrushBug (http://www.videosift.com/member/CrushBug) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 09:43:23 -0700

"Tighten up the graphics on Level 3." Anyone remember that video?

By 8049

8049 (http://www.videosift.com/member/8049) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 10:02:55 -0700

Animators do not build the level geometry, nor do they texture and light levels. And I'm very relieved to hear that we programmers just have to whip up the AI and menu. For a minute there I thought we had to create the whole framework of technology and tools in which any of this shit can actually happen. What a relief!

By Pring4

Pring4 (http://www.videosift.com/member/Pring4) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 10:53:54 -0700

I think ant and I are talking about the same thing

Haha at -2:56

By Fletch

Fletch (http://fletch.videosift.com) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 21:23:29 -0700

@Crushbug

Lol. I remember it. I think it's on VS somewhere.

EDIT: here it is: http://www.videosift.com/video/Tighten-up-those-Graphics