CONFERENCE
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VISUAL ARTS
The Visual Arts Track strives to educate artists and technical artists about methods for producing game art and animations; from stellar concept art techniques to post production best practices. Our focus for GDC 2012 is how to produce exceptional art while reducing costs.
View all Visual Arts Track sessions
HIGHLIGHTED SESSIONS
The Art of Diablo 3
Christian Lichtner (Blizzard Entertainment)
Making a sequel to the award winning classic Diablo 2 poses many artistic challenges. While many games in today's market try to top each other with the latest and greatest technology that inherently tends to drive the art direction - we decided to take a different approach. Our aim for Diablo 3 was to create a painterly stylized world that takes full advantage of its fixed camera, while finding ways to enhance and support our core gameplay goals. Ultimately, making sure that players in Diablo 3 suspend their sense of disbelief and become fully engulfed in the experience of saving the world of sanctuary.
Attendees will gain a behind the scenes look of what prime motivators influenced the art direction in Diablo3. What choices were made, and how it's stylized painterly look, environments, and characters all support and enhance the game play goals set forth for the game on a fundamental level. This talk is aimed at game developers that are interested understanding how art direction and game play drive artistic choices. No prerequisite knowledge is required. Bring your mojo!
Attendees will gain a behind the scenes look of what prime motivators influenced the art direction in Diablo3. What choices were made, and how it's stylized painterly look, environments, and characters all support and enhance the game play goals set forth for the game on a fundamental level. This talk is aimed at game developers that are interested understanding how art direction and game play drive artistic choices. No prerequisite knowledge is required. Bring your mojo!
The Art Direction of Saints Row: The Third
Frank Marquart (Volition, Inc.)
It all started with an internal joke and a word that inexplicably caught on…Exaggereal. Exaggereal became the internal name and catchword of the new art style for Saints Row: The Third. In this presentation, Frank Marquart, the art director of both Saints Row 2 and Saints Row: the Third will chronicle the development and discuss the details of this new style and the visual leap made from SR2 to SR:TT. This talk will reveal large project goals and how exactly they filtered down to Exaggereal art goals and the seven art pillars. See concrete examples of how each pillar translated into style rules and how final art assets were affected across art disciplines. In the chaotic, over the top world of Saints Row, only one word could hope to contain it…Exaggereal.
Modular Rigging in Battlefield 3
Johan Ramstrom (EA DICE)
For Battlefield 3, DICE took on its most difficult challenge so far. To raise the bar for character quality in games we developed our own deformation rig, combined it with the powerful ANT animation system (used in FIFA) and extensive motion capture usage. To create a believable experience we built and managed enormous amount of assets and ways of keeping these organized. The rigging process was one of the most challenging aspects of production, with the smallest change requiring an update for almost every single asset. With a modular rigging system and a flexible animation pipeline the production team could deliver on time and quality.
Performance Capture: A Creative Primer
Tameem Antoniades (Ninja Theory Ltd.)
Modern performance capture means more than just putting on a mocap suit and doing a few walk cycles. While the technology has advanced enormously, catching more nuances, facial expressions, takes more than just good cameras -- it takes a disciplined creative process and thorough preparation. In this session, Tameem Antoniades, the creative Director of Ninja Theory (Heavenly Sword, Devil May Cry 5), will discuss the practical and aesthetics challenges of using modern performance capture technology to create cinematic cutscenes. Attendees will learn how to conceive, cast, plan, and direct motion capture shoots from early brainstorming all the way through to the final renders. He'll share lessons learned from actors like Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings, King Kong) and directors like Alex Garland (28 Days Later, the Beach) and his own years of experience designing and directing cinematic performances for games.
Production Culture: How Two and a Half Artists Completed the FX for Gears of War 3
Francois Antoine (Epic Games, Inc)
In an time of ever-growing development teams, Epic Games prides itself on keeping its dev team a small as possible. In this presentation we will look at how two and a half artists managed to create FX for an entire AAA game, including cinematics. This presentation's focus will be on how Epic Game's 'production culture' made this possible, and how deeply it reaches into all aspects of the company, from the hiring process to the software tools.
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