Games as art, new media cultural artifacts, and dynamic interactive story

1. Maria C. R. Harrington, Ph.D.
CCAC North Campus MMC/CIT Interview
Tuesday, November 24, 2015 2:00 PM
Room 3017

2. Gaming Software is comprised of Game Engines, 3D Modeling and Rendering
software, Image or Photo Editors, and other Interactive Development
Environments (IDE) used to create entire games
• Art asset creation process of the digital 3D Model, “Avatar” and or tools
available in the Game Engine may be used to create Characters, “The Body”
Process of Character Development
• Independent of the technology, “The Mind or the Soul”
• Design a believable character (Author, Playwright, Producer)
• Rule based, where the rules of the game design the character (traditional role-
based games, like Dungeons and Dragons,World ofWarcraft - RPG, MUD,
MMORPG)
• Emergent, where the dynamic interaction of the game and individual choice
allows for the character to evolve from interactions of the external forces of the
story, environment, social context, and the choices, the morality, and
intelligence of the player/Avatar as they travers a decision tree (Sims, Serious
Games)
Lecture Overview

3. Many different tools can be used to create the 3D Models
and use them as Avatars in Games
Game Engines and 3D Models
3

4. 3D Model, 2D Art, joints rigged for motion and animation
Character specific behaviors, expressions, or reactions
UV mapping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UV_mapping)
Example 3D Model
http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/deer-animation-3d-model/542770

5. https://www.blender.org/support/tutorials/
Blender

6. http://www.autodesk.com/products/maya/free-trial
Maya Student

7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spi4lGxnMZg
Maya Body Character Modeling

8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbeI3hkYzIY
Maya Face

9. UV mapping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UV_mapping)
How to useTextures and UV Mapping

10. https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html
2D Art,Textures and Skins

11. http://www.gimp.org/
Free and Open Source GIMP

12. 3D Model, Art Assets, some are Rigged and Animated
Buy or sell: http://www.turbosquid.com/
Third Party 3D Models

13. http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/deer-animation-
3d-model/542770
3D Model,Textured, Rigged, Animated

14. Art Assets
• You will need a 3D Model
• Texture maps, UV
• Animations, Rigging
Import to the Game (use the default 3D Models)
• 3D Model becomes an “Avatar”
• Rules of the Environment
• Physics
• Input Devices
• Output Devices
• Other players
• Game AI
Art and Game

15. Environment
• Avatar stands on the ground, the sound changes based on
type of ground, if wet it splashes, if covered with gravel it
makes a crunching sound
Directed by the user with input device controls
• Keys, mouse, joystick, wand, glove, many different types of
input devices
Attributes (low level Character Development)
• If the model jumps off a cliff, and if there is gravity, does the
character fly or fall? That depends on the character’s
abilities and the physics engine rules of the world
Social interactions and rules
• Other players and / or AI
Interaction3D Model &Game Engine

16. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clakekAHQx0
OpenWorld Demo

17. Gaming Software (Photorealistic AAA Titles)
• Game Engines and other Interactive Development Environments are
special purpose software used to create the entire environments for
games, including the context, the rules, and even the characters.
• “Proprietary” Development Environments (US Copyright protected)
• Unreal Engine, Unity, CryEngine, ShiVa
• Use to build a game title and you can sell your game title
• Cannot sell the engine code
• GUI/IDE, scripts, and or some C++ or C# access engine code
• “Open Source” (different legal copyright agreements)
• Torque 3D, Panda 3D, OGRE, Blender
• Use to build a game title, and can modify the engine code and sell both (game and the
editor ex. Shiva is an engine built withTorque 3D and other open software tools)
• GUI/IDE, scripts, and or some C++ or C# access engine code and extend functionality
Game Engines

18. Torque 3D Game Engine and IDE

19. Blender 3D and Game Engine

20. https://www.unrealengine.com/education
Unreal Education

21. https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Videos/Player?series=PLZl
v_N0_O1ga0IoRrpI4xkX4qmCrhGu56
Default 3D Model / Assets orTools to Import a 3D Model
• Define animations and interactions
• Define behavior of Avatar
• Interactions with environment
• (ex. walk, run, jump, swim, fly?)
• Interactions with other 3D Models
• User Input Device Events
• (ex. Mouse and Keyboard)
• Output Devices (VR headset)
• HUD (GUI overlays)
Unreal Engine

22. Unreal Persona
Process of creating a Persona / Avatar, when the 3D Model
becomes responsive to user input, environment, other
players or AI, and game rules
Programing the logic of the animations, events, and
interactions

23. https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Animati
on/CharacterSetupOverview/index.html#workflowatagla
nce
Unreal Setting Up a Character

24. Blueprints (Visual Scripting)
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Bluepri
nts/index.html

25. https://scratch.mit.edu/
Visual Programming MIT Scratch and
Google Blockly
https://developers.google.com/blockly/

26. Blueprints (Visual Scripting)
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Bluepri
nts/QuickStart/6/index.html
Goal: Student Publish and Sell
Content https://publish.unrealengine.com/submission-
guidelines

27. https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/

28. The process of character development, is this interaction
between the external environment and the individual over
time
Characters, Context, Story Arc

29. Cloud Platforms (or not?)VM &VR

30. What makes a good character?
• Think of some of your favorite characters, what made them so rich,
delightful, real, what made you hate them or fall in love?
• Archetypes!
How did that character change over time in the story, the play,
or the game?
• What happened? How did they grow? What was their backstory?Their
history?The arc of the story? What attributes defined them? Did those
attributes help or hinder?
• Story Arcs
The process of character development, is this interaction
between the external environment and the individual over time
Character Development is More than
Art or Code

31. The process of character
development, is this interaction
between the external game
environment and the individual
over time
A NewType of Story

32. Does free will exist?
• Do we make choices, or do we only react to outside forces and
influences?Are we controlled?Or are we free?
Are we victims of our environment?
• Or do we create our environments? How do we know when we
don’t know?
Are we products of our social networks?
• Or do we lead and follow from above, below, and the side?
Does Fate, Karma, or God exist?
• Or can we create our future, with every choice in every moment?
And in aggregate, as a society, as a culture, create our total
human experience, the planet’s future? Are we the creators of
culture, or the result of it?
We create our reality
Character, Culture & the Classics

33. Like the Greek Theater, a Shakespearean Play, a Tolstoy Novel, a Mozart
Opera, an original Walt Disney Animation, Computer Games could move
beyond forms of visceral entertainment and become interactive stories,
cultural artifacts, full of artwork and ideas
Video and Computer Games are indeed consider Art, and protected
under the First Amendment, as free speech, they are copyright
protected by the US Federal Government, and software processes are
patentable
Games have evolved into training simulations, (FPS are training you!)
interactive state machines, with parameters for both the environment -
the physics engine and procedural landscapes - and parameters for the
characters, both the archetypes, or meta characters, and the individual,
as Avatars for role playing, and as a type of Artificial Intelligence for
training and education (1984)
Uniquely, Game Story Arcs are dynamic interactive partnerships, a
collaboration between game designers - modelers, artists, producers -
and the players, the social networks, and the individuals and their
choices made over time and space
Games are Cultural Artifacts

34. Therefore, the Process of Character Development is the intersection of
the art, craft, and the code required to create “The Body” of the Avatar,
and the creative design of the entire external circumstances, the
context of story, social network, the environment, for the individual to
evolve into a rich character, the essence of the “The Mind or the Soul”
embodied in that character, as it dynamically changes over time, space,
and interactions
Process of Character Development
http://mariacrharrington.org/seee.html