Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Do you have anything smaller?

Game requirements or limitations -
The  number of joints of a character or creature - can be limited by game engine. In a game creature or character mesh driven by skeleton or hierarchy of  invisible segments/joint/pivot - bones . The number of characters or creatures on screen at a time is limited by processor speed/compute power. It used to be that you needed  the ability to process the movement and deformation of the creature meshes in a game view at 30 frames a section to give an appearance of smooth movement- but also so the game doesn't chug or slow down-interactivity responsiveness suffers- its just not fun.
so what  this means is the importance of a creature or character- how many you are likely to see on screen at once has an effect on either how complex the creature is in a skeletal sense, or how nicely the design is realised.  Generally the player character and bosses and hero enemies have a lot of detail and enough bones/segments to  make sure they move and deform very nicely.  Even though computers are getting faster and programmers are cleverer than a fox with a can opener it still pays to be mindful.
Often you will be given an idea of the sort of 'budget' some creatures cost to have in the game engine and to bring to life in terms of AI and animation.
 So things like long necks- long tails, chains, wings, lots of floppy dangly bits, billowy robes and dresses, cloaks hair sometimes have to be limited, avoided, or done with knowledge that although they might be modelled alright they might not be floppy dangly or billowy as planned.  Sticky outy bits or long tail (or any tails) look super cool when they're animated about and add a lot of visual value to a game but require a lot of consideration, animation and housekeeping to take careof the various special cases of interaction in the game world.
Wings in particular present a problem because you want them to either fold away or spread to fly. Often the compromise to have them held semi spread. The problem is the complexity of the skeleton setup to control the wings, and sometimes the way the mesh deformation or skinning is calculated. Alternatively sleight of hand is sometime employed and a quick switcheroo between furled and unfurled wing models might be used. Computer math controlled or procedural  effects are sometimes used on wings to create a rubbery cloth or billowy effect for loose or ragged wings, or to randomly move feathers on a wong moving travelling fast..
Alternatively if your game is low on computing resources your beautiful winged creature might materialise as a kind of origami bird. (This is often the fate of incidental creatures added to give  atmosphere to a scene and as hapless gun fodder for trigger happy players.)
Movement is part of the character- and so if there are parts that don't move when the player expects they should it takes them out of the game- breaks what you'd call their immersion or "suspension of disbelief"- which is what you don't want (people tut tutting about how something looks sucky.) Films don't generally have this limitation- the limiting factors are more money and time- plus theres a fixed viewing angle (even if its dynamic or 3d) so theres a lot more cheating to be had to make something look like something its not.

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