NASSCOM - Game Developer seminar -Game Development Process, An Overview
Ninad Chhaya – Vice President, Jump Games
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Ninad has closely been involved with institutions like iGITA, NASSCOM Animation and Gaming Forum (NAGFO), FICCI FRAMES Animation and Gaming Forum etc.
The session is the 1st Chapter of Multicity events such as seminars, master classes etc. on games development process. For people not from the gaming industry, this seminar was more of how games are made.
Ninad Chayya began his presentation with the gaming history and the progress into today’s multi-million dollar gaming industry since the creation of the first video game in 1958.
Briefing on the relationship between the developer, publisher and the end user, Ninad said that the developer creates the game and pitches the idea to the publisher.
The speaker then discussed that similar to animation, the three primary stages in the game development process are: Pre- Production, Production and Post-production. The only difference compared to animation is the gaming technology.
In pre-production, a game idea is conceptualized, a game document is created once the concept is finalized then the storyboarding, art guide and a prototype is created. |
Ninad Chhaya, Vice President, Jump Games |
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NASSCOM - Game Developer seminar - Using Maxscript in game development
Augustine John – Sr. Technical Artist, Indiagames Ltd.
 Augustine John – Sr. Technical Artist, Indiagames Ltd |
Augustine John has been working with Indiagames Ltd for the last 4 years.
He donned various roles starting as a Graphic Designer, Web Programming,
Flash Animator & Action Scripter, before entering the magic world of 3D. He started as a 3d modeller and had lead the 3d character art team. He has been instrumental in streamlining the production pipeline – developing 3d Studio Max scripts and plug-ins for the artists. He has worked on mobile game titles like BioShock, The Office, Rush Hour 3, and Predator. Currently as a Senior Technical Artist, he now contributes his experience to Indiagames proprietary “ICE 3D” platform.
To him, the quest for learning never dies.
In his session, Augustine gave a short introduction about Maxscript. Maxcript is a build-in scripting language in 3dsmax.According to him, Maxscript has many advantages like automating repetitive tasks, simplifying the workflow, exporting assets for game programmers, eliminating the potential human errors, faster job completion and also for creating a file compatible for all 3dsmax versions. He demonstrated the scripts he had created and how these scripts make it easier for animators and other 3dsmax users to run and control the software.
To learn Maxscript, Augustine suggested referring to the 3dsmax help documentation on scripting. Other resources like online forums, DVD Tutorials can also be used for learning 3dsmax scripting. Another good resource for learning scripts is the website www.scriptspot.com. Later speaking to CGTantra Augustine said “This is the first time there is a platform to present on gaming. Gaming is a developing area and it’s good to see events like these happening.”
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NASSCOM - Game Developer seminar -Team Collaboration for Next-Generation Art Pipelines
Om Tandon – Art Director, Trine
 Om Tandon – Art Director, Trine
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Om Tandon has been working at Trine Entertainment for past one and a half year. He has a background in Commercial Art from Wigan and Leigh College in Advertising and graphics. His passion for games brought him to Gaming Industry .He has been involved in various projects, doing conceptual and texturing work and is currently assisting in Art Direction.
Om Tandon spoke about how a game idea is created with the probability of it working in the market, the target audience etc. He added to the game development stages already discussed by Ninad Chayya.
If a client disapproves the prototype then its is back to the drawing board with new concepts. Om told the audience that one should respect the client’s/publisher’s opinions because they know what works and what doesn’t in the industry.
Om suggests letting every team member work on the same software package and communicate with the team through group meetings etc. Game Art relies heavily on textures. Textures create the mood and feel of the concept. The texture artist must have a very balanced sense of knowledge and how to work on the software as per their needs. |
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Gaming companies use asset tracking to backup the files in one common server that can be accessed by people around the globe in order to manage assets effectively. There were some interesting questions from the audience. When asked about the game engines used by him, Om answered that the choice of engine depends on the platform they are working on.
The prequels/sequels/expansion gaming packs have an already licensed engine provided by the publisher/client. |
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Himanshu Shah from the audience asked, “What stage is a prototype done?” And the answer was that it is a technical exercise for which an R& D has to be done. You have to convince your client that you have control over the engines. Alpha, Beta, Gold Master etc. are terms for deciding the stages of a game.
Speaking to CGTantra about CGTEXPO Om said “Its high time that the Indian industry has to wake up to see what is happening around. We are not aware what potential we have. This kind of event creates awareness. People should know how a game is developed. Gaming is also, a good career option. You just need more awareness among people.” |
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Audience respondes on the gaming session:
“Our gaming industry is in the nascent stage. Our industry is growing and hopefully we will find more sessions on gaming next year.”
-Vivek, Jump Games
“It was a very good seminar. I appeared for my 10th STD exams this year and am planning for a career in gaming. The seminar was helpful.”
-Ayush Arora, Visitor
“It was very informative. Specially for beginners who want to know about the gaming process, the work cycle etc. It was very informative from this point of view. Right now, it is the initial stage of gaming that is discussed. In-depth sessions on the technicalities of gaming in future will be helpful to people already in the gaming industry. It should be more detailed in future.”
-Anurag, Asst. Director, MAAC
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Hrishi (India Games), Chetna (Nasscom, Mumbai), Ninad Chhaya (Jump Games), Rajesh Rao (Dhruva Interactive and NAGFO spokesperson), Om Tandon (Trine Games), Augustine John (India Games) |
Sneak Peak into the making of Merry Madagascar by DreamWorks Dedicated Unit at Paprikaas
DDU at Paprikaas
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Team at DDU: Philippe Gluckman (Creative Director), Soumitra Ghokale (Animator), Madhavarao Bheesetty (FX artist), Anand Baid (Animator), Jennifer Lasrado (CFX artist), Vimal Subramanian (Lead lighter), Sachin Paranjpe (FX artist) |
The master class by DreamWorks Dedicated Unit of Paprikaas was the much-awaited session though only for professionals. The room was totally packed for this session. Merry Madagascar is a T.V. holiday special but DreamWorks has not compromised its feature film quality here.
The session commenced with Philip, the creative director of DDU giving a brief history of the DreamWorks unit in India. The strength of the unit increased from 13 employees in the beginning to 125 employees in a year. Some of them were sent for training abroad.
Merry Madagascar was initially named, “Mad Santa”
Philip gave a brief summary of “Merry Madagascar” There are new characters introduced such as Santa claus, reindeer etc. Then there are scenes of the ocean, jungle, crowd scenes, lemurs with furs etc. |
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DreamWorks had used “Pixie Dust” one of the biggest effect set-up in the movies. And, of course high quality animation of DreamWorks can be enjoyed in “Merry Madagascar”.
The presenters were Anand Baid(Animation), Soumitra Ghokale (Animation), Jennifer Lasrado (Character Fx), Vimal Subramaniam(Lighting), Madhavrao Bheesettu (Effects) and Sachin Paranjpe(Vfx).
Anand and Soumitra shared their experience animating again and again and again till they got the shot right. Anand even demonstrated how he acted out his scene for reference. Animators at DreamWorks use their proprietary animation software EMO (stands for emotion) which gives them a lot of control over their animation. |
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For Anand, the trickiest thing was Marty’s body Mechanics. The task of doing a four-legged walking like a biped was very difficult. He suggests keeping the blocking animation simple and working on the details once the blocking is finalized.
Soumitra credits the process, support and software of DreamWorks for its high quality work. He suggests using fewer amounts of controls in the blocking pass. He spoke about the workflow of the animation department where there is a finesse stage to polish the final animation. He tells the audience that the acting beat should be right to get the animation right. And if you have an idea to improve the scene get the director’s approval and make a rough blocking pass of your idea and show it. Inputs from the directors and your own inputs will make the shot better.
Jennifer gave an overview of the Character-FX (CFX) department which has hair/fur/cloth artists, programmers, animators etc. who work on fixing the problems in the finalized animation. Here problems of penetrating characters/objects are fixed using deformers. In the CFX department, wind effects on characters/props/objects are applied, penetration of furs is fixed and rig setups are used for static objects. Cloth and cheek deformation work is also handled in this department. The software Maya is used in this department.
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Madhavrao gave us an insight into how fire effects are done in the scenes. Sachin Paranjpe gave an enlightening talk on how Pixie dust was used in the scenes and how the pixie dust of DreamWorks is different from that of other studios. He suggests that the pixie dust should not divert the attention of the audience from the storyline and the story-telling characters.
Vimal Subramaniam gave an insight into the complications of lighting a scene. The lighting is done based on the given concept art. He gave a glimpse of how the directors from U.S. supervise their work. Even he emphasized on how the storytelling should stand out from the background elements.
The session concluded with a QnA where interesting questions were answered. Philip said that except for some character setup and camera work all has been done in the India. When asked about a brief on approach of one of the movies shown during the session, Philip mentioned about the evolving technology. For this particular project, the systems were upgraded, integrated and used in India.
The DDU Team gave an in-depth and enlightening session to the professionals. |
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“It was very enlightening. It was amazing to know how quality is not compromised on. No matter what the stage the shot is in, they would go back and rework on it till it looks good. They are working with Indians. The core team is Indians. To see Indians achieve a quality like this is very encouraging.”
-Asif Sayad, Crest Animation Studios
“The session was quite interesting, I am glad I was there.”
-Visitor
V-Ray- Rendering extremely complex 3D environments
Peter Mitev and Rusko Ruskov from VRAY Team, Chaos Groups
Peter Mitev, Founder, Chaos group |
Chaos Group has literally changed the 3D industry by presenting new revolutionary rendering solutions to market. With a team of over 30 people it continues to be the market leader and one of the biggest researchers in the field of 3D graphics, introducing new technologies that are quickly accepted and adopted by the other companies
Peter Mitev is one of the founders of Chaos Group which was founded over a decade ago. Founder of the Software division at Chaos Group - the Chaos Software - and currently the general manager he has taken active part in the development of V-Ray from its first days.The V-Ray session by Peter Mitev featured the latest rendering technology of V-Ray that boasts of quick rendering.
Using V-Ray Proxy, heavy files from 3dsmax can be exported in lower file sizes. The V-Ray proxy turns polygons into V-Ray geometry.
The V-ray proxies can also be animated. There is also an in-built occlusion in V-ray. Rusko demonstrated how 3D-environment can be manipulated using specialized 3D softwares like V-Ray scatter by iCube, Vue 7.5 by E-ON and Forest Pack by Itoo software.
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Multiple V-Ray proxies can be used to generate crowds. The most astonishing part was the way the heavy mesh files were rendered in seconds. Rusko highlighted that this technology even works very effectively even on ordinary machines.
V-Ray doesn’t support displacement maps due to dynamic objects. But at present it has succeeded in overcoming speed problems in the 3D environment.
V-ray can be optimized to use in production. And in future the V-ray stand alone player will be available to view V-ray files that will help in saving time and reducing the load on the systems. |
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Before ending the session, Ruakov had a free license copy of the software to giveaway. The lucky winner was Himanshu Shah of Jump Games who answered Ruskov’s quiz question that is ‘Yes, V-Ray proxies support Motion blur’
“The session was very informative. The latest techniques on V-ray was extremely good. Like rendering a billion amount of polygons so quickly was extremely good.”
-Himanshu Shah, Jump Games |
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Human Anatomy Masterclass
Siju Thomas, Sr. Art Director, Paprikaas
 Siju Thomas, Sr. Art Director, Paprikaas
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Siju Thomas gave a very interesting session by teaching various techniques of drawing. This was a very interactive session with the audience asking the speaker to solve their drawing problems and to show different drawing methods.
Siju demonstrated the different drawing methods on his Wacom and with the help of Sketch book Pro software.
The speaker emphasized that you should have faith in whatever you draw irrespective of your drawing skills.
Siju Thomas gave examples of gesture drawing, pose of creativity(drawing poses using free flowing random lines) and mechanical process of drawing(using boxes, circles etc).
The speaker gave many important tips on drawing like starting with simple lines and adding the details later. The line of action is an important way to construct poses. Be creative where you need to be creative and be mechanical where you need to be mechanical. Trying to make figures in the clouds is a good exercise for figure drawing. Using reference of poses from videos, images or live reference can help you improve your figure drawing. Even for semi-realistic characters don’t break anatomy rules. Different T-poses define a character. |
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To learn figure drawings on your own, Siju Thomas gives four important details of human anatomy:
Names of the bones, Names of Muscles, Origin and Insertion of Muscles and cross sections.
According to him, whatever is the line of action the primary job of all the bones is to support the torso.
The speaker also mentioned about the action and inaction sides of the body. For example, a person standing in such a way that he is applying the weight on one leg, then the action side is the leg that handles the weight and the inaction side is the leg that has been loose. Action side is dynamic and curved while inaction side is looser and straight.
Concept Art was also, discussed in this session. Screen space should be utilized well in order to put the dominant character at t0he right place. Composition should be planned and not accidental.
In a disagreement with legendary animator Richard William, Siju Thomas suggests listening to music while drawing free lines for gesture drawing.
The speaker also gave a comparative study of human anatomy with that of animals and birds.
Siju Thomas winded up the session with Figure drawing book suggestions which are books by George Bridgeman and Hogarth’s Dynamic figure drawing.
“The session was very helpful. The speaker showed some nice and easy methods on figure drawing and are helpful for people who find it difficult.”
-Visitor
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Know more about CGTEXPO
Amisha Shah and Viny Velayudhan
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CGTEXPO 09 Mumbai Master Classes DAY 02
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