With GDC officially over, Zoe and I had a day in San Francisco to do some more exploring. It began with meeting Luke again for breakfast (which in the end turned out to be very tasty).
Then Zoe and I headed back to Japantown to do some souvenir shopping.
While we were there, we had some Takiyaki, edamame and gyoza, all of which were delicious!
Then we heard Kip and Cara (another Scholar) were still in town, so we headed across to meet them at a dinner. From there, we did some shopping at the Disney store and Macy’s!
Zoe and I quickly ran back to our room to drop of our shopping, before heading down to union square. Everyone was setting up for the Chinese New Year parade, which we got to watch from the hotel we were eating at.
But all too soon we had to say goodbye to Kip (who is totally awesome). We headed back to our rooms to pack up ready for departing the next day.
Tuesday began with a Q&A session with Mark Kobrin an Art Director at Microsoft. It was fascinating to hear his root in to the games industry was through a background in film (he worked at Wetta!)
Then I started another day of talks and sessions. The first was at the independent games summit with a talk from Tyriq Plummer on procedural architecture for platformers. I will admit it was a little progamming heavy for me, but the logic for the system was really interesting. He starts with a grid of squares and through displacement and other mods it ends up with a totally unique map.
This was followed by a talk on the Art of Tengami. Again this was more system heavy and focused less on the art style and development. Though it was interesting to see how the team had a grounding in traditional papercraft before moving into 3D.
Then we had another Intel talk – this time by Brian Upton from Sony Santa Monica. He works as a designer managing the smaller indie teams which publish through Sony – both 1st and 3rd party. He provided great insight into how Sony supports Indie developers and how to publish on their platform.
Zoe and I then headed for lunch up next to the Moscone centre!
I then headed to the AI Summit to watch a talk by Bobby Anguelov and Jeet Shroff about ‘Realizing relaxed behaviours in AAA games’. What’s great is they are trying to solve a similar problem to me in my honours project, but tackling it in a different way (I will go in to more depth on this in a later post when the video is out on the vault and I can re-watch it). Afterwards I had a short chat with Bobby and we decided to meet up later in the week to discuss the project further.
Then it was time for the final Intel talk of the day. Dana Hanna talked us through what we should look for in jobs and how to know if a career is right for us.
Again it was time to grab some food and then head across to the IGDA showcase event, where all of us scholars were invited to showcase our latest games.
Rhys Romero (IGDA Scholar) playing Seek.
From left: myself, Bethany, Katie and Rachel (all Intel scholars)
During this showcase, I got chatting to Yun from SCEA. He invited me to join himself and some other Sony members, plus some of the team from First Playable Productions out to dinner. We had a great time at a Mexican restaurant, and then we went back for bed.
The day began with a Q&A session from Kate Edwards, one of the leading female figures in the industry. Her background was really interesting, coming from a cartography degree, she explained how localisation and culturalisation are really important for selling a game globally.
I then spent the day in the animation bootcamp, where I watched Mariel Cartwright – lead animator on skull girls – give a live 2D animation demo for animating a skull girl and how they worked with-in very tight frame constraints so the character remains responsive to the player.
This was followed by a talk on the animation process of Ori. I had no idea that the game is built in 3D and then rendered through 2D sprites. Ori’s joint system is also totally scaleable. As he is rendered in an orthographic side view, there are times when his back arm of leg is completely shrunk down in order not to be seen. Also his stretchy joint system allows for extreme squash and stretch – like classical 2D animation. During the break after this talk I met David, the user experience director at Ubisoft and we had a great talk about animation systems and tools.
Then Elliot Grossman presented how Insomniac games did the locomotion of Sunset Overdrive. It was great to see the iteration process of the style of the animation which led to the final outcome. He also showed some of the challenges they overcame by re-working animations. One example of this, is that the player can grab a bar they have already ‘technically’ passed, in order to lengthen the reaction time for the player, and thus the deigners, programmers and animators had to find a way to solve this issue. The solution was to pull the character backwards to the correct point whilst hiding this motion with a back somersault before landing on the bar and jumping forwards again. This keeps the velocity of motion for the player experience, whilst allowing them a larger window of reaction time.
I then headed across to the Intel area for the first of several talks organised by Kip Silverman (the Intel representative for managing the scholars) with Melissa Fierce. It was a great session where we talked about self-promotion and diversity.
Following this back in the animation bootcamp there was a panel on the topic of ‘Women are not too hard to animate’. Brianna Wu, Mariel Cartwright and Jonathan Cooper made up the panel whilst Tim Borrelli hosted. They held a balanced discussion over the representation of the female characters in games, with the conclusion we still need to see more diversity. The discussion ran a little over, so we headed across to the wrap-up room where I got to have a great chat with Jonathan (an ex-abertayer) before we headed back to the next talk.
This talk on the animation systems for UFC was a lot more technical than the previous talks, but very informative. The main discussion centred around how they created a procedural foot placement system for turning characters, for smoother transitions. The solution was to bounce a pivot point between the two feet on the axis of the hips in order to create a rocking motion for weight distribution, this was coupled with lifting and re-placing the feet which lead to a fairly naturalistic turning motion.
Then Jami Jeffcoat – the technical designer in animation (TDiA) from Bungie – discussed her role in the company and how a TDiA maybe a new role – but would become very important specialist role in years to come as games continue to expand.
The final talk of the day was by Mike Bithell on the the animation systems behind Thomas was alone and his latest game. Unfortunately due to tech-issues he couldn’t play the videos in his slides, but he soldiered on with his normal bounce of amusement.
With all the the sessions finished for the day, Zoe and I grabbed some food before heading to our first GDC party – Pocket Gamer. Quite by accident, we ended up in the VIP queue and were waved in when the bouncer heard we were Scottish – the perks! We had a great night networking, and headed to bed at 11 – we were both struggling with jet lag.
As it was Zoe and I’s first time in San Francisco and the states, we had to go do some touristy stuff. For us this meant starting with the golden gate bridge!
Then it was a short walk down to the Walt Disney Family museum!
After a couple of hours indulging myself in the history of Disney, Zoe and I headed over to Japantown to meet up with some other scholars. After having a wander around the shops, we sat down and bonded together over some Ramen.
Then we headed across to the Moscone centre to pick up our GDC passes!
Before heading across to a hall for our first official Intel scholars dinner
Today was the long haul across to San Fransico. With an eleven hour plane journey ahead, I was glad to have two of my best friends with me: Zoe Sams (a masters student and fellow Intel Scholar) and Caitlin Goodale (a Microsoft intern at Lift London).
We were on a boeing-747 and lucky enough to sit upstairs! What was even better, was it seemed our plane was the game-dev plane. We met up with Luke Savage (PSFirst Academic Advisor) and Lindsay West (Head of VISR) as we headed on to the plane. I then spent the journey sitting next Luke, head of engineering at FGL, and Diana, a software engineer at Twitter. It made the journey far quicker as we discussed everything from engine code to Disney movies.
We also had some fantastic views of greenland, portland and the rocky’s! Soon it was time to land, and after a 15 minute delay through immigration, I took my first step outside to San Francisco.
To say we had been on a plane 10 hours, I didn’t think we looked too bad! Soon we were in a taxi on our way to USA Hostels, were we would be staying for the duration of GDC.
This was my room. It was in a slightly noisier section of the hostel, but I had a private room and en-suite. It was clean, modern and I would definitely stay there again! After a short respite, Caitlin walked Zoe and I down to the Moscone centre where GDC was being held, and we saw a magnificent sunset! After a stroll around Moscone, we grabbed some cheese fries from Mel’s and headed to bed!
Today I started my journey to GDC! This started with a drive down to Edinburgh airport, before flying down to Heathrow airport. I was lucky enough to have my aunt and uncle pick me up from the airport where we went out to tea before they drove me back to my hotel.
After doing an analysis on the Last of Us, I accidentally ran into this while searching for some other talks. Now I can understand why Ellie had those moments that broke the game for me. The part that I hadn’t really noticed while playing, but once mentioned I can recall periods when it happened, it when Ellie looks towards movement. This is a demonstration of situational awareness, she is aware that someone is there. The next step would be to add a reaction to what she ‘sees’ depending if its friend, foe or unknown.
Below is a link to a presentation by Max Dyckhoff at GDC14 which explains how and why Ellie’s AI was implemented.
– Wanted the AI characters to stay close to the player, added an emotional impact to the fights because you were worried about your friends.
– Wanted the AI to be useful and interesting. Ellie has lots of ambient animations and idle conversations that progress throughout the game.
– Never wanted Ellie to be blamed, they wanted her to have actions no more stupid than the player’s. which is why she stays in close proximity to the player.
– Dodging: Ellie will stand her ground if you walk at her. In real life humans walk around each other, not in to each other and the developers wanted the AI to do the same. The only time she will move is if it is a confined space, where you can’t walk around her.
– Cover share: Joel can share the same cover as Ellie. This has two benefits; Ellie doesn’t get in the way of the player; It enhances the bond between Joel and Ellie and Joel covers her with his body, like a father daughter relationship.
– Combat: Wanted buddies to be useful, but not unbalance the encounter difficulty that the designers had set.
– Stealth: The buddies will never shoot when your in stealth mode.
– Shooting: “We used this concept of a nervous idle almost. We dropped her fire rate way way lower we gave her this nervous “I don’t want to shoot” kind of animation and suddenly the ridculously low fire rate made sense. You could see that she was having a mental conflict with wanting to shoot just because of the animation we put on top of her.”
– Cheating: Enemies will not see buddies out of combat. If they could, the player will start to resent her for giving her away.
– Vocalisations: Ellie has lots of sayings in relation to recent events and they differ depending on what happened. So if she saved your life, after combat she will remind you of it, if you almost ran out of bullets or nearly died she will be like, holy shit that was close.
– Callouts: Ellie almost becomes part of the UI when she tells you when an enemy has crept up on you. The information is always accurate, and she will only tell you if danger is imminent and if you can see the danger immediately when you turn.
– Looking: Ellie will look at movement, so she will look at you briefly when you walk past before going back to what she was doing. It adds a lot of believability as this mimics human behaviour.
I keep referring to the point that humans change their behaviour based on their surroundings, so I wanted to find out why this is. So I delved into the world of psychology to try and find some answers.
Below info from: Gaulin, S.J.C. and McBurney, D.H. 2001. Evolutionary Psychology. 2nd ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
“All of these demonstrate that perception evolved in the service of action, not knowledge.” p.83
“When we step into a bathtub that is just a little too hot, we feel uncomfortably warm at first, but the sensation decreases with time…. There are many examples of this phenomenon of sensory adaptation, because it occurs in all the senses… sensory adaptation not only allows us to ignore unchanging stimuli, it makes us more sensitive to changes that do occur.” (p.93)
“Surprisingly, if we feel a straight edge while looking through the distorting prisms, it feels distinctly curved. This phenomenon is called visual dominance… Vision dominates other senses besides touch. Any time you watch a movie, you are experiencing visual dominance over audition if you perceive the sound to be coming from the actors’ mouth. Of course. the sound is actually coming from the speakers, which are many inches to several feet away from where the voices appear to emanate.” (p.111)
“emotion is commonly defined by its affective tone, that is, by its pleasantness or unpleasantness. By definition, there are no neutral emotions.” (p.122)
//This is really interesting as in many games the main character gameplay movement seems to display a neutral emotion, yet if there are by definition no neutral emotions, what is the character displaying?
“Emotion is our affective response to information that our goals are either being advanced or harmed. Robert Plutchik (1980) points out that emotions serve an adaptive role in dealing with survival problems posed by the environment. The sight of an enemy (stimulus) causes us to interpret the situation as dangerous (cognition), which causes fear (emotion), which in turn cause us to run (behaviour). (p.122)
“We suggest emotions are felt when it becomes important to focus attention on solving a motivational problem that is not being handled by an unconscious mechanisms.” (p.123)
Also read: Toates, F. M. 1992. Biology: brain and behaviour. Milton Keynes: The Open University.
Over the last few days, I have been playing through The Last of Us. It was critically acclaimed for its animations and watching Let’s Plays where not helpful in distinguishing what is player engaged and what is AI based. As such, I’m glad I played it through as it really does have an amazing and varied animation set. Yet, the characters don’t fully demonstrate situational awareness.
#SPOILER ALERT#
Both Joel and Ellie demonstrate spatial awareness in their animations, and, to a degree, situational awareness. Based on observations of playing the game, the following analysis will pick out key animations that demonstrate the characters response to their surroundings and detail why they are effective or ways in which they could be improved.
Spatial Awareness
Both Ellie and Joel boast an array of movement animations for different situations, when they are being controlled. The animations change depending on the the environmental conditions around them, or the physical condition of the character.
When stealthing with Joel, he will automatically reach out to touch surrounding vertical surfaces as you pass them. If you then press into the surface, you don’t move, which helps eliminate the old and game breaking issue of characters endlessly running into surfaces. If you do this while standing up, he ‘hides’ behind the surface, so you look around corners stealthily. This removes the horrible and immersion breaking, characters running into walls. Even though they are responding to your input, they are now doing it in a more controlled and intelligent manor, aiding realism.
When Joel is injured, after being impaled on a metal rod, the controls simulate being injured, with limited and less responsive input. With the blurring camera vision, simulating slipping in and out of consciousness, the staggering adds to the realism and seriousness of Joel’s injury. Using the environment to support himself and push himself along is also effective as it conveys a sense of spatial awareness.
During the blizzard section, where Ellie is trying to escape from David, when Ellie and the enemy AI are walking outside, they covers their eyes with their hand.
This gesture works well in two ways; it helps place the characters in the environment; it is a subtle clue that their vision is impaired.
Situational Awareness
Ellies idles demonstrate a level of situational awareness. However, this is mainly done through when she comments on the player’s unnecessary actions, rather than through expressive animations.
The part that annoys me, is in the second clip, when Joel randomly shoots the car as she walks by, she doesn’t get a shock. To me, a more Ellie like reaction would be; she jumps, says “Holy shit, Joel”, and then make the sarcastic comment about ammo. Instead she adjusts her hair and walks away.
When Joel and Ellie are spotted by enemies, both of them verbally react, normally by swearing. I’ve discussed reaction animations before, and this type of reaction suits the game genre and characters.
Conclusion
Although Joel and Ellie react to the physical environment and enemies, neither respond to the atmosphere. While I was playing, I was aware I was watching how Ellie was acting. If she was in sneak mode like me, then there were enemies near by, if she was standing up and walking brazenly through an area, then I knew I was safe for the moment. On occasion, that completely ruined the atmosphere for me. We would enter an abandoned house, I would sneak about, checking that no-one was there, and Ellie would just walk past, whistling or chatting. When so much time has been put in to craft the tension and atmosphere through the lighting, sound and environment, it’s a shame that is ruined by un-fitting animations (and as I discovered later, a slightly broken AI). It would have been better if Ellie acted like the player did, so if in a new unexplored area, and the player was creeping about, then she followed their lead. This would lead to more uncertainty about the safety of the area, and thus add to the survival/stealth experience.
The characters do have a vast array of animations, but all of the emotional responses are kept to the cut-scenes, or are only voiced in-game instead of acted. The Last of Us really achieved a level of unprecedented animation fidelity, but it is still lacking in having the characters respond emotionally in-game to events.
In this scene, we can hear Tess being shot in the background, but when the player has control, there is no reaction in Joel to the gun shots or when he sees her body. Tess is one of his dearest friends (though I don’t think he would admit it) so there should have been some sort of reaction.
Once emotional reactions and movements have been included in the gameplay animations, the characters will be able to demonstrate situational awareness, and thus become more realistic and believable to the player.
As I have been doing lots of reading on agency recently, my tutor suggested Hamlet on the holodeck as a good read. I have to admit it was very interesting and helpful, especially with Murray’s view about how gameplay animation could further narrative.
Below notes sourced from: Murray, J. 1997. Hamlet on the holodeck: the future of narrative in cyberspace. Cambridge: M.I.T.Press.
p.1 “All media as extensions of ourselves serve to provide new transforming vision and awareness.” – Marshall McLuhan
p.126 “Agency is the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices.
p.129 “One form of agency not dependent on game structure yet characteristic of digital environments is spatial navigation. The ability to move through virtual landscapes can be pleasurable in itself, independent of the content of the spaces.”
p. 135 “Computer gamers often experience shivers of physical fear as they approach an un-opened door in a text-based or graphics-based labyrinth.”
p.150 “One essential component of such an environment would be a repertoire of expressive gestures beyond the current staples of navigation and attack movements.”
p.150 “But there is no reason why gestures could not be animated in a way that very closely matches the visual display with the interactor’s movement and heightens the dramatic impact of the story. ”
p.153 “The interactor is not the author of the digital narrative, although the interactor can experience one of the most exciting aspects of artistic creation, the thrill of exerting power over enticing and plastic materials. This is not authorship but agency.”
Honours Year 