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Design + Production

Design + Production. Presented by Robin Walker. Design + Production. Half-Life 2 development process Half-Life The cabal. Design + Production. HL2 Massive This talk: Iteration & collaboration Decentralized design Game-wide passes Symbolic links Choreo scenes. HL2 Team Overview.

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Design + Production

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  1. Design + Production Presented by Robin Walker

  2. Design + Production • Half-Life 2 development process • Half-Life • The cabal.

  3. Design + Production • HL2 • Massive • This talk: • Iteration & collaboration • Decentralized design • Game-wide passes • Symbolic links • Choreo scenes

  4. HL2 Team Overview • ~30-40 People, 5 years • 3 Cabals • Programmers & Level Designers • Art Team • Artists & Level Designers • Choreo Team • Artists, Level Designers, & Writer

  5. Cabals • Goal: Chapter production • Design (~3 months) • Story • Brainstorming • Level Layout • Iteration (~3 months) • Playtest -> Revise -> Playtest • Art passes

  6. Chapter Production • Constraints: schedule, story • Better focus • Faster iteration • He who designs it, builds it • Driven to reduce dependencies

  7. Problem: Consistency • More interactive • Competing designs • Bad design economy • Assumptions about previous chapters • Player training • Chicken & Egg: Chapter transitions

  8. Solution • 3 game-wide passes • First: Chapter production • Second: Experience density • Cross-pollination & training • Story • Cuts • Third: Game-wide quality • A better method for building games • How?

  9. Symbolic Links • A named link between pieces of content. • Allows: • Specialists. • Consistency. • Painless game-wide iteration. • Implementation abstraction. • Run-time links. • Symbol saving.

  10. Examples • Game sounds • Materials • Props • Scripting • Response rules • Contextual link • Choreo scenes

  11. HL1: Scripted Sequences • Animations for a set of NPCs, played in unison. • Monolithic animations. • Level placed sounds / dialog. • Costly to produce: • ~30 sequences (~10 minutes total running time) • Rarely re-usable. • Single owner. • Easily “stalled”.

  12. Problem: Interactivity • Undefined world state • Player / NPCs • Objects

  13. HL2 Choreo Scenes • A scene for a set of NPCs • AI commands, facial animation, game events, sounds, etc.

  14. HL2: Choreo Scenes • Robust • Independent content creation & iteration • Late features, scenes untouched • Powerful • Traditional, multiple character acting scenes • Responsive • Improved minor interactions • Gender independent speech • Model independent animation • Emotional states

  15. HL2: Choreo Scenes • Massive improvement: • ~1800 scenes (~3 hours total running time) • Re-usable: • Code • Gestures • Higher quality • Production rarely stalled.

  16. In Summary • HL2: Iteration & collaboration • Multiple game-wise passes • Symbolic links • Future: • Code solutions, process solutions.

  17. Questions? • Questions?

  18. Methodology • 3 game-wide passes • A better production method • Symbolic links • Iteration, consistency, abstraction • HL2 choreo scenes vs HL1 scripted sequences • Better & cheaper

  19. Interactive Scenes • Scene timeline is flexible • Scene pausing to wait for game events • Faking NPC intention through event anticipation • Synchronisation between animations and timeline.

  20. Physics Gameplay • Real work begins after integration of physics engine. • Every time we build a new physics puzzle, we write code. • Fan Puzzle • Balancing physics reality with player desires. • 180 turns with held items • Players think everything is "physics".

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