HANDS ON GUIDE

06 - The different talents and backgrounds of the people involved

In both the film and games industries, creating artwork requires multiple skills on your CV.

THE DIFFERENT TALENTS AND BACKGROUNDS OF THE PEOPLE INVOLVED

Another difference between the film and games industry is the backgrounds of the people involved. This is a generalisation, of course, but many of the 3D artists who work in film traditionally come from an artistic background, while game programmers often have a scientific background. However, this scenario is changing, with much more crossover between the two industries.

EA's Sanjay Mistry recalls that 'a lot of the games artists I worked with initially had worked in the games industry since they were 16 years old, and some of them never went to art school or foundation school or anything like that. They only understood the graphical element of creating content for a game in a certain way'. Mistry offers the example of his earlier work at EA on the Madden NFL series of games. 'There was a revision of that game which just didn't look right,' says Mistry. 'Cinematography-wise, it looked terrible - the characters went this way and that way, they were up and down, they didn't fill the screen correctly and the cameras were everywhere.'

'This is why it's necessary to understand lighting, cinematography, and the rules and principles of film,' continues Mistry. 'What we create is now carried out at such a high resolution that people can detect faults.' Mistry was able to transfer his expertise from the film industry to the games industry, explaining principles such as the 'rule of thirds' for correctly filling the scene. He explains that bringing these techniques to EA has 'made a massive difference'. Mistry isn't the only person who has crossed over from film to games either - he estimates that 15 per cent of people in his studio moved from film to games.

However, Cinesite's Simon Maddocks thinks that the 3D techniques used in games lack some of the subtlety of those used in film. 'I look at 3D games now and they have most of the sophistication of what we render,' he says, 'but they don't have the sophistication of what the compositors then do with it to blend it nicely into a shot.'

Maddocks provides examples of using a very subtle depth-of-field effect, or adding grain to 3D objects to make them look as if they have been captured on film, as well as using subtle colours and softening sharp edges. 'If you render a building,' states Maddocks, 'and place it in a scene set in New York, it's going to look too sharp. You want to soften the edges so that they blend in, since the real lens in the real world doesn't have that sharpness. We need to do little things such as this to make CG fit in and look realistic. I don't think people bother with that in games; they're happy to have stark, sharp pictures immediately.'

Maddocks admits that his opinion is a generalisation, but expands on his theory, commenting that games are just 'a little garish, aren't they?' He provides the example of a typical street-racing game. 'It isn't going to happen on a dull day, is it?' observes Maddocks. 'It will take place on a bright day with a blue sky, and it will have a hyper-real look. Let's face it; games aren't like Mike Leigh films, are they?'

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