Peter J. B. Lewis' Braindump

A friend just linked me to this nuggest of gold.

This is fantastic because he’s completely removed one whole colour channel, and yet Gears of War looks almost identical. It’s not far off needing yet another channel removed. It’s practically already greyscale.

I’ve long been against the way that games are visually presented these days: low contrast, flat, dull, grey, brown, boring. Everything just looks so God-damn bland that looking at games like Gears of War or Fallout 3 make me want to rip out my eyes in frustrated rage.

Obviously in the case of those games the art direction is focussing on a wrecked, post-apocolyptic world. Naturally it’s going to be mostly shattered concrete and rusted, twisted metal. However, I think there are still some great opportunities to splash some colour in there. Bright colours makes the game much more visually appealing, and it also helps gamers establish a vivid memory of the things they saw. Have you ever thought that games were more memorable several years ago?

It bothers me so much that art direction has changed in this way lately. Even Quake, while also mostly green and brown, was contrasty enough to make it look vivid and fantastic. Gears, on the other hand, is so low contrast that I can barely make out what the hell is going on half the time. All the colours are so subdued I can barely tell red from green unless they’re on top of eachother. And no brown-and-grey game ever, ever deserves to use bloom as well.

I’d better stop here before this becomes a 3,000 word rant.

The … website … is … BACK!

I’m not going to make a big fuss over the fact that it has been, then not been, and has been again. A blog was all very well while I was at University, but after becoming employed by Geomerics it became hard. Even if I’d had the time, most of what I’d want to post about would be covered by the NDA.

However, in early August I began to look for new employment. Geomerics are a fantastic bunch, but my girlfriend and I decided it was time to move on to new things. Not necessarily better things, but just different things. Game things. So here I am now, sitting in the large and friendly office of Lionhead.

I swore this site wouldn’t devolve into a normal ‘blog’ and to keep this strictly development related instead of shouting about my personal news ad nauseum. So, in this post, I’ll be doing a kind of “Geomerics Retrospective”. I’m not freed from the shackles of NDAs of course, I’d like to share a few of my thoughts about working in middleware.

I’ve already done so, “IRL”. Earlier this year I did two lectures at Teesside University about radiosity and working in middleware. The former was a total disaster for me personally (though I’ve been assured it went “OK”): half of the equipment didn’t work, leaving me 15 minutes short and I had to rush. I’m terrified that I didn’t get my point across at all. The latter lecture, however, went very well and I only cringed three or four times when I watched the recording.

I’ve noticed that the attitude at Geomerics is almost identical to a traditional games company. While it was founded by boffins from the University of Cambridge (notably Chris Doran, who remains on as the COO), the development is run by games developers: Jules Davis, former CTO of Kuju; Gary Lewis, former COO of Take-Two; Rob Precious, previously of Criterion; and the development team are from a mix of Lionhead, EA, Sony… Throw in a few research types (PhDs from various Universities), QA and administration staff and you have everyone.

However, one key difference was the entire concept of scheduling and deadlines. This was usually dependent on negotiations with your client, rather than being determined by public holidays and top selling seasons. There were exceptions, of course, but usually we were able to discuss with clients when they needed Feature X or Bug Y fixed, and generally they were flexible about it. It made for a very relaxed style of work, which was a good thing.

Of course, sometimes there were hard deadlines. A good example stems from a company that Geomerics are working with very closely at the moment on an unannounced title. That title was in the conceptual phase when we approached them, and therefore they were in the advantageous position of being able to “grow” their game up with Enlighten. In order for this to be approved, though, a demo would need to be made for the higher-ups. They couldn’t wait for us, so if we hadn’t have hit this deadline, Enlighten would have been dropped. Luckily, we did, and so I hope to see it on the shelves in the next few years.

As Geomerics is involved with so many different companies across the world, it was great to get a sense of the rest of the industry. Even though I’ve never worked at an actual games studio until now, I think I gained a much more macroscopic view of the industry than if I’d have started as a lowly peon in a traditional games job. Had I stayed there, there would also have been opportunities to go work with a lot of those companies to help integrate Enlighten, or give presentations at GDC. I’ve met some awesome people too, such as David Braben, Frontier boss and co-author of Elite; Andy Serkis, who played Golem and King Kong; Jeremy Vickary, previously a lighting artist at Pixar who was very illuminating, and not to mention the great guys from Sony Cambridge and Ninja Theory.

For a junior I had quite a lot of freedom. While there I worked on areas ranging between core tech to graphics to engine stuff to debugging to tools to support… You did what you had to, because nobody else was free. I think, in retrospect, I could have shouldered much more responsibility, but there was quite enough on my plate to be getting on with when more responsibility was offered.

I really look forward to seeing Enlighten in a game in the next few years. I’m a little saddened that I won’t be there to see it reach that stage, but I’ll be proud to say “I helped make that” when something eventually ships.

And if you’re reading this, guys: good luck and God speed!

A quote from my Artifical Intelligence report that I thought might provoke some discussion:

It can be a lonely scenario when one man is burdened with the task of destroying a planet of brainless monsters. I recall running through the endless corridors of Phobos in Doom II just wanting someone to give me a hand with a particularly difficult puzzle. That’s probably what made multiplayer cooperative so fun: the ability to interact with something that will respond. The “One Man Army” concept is not a very immersive idea and one that most games these days are phasing out. Now that cooperative play has dwindled into near extinction, it is currently more common to see the player involved in fighting computer-controlled opponents side-by-side with computer-controlled friends. I suspect this is mainly due to the substantial evolution of artificial intelligence since 1993. This artificial ally approach is particularly prominent in all Role-Playing Games (from the early MUDs to the recently released Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) and now even modern First-Person Shooters (Half-Life 2), and can be an important aspect of creating an immersive atmosphere that the player will want to stay in.

However, the “intelligence” of your robotically-minded allies can easily destroy all the ambience and immersion that they were created for. The most frustrating thing about “buddy agents” is their complete inability to combat properly. Take a common scenario from Bethesda Softworks’ Oblivion. In front of you stands an eight-foot tall monster clad in nasty, spiky looking armour. It looks angry. Behind you, you hear the battle cry of the men you’re fighting with, the men you swore to yourself you’d keep alive. Not because you promised anyone, but because you feel for them, just as if they were real. You line up a shot using your bow and arrow. You release and watch the arrow fly… straight into the left buttock of one of your friends. In the last moments, one of your mindless friends has charged straight in-front of your line of fire. Alternatively, try the reverse: you charge at the monster and get four arrows in your back from your supposed allies. Either way, the entire illusion of companionship or even intelligence is completely shattered.

It would be nice to see a system in games one day that fixes this issue. They have realistic facial expressions, 50 hours of dialogue, hi-poly models, 10,000 animations… yet they get in your way and shoot you in the arse. Isn’t it a horrible thought that all those features that make your AI agents more alive are completely and utterly destroyed in one moment of fighting?

As Romero once said, “Design is Law”. Normally I would agree, but from what I’ve seen lately most people have a totally incorrect concept of what game design really is. What I’ve been told is “game design” from 90% of the designers that I’ve met so far has just been moot opinion wrapped up in ego. In fact, I should really say that I have met many people that claim to be designers. Conversely, I’ve also met many people who claim that designers are nothing more than mere idea men with delusions of grandeur. I personally don’t agree with this last statement: I think a design team with a design lead is one of the most necessary parts of games today. What would a film be without a scriptwriter? Of course, the director could write the script himself, but a good scriptwriter gives the film that edge of professionality and a higher quality product. However, many people I know also claim to be good story writers. They are not.

This allusions to some kind of literary and artistic greatness seems to propagate through people where-ever I go. Only with close and prolonged observation does real talent show. This is why I think Blitz’ approach to interviewing people is so brilliant and exactly what I would do. For example, I know people that think game design is the same as the detail of the game world. I can’t even comprehend how people reach this conclusion without thinking to themselves, “what does the player do?” When asked this question they either respond with a, “I haven’t thought of that yet”, or a “well, they can explore the world” or something equally vague. The first is obvious and the second is not fun. These are the people that go through their lives thinking they are game designers but are in fact poets in disguise. Even their design documents are so obfuscated with pretty words that they are almost lyrics to some obscure love song. They concentrate on the detail of the world, but not on the detail of the player’s actions.

Things like this are for films, not games. Films are all about the experience and the emotion. Games are about interactivity and choice. In fact, until recently the latter hasn’t really been very important. Dressing your game world is important, but not as important as the interactivity. Imagine a pretty game with nothing to do? It will be boring and it won’t sell. An ugly game with lots to do? You’ve got Deus Ex. These same people will probably think that Deus Ex was a richly detailed game, when in fact it was a series of many choices laid down for the player to make his own path with a rich narrative to support these actions. It could be argued that this narrative was part of the world detail, but I argue that the world detail was a side-effect of the narrative. However, this leads to the impression that narrative is the most important factor in determining world detail and therefore world detail leads to choice. This is wrong. Many designers tackle games from a narrative perspective and fail. Hopelessly. Again, this is how films are made, not games.

Interactivity first, then narrative, then world detail. Even I know this, and I’m just a programmer.

I’ve got my claws on a book called Abnormal Psychology, 3rd Edition. I must admit, I’ve only read the first chapter and it’s very interesting already. It deals, as the title suggests, with the psychocology behind “abnormal” people, why they are labelled as such and their motivation that drives such behaviour.

It starts by defining the word abnormal and makes it perfectly clear that it does not intend it to be a derogatory term. It then suggests that there are 7 ways of classifying “abnormality”, but it’s important to note that none of these reasons are necessary reasons: if there are one or more signs of abnormality present, that person is deemed so, but there is no consistent connection between all cases of abnormality. This is indeed very true.

Being at University, not to mention living in Middlesbrough, I have come to know a few “abnormal” people. From people that I know (whether they are at University or not), I have noticed a strong corellation between depressives and those that would be considered “abnormal”. Obviously, those with depression would automatically be considered abnormal (even though statistically, being depressed is quite normal). One could classify “normal” as the baseline for all subconscious attraction, or as what is deemed “socially acceptible” by any individual’s standards. Depression is neither of these.

I am referring to other signs of abnormality brought about by depression. For example, I know a chap that was depressed because he thought that he would never have a girlfriend when all his friends were quite successful. He was quiet, somewhat overweight and generally teased at school. He eventually started dressing in the hallmark “goth” clothing that’s associated with depressed teens; he also moaned about everything, and rarely escaped from his room. He eventually began to betray confidences of the people close to him, possibly seeing this as a way to leverage himself socially.

He then discovered the world of alcohol. During one of his drunken outings, he grafittied his best friend’s house. He also started having an internet relationship with a 14-year old girl over the Internet. When they eventually met, she immediately had nothing to do with him. This cut him deeply, but soon after he started persuing a girl that was dating his best friend. Now they both despise him.

In the final few months that I knew him, his life became a mess. I personally wanted nothing to do with him, he failed his exams, his mother started keeping an eye on him to the point where he couldn’t cope, he lost more and more friends and those that I know that do talk to him regard him with pity tainted with disgust. Obviously, because his actions are detrimental to his lifestyle and wellbeing, he is deemed “abnormal” by others.

If you’d allow me to branch off for a moment: my personal theory for the above case is that the depression he experienced is a very odd form: it is invented by the person to mask their true worries. Any observer can see that his case doesn’t seem quite normal. I personally believe that he was using that as a kind of mental skapegoat. I feel his true worries lay elsewhere but he was possibly in denial about them, consciously or otherwise.

From this theory I have been testing a method to bring myself out of a “low spot”. When I feel down or upset about something but I am never sure why, I try and find the root of the problem in my mind. Usually, I am simply not admitting to something that I know is true but refuse to consider (simply because it is not convenient to do so). I’m sure that when a wife finds lipstick on her husband’s shirt she thinks to herself, “no, no, it must be mine,” even when she knows that it is not. The brain locks down any thoughts that could be potentially harmful to the mind, which we refer to as denial. When I consent myself to facts that I am reluctant to admit, I instantly feel that I have more options open to me and I am able to deal or rectify the problem, even if life has been made potentially more difficult.

In the book I mentioned above it states that every action that a being takes is based on its “rules of survival”. I absolutely agree and I have concluded that each action is either designed to protect it from harm (psychological, such as denial, or phsyical, such as the fear of skydiving). These “rules”, or bases for judgment are accumulated during a being’s lifetime from the usual sources: parents, family, peers, TV, etc. If a father is in the army and is killed, any child that he has would probably develop a fear of firearms as the child would associate them with injury or death. Conversely, if he lives, the child would have no such aversion to firearms.

I know someone that copes with stress by sleeping. My conclusion is that when this person feels stressed, overworked or is reliving any past trauma, her mind tells her to sleep because in sleep the thoughts cannot harm her. This isn’t strictly true as she have the occasional nightmare, but her subconscious possibly deems this better than the alternative.

I think the trick here is that she needs to find a way of “reprogramming” her subconscious: she needs to instruct it that when she is finding it difficult to cope, sleeping is not an acceptible way of dealing with the problem. Instead, she needs to tell it to respond in a more positive and more helpful way, such as thinking calmly and logically about her negative experiences, to work through them and accept them as past. I could be talking utter nonsense, as I’m not a qualified psychologist, but these theories work for me at least.

If you’re ever feeling low, I’d like you to try an experiment. When you have a feeling that will not leave you alone no matter what possible reasons you blame for it, try searching inside yourself. And when you do it, make sure that you are honest with yourself: you will know when you are denying yourself the truth. If you are in serious debt but you’re sure you’ll run into some money soon, admit it to yourself: you’re probably not. If you’re with a man or woman that does not make you happy, admit it to yourself. If you find yourself attracted to someone of the same sex, admit it to yourself. Then try and fix it if you can. You’ll feel better for it in the end. If you find it trialing, remember the golden rule: believe in yourself. If you really can’t fix it, you’ll find that you can probably ignore it more easily.

If only this advice was infallible, though. If you are coping with a traumatic event, well, that’s something that is probably the hardest to deal with. Maybe, one day, I’ll discover the General-Purpose-Answer-To-Dealing-With-Life, and when I do, I will post it.