Introduction to Game Development

( 3 Votes ) So, you want to land a job in the game industry, since you love games and would like to make your own! However you don't really know what goes into the development of a game. What are the different jobs? Where do you start? What is your goal?

Questions, questions, and even more questions, fortunately these questions can be answered. Which is exactly where this guide comes in? This introduction will cover just about every aspect of game development, giving an introductory view by people with first-hand experience. Unfortunately doesn’t cover every single aspect, but as a short look it should get you on your way.

Game Design

Game design is one of the vaguest positions in the video game industry, second only to Producer in terms of how little people know about what the job actually entails. It is also the job that varies most from studio to studio. Unlike animation, modeling, or sound, there is no real universal toolset for game design. Studios often have their own proprietary software for developing on, but even if the engine is licensed, the pipeline will be different. And even if the tools are the same, the tasks expected of you will be different!

Depending on the studio, a game designer might spend all his time tweaking the numbers that govern the simulation, or writing scripts to direct the in-game sequences, or placing the art assets and programming functionality within the game world. The job can be broken into Level, Systems, Story, Combat, Puzzle, etc, depending on the needs of the game. Some companies have AI issues handled by the designer, while others would have that be a purely programmer task.

Because of the widely varying tasks, a game designer is often strongest as a jack-of-all-trades, having at least a functional understanding of all the other aspects of development. The disparity in tools means that being able to quickly pick up and learn a new editor is extremely useful. And, of course, knowing what makes a game fun is a huge factor in succeeding as a game designer.

Narrative

A writer should be concerned with the narrative content in a game. This includes story, plot development, characters, monsters, worlds, enemies, mythologies in the game, mystical powers in the game and so on. For the game script for all the narratives, whether pre-rendered or in-game cut scenes, as well as the dialogue for the characters, it is the game writers' job to write it. If the game also includes collectable texts/scrolls or various similar object, it will be written by a game writer. Incorporating the narrative into the gameplay requires close collaboration with the game designer. Though, it isn't uncommon for game designers to handle the interactive narrative.

Programming

One of the most daunting jobs is the job of the programmer. At least, this is the general view shared by those not in the industry. Even though programmers have to make sure the final game has a minimal amount of bugs and runs smoothly as well -and a lot of other minute details that are too vast to list here- it's not all that hard if you have the right programmer for the right job, as most companies have programmers specializing in AI, physics, networking, etc. In short, programming is telling the game what to do at specific points.

Not to say it isn't a hard job to perform well, and with the pressure to get the end product out on the nine-to-five clock until the last month of the development, everyone is working pretty much all day long. Along with the hardships of the job is the reward of the programmer's hard labor at the end of it all. It's an ever-evolving job, too, as new technologies come out year-on-year.

In general, programmers are expected to work together, never against each other. There is no bickering over the minute details when there's a much larger task at hand. For the last nine years, the main programming language of choice for the game industry has been C. In the past, assembly and C were used, either exclusively or together. The reason for this is because assembly and C incur less of a performance hit for these real-time applications.

3D Modeling

If you're a modeler, you'll be creating 3d meshes based on the pieces produced by the concept artists. Your modeling team may even be broken down into character artists (which will do most everything that relates to the characters in the game) and environment artists (which do pretty much everything else), or other groups depending on what the game involves: vehicles, weapons etcetera. Not only will your meshes have to capture the artistic qualities of the concept art, but they'll have to be within the polygon budget provided and, if it is a character or creature model that will need to be animated, it will have to observe proper topology and edge loop flow designed for joints to bend and deform correctly.

As a modeler, you'll be working with programs such as 3ds Max and Maya. With the increasing reliance on normal maps to add detail into objects, it would also be wise to learn to work with a stand-alone sculpting package such as Zbrush or Mudbox, and a program that can generate normal maps such as xNormal or Crazybump will also help. Many modeling jobs also require the artist to texture as well, or at least have knowledge of it.

Animation

As for a game animator, you'll be utilizing much of the same workflow that you would use to tackle any animation task. You'll have to rig the models provided to you (unless your team has a specialized rigger), and create animations with them. You'll have to create animations that will be required to cycle, and others that must return to the "resting pose", or transition into another animation. You will bake your animation to the mesh and export it in a format that will support including that animation. I personally don't have a solid understanding of everything required in animation, so I can't go much farther into detail with this aspect. An animator should also have a firm understanding of modeling, as they may have to clean up topology if what was provided to you isn't good enough.

Texture Artist

As a texturing artist, you'll be working with the models provided by the modelers. You'll be required to create a clean UV map for their meshes and paint the textures, usually in an image editing program such as Photoshop, GIMP, or Corel Painter. Not only will you create the color map, but you'll also create any other maps that the budget allows for, examples are bump, specular, diffuse, and glow. Each controls various aspects of a material. Texturing artists should also have a firm understanding of what modeling requires, and usually texturing goes hand-in-hand with lighting, so knowledge of lighting and color theory is a huge plus.¬¬

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