Here we are at Giovanni! Remedy is sponsoring the space for tonight.
17:32
Right on time! Sonja opens the second IGDA Finland seminar with a few words of introductions. She stressed our grave need for feedback from you people, so please don't hesitate to mail us with your comments and/or suggestions! She also outlined the previous feedback.
17:37
Lasse takes on with his opening words. He briefed IGDA Finland's history and why we decided to keep these seminars.
17:40
Sumea time! Lassi Leppinen (head of tools dep.) & Kai Auvinen (art d.) takes the stage.
* company info, history and track record
"Why do we need tools?"
* tools streamline the development and production of mobile games, as there are hundreds of different phones to run them on
* production times are really short with multiple projects at all times, so having a working toolset at all times is really valuable (no time to develop "on the fly")
* thus, tools are made outside the game projects and are also ment to work with future projects, not just the game at hand
* same tools are used in all DChoc studios (US, Spain, India, Finland) so documentation/overall quality must be good and updating them globally must be as easy as possible
* all tools are Java based
Sumea Graphics tool "Da Vinci"
* automating repetitive actions, like scaling and importing graphics/animation, so less programmer's time is "wasted"
* more efficient graphics packing -> more visuals!
* Past: photoshop -> export -> programmer import/timing -> testing -> tweaking
* Present: Photoshop -> export to toolset(s) -> animation/whatever -> 1-button-export to the game -> testing -> tweaking
* Exporting cycle (photoshop -> game) from +30 min to seconds!
* Screenshot of the tool, you can't see it :(
* Live demo of the workflow! Looking good, DChoc people sure are happy campers :)
Sumea tools team
* two programmers and one tester
* tools programmers handle everything from development of new tools to maintenance of old tools
* tools tester handles everything else, like testing, filtering bug reports, documentation, training, support etc.
* tools tester is really important and helpful for the artists, so they can approach him with all their troubles
Tools development in general
* around 15% of programmers build tools only
* it's really worth it to have people developing them full-time
* having different backgrounds and skill sets in the tools team is helpful
Conclusion
* with dedication comes quality
* documentation and training is really important and should be scheduled
* sometimes it's more efficient to make tools that fit multiple projects
* better tools usually concludes to better games
* just our approach, this is the DChock way to tools!
18:22
Questions
Q: is Photoshop really the tool for mobile games as it's "hard" to integrate to other tools
A: yes, as it is so versatile otherwise
Q: specific question about the Da Vinci tool
A: explanation
Q: how does DChoc handle porting assets to multiple platforms
A: manually, as there is no easy way
18:27
DChoc is done and Sami Vanhatalo (Remedy's lead technical artist) takes over!
* our data projector is having a hard time with blacking out on us, but we'll get there... Eventually... (Optoma didn't earn my shares today!)
* The Force is not with us today, we're switching to an older slideshow :(
* focus is on Alan Wake's toolsets
* outlining Alan Wake's idea and visual style
* custom tools for this game only (they will be expandable in the future, tho)
* tools are required to be very console friendly with no loading screens and very little limitations for gameplay/scripting
* AW's huge scope requires efficient multi user editing
* everyone contributes to tools development
External tools
* Perforce
* Visual Studio 2005
* 3DS Max 9
* Photoshop CS3 (and other Adobe products)
* Vegas Audio
* Apple Soundtrack
* Araxis Merge
* Office, Final Draft etc.
* Intranet (Bugzilla, Confluence Wiki etc.)
Internal tools
* World Editor (WED)
* Builder - handing out game builds
* Farm - distributed processing for any needs
* Adama - manages asset dependencies
* MaxEd - "interior creator" orginally created for Max Payne's
* mocap studio
Middleware
* Havok Physics and Animation
* FMOD Sound System
* Scaleform Gfx (Flash playback)
* FaceFX
* DirectX / Xbox 360 XDK
* WED includes miscallaneous stuff like XTP
* no open source code in the game, so it is more secure against anti-Microsoft abusers
Game structure
* "everything that takes significant amount of memory should be made 'streamable'"
WED main features
* WYSIWYG World Editor with very fast iteration
* home built game editor, where all assets come together
* supports complex stuff like multi-editing and a huge world
* 2-5 people have been working on it for four years
* niiiice screenshots of the beast itself
Biotypes
* nickname for landscape texture, blending and surface definition
* screenshots demonstrating the process of applying landscape objects based on biotypes on certain locations (ed. note: COOL!)
Questions
Q: Hardware reqs?
A: Lates stuff
Q: Open source, aren't there any usable sollutions?
A: Potential patent lawsuits are definitely not worth it, even Remedy has been affected by them in the past
Q: How random are the biotypes?
A: You can "encourage" the numbers to be what you like, but in the end it is more or less random (you can still place everything manually)
Q: Is it randomed in-game?
A: No, everything happens in WED
19:15
Show's over and we're heading out to the IGDA Finland montly meeting. Epic thanks to everyone involved!
