THE CAMERA DESIGN OF JAK III
The camera design of Jak III was the most refined of the series so far, and was the pinnacle of third-person camera design at the time. It utilised classic third person camera techniques, such as those developed in Super Mario 64, and refined them to create a very fluid responsive camera system. This was of huge importance in such a fast-paced action-adventure game, with an emphasis on combat, speed and verticality. The camera in Jak III is a dynamic third-person camera. This means that while most sections of the game give full control to the player, it does have some subtle automation. For example, if the player jumps, the camera pans up slightly, and also rotates upwards slightly, making sure that the player can see whatever it is that they are jumping up to. Another example of this, is as the player heads down a slope, the camera often shifts to a slightly higher angle, rotated to face downwards. This is again to reveal what the player is heading down towards. If the player is stationary, they are free to move the camera as they like, but as the player moves, the camera automatically follows and tracks the player, making it easier to focus on the task at hand, removing the distraction of having to control the camera. Without these three techniques, a game that requires a lot of jumping, and heading both up and down in levels would feel extremely unfair, as the camera would often occlude obstacles in the player’s path that deviate from a straight or horizontal route. Being a dynamic camera has some other bonuses as well. Jak III, while being first and foremost a platformer game, also has heavy combat elements, including the use of guns and projectiles. In a first-person-shooter game (FPS), the player’s reticle or cross-hairs indicate where the player’s weapon will fire a projectile. This is very clear, and if the player misses, they generally understand that it was because they didn’t line up the reticle with the target correctly. In a third person camera perspective, however, it’s not so easy to aim a weapon, as you can’t stare down it’s sights. A lot of games opt for a lerp between a third to first person camera with the push of a button in shooting sections, and this works in a game with a lot of tactical shooting. But Jak III is a platformer, so instead the developers built the world and it’s levels around this limitation, instead of slowing the pace of the game down during shooting sections. The camera in combat sections will often pan up to a higher view, allowing the player to see more of their surroundings. This helps the player orient themselves to face the enemies they wish to engage. Automatic locking on, and a laser sight help the player understand which enemy they are aiming their weapon at. To further aid the camera, the levels are built in a way that enemies can be placed in rows, in succession, or in a way that flows well, and feels good as the player runs and guns through the levels. Designing your game so that the camera is an integral element is extremely important, and the harmony that Jak III strikes between it’s level design and camera design makes the game a very fluid experience. After all, not noticing the camera is a sign that it’s a good one. For this blog post, I decided upon the neo-futurist movement, and decided to use the famous Zaha Hadid as my influence. One of her designs, the Wangjing SOHO, designed for SOHO China, is a neo-futurist complex comprised of three curvilinear asymmetrical skyscrapers. I wanted to create a cityscape scene with similar architecture, from a low angle at a certain time of day. I wanted there to be organic shapes, as well as reflective surfaces, so as to capture the sun's reflections. Der Spiegel describes Hadid’s designs as ‘resembling curved sails that appear to swim across the surface of the earth’, and to this end, I wanted to create a scene that reflected this image.
I chose to bake my lighting using our first level in Klepto - Space thief. I started by arranging the directional light where it would shine through the holes I created in the walls. I then placed multiple area lights in front of the holes, 1 facing forward, and one facing backward. I also placed one above the entire scene and where the light hit the other wall from the lights passing through the holes. I created faked "god rays" of which consists of three types of particle systems. The map took 40 minutes to bake onto a 4k texture map with 750 rays for final gather and cranked up the texels, padding and resolution of lights.
This was a really interesting test for baked lighting that we attempted in class. I really found that baked lighting does actually look better than real time lighting and i would like to create more scene this similar techniques. Real time lighting doesn't have enough contrast to create focal points in a scene.
At first I wasn’t quite sure on what to do as I wasn’t present for the tutorial for this assignment. I started to create a regular building at first but I was later told that was the completely wrong approach. This is what I came up with, its meant to be representation of old mining refineries. One structure that came to mind was the building in the level Rust in Modern Warfare 2 and the mechs in NieR Automata. I was also playing around with the scene setups of unreal.
At a time when gaming market was being filled with the newest first person action game, a game that managed to redefine the gaming development culture as we knew it snuck its way onto the PSN store in March of 2012; that game was Journey. Made by and indie company called thatgamecompany(2006), Journey is a 3rd person adventure game that surprised the whole entire gaming industry but stripping back the controls to a bare minimum with an unforgettable setting and environment. There are many more aspects that make up the games notoriety but there is one really important feature that is looked over vastly, the camera. Having a typical camera for this game would not do for Journey as this game relies on special moments of game play in combination of the amazing aesthetic.
Some of the main points they wanted keep was that fact that this game was to be as immersive as possible. Having a first person camera would be a good fix for this issue as that would be the most realistic camera to use. But this wouldn’t do as they wouldn’t be able to capture the cinematic beauty that they have in the game today. Some problems in today’s indie games show that there isn’t much to learn from in terms of camera design and games often end up messing the games camera. Journey solves this problem by having a dynamic camera that allows the player to see in all directions and moves around the screen in a fashion that represents real camera holding. The director of the games feel, John Netsky, says that the problems that he sees in games are that the camera breaks lines of sight when an obstacle comes in front of the player by the camera either going around the outside of the object or going around on the inside of the object bringing the camera to close the player[1]. This usually breaks in immersion within the game which would have been detrimental to Journey’s cinematic experience. The fix that the team came up with, is that the camera just goes around the object that it needs to pass by ray casting. In some cases of the game, the camera does go around small columns which doesn’t necessarily break the characters silhouette but actually adds to the gracefulness of the movement of the character as it slides into some spots. One of the more interesting scenes of the game involves the games camera to break from its 3rd person aspect. This involves the character you play in Journey sliding down a sand dune in some ruins as the camera shifts from the 3rd person element to a very cinematic and beautiful camera angle that displays the games interesting camera design. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7307qRmlMI PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) uses a unique system when speaking about the camera. They use first and third person as separate mechanics but can also work in tandem with one another.
For the majority of the game you will be focusing on the back side of your character primarily in third person. You can use ‘Left Alt’ to look around your player as well, this is particularly good for players that want to be more aware of their surroundings. The player can move forward, left or right based off the ‘W, A, S, D’ characters you input, but momentum based off your initial motion previously to pressing ‘Alt’. I’ve often been able to catch other players by using this technique and I generally encourage team members to use it. This implementation is also seen in H1Z1. However, their competitors in H1Z1, you are limited to left and right excluding the rear. Personally I enjoy the full control option over the H1Z1 method. Additionally, to the camera being third person for the majority of the time, players have the option to switch to first person mode. Even though this hinders the player at certain moments, it can often be good for close quarters combat. For example, you'd use this if you were in a bush or shrubbery and wanted to see the other side of the bush or if you were inside a small office or bathroom it gives players the ability to engage and react faster. While the player is in first or third person you also have the ability to ‘Peak’ when pressing ‘Q and E’ respectively. This means the player can see around corners ledges and walls without being seen. This gives the player a greater advantage over their opponent which can be arguably an abuse mechanic because the other player doesn’t have enough time to react. However; if everyone has the same abilities and opportunities, it some-what evens out, after all it’s a cards game. Another feature to the use of camera in PlayerUnknown’s battlegrounds is that the player can choose to shoot in one of three different modes. First being normal fire, where you just ‘Left Click’ the gun and hope for the best. Second, hip fire when you hold down ‘Right Click’ you gain slightly better accuracy and gain a small crosshair which enlarges while you shoot. The third and most accurate is first person when only tapping ‘Left Click’ once, this aims you down the sight of the barrel for the best resulting shots. To recap, the player can use third person and first person for general gameplay. Players can peak to get better vantages over other players. There are three modes of gunfire for situational moments which hinder or increase your chances and the ability to look around your character while moving or standing still. These are the core camera principles in PlayerUnknown’s battlegrounds and without them the game would be greatly different. For an example I have player in games where players are locked in first person for everything. You gain the feeling of being small, vulnerable and handicapped from the start. It’s nearly impossible to see anything and limits the use of cover; from playing on local discord channels, this is also the common response. Today I created a building which utilizes its curves to contrast the ever moving world around it. The inside is hollow and the outside sits upon the water side. The glass planes on top shine light through the structure to radiate light from inside to the open world. I chose to create this structure based off the quote by Pablo Picasso - "The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls". This piece was inspired by the city of arts and sciences in Valencia, Spain. It was created by artist Santiago Calatrava with comments such as "Reason is intelligence taking exercise, imagination is intelligence with an erection" - Victor Hugo.
This is just a small batch retreat for a couple located on New Zealand's east coast. This is the first time using Unreal Engine 4's in engine modelling tools, so it was hard to get around the concept of moving every face. I tried to apply modernist architecture by having large open areas to allow maximum sunlight within the main parts of the structure. The open areas can also be closed if sunlight is too intense. The inspiration was modernist house architectural designs around the early to mid 20th century. I noticed that these types of designs had a lot of sloping angles that also had sections that were facing every direction.
View from the Axis – Using a basic array to draft a stair way through the settlement of Axis, you can see the green and red from your stand point but you will only connect at one point in many locations. To some, the color represents Z or Y, but it’s up to you to determine the axis. For me this is a vivid explanation of how everything is connected through a bridge of geometry the DNA we all have. Perhaps the very construct of everything that has ever been? For you, I present the wall of blue at which your perception is masked.
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World design theory (WDT)DevelopersThe goal of this blog is to relate current and past attempts at world design to further improve our understanding. Archives
October 2017
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