Recently some of us at pricklypixel have been playing through Gearbox Software’s 2009 release Borderlands. Its a mixture of different game types that really comes together after playing a few hours.

Often when first playing a game I’ll wander about taking in the environment, looking at how models have been built, what shaders are being used etc. Borderlands has a unique graphic style, with many surfaces appearing to be straight off a comic page. There’s also a subtle ‘cel shaded’ outline on most objects. These efforts make the game stand out to me, where most Western developed games seem to be striving for absolute realism. I have often found myself staring at a location in admiration. It’s all the more impressive as this art style was changed towards the end of the games development.

Another thing I noticed quickly was that there appears to be Real-Time Ambient Occlusion being generated in world space, from the players point of view. My attention was drawn to this as the A.O. appears to have a slight delay. Most of the time it’s not even noticeable, but popped out due to me circling around one of the amusing ‘Clap-Trap’ robots in the starting area.

Based on my experience with baking A.O. for environments and character models, I am really impressed with this achievement. The game runs smoothly, even in the heat of battle, with explosions, and many characters on screen. Perhaps the ‘flat’ shading style without many obvious bump or specular maps left the graphics team a little room to play with?

To see the effect in action, check out the video below, which through a graphical driver glitch makes the effect, and it’s slight delay all the more obvious;

After looking back over the best of 2009, it’s natural to look forward, to my most anticipated titles of 2010. I’ve put together a list of the titles that I personally can’t wait to play, hopefully they all come out this year.

The Last Guardian
Shadow of the Colossus and Ico are two of my all time favorite games, trailers show an exciting mix of themes and gameplay from these previous titles. Unfortunately with no announced release date, rumors point to this coming in 2011.

Crackdown 2
Due in Q1, a sequel to the game that made collecting stuff fun again. 4P co-op, and a host of new toys are the most interesting points to me. The wingsuit in this trailer alone is enough to warrant jumping all over Pacific City again for me.

Alan Wake
6 Years after Max Payne 2, Remedy demoed Alan Wake at E3 2009, it immediately grabbed my attention. The Finnish studio appear to be trying a lot of new and interesting things, I cant wait to see if they pull it off.

Mass Effect 2
This game drops at the end of January. Early reviews all point toward it being vastly improved over the original, which I thought was a great game despite its flaws. Sign me up!

Brink
With only rumors of a sequel to Mirrors Edge around, Splash Damage appear to be moving the FPS genre forward. While I don’t play Multi-player FPS games much anymore, the movement & controls shown in this video have my fingers tingling.

BioShock 2
I didn’t feel like Bioshock needed a sequel, it was so well done. However recent trailers do look interesting, I hope the game can live up to the first. Let alone 2K Boston’s unannounced title, if that was public I’m sure it would be here.

Red Dead Redemption
This trailer shows a ‘western’ world with the depth and attention to detail of a GTA, your horse can be bitten by a snake and die! I’m excited to play in a different kind of sandbox.

Fez
After winning the 2008 GDC Design Innovation Award, I’ve been keeping my eye on this XBLA title, hopefully coming out soon!

Just Cause 2
This simply looks like a lot of fun, I never played the original game, but the grappling hook shown in this trailer had me grinning.

Half Life 2 – Episode 3
The cliff hanger ending of the fantastic episode 2 has me keen for even a word about the concluding episode from Valve. Will it link up with Portal’s Aperture science? will it come this year?

Pikmin3
Another long shot here, Miyamoto has been quoted that the game is being worked on, but only by a few people. Perhaps 2011 is more likely..

Flower
Spelunky
PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe
Captain Forever
Uncharted 2 : Among Thieves
Batman : Arkham Asylum
Plants Vs Zombies
Demon’s Souls
Resident Evil 5
Canabalt

I’m amazed there are games made by hundreds of people, games with singular creators and everything in between in this list. I’m even yet to sink my teeth into a few titles, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 2, Brutal Legend to name a few.
In making this list, I also scoured my game links to make sure there wasn’t a game I forgot. I realised i could make another top 10 list of 2009, of top 10 lists! Some of these cover the decade past, some of them more than 10 games. My aim in sharing them here is that you might also find some great games that slipped past you, in the last year, or decade. Enjoy!

Joystiq’s Top 10 Games of 2009
Gamasutra’s Top 12 Games of the Decade
Gamasutra’s Games of the Decade: Honorable Mentions
tigsource – The Niner, in Review
Gamesindistry.biz – Top 10 of 2009: News
Brainy Gamer Podcast – Favorites of ’09
GWJ Conference Call – retrospective on the games of 2009!
Wired – The 10 Best Videogames of 2009
Kotaku – The Statistically Best Games of the Decade (Or Why Stats Sometimes Lie)
Gamasutra – The 99 Best Free Games Of 2009

I recently played through Uncharted 2: Among thieves developed by Naughty Dog. The game is simply stunning, in my mind worth the purchase of a PS3 in order to experience.

While derivative of many other titles such as Gears of War, Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid, everything in the game is done as well or better than its been done before. There is such variety in game play & location, the icy area shown above is but a short chapter. Though the game pushes you along I often found myself stopping to marvel at the accomplishments of the art team. Each location is densely filled with foliage, or debris and detail. Its the first game I’ve seen where a blend between different material types is seamless in places, plaster through to broken bricks for example.

Special attention has been given to load times, after an initial pause you never again see a loading screen for the duration of play. Even upon death you are back in the action within seconds. This helps to sustain a roller coaster ride that just keeps going. There’s never a dull moment that feels like an opportunity to put down the controller. It reminds me of Half Life 2 which I was also compelled to play through till early in the morning.

The characters are absolutely the best i’ve ever seen. From their subtle expressions, to their realistic attire and proportions. In particular the caricature movie villain, who’s scarred head is a work of art. It actually looks like there is real time sub-surface scattering in effect!

Because the game is so great the odd little thing here and there sticks out all the more. Amazingly some cut scenes, while rendered from the game engine, look slightly worse than the rest of the game, due to compression artifacts. There’s a little more gun play than i’d prefer, and the characters jumps seem a little superhuman & sometimes wonky in the otherwise super realistic setting. The odd moment i had to play over and over. These are small complaints though, I can’t recommend the game highly enough, Its astonishing to me it was created in only 2 years.

Whether woodworking, programming, or 3d modelling, it’s important to have the right tools for the job at hand. The tools an artist or trades person collects and learns how to use, directly affect the quality of their work, and speed at which they do their job.

In my area of knowledge, 3d & 2d software packages are my tools, but also the shortcuts, scripts, and workarounds used to do a job

Anyone creating art for games will have experience with some of the big packages, Maya, 3dsmax, XSI, Z-brush, Mudbox, Photoshop, Painter,
and probably with some of the smaller applications like Modo, Silo, Rhino, Sketchup etc.

To a new user, any software package can be confusing, learning new software firstly you become accustomed to the layout, finding where all the tools are, how they work together. From this point, using keyboard shortcuts or assigning your own is the first step in customising your tool, allowing you to work faster, and every click counts.

The next step is to find, or create scripts – plugins or actions to further speed up a task, something you do often, or something you miss from a different package. This is the area that I believe can really make a difference to productivity. I really appreciate in Maya that I can assign absolutely any command, or sequence of commands to a hotkey or shelf button.

Some artists will have the benefit of working at a large studio with their own tools team, who’s job is to create this type of modification or new software tools to do a specific task. Sometimes unique to that studio, but often solving a problem that other artists must tackle. These tools are generally considered Intellectual Property and so may only be used by the employees or partners of such the studio. To have the toolbox available to artists at Pixar or Valve !

I feel the effort spent searching for a better way to do something is well spent, reducing the mouse clicks required for a common task. When looking for a better way to do something, often a google search will turn up an answer, though I will usually check creativecrash.com first. This site has just been renamed from ‘Highend 3D’ and has a large collection of user submitted scripts to tackle all types of problems encountered in 3D work.

Key developers at the recent GDC commented that they were in no hurry for new consoles. This makes sense considering the massive increase in cost and development time from the previous generation. A couple extra years would allow developers to release a second or third title using technology they are familiar with. In the past some of the most critically acclaimed titles of a generation were released in the twilight years of a console, Resident Evil 4, Shadow of the colossus, God of War to name a few.

Microsoft launched the Xbox 360 in November 2005, one year earlier than the Wii & PS3. Right now we are one year away from the five year average of previous generations. Microsoft have gone on record that they intend to be first movers on a new console generation. However they have committed to releasing Natal for the holiday season 2010, and assured us the Xbox 360 will be compatible with the device. Now this rumor has appeared, which indicates a new xbox is already being developed. This system could be released as early as the end of 2011, which is also the long rumored release date of the Wii HD. This is rumored to match the graphical power of the Xbox 360 & PlayStation 3, with no doubt further refinements of their motion controller. These controls will be an industry standard by 2011, and so what can Microsoft do to stand out?

Introducing their Natal motion controller one year from now shows they cannot afford to wait two years to compete for the new casual market that the Wii has created. Releasing their system early, without support from developers could be disastrous. By introducing Natal next year however, they avoid these issues but lose a selling point for a new system. What could be their strategy behind doing this?

Stereoscopic TVs are starting to appear, should they become popular this is one way for a new system to have an edge. With modest improvements to the Xbox hardware, current games could be displayed in stereo 3D at full High Definition. Whereas Sony could also make this move for a new PlayStation, Nintendo would need to invest a lot to meet the level of graphical power required, money they do have, but have proven reluctant to spend.

I get the feeling Microsoft is going to try and emulate aspects of Nintendo’s overall strategy, not just the motion controls. By using their same graphics and CPU vendors, they can ensure complete backwards compatibility. By only modestly improving the graphical power of the system, they can develop a smaller & cooler unit, preventing a repeat of their current hardware failure rate, estimated to be over 50%. This could lead to a cheaper system at launch, aping the ‘soft’ generation gap between the Gamecube and the Wii.

With Natal being out for a year already, possibly drumming up casual & public interest, a competitively priced Next Xbox bundle with Natal & stereo display capabilities may attract new console buyers, or Wii owners who are looking for something new. Or I may have it all wrong, I look forward to weighing up the rumors over the next couple years.

A tried and tested method for dealing with most of this seemingly complex movement of the face is the facial edge loop system, originally derived by studying the musculature of the face. 3 muscle sphincters around the eyes and mouth who’s only purpose is to close the opening it surrounds and the radiating muscle groups designed only to open the hole within the sphincter.

In our experience with building, rigging and, more importantly, animating faces, we have learned of some limitations with this muscle derived structure. while the basic principle is sound, it is based on muscle movement and even seems to be influenced by its aesthetics and doesn’t take into account the surface movement that we are actually trying to simulate.

2 significant problem areas with muscle derived loops:

1. the eye: there is way too much attention given to the eyelid. have a look at your eyelids and the area surrounding it, now make this area move around by just moving your eyeball and opening and closing your eyelids. Do not use your cheeks or jaw to do this. you will notice that the eyelids have a very subtle effect on its surroundings, the movement you get in the cheek is of the skin being drawn up towards the eye, about 0.5 – 1.0 cm. now in comparison move the corner of your mouth. Notice the effect that has on your face, we have movement of the entire cheek, extending from the jaw just past the chin to the nose to directly under the eyelid and all the way to the side of the eye socket and even as far as the temple. All this from a simple movement of the mouth

2. the cheek: following from the point above, noting the amount of cheek movement and the direction of that movement. Notice how the entire cheek within the area described before, all move as one mass along an arc which pivots somewhere near the inside corner of your eye. now lets look at that area on the muscle derived loops.

notice how the two sets of loop, one originating from the eye and the other radiating from the mouth both intersect at this point creating quads and edges flowing in very different directions. this lay out is not desirable for the kind of distortion we need for the cheek. the movement of the cheek in this area will force us to bring diagonally opposite points of the quad closer together. This is very undesirable. to explain, lets look at a quad.

a quad is basically two triangle sharing an invisible edge, there are good ways and bad ways to distort a quad along its UV (or XY) surface,

this distortion is acceptable the texture stretches evenly across the surface

if you are not able to control the direction of your invisible edge you may end up with something like this. on one side you have a lot of distortion which is highlighted even more by the lack of distortion in the other triangle.

Even if you are able to flip your hidden edge of your diamond shaped quad this still causes undesirable streatching in the perpendicular direction when ever the skin moves. It can be massaged into reducing all these unwanted distortion but it is a an avoidable headache with the right loops.

Now that we are aware of some problem areas in the standard Edge Loop system we can look at ways of fixing this and even improving on the simulation of skin based on some lessons learned from age, Wrinkles!. They are the key to solving our allusive layout because they are perfect markers as to how the face moves.

We will cover this in Part 2 of our study on Facial Edge Loops.

Texture mapping co-ordinates were projected along the same vertical axis as the mesh was deformed. This meant that the greater the slope of the mesh, the more distorted the texture appeared in the world, as is illustrated by the image below,

Even when painting an alternate texture on these steep areas, or increasing the density of the terrain mesh the stretching of the texture was an obvious problem.

The solution to this problem, in both cases involved artists creating custom meshes for specific locations, or generic ‘cliff’ meshes that could be placed in the world to obscure the worst cases of terrain distortion. I’ve noticed this method used in many titles since becoming aware of it, seemingly the de facto formula that game developers come up with.

The constant march toward graphical perfection demands a better solution, one that allows a terrain artist to create a better result with the same or less time spent doing so.

While playing through Red Faction Guerrilla released in June 2009, i came to appreciate that the team behind it Volition Inc, must have developed a method i’d not noticed before that game.

It appears that the Red Faction terrain mesh is receiving mapping co-ordinates from all 3 axes, X Y & Z. This solves the main issue, as seen above, steep surfaces are mapped with no stretching. However there is more to this solution than first meets the eye. In order to blend seamlessly between two different axes, they must overlap, and fade out just as they start to stretch.

After all the effort required to build such a complicated terrain blending system, i imagine the editor software had some neat tricks, the game terrain could have easily had a base selection of textures, and rules that meant as an artist distorted a section of terrain higher or lower, the steep sides would fade to a rocky / cliff surface.

This solution has not solved all cases, as there are still unique meshes placed within the game world. It is impossible to create undercuts as the terrain is being displaced along the vertical axis only. Still the terrain in Red Faction Guerrilla is the most impressive example I have noticed in a released title.

The most recent trailer for the upcoming RAGE shows a few glimpses of the terrain in that game, which looks to be a step beyond the bar set by Volition this year.

The recently released ‘Batman : Arckham Asylum‘ from Rocksteady Studios pushes the envelope of character models in current gen games.

When first gaining control of Batman I immediately noticed his cape seamlessly blending from the shoulders, to the flowing cloth below as he paced and crawled through the Asylum. Soon after I marveled as the cape spread out to form the iconic gliding batman, and then help up perfectly in combat, with none of the usual glitches often seen with cloth in contemporary games.

Already i was impressed with the effort put into the character, and then further into the game, the costume starts to suffer permanent damage, as seen in the screen shot above. By the final events of the game the cape is in tatters, and batman is bleeding through cuts in the suit.

This is a refreshing change for a 3rd person game where a characters back fills a large portion of the screen for many hours. Congratulations to Rocksteady, and their character team for going the extra distance with Batman’s outfit.