Design choices: 'The Last of Us'

[accessed 26th February 2014]

Although I have not played 'The Last of Us' (the reason being it is out exclusively for the PS3) I came across this enlightening documentary about Naughty Dog Studios and their journey in creating a brand new IP.

The only initial premise when the studio set out to create a new game, was that they wanted something post apocalyptic. They began by looking at the book 'The World Without Us' by journalist Alan Weisman, which explores what would happen to our surroundings if humans were to suddenly disappear. Apparently water is pumped out of the New York Subway systems daily and if this were to stop, within a mere two days the streets would flood, causing vegetation to grow around the buildings. Lots of the research into how temples ruin undertaken for Naughty Dog's 'Uncharted' game series was applied to modern urban surroundings in 'The Last of Us'. This discussion of how nature consumes unmaintained urban environments shows the importance of research in creating a believable world. This comes through strongly in the concept art phase, where concept artist Aaron Limonick discusses water damage and the shifts in colour through vegetation's lifespan. Similarly to the narrative in 'I am Legend' this virtual world adopts the idea that animals have perhaps escaped from zoos and re-colonised the now rich consumed urban surroundings. There is a constant balance in this IP between beauty and suspense:

As mentioned in the title of this post, I am really interested in the design choices that determine narrative and playability. There is a constant 'Ying and Yang' relationship between how the story reads, and the game being fun and immersive. Initially the team wanted to keep the game grounded in reality, meaning that the idea of a zombie survival game was rejected. However, the idea of an infection and macabre creature-like enemies was eventually brought back in. This presents the team with the challenge of creating a whole new alien enemy. Many great design ideas come from nature, and the infection in 'The Last of Us' is inspired by the Cordyceps Fungi:

[accessed 24th february 2014]

This fungi infects insects, destroying their brains and sprouting fungi from their bodies which then spread spores, further infecting their population. Their are thousands of different species of the fungi, each specialising in one species of insect. The design team with Naughty Dog established different phases of the human infection. The final phases involve the face splitting into brutal fungi like caps. This presented the team with the question: How do they navigate if most of their facial sensors have been torn apart by the infection? The answer was to have them echolocate like Bats. This also added to the IP, giving the enemies a chilling and distinctive clicking sound as they stalk their surroundings.

Again, this theme of fungi added to the balance between beauty and terror. The final stage of the infection where enemies die and grow into their surroundings often add a sense of vibrance to the virtual environments, illustrated by this concept art piece:

There are stronger examples of the fungus adding saturated colours to the environment around the fifteen minuet mark of the 'Grounded: making of' video

Although this relates more to the game's narrative and written elements as oppose to aesthetic design choices, a final point that 'The Last of Us' appears to be notable for is its refusal follow convention, particular when it comes to the portrayal of female characters. Sadly in gaming, female roles are usually put in to place to act as overly-sexualised damsels in distress or love interests for the strong male protagonist. This Game however shows signs of strong female characters making crucial calls, particularly with the dual protagonist role of a young teenage girl. A scene is discussed where young protagonist 'Ellie' stumbles across a girls diary while exploring her abandoned bedroom. She criticises the trivial superficial worries expressed in the words, in comparison to the harsh world she is having to navigate through.

This shows promising signs, as perhaps with 'The Last of Us' setting the standards, AAA titles will be challenged to break convention and look for deeper more philosophical and even liberal narratives in their titles. Perhaps in the future we will look back at some of our recent titles to this date, and see them in same light as exploitative pulp media of decades past. This prospect is very exciting for someone like me hoping to work in the industry.

FZD Design School

I have been aware of Feng Zhu's work in entertainment design for a couple of years now, and I have learned from his videos in the past. Artist Feng Zhu established a school for entertainment design in the spring of 2009, Singapore. Monumentally fortunate for us aspiring concept artist, Feng has uploaded a library of helpful videos that share his methodology and give us access to the techniques and principles he teaches his paying students, all for free on Youtube!

As I am really trying to push my abilities and improve this year, I decided to visit his early videos and begin following them in order. Instead of tendiously talking about each of his videos, I will highlight some of the ones I found most helpful and talk about some of the key principles and techniques I have taken away from Feng Zhu's amazing work.

1. Learn to work fast:
Feng talks a lot about working in the industry and about the pipeline. The distinction between illustration and concept art is that sometimes concept artists are working to tight deadlines, in collaboration with a team working in different areas of the industry. This means that the work is greater than just the one person producing it. Sometimes in order for an environmental artist to meet their deadlines, the concept artists needs to get their work out to them fast. Sometimes this means compromising sharp renders for loose work that captures the scene and tells the story. One way of speeding up the pipe line is to use phototextures. Feng talks about using loose line drawings, bringing in photocollage to colour pick fast values, and letting elements of photographs bleed through the painting in order to bring in detail without tedious rendering:




2. It's all about the values:
Many artists begin their work in grayscale. This is because values take priority over the colours themselves. Not to dismiss colour theory as a means of achieving depth, put the distinction between light and dark, and the differentiation in contrast from the horizon to the foreground of an image is "king". One technique to constantly monitor the values of an image is to create a black layer set to the 'Saturation' blend mode, on top of your image. Here is an example of me attempting to control my values in response to Feng's videos:

Notice their is also primary photo refference taken during a trip to Normany, France, near the walker's legs

Even when crazy colours are added, the values still translate in the image is readable.

3. Think about composition:

Feng Zhu is the master of guiding the eyes around a composition. He talks about how in a good piece of concept art, there are a number of stories being told. The eyes never become board discovering new details, and are never allowed to escape the composition. There are tricks such as using people to establish scale, having a character look at the key subject in the image immediately prompting us to look, framing the image and and establishing curves to make the eyes follow the composition:

Finally, I like the format of Feng's tutorial videos. He usually paints over a students work, highlighting the elements he likes and his reasoning for choosing the work initially, to where they fail and they could be vastly improved. This gives an idea the level at which under graduates are working, and the benchmark for industry quality work. I have been incorporating many of his techniques in my own work, helping improve both its quality and the time I spend producing it.

Star Wars Episode 3: Within a Minute

We were recently shown a video documenting the production team and the hard work required behind a single minute of one of the most recent Star Wars movies. The focus was on the final duel scene between the fallen hero Anakin and his Jedi Master Obi Wan:



Where I felt the video really informed my area of practice, was with the concept art segment. Interestingly, the artists had lots of face time speaking directly with George Lucas, sketching possible ideas and contributing massively to the visual outcome of the sequence. There seemed to be a level of creative freedom. The artists knew Lucas was trying to create an industrial mining planet, and that this was the location of the dramatic final duel of the film. This is where visually the fiery lava really added to the drama. Another thing about concept art that interests me, is how it is introduced at one of the earliest stages of production, and informs the beautiful VFX work to come. The polished outcome can then be compared to the initial digital paintings, and you can then marvel at how a two dimensional flat painting has been developed into a stunning moving visual sequence. The practice of digital painting can also sometimes contribute to what we actually see on screen in the finished product. One digital artists produced an enormous matte painting, which was included as the backdrop image for the sequence.

With our course very much focusing on digital media, a strong example being video game assets, it seems almost instinctual to take a full 3D approach. Although we later see that 3D elements are utilised for the more extravagant scenes such as a large bridge collapsing into a stream of lava, we also see a large use of impressive and detailed sets. This again links back to the inclusion of matte paintings. I feel it is a matter of efficiency. Instead of modelling, unwrapping and UV texturing a massive detailed back drop, an artist can work independently on a large paining, while the 3D modelling team focuses on the crucial assets. I also imagine that by building physical sets, time will be saved in post production, instead of trying to composite an artificial set to blend in seamlessly with live actors. Perhaps the intention of a physical painted set it also to get a better performance from the live actors, as oppose to having them only perform surrounded by flat green uninspiring colours. We also see the inclusion of fake lava poured through a mountain set. Again, I imagine this is much less time consuming than trying to render out digitally simulated lava.

The key message here, is to be creative with resources. Perhaps I could have tried to integrate my preferred area of practice into this module, through the inclusion of Matte Paintings. Although I have already created a 3D digital set (as I feel that the level of detail at which I paint would not fit the realistic approach of my final sequence) hopefully the textures that I produce will utilise my digital painting abilities. The main advantage of workng in Maya I feel, is the ability to drop in lights and experiment with the Raytrace options. It means that shadows and reflections can be achieved easily and accurately. Also I find that experimenting with bump mapping and various other texture mapping elements can help reach a level of realism with less effort than trying to produce a hyper realistic matte painting. However, perhaps I could have integrated physical props with digital ones to tie the live actor in better with the digital set. These are all areas of practice that I am now aware of and that I could perhaps experiment with in the future.