Psyh0Fred was one of the developers of 'Star Wars: Battlefront', since the release of the game in 2004 he has often been quite charitable to the modding community by releasing guides and assets. I contacted him in order to ask some brief questions, though they aren't directly applicable to illustration, they reveal an interesting insight into the commercial design process.
Firstly, were you disappointed in the abandonment of some content such as extra classes and maps?
The
first one didn't really have any extra classes I can think of. Stuff
that I added or released in a lot of cases was just the fruits of
developers getting a feel for the engine and how long things take. I
would have liked the LAAT/C just because it looked really cool dropping
off an ATTE, but it was an extra animation that ate p memory. We didn't
have any playable maps that I can think of that we didn't produce, and
they all underwent many and sometimes drastic revision. We had ideas for
more and empty worlds, but again it comes back to starting with the
'must have's' and looking at the time a resources involved. We made each
game in about a year. I would have liked more detail on some of the
maps, but the engine could only support so much. A more detailed Bespin
would have been nice. I originaly wanted it to be like an outdoor
shopping mall with lots of cover rather than have lots of wide open
spaces.
Were there conflicting "visions" of the final
product? Were these responsible for the late changes to the game between
the initial trailers and the finished product?
When
I first started working on it there was a different creative director
and the proof of concept map was much more realistic looking -- that's
kind of what I am expecting if the Battlefield team at EA work on it.
But Lucasarts wanted it to be less realistic presumably so it gets rated
for comic book violence. The only thing I can think of that changed was
the maps just evolved. All of the designers worked on each of the maps
at some point. Geonosis was mine but while I like the way but turned out
the original idea was a king of the hill map. In the end the hill got
flattened. I wanted it to be more like the film Hamburger Hill but with
Clone Troopers.
Some of the concept art and the final HUD
appears to insinuate that the game was meant to mimic a holographic
simulation... is this the case?
No, the goal was always to re-create the battles from the films and expanded universe.
I
would also like to know why you've been so wonderfully generous to the
modding community by publicly releasing various assets?
I
don't know, I used to enjoy modding so I know what it's like. You have
all the tools we had to create the game so I'd like to see people do
even better than we did with our tight schedule.
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Friday, 7 February 2014
Open For Business Exhibition
http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/PlanAVisit/Exhibitions/OpenForBusiness/About.aspx
http://www.openforbusiness.uk.com
Last week I managed to attend the private view of the 'Open for Business' photography exhibition in the Bradford National Media Museum.
I arrived somewhat early, at which point the privately booked band were playing to a non-existant audience and the coat rack was looking fairly vacant.
Within 20 minutes the rooms was full of dignitaries and suspicious looking suits. Oddly, I felt that many treated the exhibition as a social imperative, and were only somewhat aware that the walls had pictures on them.
The pictures themselves were taken by nine photographers, all with the same brief centred on British industry. The approaches were highly varied, the most sucessful in my opinion being by Jonas Bendiksen, who's exhibition space was filled with chaotically arranged screens showing excellently shot moving image of machinery and process, along side equally well framed photographs.
I think the methodology of photography is equally applicable to illustration, as we must also concern ourselves with composition and space.
Here is a video interview with the photographer (it cannot be embedded due to admin settings):
http://vimeo.com/84969833
http://www.openforbusiness.uk.com
Last week I managed to attend the private view of the 'Open for Business' photography exhibition in the Bradford National Media Museum.
I arrived somewhat early, at which point the privately booked band were playing to a non-existant audience and the coat rack was looking fairly vacant.
Within 20 minutes the rooms was full of dignitaries and suspicious looking suits. Oddly, I felt that many treated the exhibition as a social imperative, and were only somewhat aware that the walls had pictures on them.
The pictures themselves were taken by nine photographers, all with the same brief centred on British industry. The approaches were highly varied, the most sucessful in my opinion being by Jonas Bendiksen, who's exhibition space was filled with chaotically arranged screens showing excellently shot moving image of machinery and process, along side equally well framed photographs.
I think the methodology of photography is equally applicable to illustration, as we must also concern ourselves with composition and space.
Here is a video interview with the photographer (it cannot be embedded due to admin settings):
http://vimeo.com/84969833
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