Secret Project Teaser #2

Hamada-san draws her work in acrylics on paper, scans them in, and then does some touch-ups in Photoshop. Everything she does looks great with a distinctive style. The first teaser is here.

The bird above is fully animated and moves about the scene. As the project's animator (gasp!) I have been forced to learn a lot about animation to take the illustrations of Hamada-san and make something that looks halfway decent.

I got some great advice from my talented animator friend Leo Martinez on a squirrel animation I was working on. You can see a test below. The sequence is animated from only two illustrations (a stand and a jump pose). I had no idea it was possible to create so much motion with Flash's free transform tool. I don't think I have a knack for animation but I am having a lot of fun working with it.

The significance of Linger in Shadows

"Linger in Shadows" - the recent PlayStation Network release - is yet another part of the long history of the crossover of the demoscene and the game industry. For a nominal fee the user is greeted with what is largely a traditional demo. It has all the classic elements: lots of procedural content, mix of 2D paintings and 3D imagery, "greets" to other scene groups, and a soundtrack that matches the visuals. It is looks impressive, doing well to showcase the talents of the programmers and artists of the development team at Plastic.

The two significant and unusual things about Linger in Shadows are first, that the group was funded and published by Sony, and that second there are a number of interactive elements in the demo.

Why would Sony fund a small group of developers to create a non-game for their platform? Was it an extension of Ken Kutaragi's original vision that the PS3 was to be more than a games console? Personally, I'm impressed that they would invest in such a project. I would be surprised if Linger in Shadows is profitable. I believe it could be used as a marketing tool in technology circles to show Sony's interest in art projects or to promote the abilities of its platform. This is the kind of project that could attract the attention of artists outside of the mainstream game industry. With the current economy though and Sony's recent sales struggles I doubt another similar project will get greenlit. I hope to be proven wrong.

The other attention grabbing part of the demo is that unlike a traditional PC based demo there are a number of interactive components. At various times while watching the demo, the user can spin the controller to move objects or light sources in the scene, for example. Other times they can scrub the movie's time line forward and backward. Using the camera to look around can find hidden objects and greets that unlock PSN Trophies. It is certainly no game but the addition of these elements gives the demo an extra layer to peel back.

Linger in Shadows may go unappreciated by the gaming populace and in some ways it isn't surprising. As a game developer a lot of the appeal of the demoscene is not just in watching something beautiful and admiring the creativity of the human race but in inspiration in both technology and artistry. Users without that specific interest may not find Linger in Shadows or any other demo particularly interesting and so be it. That said, games like Max Payne are widely appreciated by gamers. That game's developer, Remedy Entertainment, was born out of the demoscene group Future Crew. I'm certain there are countless other members of the game industry who either came from the demoscene or were inspired by it.

Finally, I'm happy to report that Plastic has generously released some of the tools used to create the demo. The content looks like it was developed largely inside of Maya with a custom plug-in that acts as a WYSIWYG real-time renderer. It reminds me of working with the Unreal Engine or Crytek. The ability to edit something and then be immediately able to preview it as it would look in game is very powerful. Below is a video of their tools, more information can be found on Plastic's main site.

"Mischief" (Final Competition Image)

Above is the image Ogura-san and I ended up submitting for the hair style photo competition I originally discussed here. What do you think? He wanted to make it a little bit different from a typical color photo of a model so we played with a lot of different ideas. Simply making Alina black-and-white ended up being the most visually appealing.

That's not to say there wasn't extensive cleanup on the hair, face, and other areas of the image. Separating the girl from the background was time consuming, including making the holes in the hair on the top of her head still show the background through them. Some parts of the image weren't in the photo and were made from parts and Photoshop tools. I'm still no photo editing expert but I think it turned out OK. Wish us luck!

Model Photo Touchup

My friend Ogura-san is a stylist. He recently decided to participate in a photo competition and asked me if I would help him out with the photo touch-ups. It sounded like fun so I agreed. Of course I've never done photo touch-ups before at this level but I didn't let that stop me. Especially since step one in the process was getting to go to a photo shoot with a real model. Woo!

So I went to the photoshoot about two weeks ago. The model was Romanian, her name was Alina, and yes she was attractive. Ogura-san was there making sure the hair was right and directing the styling. There was also a photographer, a make-up artist, and a professional lighting rig. It was really cool to get to see this kind of setup.

I just recently had the photos delivered and have spent some time editing some of my favorites. Ogura-san and I are still hammering out what the final image will be, and the below two photos I edited are not going to be used, but I thought they ended up looking pretty nice and I wanted to share them. Which do you like? Blue or red?



99% of the credit goes for these images goes to the team who originally created and captured them. My edits primarily involved removing a lot of stray hairs covering Alina's face, removing minor skin blemishes (if you can even call them that on this girl, her skin was basically perfect), and adjusting the levels and color tone of the images. I also did some shadow tweaking and a minor bit of reshaping.

It was fun spending a bit of time learning about the process. As with all skills, it takes a lot to become an expert and I am far from that. It is scary how much can be edited even at a beginner level. I'm sure everyone knows this already but you definitely can't trust any image you see in a magazine.

Photo editing skills will definitely come in handy in the future. If for nothing else but to humiliate coworkers by putting their head on this guy (NOT SAFE FOR WORK, unless you are a former coworker of mine then you've probably seen this image before).

Secret Project Teaser #1

I've been working with a local Tokyo-based artist, the awesome Kayo Hamada, on a secret Flash-based interactive project for a few months. It has been moving slowly but we recently hit a progress milestone and I wanted to share a tiny bit of teaser art work with you all.

The girl staring at you above is our main character. Her name is Violet.

I don't want to reveal too much more at this point. Although we have plans drafted up for the theme and general layout of the story we're taking a very creative and experimental approach to the development of the project. This is a labor of love - there is no money involved - which of course grants us that freedom.

This isn't a videogame so I'm also taking this opportunity to use a different approach to fleshing out Violet's story and world. My background in game development gives me the knowledge of how to produce a schedule of building out assets an code to finish the project on a specific time frame but I'm avoiding that in this early stage in the name of unlimited creative freedom.

Hamada-san and I just had a brainstorming meeting inside an Internet cafe in Shinjuku where we settled on a number of issues for the opening of the scenario.

I look forward to when we can share some more!

Pop Gun Comics

Do you like silly stuff? Ridiculous comics? Well, if so, get on over to Pop Gun Comics for some great indie tomfoolery.

Please, please, if you like stupid stuff that makes you laugh read Bastard Road as soon as you can. Highly enjoyable! Warning: extreme cartoon violence against mini mariachis!

Wipeout HD is Gorgeous

I've already discussed how much I like Wipeout's graphic design and now the developers behind Wipeout HD have done an awesome job with the 3D design and technology for the recently released Wipeout HD. Not only does it look great, they've included a feature in the game that allows you to take "photos" of your favorite moments using many camera options such as simulated motion blur (see above).

Graphic design wise my favorite mode by far is called "zone". It's a gameplay mode that has been around in the Wipeout series for a while. The player's ship gets faster and faster over time until it takes too much damage and eventually explodes. The player is scored based on how long they can survive.

The design aesthetic in the past for the zone mode was a sort of clean room filled with neon. It was definitely unique and visually pleasing. The new design for zone mode is even better though:



The colors and gradients of the world change as the player reaches new zones (i.e. faster speeds). I love how the entire look of the game is changed so drastically from a futuristic metropolis to an ultra-stylized world of gradients and silhouettes using the exact same level geometry. There aren't many games that look like the screenshot above and it is refreshing to see Wipeout HD taking a new direction.

Live Jungle Drums

Here is KJ Sawka playing some impressive jungle / drum & bass beats live. Even if you don't like electronic jungle music you've got to appreciate Sawka's skills.

I love how he uses two hi-hats on top of each other at around 1:07 into the video.

DOT MATRIX REVOLUTION

Insane Pixel Art dance-off madness by the super brothers. I'm digging the synchronized music and graphics at the beginning of the video.

Geisai #11 Art Festival

Today I went to "Geisai #11", an art festival organized by Takashi Murakami's company Kaikaikiki. It was presented at Tokyo Big Sight, a large exhibition hall near the Tokyo Bay. Artists can rent spaces of various sizes to display their work - whatever they want. The artists are then judged by a panel of international art critics and the winners are boosted quickly into Tokyo art world prominence.

The experience of seeing so much modern art in so many styles was really inspiring. If you can, I highly recommend going to the next festival which will be in March 2009.

Over the course of the show I took as many pictures as I could to catalog my favorite pieces. I took a lot of time editing these photos after the fact to try to reproduce the display environment as closely as possible. Foolishly I did not ask the artists - many of whom were present - what the titles of the pieces were so I made up the titles you see on my Flickr photo stream. Please treat the photos as my interpretation of what I saw. Many of the photos themselves are only small parts of larger works by the artists.

Nothing beats seeing the art in person so next time please try to go yourself!

Click here to visit the full Flickr photo set.

And now for my favorites:

Statue of Child


This beautiful, yet dead, statue was really well made. I had to look at the eyes very closely to see what exactly the artist was trying to convey.

Purely from a photography perspective I think this photo is the best I took today. I feel it accurately reproduces exactly what was shown with clear detail.

Destroyed Tokyo


This artist's works solely revolved around imaging what Tokyo would look like if it was abandoned by humanity and left to rot for hundreds of years. He incorporated many of the most popular neighborhoods of the Tokyo of today. Really creative work.

This is a tiny part of a huge painting.

Gelatinous Formation


I love the colors and texture.

Girl in White


The contrast between the details and shading in the face and hand versus the clothes and background is key.

Finally comes a picture that I definitely do not call a favorite piece of art but I think some of you may enjoy.

Power Twins (Quadruplets?)


The "power twins" as I call them claim to be cyborgs from the future. I think they made a wrong turn on the way to the anime convention though.

Videogames Aging Gracefully

Yesterday I met up with Jean Snow - a writer who runs a great blog on design and Japan stuff; check it out - to chat and have a beer in Ikebukuro. We have a lot in common least of which is a love for games. At one point we started talking about the art styles in games and got on the topic of games from the past that still hold up visually today.

This topic was brought up because Jean recently re-played the classic LucasArts adventure game Full Throttle (1995).


Full Throttle still looks great. Sure, the screen resolution is not nearly as high as today's standards which does give it a slightly dated pixelated look. But the well executed cartoonish and exaggerated art style allows the game to still hold up visually today. It can be hard to go back and play older games that are graphically so far separated from what we have today. A game like Full Throttle is mostly exempt from that since it was developed with an art style that emphasized design over pushing the limits of technology.

As a point of contrast, here is a screenshot of Destruction Derby (1995) from the PS1. It's from the same era as Full Throttle and is a game I thought looked and played great at the time.


Frankly, it looks terrible by 2008 standards. The cars are extremely box-like and the billboard trees give it a Hollywood back-lot movie set atmosphere. It has not aged well.

While Full Throttle is a 2D game and Destruction Derby is 3D I don't believe this is a 2D versus 3D issue. I will say that it is likely easier for a well designed 2D game to hold up for a longer period of time but there are exceptions. Take The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2002) for example. This game in the Zelda series was released in late 2002 and uses a clever stylized cel-shaded art style.


It has now been nearly six years since this game was released and it still looks great. The expressiveness of the main character, the clean and simple ocean waves, and the stylized visible wind gusts all contribute to a unique style that doesn't emphasize polygon counts and technology. Visually it is an extremely well designed game that I believe will continue to look great for years to come. The latest Zelda game, Twilight Princess (2006), uses a realistic 3D style and is already starting to look dated when compared to the latest high-technology 3D games.

Another recent game that will hold up for a long time is Pixel Junk Eden (2008). I've already blogged about my love for that game's style here.


The graphic design lacks specific details but still manages to look very clean and harmonize well with the gameplay and music. I think it is that "less is more" design sensibility that will make PixelJunk Eden continue to look fantastic 10 years from now and beyond.

So what lessons are there to learn from these games? I think it boils down to two things:

1. We have not achieved photorealism in 3D graphics yet. Realism focused 3D games that are made now will look poor compared to future games due to technological advances. That isn't to say these games shouldn't be made or anything along those lines - I love many realism focused games. They just won't age gracefully.
2. Artistic styles that abstract the visuals into cartoon, literal abstraction, or other forms of non-photorealism will visually hold up for a much longer period of time. That doesn't mean that lazy or sloppy design in these areas is acceptable - it's not. This is only true for well designed styles.
   

A lot of this comes down to current technical limitations. Great artists can't create their best artwork because of limitations on texture sizes, polygon counts, number of simultaneous objects that can be simulated, etc. I believe that in my lifetime photorealistic graphics will be achieved. Once that happens success will be much more about the artistry and entertainment of a game than in supplying the latest technological eye candy. It will also become much harder for a realism focused game to become quickly dated visually.

But before that graphic plateau is hit if you want your game to be looked back upon fondly for its visual style then a realistic style is not the way to go.

Here are some other games whose visuals still hold up today:

Another World / Out of this World (1991)


Street Fighter 3 (1997)


Super Mario World (1990)


There are many others, those are just some of my favorites.

Clearly realism focused games sell well in the market because the large majority of games that are released are realistically rendered. I think that will continue to be true for quite some time but as the graphics hit a realism plateau gamers will become more and more bored and seek alternate visual styles.

Someone with a better art history background will have to correct me where I'm wrong but I believe it will be similar to what happened in the art world. Realism was the primary goal in paintings and sculpture for hundreds of years. When artists moved from the Renaissance art period into Impressionism, Abstraction, Cubist, and Modernist styles the visual presentations changed dramatically. The extremely realistic paintings created by the masters of the Renaissance period still look amazing today. I feel like the current realistic 3D games are stepping stones to reaching the master level of realistic quality that artists like Michelangelo achieved. They are necessary stepping stones but will not be looked back upon 500 years from now as pinnacles of artistic quality.

Eventually the art of games will achieve photorealism but in the current era developing games with non-photorealistic artistic styles will result in games that are much more likely to age well.

PixelJunk Eden's Gorgeous Art

Last week PixelJunk Eden was released on the PS3 Playstation Store. It's the third game in the PixelJunk series by Q Games. As the title makes it abundantly clear I think the visual art and graphic design in this game are exceptional. I highly recommend at least playing the free demo.

The picture above is a wallpaper made from many of the plants that the player can jump on. Gameplay wise it's a platformer. The player touches pollen that is floating around to open up new seeds. Once opened the seeds turn into the plants you see above which then allows the player to climb higher. The player's sole goal is to collect "spectra" which are special pick-ups you can find in each stage. The game gets progressively more difficult as you play further with the introduction of enemies and different types of surfaces that affect the player's movement. But enough about the gameplay - it's a straightforward and fun platformer; recommended.

The art and music, which matches the visual aesthetic quite well, was developed by a Japanese artist who goes by the nickname Baiyon. Q Games has began to make it a habit of working with up and coming artists. They also worked with a group of really creative musicians for the PixelJunk Monsters soundtrack. It's not unusual for game companies to work with outsourced artists for concept art and music. That said, in the case of Eden I think it is a bit special in that the same person developed both the artistic and musical styles.

I have to applaud Q Games and SCEA as well for taking a chance on creating something that is quite different than the average commercial game. It feels like a well polished "indie" game... which is basically what it is. The PixelJunk series must be selling since they continue to be made which is a great sign for the future of smaller budget and higher risk games.

It's rare that a game catches my eye these days by trying something new (in this case, art style rather than gameplay). I believe this lack of innovation is not just economic pressures from the market and publishers either. Developers who have been in the industry for a while and have played many games can begin to become close minded. I'm not a hypocrite nor am I trying to preach - I'm saying this because I suffer from it as well. It's so natural sometimes when thinking about a game design problem to reach into your previous experience of hundreds of completed games to borrow a solution that has been tried and tested. That's one of the reasons I've personally been trying to learn more about artistic fields outside of game development - something I recommend for all developers to broaden their perspectives.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with building better ideas from ideas that already exist. As successful companies such as Blizzard have proven implementation is almost always significantly more important than the idea itself. PixelJunk Eden is well implemented technically and artistically which is what makes it work. I hope that we will continue to see more creative risks like this taken as the game market changes and digital distribution continues its inevitable rise.

Book Review: Layout Workbook

"Layout Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Building Pages in Graphic Design" covers the course of building a graphic design layout from conception to completion. It isn't specific to magazines, business pamphlets, websites, or any specific industry. It simply goes over the process many professionals take to identify client needs, brainstorm ideas, layout imagery, use grids to strengthen various aspects of the layout, the use of typography, etc. Given I've never worked in the design field before, it opened my eyes to a lot of the thought process that goes into building a design from scratch.

Up until this point I've been doing all of my graphic design with a stream of consciousness process. I don't think that is bad at all, necessarily, because what I'm doing is just personal work and goofing around at the moment. But I do want to make designs that have a specific purpose. For example, making the viewer feel that a particular website has value and that the brand value is communicated appropriately. If the website is trying to communicate "fashionable" but the design says to the viewer "technology" then the design is failing.

The first half of the book details the thought process that goes into preparing a design for a specific purpose. The second half of the book is filled with examples and analysis of designs that were successful and comments by the designers as to why. Many of the designs are not ones I would want to create myself but reading the artist's comments does reveal how they were able to create designs that were successful for the industry they were commissioned for. Having an explanation for why certain text is turned sideways and is larger than other text gave me insight not necessarily into how to make something that I like but how to better think about how to design something that carries more meaning.

Like Brian Tracy said in his book on the rules of success, the difference between the professional and amateur is in the amount of preparation the professional does before starting their work. Unsurprisingly that is also true in the graphic design field. I now have a basis for understanding the kinds of things a professional thinks about before starting their design work. I'm obviously no professional but the "Layout Workbook" helped me get a little bit closer.

And then, and then and then and then

And then, and then and then and then

This weekend I went to see an art showing by Takashi Murakami and his company Kaikaikiki in Hiroo, Tokyo. Murakami is an internationally famous artist whose work has sold for multiple millions of dollars. The concept of the show was "my first art" which presents a more affordable way to own a limited edition print that is signed by the artist. Over the past 7 years the showing/sale has been run 5 times.

Clearly the art presented are all not originals. They are prints of paintings. That said, the prints are of astonishing quality. The color reproduction and paper used just looks incredible close up. Japan is the world leader in printing technology and it shows.

The image above is of "DOB", a character created by Murakami. Entitled "And then, and then and then and then" the image itself is a variation on his original painting. This variation is called "Gargle Glop" but there are perhaps about 20 different variations of this image with different color palettes and textures. I love the way that Mr. DOB is looking at us with that really twisted smile.

Since the numbers of art pieces are limited you can't just buy what you want unfortunately. I'm going to try to put my name into the lottery to be selected for the ability to make a purchase. Although there are a variety of other pieces of art on sale I want a version of this image. In this years offering, my favorites are "yellow jelly" and "cream". Wish me luck.

As a side note, I thought this building in Hiroo was really cool:

"Acrylic"

Into the Pixel 2008

The contest winners for Into the Pixel 2008 include some really beautiful game related art. From Guild Wars to Wipeout there is a wide selection of art styles in the 16 winners represented this year. I'm really happy to see this organization recognize the great artists we have in the game industry. If you're an artist be sure to submit your work!

That said, it looks like Into the Pixel is primarily concerned with paintings and concept art. It's great to recognize that but I would like to see recognition of great 3D artwork as well for a broader representation of the art of games.

Personally, from this years winners, I like "Four Knights" the best. How about you?

Spartan Mother T-Shirt

Spartan Mother T-Shirt

I went to an art show in Shimokitazawa in Tokyo today (more on that in a later post) and after going to the gallery I took a walk around since it was the first time I had been to the neighborhood. There is tons of used clothing, used records/CDs, and weird, creative, hole-in-the-wall shops. It reminded me a lot of Berkeley back in California.

Anyways, I wanted to share this shirt which I thought was epic. Not only does it show proper grocery cart use, it also shows moms how to suplex their children. The world is now a better place.

Hangin' With the Crew

Hangin' With the Crew

Today I went to two art shows in Tokyo. The first was at Diesel Denim Gallery Aoyama which is one of two Diesel stores in the world that has special installation art work. Yes, it's a store (I bought a watch), but the art installations they support are really cool.

The installation on the second floor was by an American artist named Mark Jenkins. It was really weird but really cool. The picture above is just twisted... I hardly have the words to describe it. Skeleton, no-face woman, weird animal-suit person, eating a boob, and a ninja baby. Yep, covered all of the important bases. It was fun to join in!

The installation in the store part of the space is a really well laid out lighting setup by Ayako Maruta:

After that I went to a show called "Graphic Design in Japan 2008" at Tokyo Midtown in Roppongi. It was an overview of award winning graphic design in the current year. There was some really cool stuff, my favorite was a specially designed poster made out of puzzle pieces. Here it is:



Be sure to check out the rest of the gallery, there are some other really interesting designs in there.

Graphic Design

I've really been getting into graphic design recently, as I may have already mentioned. I've been absorbing as much information as I can about it - books, magazines, and websites; the works. Japan, being very outward image centric, is an awesome place to be if you are into graphic design. Creative designs can be seen on nearly any corner of Tokyo and there are tons of really well put together books and magazines.

There is just something so attractive and interesting to me about artistic, funky, and abstract logo and graphic design. In gaming the most well known example of the marriage of graphic design, culture, and technology is the WipeOut series of racing games from Sony Europe. They worked closely with a graphic design firm called The Designers Republic (whose website is sadly woefully out of date).

I don't know if Sony is still working with them on the upcoming WipeOut HD or not but that website has captured both the feel of TDR's original designs as well as my imagination. If you have any interest in this topic, please go to that website. Look at the amount of detail put into fleshing out the world of that game. The fake corporate sponsors of each one of the futuristic racing teams, their logos, fake product placement on the tracks, etc. Go to the environments page and check out all the little logos and color schemes. Just awesome.

Due to this blooming interest I've taken up my hand at working with Adobe Illustrator and am working to improve my skills. Borrowing from other ideas to start (never a bad idea in any field, IMO, learn from the pros!), I've been practicing with the software and have created some basic designs. I have had a spare domain name sitting around for a while, so my plan is to take that domain and make it my own personal graphic design playground. I might as well have an identity for my designs as well, so I'll use it for that too.

You can find two designs on the site right now and can expect to see more in the future.

My site: guile(zero) . graphic design

Edit: This is another design firm I quite like. Capacitor Design Network. Here is a site they designed that is quite attractive Delicious Monster.

Ebisu Graffiti

Ebisu Graffiti

While Tokyo is much cleaner than other big cities I've visited throughout the world there is still plenty of street art and graffiti to find if you know where to look for it.

I went out exploring over the weekend for an hour or two in Shibuya-ku (Ebisu, Hiroo, Daikanyama) and found plenty of examples. There was some really cool stuff but sadly plenty of just messy scribble tags as well.

I get some ideas from the really good stuff when it comes to graphic design. Most of the street art is garbage but when you find something that looks really great it can be a moment of inspiration.

Japanese Graphic Design Magazines

Recently I have been getting into graphic design quite a bit as a hobby and interest area of research. Japan has some amazing magazines in all interest areas. Must like the Japanese otaku are famous for being hardcore into videogames, there are otaku ("maniac") style magazines for many interest areas outside of videogames.

Anyways, there are two in particular I wanted to point out:

IDEA (アイデア)

This is an internationally well known graphic design magazine that I only recently discovered. At my office there are a lot of back issues for reference and I can see why. There are some amazing designs presented across many forms of media with designers from varied backgrounds. Highly recommended. Almost always has translations of articles in English as well.

When profiling designers who are still alive they are often just given free reign to do whatever they want across their assigned pages. This results in some really cool design work.

+81 (Plus Eighty One)

+81 profiles design trends and designers from across the world. Articles are in both English and Japanese. The layout and design of the magazine itself is quite good and it has introduced me to a lot of skilled designers I would have otherwise would not have learned about.