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The Artist Synapse Back to Intro |
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Example Artist Interaction: Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 |
| Degrees of Separation [View] |
| Psychology [View] |
| Suggestions [View] |
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Features vs. Beauty [View] |
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Artist: What kind of sorting
is used? Per-pixel Z-buffer? Per-face BSP-tree sorting? Producer: Z-buffer sorting, with object culling. |
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| Tech: The main purpose of this question is to determine whether intersecting faces are supported (Z-buffering allows intersecting faces, but most other sorting methods do not), but the answer can affect other areas as well. | |
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Artist: Are there any special
shapes that should not be built? Producer: No line-face, point-face, or 1,000:1 skinny faces. |
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| Tech: This question reflects the fact that some graphics engines don't cope with strange faces, such as a "line-face," which only uses two vertices, or a "point-face," which only uses one vertex. Also, some engines don't handle long, thin faces well (such as a triangle that fits in a 1,000¥1 rectangle). Asking this question should reveal all those special cases, if there are any. | |
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Artist: What's the screen
size for this application? Producer: 640x480 |
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| Tech: This very important question tells us what resolution the textures should be, and can also be used to determine the size of detail the on-screen objects will need. For example, if the answer was 320¥200, then a smaller fur texture might be O.K., and perhaps the gaps between the teeth wouldn't be worth modeling, since they would always be far less than one pixel wide. | |
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Artist: How will the models
be seen? What viewpoints does the player use during the course of the game?
Producer: The camera will orbit the cat, barely within the room. The cat will rarely take more than 25% of the screen width, and usually only 10% or so. We won't see the cat's underside very often - the view will be mainly from a six-foot-tall person's standpoint, much as you'd see a real cat in a living room. |
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| Tech: With enough information, the optimal size for an object is a known quantity. In this example, multiply the screen width (640) by the cat's length on screen (25%) to conclude that the cat's optimal size is about 160 pixels long. This number is useful when choosing texture sizes (128¥128 for the foot is way too detailed) and geometry detail. | Psych: This is probably the hardest question to which to get a straight answer. Of course, RT3D means the viewpoint usually isn't defined, and the designer can't know the viewing positions. The good news is that artists only need to know very general information: what parts will be scrutinized, and which are rarely seen. Ideally, they will know more: how and where the object will be in the scene, what the minimum, maximum, and typical viewing distance will be, and what the field of view is. |
