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Concept
/ Storyboard Artists flesh out the game with sketches
and paintings of characters, levels, vehicles, and other elements
in a game. This will give an early feel for the game. Character
artists as well as level designers much of the time fill this
role.
Character
Artists & Animators work with 3D programs such
as Maya or 3DS Max to produce the characters and objects that
make up the video games.
Level Designers
are given sections or levels of the game, creating the environments
that the player will interact in. They will have a huge impact
on whether the game will have the look and feel of what the
design team had envisioned.
Texture Artists
give the skins to levels and characters. They have to make
sure the textures are properly mapped onto the 3D objects
and backgrounds in a convincing and seamless way.
Programmers
work on the video game engine, AI, and anything pretty much
that will make the game run. C++ is the programming language
of choice for most game programming.
Sound
/ Audio: There will be people working on the sound
effects of the game, as well as the music that often is playing
in the background.
Professional
Testers are often employed, another video game career.
These people put in long hours to find bugs and other potential
problems.
Artificial
Intelligence today it is almost impossible
to write professional style games without using at least some
aspects of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence
(AI) is a useful tool to use to help to create characters
that have a choice of responses to games player's actions,
but have to be able to act in a fairly unpredictable fashion.
Motion Capture Technology Motion capture
technology is a good example of how digital techniques are being
applied to the video game (and related) industries to allow more
convincing visualizations of imaginary or composite images.
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Texture
Artists and Texture Mapping
Don't
be surprised if you visit a video game development team and find
the texture artist just standing and staring at the wall. The wall
is a very important element in video game environment and the video
game texture designer has to know exactly what different walls and
materials look like in all kinds of light. Remember, the texture
on a wall, a vehicle, or even on a creature's scaly skin is one
of the elements that makes a difference between a really three-dimensional
video game and just another kiddie cartoon.
The
texture artist may scan actual photographs of the appropriate
textures into the computer and then apply that texture to the
creatures, environments or objects created by other members of
the team.
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Some texture designers find ways of creating
exotic, new textures that may go far beyond any surfaces
occurring in nature-at least in this planet's nature.
These
textures have to be mapped onto the 3D objects, environments,
and characters in the game. A sloppy job of texture mapping
in a game will take away the visual edge. You can have
great 3D environments, but the textures have to back them
up. Boring repetitive textures will make the levels seem
blah and give the gamer the "been there, done that" feel.
This can be a game killer. There are just countless textures
in a game such as The Battle for Middle Earth (shown on
the left) |
The
video game texture artist has to understand the technical limitations
of the systems for which the games are being designed. Textures
have to fit within the memory and processing ability of the machines
being used. Texture designers learn various tricks to give the
illusion of intricate textures without using up the memory cache
needed for other parts of the video game.
Salaries
for texture artists depend on experience and where you work. In
the first few years, you can expect to get on average $40,000+,
with an increase to $60,000+ with 4 or 5 years of experience under
your belt.
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