Better Programmer Art
by Joel Davis · 12/29/2008 (10:49 pm) · 6 comments
I just wrote a little article for gamedev.net about making better programmer art. Check it out:
"Better Programmer Art" at gamedev.net
Nothing in there Torque specific but it might be helpful in spiffing up a prototype. Although Torque makes it pretty easy to make something look awesome out of the box with all the demo assets and the content packs out there.
joel
"Better Programmer Art" at gamedev.net
Nothing in there Torque specific but it might be helpful in spiffing up a prototype. Although Torque makes it pretty easy to make something look awesome out of the box with all the demo assets and the content packs out there.
joel
About the author
#2
12/30/2008 (12:19 am)
@Joel, this deserves a continuous blog entry... so we can see the evolution of programmer art over time. The last few sections of your article really started looking artistic. I think art is much like programming in that both art and programming is a skill that can be learned. 
#3
Do you know if anyone has done an article for Artists? -Because my consept code really sucks!
It would be great to know what programs to use to get a programmer to understand some of the ideas an artist can be struggling to communicate... A sketch is not always enough ;-)
12/30/2008 (5:51 am)
This is really great Joel!Do you know if anyone has done an article for Artists? -Because my consept code really sucks!
It would be great to know what programs to use to get a programmer to understand some of the ideas an artist can be struggling to communicate... A sketch is not always enough ;-)
#4
12/30/2008 (9:49 am)
Excellent Joel! Thanks.
#5
@peter - The best advice I can give is about communicating with programmers is to explain what you are trying to do and not how you think it should be implemented. Often, a feature request like "can you add a texture gamma slider to the export panel?" really means "I often need to color correct a bunch of textures at once", or instead of saying "can we change the shader to have three different specular layers instead of one?", just paintover a screenshot and say "I'm trying to get this look, and I can't get there with the current shader."
Also, in any project, you should make the programmers sit down and use the art tools to generate an asset from scratch (character, level, whatever) from start to finish. It doesn't have to be a particularly good asset, or even something that is used in the final game, but it will make them feel the pain that the artists go through. And it creates empathy. Often, the programmer will get frustrated at the same place in the pipeline as the artists, and instead of just pushing through it and getting it done, he or she will take the "lazy" route -- and just fix the code.
12/30/2008 (12:39 pm)
Thanks for the positive feedback!@peter - The best advice I can give is about communicating with programmers is to explain what you are trying to do and not how you think it should be implemented. Often, a feature request like "can you add a texture gamma slider to the export panel?" really means "I often need to color correct a bunch of textures at once", or instead of saying "can we change the shader to have three different specular layers instead of one?", just paintover a screenshot and say "I'm trying to get this look, and I can't get there with the current shader."
Also, in any project, you should make the programmers sit down and use the art tools to generate an asset from scratch (character, level, whatever) from start to finish. It doesn't have to be a particularly good asset, or even something that is used in the final game, but it will make them feel the pain that the artists go through. And it creates empathy. Often, the programmer will get frustrated at the same place in the pipeline as the artists, and instead of just pushing through it and getting it done, he or she will take the "lazy" route -- and just fix the code.
Torque 3D Owner Andy Schatz