UPDATE: ^Check out the new 'articles' section above.^

Katana Postmortem – chapter headings

Here are the tentative chapter headings for my long overdue Katana postmortem.

• Introduction
• All good things start with a concept and a prototype
• The Early days – Katana2.0 R&D (messing about)
• Enter StratonAce
• Raising our game – the first trailer and the impact of Kung Fu 3
• Focusing on Production
• Post-Production (the last 6 months) (aka Running a Marathon)
• PR, Release, and Critical Reception, Legacy
• What went right
• What went wrong
• Conclusion and closing remarks

There’s no ETA on this yet.  It wont be a book or anything, but I hope to shed some light on how two guys who barely knew each other, dedicated their lives for almost 2.5 years on this (then) ambitious mod project.  It also parallels my personal journey as an unknown hobbyist modder, to someone seriously moving towards games production as a career.

With that in mind, it’ll probably take a production focus, looking at the things that went right, and the things that, in retrospect, didn’t work out so well.   This is not about dwelling the past — the goal here is to give other people thinking about starting similar projects an idea of how this thing mushroomed from a modest demo; the work it required; and the problems that arose.

It will also give me a chance to reflect back on this project, which I believe is probably my most successful, in terms of quality, scope, and production method.  Sometimes I find myself moving forward too quickly, that you forget where you came from.  While Polar Paradise edges it on production (we had a schedule!!! and documentation!!!)  the workload was (intentionally) MUCH smaller.  It’s also too recent — so I’ll save that one for another day.

I’ve not spoken to Shane in a while, so I’ve no idea yet if it’ll represent his side of the story or not.

Timothy Gibbs is Max Payne 3 – a quick analysis

Shocked about Rockstar’s announcement yesterday?  He’s left New York? Grown a beard!? Shaved his head!!? Is this really the same Max Payne we know and love?  The man with a monster body count and nothing to lose?

The answer is …yes, actually.

In case you had any doubts,  I’ve prepared several images to illustrate (conclusively, I hope) that Timothy Gibbs is still playing Max Payne.  At least, his likeness is used in the original Max Payne 3 poster that hit the news yesterday.

There was already some kind of suspicion that it looked a bit like him (as these two images demonstrate – click for larger versions),  but it wasn’t until I started rooting around the original Max Payne 2 photoshoot looking for similar images, that I hit the jackpot.

Something struck me about this photo, but it wasn’t until I flipped it around and superimposed the Max Payne 3 image over, that it jumped out at me. And standing there, facing the pure horrifying precision, I came to realise the obviousness of the truth.  It’s the same image.

To the trained eye, I think the images speak for themselves, but as a personal exercise, and to eliminate any doubts lets look a bit closer…

Real facial analysis can get quite complicated, especially if the two faces are looking in different directions, or there’s little source material available,  like in Vanity Fair’s recently rediscovered photo of Robert Johnson.  You have to map structural points on the skull (e.g. the brow, cheekbones, etc) which should remain consistent regardless of the direction of the head and type of facial expression.    However, I didn’t have to worry about this, because I was already 95% confident that they were the same image — I just wanted to prove it.  And if they were, it should be a simple case of making sure the proportions and facial features (eyes, noes, mouth, ears,…) are the same.  Click on the black and white images for details.

As you can see, the proportions are roughly the same; the features are the same; and so is the lighting.  And that concludes a rather over-exhaustive analysis that I think proves something most people had already figured out for themselves. Well, I hope someone found it interesting. o_O

Please bear in mind that I’m working on the assumption that Rockstar’s artist has likely either painted directly over the photo in Photoshop, or eyeballed it, so there will be some minor differences, and not to mention artistic license (like the beard! and him possibly being bald). Also, I had to scale the photo up to match the painted one, so it might not be 100% exact.

What I find curious is why Rockstar used a photo from Max Payne 2 as a template for promoting the third game, and not a brand new image.  Perhaps they thought Max’s new look would go down better if, at an unconscious level, it was familiar.  Or maybe the graphic novel photoshoots are still in production.  Your guess is as good as mine.

I’d also like to say at this point that while I’ve read a lot of mixed feedback regarding Max’s new look and Remedy not being involved; I’m trying to keep an open mind on this.  I’m apprehensive about the sequel as everyone is, but so far all we’ve seen is one image of Max and a very vague overview, and already people are jumping to conclusions and casting judgements. Remember, the series was always designed to support several follow-up titles, with or without Remedy.

It’s T2/Rockstar’s series now, and I think it’s important that they take the opportunity to shape it into their own game now, and not just make a poor imitation of Remedy’s own unique style. Of course, the catch is to do this without completely alienating the original fanbase. Crystal Dynamics have proven that it’s possible for another studio to pick up the torch and resurrect a series without destroying the magic of the original, so why not give Rockstar Vancouver the benefit of the doubt? That is… at least until a screenshot or video is posted (then it’s fair game).

UPDATE 01/07/2009

Okay, time for a quick update now that the first batch of screenshots are out.  Is Timothy Gibbs still Max Payne?  Is Max Payne 3 still Max Payne?  Honestly I’m not sure anymore.  However, I still stand by  my original image/facial analysis.  That is: I still think that the image above is based on the photo of Gibbs from Max Payne 2 (regardless of the proportions, the individual facial features, expression, and highlights/shadows are too similar).   Whether or not the actual 3d model used in the game and subsequent pr images are based on Gibbs’ likeness or someone else is another matter entirely.

Given how they’ve drastically altered the look of the game, it makes sense to me that Rockstar would opt to use Gibb’s likeness for the first pr image simply to avoid completely alienating the existing Max Payne fanbase (especially now that James McCaffery isn’t voicing Max either).  As for the rest of the game… I just don’t know.  To me it looks like they’re shooting for a City of God vibe, which could work I suppose.

Further Reading:

The Artist’s Complete Guide to Facial Expression, by Gary Faigin.

Paul Ekman

Max Payne 3

Searching for Robert Johnson – Frank Digiacomo (Vanity Fair)

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots – Yoshiyuki Watanabe (CGSociety)

Where’s Whallier?

Dammit, it seems like you just can’t step out of your front door and not get photographed these days.

From the Microsoft Inspiration tour, 2008

How it all began…

Now that I’m finished with university, I’ve been talking to a few people lately about the ‘good old days’ of modding — how we first met, etc. Anyway, while searching gaming magazines for my portfolio, I stumbled on the original article which got me interested in the Max Payne modding scene in the first place. The contents shouldn’t be of any great surprise – Kung fu and The Matrix (Dodge This to be precise).

(click to enlarge)

It’s hard to explain the effect this article had on me. I’d vaugely heard of Max Payne from friends at college (according to them, it wasn’t very good ), and I was a big Matrix fan. So the idea of making Matrix style levels with Bullet Time and now ‘Kung Fu’ sounded too good to be true. Bear in mind, my previous game design experience was tile-based Qbasic games (simple RPGs, etc), and very basic Duke3d maps — all on a 486 (I only got my ‘new’ pc a few months before this article).

I guess that screenshot of Morpheus jumping across the rooftops (bottom left) just ‘did it’ for me. Within a month I had bought the game, torn my hair out trying it working, run through the MaxED & milkshape tutorials, and joined MPHQ and 3drealms.

[I don't want to end on a cliché, so I won't say "and the rest is history." ]

The best was yet to come…

Positioning 101 – Playing the name game

Just a quick post today: if you’ve already read about positioning, this is probably preaching to the converted, but otherwise, from the man himself, Al Ries:

Related article by Scott Miller: Name Matters

It should be pretty obvious now why Katana was renamed from the generic: “Katana v2 [K2]: Cold Steel” (I still cringe when I hear it), to just ‘Katana‘. Simple, meaningful names are the most effective.

Where the two views differ slightly is on descriptive/meaningful names vs. unique ’shocking’ brand names. Good descriptive game names would probably include Doom, Tomb Raider, SimCity, and Prey; whereas good (semi) abstract names might include Quake, Half-Life, Unreal, Grand Theft Auto, and Wii. On the one hand you could argue that the first kind are more effective because they’re already meaningful; but on the other hand, as Al Ries points out, words by themselves don’t have meaning until you add one (Google, Kleenex, eBay, etc). In the context of games, I’d lean towards more meaningful names, but clearly good judgement and common sense is required. I went for Katana because a) it was obvious, and b) it’s the key gameplay mechanic of the mod – so much so, the hero practically has the Katana grafted to his hand.

The other (perhaps most effective) strategy is to name your game after the central character(s) – e.g. Duke Nukem, Max Payne, Alan Wake, Super Mario Bros., Phoenix Wright, Lara Croft, etc. This is ideal if your character has a clever name like Max Payne (maximum pain), Alan Wake (awake), and Duke Nukem, which hints at the kind of game it is, thus giving it some meaning. Again, this goes back to the whole Marion Morrison / John Wayne idea — if you give your character a strong name, appropriate to their genre/brand, it can be an extremely powerful marketing tool; whereas if your name isn’t appropriate (Ralph Lifschitz?) you headed for trouble. The trick is not to slip into generic city with “The adventures of…”, which is why Polar Paradise isn’t called “Dinky’s Christmas Adventure”. Unfortunately at the time of release, the hero of Katana didn’t have a name; and now that he does (‘Tao’), I don’t think it would have worked as well.

Did Katana benefit from its name? I like to think so. Next to ‘Kung Fu’ (another great name, except that its real name is: Max Payne: Kung Fu Edition version 3) Katana is regarded as one of the top Max Payne 1 mods ever created. And it can’t have been worse than the utterly generic ‘K2′ – what was I thinking?

Another benefit was that it kept the mod focused. When the mod was called ‘K2…’, a lot of different bladed weapons were being considered – steel fans, scythes, broadswords, nun-chucks, — even the Gunblade from FF8. So, when the mod was renamed back to Katana, it became pretty obvious that making amazing Katana combat was my number 1 priority.

‘Agile’ Rendering and Accidental Masterpieces

Hey, thanks for taking interest in my humble blog! This is a long-ish post, so grab a cup of coco, start that background render you’ve been putting off, and we’ll begin.

Still with me?

So, for a while now I’ve been thinking about an alternative approach to rendering. If you read my previous blog entry, you’ll see that I’ve been frustrated with the slowness of the whole thing. I’m a perfectionist at heart, and the time it takes to setup a model, the shaders, lighting, background, textures, pose, hair, clothes, etc, etc, takes up WAY too much of my time. Combined with the ridiculous 2-4 hour ‘final’ render, I wonder if it’s even worth it. Even though programs like Poser and DAZ|Studio compare themselves to a photo studio; I see the whole CG rendering approach more alike to painting. Traditionally, it’s slow, and requires a lot of planning, and fine tuning to get the best results.

I’ve been reading a lot about Agile Development and Production, for university, and I’m wondering if there is a way to connect some of the principals of agility to 3d rendering. So, what I want to propose (and I haven’t really figured this out yet) is more of a photographers approach to rendering. I’m not saying photography is easy, or that rendering should be lazy; but I want to try and capture the fluid and more flexible aspects of photography.

For example, with a digital camera you can take loads of photos really quickly, and with any luck some of them will turn out fair, or even pretty good. I saw a documentary recently, and someone commented that there are no ‘accidental masterpieces’ in painting (and art in general), but there are in photography. I wonder if there’s a way to harness some of this in 3d rendering. Looking at my past renders over the years (not online), some of my best ones have been very experimental, or quick ‘test’ renders. None of them were perfect or ‘realistic’; but there was a ’special something’ about them that brought them above the average. Maybe a sparkle in the eyes, a slight expression, a shadow here or there…

So what I’m proposing is slightly against the norm. It’s about throwing away the pursuit of photo-realism (because, arguably, the end result will be ‘uncanny’, either way); ‘final’ renders that take over an hour (and then some); wasting time tweaking things to endless perfection. Unless you have 2 or more good computers, why tie up resources rendering one big image, when you could be doing several?

So, instead it’s about developing a more ‘agile’ system or approach to 3d rendering, that emphasises creativity, quickness, and flexibility — the idea being that ‘actual renders’ (even unrealistic, small, or otherwise flawed/imperfect) are more valuable than sitting at the screen tweaking morphs, shaders, lights, etc. or waiting for the computer to render a so-so image.

I’m not saying this approach is better than the traditional method of working up a really good render. Nor am I suggesting you should throw away centuries of art theory and practise. All I’m proposing right now, is an experiment in trying to emphasise ’speed’, ‘creativity’, and ‘imagination’, over ‘perfection’ and ‘realism’.

How you actually go about this, of course is the million dollar question. You might feel a bit short-changed right now – if I knew what the holy grail of rendering was (other than lots of: HARD WORK, PRACTISE, LEARNING, EXPERIMENTATION, and EFFORT) – trust me, I’d be selling it on the marketplace. I’m currently experimenting with speeding up render times and trying different, unconventional approaches to rendering, more akin to fashion photography (like doing several ’snapshots’ of a model, rather than one perfect render). Whether this works, and how you measure the success of it, isn’t really clear either. However, perhaps one advantage of this approach could be to increase one’s creative potential, allowing you to explore promising ideas and do them ‘properly’ at a later date.

Anyway, if you found this interesting, then I’d love to hear your feedback on this.

Related topics:

http://agilemanifesto.org/

http://www.arclight.net/%7Epdb/nonfiction/uncanny-valley.html

 

Please support Max Payne modding at the Moddb awards!

As you may know, it’s that time of the year again where Moddb has its annual Mod of The Year awards.

Unfortunately it’s very difficult for Max Payne modders to get noticed, because mods for Half-Life and Unreal are so much more popular. However, YOU can make a difference by spreading the word and voting for your favourite Max Payne mods:

http://www.moddb.com/games/18/max-payne/mods http://www.moddb.com/games/72/max-payne-2/mods

As far as I know, voting is free and doesn’t require registration (although registered votes are worth more) – so feel free to vote for as many or as few mods as you want. It would be great to see some of the up and coming Max Payne mods shortlisted this year, and to remind the world that Max Payne modding is still alive and well.

The ones I know are taking part are:

The Real World – Maddieman, Froz, Ken_Y, Steve_R, Suprakarma, and others.
Dawn of The Dead  – Halloween4
Katana – Maddieman and StrationAce
Silent Hill – Neo16
(if you want your mod added to list, let me know your details)

Last year ‘Dawn of The Dead’, ‘Max Payne University’, and ‘7th Serpent’ got shortlisted; and Katana won the ‘honourable mention’ for ‘Editor’s choice: Singleplayer mod of the year’; so it IS possible to do well at this event, and your votes DO count.

Remember, you’re not just voting for the individual mods and their authors, but for Max Payne modding as well! — Every vote counts!

Thanks for your support, as always. 

New Trailer!

A new stocking-filler – just in time for Christmas!

Check it out:

So… where is the gameplay?

After much thought, and a quick trip to the supermarket, I’ve decided to name the blog: “Where’s the Gameplay?”. Daft name, huh?

This was based on an anecdote from my lecturer about pitching games. Apparently after seeing a games pitch, the first thing a lot of publishers ask is: “Where’s the gameplay? I want to see the gameplay” — usually because a good deal of games pitched to them would only emphasise story and setting, but not the meat and potatoes – the gameplay. Apparently this is such a problem that there are stories of developers trying to pass off prerendered videos (and once even a Powerpoint presentation) as working game prototypes.

So over the years, groups in our class pitched a lot of games to each other, and “Where’s the gameplay!?” became a sort of mantra among the more cynical of us (and sometimes a running joke). It might sound obvious, but some people could talk for over twenty minutes without explaining just what the player was expected to do in the game. At all. Many times, after further probing, we’d discover that the ‘gameplay’ was in fact, just a collection of minigames, with no real substance. I’ll say this for nothing – it’s hard enough to make one kick-ass game, let alone a bunch of them.

A lot of people just fell into the trap of style over substance: – pitching (and sometimes developing) non-games. The same thing happens in modding. A cool film comes out, and a bunch of people try to make a mod about it, even though the subject material and settings are completely innappropriate for gaming and gameplay. It’s not just modders though — look at commercial games like Little Britain: The Computer Game that retails for £20, and I wonder if it’s a bigger problem than people think.

Anyway, without getting into a rant about licensed games; here’s the thing: if you’re in the business of making games, or you’re thinking about getting into the business of making games — at any level — gameplay should be on the forefront of your mind. Always. It’s too easy to get distracted or unfocused by things like features, characters, stories, immersion, USPs & hooks, weapons, physics, interactivity, visual style, and all that. Gameplay is king. So there.

Hence ask yourself: “Where’s the gameplay?”

Oh, and if you have to ask what ‘gameplay’ is — you’ll never know.

Katana: LEGO Edition

Over the years I’ve had a few Katana fan works sent to me (mostly drawings and paintings); but just today I received possibly the strangest, yet most incredible one of them all — that’s right, Katana has been immortalized as a LEGO stop-motion movie! :O

It was created by James Newman, and features the Katana dude (aka Tao) chillin’ in the Club Axis, contemplating a change in career, when suddenly a bunch of mercenary goons burst in on the scene. In true Katana fashion… well, I’ll let you see for yourself; but rest assured, it’s pretty faithful to the mod.

Check it out, it’s incredible:

What I love about it, apart from the fantastic animation and camerawork, is how well it fits with the overall story — like a prologue.

Outstanding work James, thanks for sharing!