Preproduction

2. Preproduction

As an art team, preproduction's main focus is to establish the artistic vision of the game and to solidify the workflow needed to generate shippable content when production begins. This is most often delivered via Art Style and Art Technical Guides. This is a highly collaborative and focused effort by all members of the art team in pursuit of supporting the game design in a performant, efficient and high-quality manner.

Sample Team: Lead Designer, Designer, Product Owner, Producer, Art Director/Lead, Concept Artist, 3D Artist, Animator, Tech Art, Engineers, QA Lead

Prerequisite: Establish unified product vision, approved prototype and design documentation, theme selected, vertical/visual slice, preproduction roadmap, Green Light from leadership

Goal: To prepare for smooth transition to production. Style Guide and necessary product documentation complete, roadmap created, product pillars solidified, documented workflow per discipline, further prototyping, risks identified and addressed, asset lists generated

Questions to ask ourselves:

"Have we established a unified, bulletproof product and artistic vision for this game? If I ask each team member, will they all have the same answer?"

"Does our artistic vision successfully support and emphasize the core game mechanics? Are we adhering to the product and art pillars while creating this vision?"

"Are we crafting a visual experience that our audience will fall in love with? Are we inspiring the team and studio? Are we building a groundswell of enthusiasm and support?"

"Does the art direction take advantage of the talent and ability of the team? Are we setting attainable expectations and setting the project up for success? Are we missing any key ingredients for success?"

"Are we innovating our technology and style while remaining relatable? Have we done enough research in to future trends and our competition to offer a fresh title at release?"

"Will this game run smoothly on the intended platform? What steps are we taking to avoid significant performance pivots during production?"

Concept & Exploration

With our theme selected and fundamental questions answered, we are ready to start defining the look and feel. Begin by working fast and loose, exploring the vast possibilities. It's smart to avoid going straight to time consuming, polished illustrations here. What I'm after are ideas and epiphanies that spark the creative energy of all involved, funneling us gradually towards our goal. I want to weed ideas out as we discover that sweet spot of "Wow, this is it!"

Exploration shouldn't be relegated solely to concept artists. Everyone with a passion and availability to do so should join in. Remember to share everything along the way. Show work in progress via Slack and be fully open to feedback and critique. Avoid the scenario where one or two people are siloed away from the team as this will dramatically reduce exploration and collaboration. We will get to the pretty concept art phase soon enough.

For character/concept artists, this is the time to push their style spectrum and find some gems,
- Write up a bio to start out. Take that information and visualize them in a multitude of styles and proportions. Work from silhouette to inner shapes to create a clear read, preferably with the game camera in mind. Accentuate their purpose and personality through pose, silhouette, setting and props.
- Your first character is an artistic key stone for the project so invest in it.
- Create a lineup as you work on additional characters and evaluate them within context of the cast. Do each of them feel unique? Are they tonally correct? Do you love the design?

For environment artists,
- Are they painting a static background, individual props, a room or open world?
- Establish some key guidelines to work with, such as camera position, color keys, important landmarks and the players path or playable area.
- The environment is critical for world building and immersion but should almost always sit back in the visual hierarchy. Drop some characters in, some vfx, a UI; does your visual hierarchy hold up? The running mantra here is to develop concept work in context of the overall experience.

VFX is a key component of visual feedback and player enjoyment,
- How does shape, texture and color inform the player?
- Generally speaking, visual effects in the play area should be the first read, providing important information and rewarding an action.
- Big splashy effects can be effective, but not if a dozen of them are firing off at the same time. Again, evaluate your vfx direction within context of the whole experience.

Animation is likely to come on a little later than other discliplines as it is often determined by some fundamental style decisions.
- That being said, it is a critical component that breathes life into a character and a major factor in the success of moment to moment gameplay.
- If an animator is available early on (before assets are ready), they should be gathering reference and formulating a plan that most effectively supports the game play, art style and tone.

User Interface art aims to,
- support and elevate the overall look and feel while creating a seemless, intuitive flow through the experience.
- Inspiration is abundant and can be found in print, film, social media, product packaging, games and other venues for graphic design.
- Greatly informed by the theme, UI exploration should culminate in a set of cohesive building blocks including font, buttons, text fields, backgrounds, borders, etc.
- These elements should be used when building the Art Style Guide.

The Art Style Guide

The style guide is a recipe for crafting all game art and informing marketing art. A successful style guide (and Technical Guide) can be handed off to any artist with the expectation that the finished asset will be on brand, efficiently constructed and adhere to core art and product pillars.

The Art Style Guide contains the fruit of all the labor. Everything contained within should be original artwork developed specifically for this project. The font, borders, backgrounds and terminology are all there to reinforce the look and feel of the eventual game. Keep it heavy on art, low on text. Expect this deliverable to be a work in progress throughout preproduction and to undergo a number of revisions. Because of this, I prefer to work with an outline and slowly build up the visuals as the look and feel are iterated on.

Art Style Guide Outline

Title Page: Great place for attention grabbing key art along with a logo treatment. Make a strong first impression of the brand.

Table of Contents: Self Explanatory. Opportunity for the viewer to quickly jump to desired information.

Narrative/Theme: This is a great spot to pull a viewer in to the world you are creating. Since the core narrative should be documented at this point, I'll usually use some summary text here along with an image that supports that narrative.

Product Pillars: I'm accustomed to my teams having 3-4 prioritized product pillars that we use to define the experience we wish to create. These are extremely valuable and are often used to prioritize and challenge game mechanics.

The Journey: If I am working with an established brand and/or expect an external group to view the style guide, I will add this section in. This is a really cool way to show how you arrived at the ultimate art direction. I like to show theme and mood boards here and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each. If I have wound up at the right conclusions, this section will support the final direction.

Art Pillars: These are the hard rules put in place to help guide consistency and quality through all asset creation. I aim for four total pillars, prioritized based on importance. Using our mobile MMO as an example, they might be:
- Clarity in Heirarchy: We will create an effective visual hierarchy, layering the elements to focus the players attention
- Scale & Proportion: We will use proportion and scale to create dramatic, epic worlds, gear and encounters
- Fantastical: We will create a relatable world that becomes more fantastical as the player progresses
- Intuitive: We will achieve mass appeal through charming stylization and intuitive thematic archetypes

Art Pillars in Detail: Create a page or two for each pillar with visual examples and further guidance.

Discipline Sections: For concept, character, environment, animation, vfx and UI. Each of these disciplines are broken in to their own section. I like to include an overview specific to each one along with do's & don'ts, diagrams and other pertinent information.

Exploration and Inspiration: At the end, I like to reward and inform the reader with a selection of concept art. It's not only fun to look at but it helps demonstrate the hard work and amazing talent present on the game.

Art Technical Guide

The purpose of this document is to capture all content creation pipelines. Without it you risk making it up as you go which, in my experience, always leads to big problems down the line. It may not be fun but the creation of this guide should always be a requirement for moving in to production.

Essential Included Information:

Naming conventions: I learned this lesson a long time ago. Not creating a concrete rule set for naming conventions and folder hierarchy will become a major headache down the road. This must be done while considering all known and potential content. Work with a tech artist or engineer to look at P4V check ins and enforce your conventions.

Asset Budgets: Don't guess here. Work with an engineer to create a budget plan for all your assets. You want to maximize those numbers while still loading quickly, maintaining a smooth frame rate and meeting any build size restrictions. This is the time to find efficient options and to make sure you are spending on the things that matter!

Creation Pipelines: From A to Z, can an artist create a shippable asset for your game without ever talking to you? Ideally, that is how thorough this should be. This, along with the Style Guide may very well be used by outsourcing to support your game. An investment here may make your life and the performance of that support much more successful.

Technical Risks: This is a tool for creation of the document and can be included. Each project has it's unique risks. Take some time and create and extensive list and work with your team to address each one before (and during) production.

The Visual/Vertical Slice

Your team may determine that a visual or vertical slice is needed before entering the production phase. The benefit of doing this is that it challenges your decisions and direction in a very honest and objective way. It is also a great opportunity to generate excitement and support for your game. Did all the multitudes of decisions made through preproduction culminate in a great overall vision?

Visual Slice: Most often, the completed visual slice is shown to stakeholders as a video. This can be created in engine in conjunction with a vertical slice or prototype or it could be "mocked up" using a variety of software. The question it is meant to answer is, "Is this an exciting, quality visual experience? Does everything work well together and capture the essence of this product?"

Vertical Slice: A vertical slice is a playable section of the game that aims to provide a final, worldwide experience. These are better created in production, more naturally including final game assets. Due to expense, the team might decide to do this only in the case of a required product approval step or to show at an industry expo.

Product Roadmap

In order to make a game, it is helpful to know what you are going to make, not only that day but for months or even years to come. This is the responsibility of team leads and the result of a lot of collaboration and planning. Feature development is prioritized, informing all asset creation, asset lists and team size and skills needed. If you really want to put your project in peril, avoid a roadmap. Here are some important notes concerning roadmap and art asset list creation:

Asset List: Time to get granular and plot out your success. You should now be able to break down features and formulate some solid initial estimates to keep the effort successful. Work with leads to massage the roadmap, if necessary, in order to create an accurate and shared expectation for the art team. Work with each artist individually to buy off on estimates and make them part of the process.

Team Planning: With the roadmap in place, a team roll on strategy can be developed. Work with the leads to determine the skills and personnel needed in order to achieve each goal along the way. Art team members should compliment each other and cover all required tasks. This requires an:

Share: Team leads should actively and routinely share this information with the team, asking for feedback and building a solid, unified team vision. Create and champion some feedback channels that collect and allow team members to comment and vote. Great feedback and suggestions can come from anyone. Keep the team informed, action on feedback and you'll also keep them engaged.

Initial Asset List

An asset list provides essential information to guide team construction. This is an early opportunity to check the team's ability to support the design goals for content and formulate a plan. It is unlikely that an initial list will result in a perfect waterfall schedule for the project. I approach it with the following agenda:

In Excel I create a tab for each discipline and and in line items for each anticipated asset using placeholders where needed. For each line item, I add columns for priority, milestone, feature, time, stages and description. I can then easily calculate approximate estimates to determine manpower needed.

If the game is character driven, I will start with characters. This helps to create concept, sculpting, modeling, texturing, setup, animation and vfx tasks.

To create estimates, talk with an artist in each discipline who is familiar with the artistic and product vision and agree on the estimates. Always round up 20% to account for meetings, sick days, vacation and unforeseen events and assets. If that cushion isn't needed, the work is ahead of schedule, if it is you may avoid some late nights or content cuts.

Create several plans to present team leadership. One with full team content creation, one with heavy outsourced content and one in the middle. This is especially Important for large, content heavy games and/or with a short development cycle. This clearly visualizes any concerns you may have and allows the team leadership to help solve them.

At this point, you know the style, workload and technical needs of the art team along with the allocated budget and head count. Identify team weaknesses or holes and use the aforementioned criteria to build the best team possible.

Next Up: Early Production!