I think a lot about preservation when it comes to the games I work on, even if I'm no longer at a studio and access to files. It's part of our own personal legacy were contributing to a well documented industry.

So why does it matter to us artist and what can we do? THREAD Just in the last decade we have seen a significant increase in meaningful re-releases, remasters and ports of older games. This is fantastic!

Problem is, the further back we go, the more often you find out teams didnt preserve their source code or files.

Theres a unique skill in the history of games that was very brief but I've always been fascinated by: the transfer of 3D renders to sprites. So let's take a look at one of the most famous examples: Donkey Kong Country. How did Rare transfer this render to a 16 colored sprite? You might look at this now and go "just scale the render down to a lower resolution and you're done!" But that isnt something you could do with the SNES hardware.

Scaling the image is one thing but the real problem was color limits on sprites. 16 colors is was the hardware limit

I wanted to share a trend I've seen since doing my mentorship from mentee proposals that I think might help people when developing their own ideas for games or environments. It's about digging deep into the narrative intent of the scene. I've asked them to send me a proposal for their scene with questions to consider. The main questions are "what do you want people to feel in the space?" And "what is your main emotional theme/idea."

The proposal I've seen the most, at least once a month, is about light vs dark

Here are my quick tips for portfolio building:

-Work should answer basic questions teams want on quality, tools, craftsmanship
-Avoid tropes you see in many other portfolios
-Every piece should be a self expression of you
-Put in surprises
-Have fun with it

Let me explain... To the first point:

Your entire portfolio should represent what you are fully capable of as an artist. It is putting your best foot forward. It should impress and show that you understand fundamental day in and day out roles of the job from craftsmanship to technical prowess

Wanted to do a little thread this morning on the history of 3D video game texturing. We have come a long way since the early days of real time 3D used in home consoles but there are still practices used today to make game textures that go all the way back to those early days. Let's get a few basics in order first. Real time rendering vs pre-rendered. Real time is what most 3D games use. That where your machine's hardware is drawing the image in real time. Pre-rendered is using a lot of computing power and time to make one frame.

I got asked the other day what books would I recommend to environment artists. So here is a list of books I highly recommend with links on Amazon: The Poetics of Space is one of those great foundational books when it comes to building inhabitable spaces.

The Poetics of Space amazon.com/dp/0807064734/…

I've been all over how inspiring theme park design (especially Disney) is to environment game artists for awhile but I dont think I've laid the case out for why. I want to try doing some tonight.

Let's explore why environments are so important to both games and parks: Context In both instances, context for what you're doing (what activity you're participating in) is a huge part of getting audiences to buy into the experience. It's more than just a game where your using a turned based combat system. It's more than just a roller coaster. There's story.

Diegetic storytelling can mean a lot of things but let's talk about how shapes, color and lines can be used to help the design. This is something both designers and environment artists should know Its important to understand what the visuals are communicating to the players. It's something you can harness, or if you're not careful, message without meaning or intent. Depending on the intent, you can make it subtle (or not so subtle in this case)

Since Twilight Zone is coming back (and with good reasons to get excited for it) I want to gush a bit on how the history of Rod Serling and how his work leading up to & through The Twilight Zone's run highlights the importance of portraying equality and progressivism in media. For me personally, I look up to him as a creative who was both aspiring for s better world but also incredibly honest about himself and his own weaknesses. The Twilight Zone reflects so much of this. But that makes sense since he wrote 92 of the 156 episodes of the show.

Game Dev Twilight Zone:

Unassuming game artist discovers that when they roll back a change list in perforce, it also sends them back in time when that changelist was submitted. Gamergater who thinks progressive ideas in games are forced wakes up one more to find themselves in the body of a female developer.

English translation of the most creepy, elaborate thread I've ever read

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This is some Orson Welles' shit right here