Costume in Games: Integrating a Costume Designer into the Character Pipeline

In this 2019 GDC session, costume designer Heli Salomaa demonstrates the design process of creating costumes for the characters in Control, presenting ways to integrate a costume designer into the character art pipeline.
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[@VEC7ORlt]

Huh, this explains why everyone was so sharply dressed in Control. We need more cool clothing IRL, like Emily's shirt, and more games need costume designers in their workflow. Frankly few games have this good sense of fashion, Deus Ex HR, MD, Dishonored, Mirror's Edge, Remember Me and Transistor come to mind.

[@LetsChat]

I had no idea this much work was put into the costumes. I thought they just told the artists "Put them in suits."

[@igorigor3960]

yeah and after the job is done the artists are like "give me some money mkay?"

[@therarestnormies7859]

The lead does tell them that, the artists put in this much work

[@gpudreamer1048]

Just played Control. I didn't even realise how much the costumes had an effect on the experience. Amazing job Heli Salomaa!! Everything felt right but also just damn cool.

[@listofromantics]

1) Heli is a badass name. 2) Control had some amazing costuming.

[@shield_maiden_]

This was fascinating. Thanks a lot for the great talk!

[@ThousandairesClub]

*Great Work on a really well made game that i enjoyed for a year straight, Thank You So Much Heli

[@Lunareon]

Thank you for this inspiring talk. It is always exciting to hear about projects which employ experts from other fields. The idea of introducing more digital design into the university's costuming department is brilliant. This is precisely why collaborations between different departments and fields are so important: it opens up new possibilities!

[@ACuriousTanuki]

This was fascinating to see. The character/costume design in Control was exceptional, and it's wonderful to hear that it came as the result of such a collaboration of physical and digital craftsmanship. My favourite trend in games has been development studios working with external experts and artists. The results in many cases are so striking, and I hope any perceived barriers between game makers and other artists continue to fall away. Thank you for your excellent work on Control, and for this eye-opening talk.

[@MonhooGameDevlogs]

Very interesting game and very interesting topic, Thanks GDC for this topic

[@Biru_to]

Very insightful, thank you for sharing.

[@TykoBrian7]

Heli!!! Love her!

[@SillyMakesVids]

Actually disappointed that the Asynchronous outfit wasn't made for real, it was my favourite costume of them all!

[@toastedperfection2488]

Woah this was really interesting.

[@marshal487]

Thanks😊

[@stevebob240]

Too bad some of Control's costumes are stuck in the old generation console versions. Ultimate Edition should include all content IMO.

[@knightlon]

Heli serves it cold.

[@dalihan1601]

tru dat

[@JUANMAS7ER]

We need to sell more DLC, create costumes.

[@KEI-um1kc]

Sorry to post this here but GDC please grow some balls and open the comments on your "masculinity in videogames" video...

[@coldDrive]

Oh, those comment sections start open. They're only closed after absurd amounts of vitriol, misoginy, racism, and stuff like that makes them basically unuseable. Which takes about 10 hours, because the GDC cannhel has a surprising amount of hatefollowing that genuinely only interacts with the talks about social issues to call everything a SJW conspiracy. It's kinda bizarre, but that's why those always end up closed.

[@specknacken6507]

"bUt everyone fucking hates Jessie duh!" Oh wait wrong game. FF7 Remake just refuses to stay in the garbage bin.

[@IronFreee]

Let's add a large useless step to create 3D costumes... Brilliant!

[@soma78]

That seems like a lot of unnecessary effort. To make those costumes in real life takes so much time, effort and money, compared to just modeling and texturing them in a 3d modelling software. But it is (sort of) smart game advertising : "Oh look, we're doing something no other game has done, although it is completely unnecessary". Also, the presenter having the charisma of a plank of wood is not helping. Take some tips from Ted talks, see the way the presenters are using their voice intonation and body language, in order to generate emotions from the public. Maybe I was a bit mean, but you get my point, hopefuly.

[@gpudreamer1048]

She's Finnish and not a public speaker as a profession. Think about if you had to do a presentation in your 3rd language... She may read these comments. Have some empathy mate. The presentation was clear and concise with minimal errors.

[@soma78]

​@@gpudreamer1048 Clear and concise, I can agree with that. But it takes more than that to appeal to an audience - a minimum of charisma or body language, in order to convey some sort of emotions. All these can be trained, hence my reference to the Ted talks. I hope she sees these comments and learn something from them. Also, you should learn to make the difference between constructive criticism and trolling.

[@gpudreamer1048]

@@soma78 in your next work meeting tell your coworker that they have the charisma of a plank of wood after a presentation. I don't think they'll be thanking you for the constructive criticism. I understand your point though, and it's a fair one. Just try to be kinder.

[@kidzorro]

Apparently it only cost them $30 million to make this game, but still? That took so much effort its depressing.

[@soma78]

@@soler1579 I understand your perspective and I think you have some valid points there. However, the problem with "cold blooded manner" presentations is they are simply alienating/ boring to death the audience. Might work in short bursts - 5 or 10 mins. Anything more than that and your mind will start to wander. You need to keep your audience engaged in some way, if you want the information to fall anywhere else but on deaf ears.Tbh, I am beginning to feel bit embarrassed for stating such obvious facts. I am not talking about presenting while delivering non-stop one-liners while juggling kittens. That's one extreme. She, however, seems to have found herself trapped in the other one - the best comparison that comes to mind is sitting at the window on a grey rainy day, watching the still and dead landscape outside. There are degrees and gradients of interaction and attractiveness, it's not just 1 and 0. You don't have to be a clown to keep your audience engaged, you just need to make it a bit interesting, by either changing the rhythm of your voice, or the pitch, or do something with your body language - there are a thousand techniques and they just require a minimal training. You are saying " If the audience feels an emotion towards the subject (anger, repulse, joy, and so on) due to body language or entonation, even if not on purpose, then she is failing her intended goal of driving an evaluationless appreciation of the subject." But sure enough, the audience seems to be composed of fully grown adults, that can suposedly resist the urge to giggle or laugh at the slightest change of intonation or gesture of the presenter. Unless they are here purely for the purpose of trolling, which I very much doubt.