The Art of Pre-Production

[@sickre]

We're very fortunate experienced workers are able to share their knowledge with us like this.

[@gtvdave7]

Thanks for a great talk! Pre-Production is often very rushed, which leads to development hell and crunch. More devs and leads need to consider your points and make the best use of them in their projects.

[@Dinkymod]

Really insightful. This is the kind of guy I'd like to work with! Seems like he gets stuff done.

[@DNH17]

I love the "can we do this", "why we do this" (asking questions, which is different then doubting creativity) it's an approach that is useful in every cultural design and management: everything needs to happen for a reason and be crafted in such a way for a reason, less is left to randomness the more is likely a to be in control of a good design (and even be able to correct it later -- correction never stops).

[@Magicguy33]

One of the best talks I’ve had the pleasure of learning from!

[@LeventCemAydan]

This was such a helpful presentation. I found it very interesting that they started design and art centered approach while building the core systems and then worked their way through that. I loved this approach.

[@brianpeterbroderick]

Such a good talk. Tips straight from the front lines.

[@lukeMac]

I got goose bumps watching that pre-vis. So good.

[@TitanKingMedia]

THIS TALK IS AMAZING! THANK YOU SO MUCH IT APPLIES TO BOTH GAME DESIGN AND FILM/ANIMATION

[@AntonQvarfordt]

I've been pondering for a while an easy/fast way to "prototype" gameplay through animation/visual aids. Something similar to storyboarding cartoons/movie action. But (obviously) in addition taking interaction etc unique to games into account. I imagine it'd work like say you have a shooter - you imagine a shortish (15 seconds?) excerpt from an imagined playsession in the finished game that represent an intersection between the features you're testing (for example: usp bullet physics, usp ai allies combat/aiding and interactive cinematic moments), in effect representing a core space of the game and what's unique about it. Then you basically animate it exactly as you imagine it'd look (any question marks appear when putting the animation together? Good, now you caught that much earlier than you would have.) whilst also scrutinising everything and filling in the holes (ie could you really jump like this if the physics is support to work like that, etc). The goal would be to come out with not only a, at least to a limited extent, iterated upon set of features and tasks but also a guideline and a rallying point for your team to help them organize around a unified vision that makes sure everyone "gets it". This is the most akin to that idea that i've seen done and I also imagined Maya as a possible tool to do it with (other potentials were flash or simply actually storyboarding, perhaps in a "choose your own adventure"-style. Most studios probably do a version of this to some extent, but there could probably a lot to be gained by crowdsourcing/thinktanking a more standardised solution for "videogame storyboarding". In my mind the positive effects of something solid like that could range from really neat to huge.

[@game2late518]

I think one big takeaway of how Greg set up his pre-prod is that you must control information. This is, believe it or not, an alien concept to plenty of managers in the games industry.

[@mergedpotato]

An _alien_ concept, eh?

[@jbGraphics_]

Excellent talk, good to get an inside perspective from someone in the industry

[@PhilStrahl]

Now I'm really in the mood for playing XCOM again, thx :)

[@mrqe5]

Great video. Very helpful.

[@HelderP1337]

This was pretty damn good, thanks Greg.

[@Authersinemascop]

Very enlightening.

[@aussieraver7182]

16:55 I'm that programmer who prefers to sit in the corner and code with my headphones on.

[@ZoidbergForPresident]

Not sure if convinced... And 39:40 New Brussels in Louisiana? :P

[@Holacalaca]

yes the camera change absolutely interrupts the gameplay and running animations and- BRADFORD SHUT UP

[@larsfroelich]

Love the insight into a disgusting industry

[@appletreepear]

Are you referring to overwork, culture or creative stifling by publishers? All of the above vary drastically by studios and have gotten a lot better recently. Games have have enormous potential for education, mental health and art, the relative lack of exploration of which can mostly be blamed on poor education and capitalism (yes shallow design and - especially - publishers are partly to blame also, though escapist entertainment isn't without value in this hell). There have always been exceptions and there are more now than ever, if you're willing to look.

[@swearsoft]

Not to excuse extreme overwork, but every artistic endeavor ends up being an enormous time drain, because artists are obsessive over their art. We overwork things all the time in a bid to create something that doesn't go unnoticed. And even after all that effort your game can just go silently into the night and never be heard of. If you don't put in the effort it's shovel-ware. Have you ever been glad for shovel-ware?

[@BUSQU3TS]

Then PUBG comes along and sales 8 million copies without a marketing budget. What did we learn from that?

[@BUSQU3TS]

Sure, easy to have a budget after selling a few million copies, but the game had to take off first.

[@BUSQU3TS]

No, I don't think that they are a rag tag group :) I'm just saying that the ratio of success vs marketing clearly shows that game mechanics and well balanced gameplay are king and above everything else.

[@Foomandoonian]

"The guys, guys, the guys, all the guys, guys." All guys. So much for diversity. This all sounds awful. How do week keep people working and prevent the 'slump' that happens when people try to repair their lives after a crunch? Let's force our introverts into a hot, sweaty room and force them to work like the extroverts. See, they 'came out of their shells'. Ugh.

[@Foomandoonian]

B.O.A.B If you don't value diversity, then no problem. Hire a dude. I'm not your mother.

[@jbGraphics_]

thats a really dumb sentiment

[@Foomandoonian]

B.O.A.B The point is that the balance is hugely skewed. The world is 50% women, so there's no way a large development team should be all men. (I know this was a small team in the video, but I seriously doubt they came from a much more diverse pool of employees.) And yes, people do contribute different ideas based on their backgrounds. That's exactly the point.

[@Foomandoonian]

Wow. Get a blog, dude. Declare victory if you like. I started responding but I don't have time to write an essay right now.

[@pianoman6584]

I'm a black guy working in the tech industry. Most tech people are nerds. I am too. They don't care about race or gender as long as your skillset and personality matches up. The reason women and minorities aren't as prevalent in the tech/game industry is mostly because they don't go for it in the first place. I guarantee that if you do some cool solo projects and post it to the web, people will reach out to you with opportunities even if you're a transsexual with green skin.