Casually Hardcore devlog

Am I am Art Director? Producer? Lead developer?

December 28th, 2007

During the pre-production process of our first game, I’ve had to take on multiple roles… the positions of Art Director and Producer are the ones I’m least qualified for but have gradually learnt great deal about. With large teams on large projects, members eventually specialize and so rarely does any individual understand the entire game (technically + artistically) due to time constraints and lack of training. I’d say, all my artists current understand how to model, texture, rig and animate but some are better than others in each area. I also know how to perform 3D artist task, but am 5x-10x slower at it. However, none of the artists know how to code and programming resources are scarce and will continue to be during the pre-production phase.

For reference, here is Raph Koster’s llst of typical game development roles which I think is fantastic. You can see how teams of 50-100 people aren’t unreasonable in modern AAA games.

Roles often get combined.

* Business owner (often called exec producer)

Manages:

* Process owner (often called producer or director)
* Vision owner (often called director or producer, sometimes lead designer)

Those two may be the same person. May not. They manage, directly or indirectly:

* Manager of programmers (often called technical director or lead programmer)
* Manager of artists (often called art director)
* Manager of designers (often called lead designer)

Each of these then can have a team:

* Specialty lead (lead client programmer, lead systems designer, lead animator, etc)
* Specialists (systems designer, scripter, environment artist, rigger, UI programmer)

Sound and music often use centralized or outsourced resources, so you may or may not have in the mix:

* SFX people
* Composer
* Cutscene people

Then there’s QA, marketing, etc, but typically these have their own management tree.

Typical specialties:

* Rendering: the compelx programming required to get pictures on the screen.
* Network programming:programming for network based play is its own speciality.
* Database programming: so is programming to interact with databases.
* Engine programming: usually the guts of how a game works.
* Gameplay programing: usuallysystems specific to a game.
* UI programming: usually someone has to be devoted to just the HUD and controls.
* Tools programming: every team has someone who makes tools for everyone else. Maya exporters, placement tools, etc.
* FX programming: stuff like particle systems often consume insane amounts of time.
* Systems design: designing how the gameplay will actually work.
* Game balance: running numbers, mostly. A highly valuable (and rare) subspecialty.
* User interface design: often pushed off on artists or lead designers.
* Behavioral scripting: adding new game behaviors — this is what we usually think of as “scripting designers.”
* Writing: what it says on the tin.
* Content design (quest writing, itemization, etc): filling in data in tables, usually.
* Level design: map building. Straddles the line between art and design, usually.
* Texturing: making pretty textures.
* Technical artist: may write shaders in code. May help set the tech specs for the art.
* Modeling: making 3d meshes.
* Rigging: setting them up to animate.
* Animating: actally animating them. These two are not the same thing, and some people ar ebetter at one than the other.
* Environment creation: a specialty of artist that is good at making places.
* Lighting: oftne pushed off on one artist, but there’s a bunch of chops required.
* Foley: sound effects.
* Music

Entry Filed under: Game Development