My Tuesday only, because the rest of my time I'll spend in London with art and architecture and ... sketchy notes:
2018-07-10 18:01:02
Vehicle AI Through the Ages
Ubisoft Darryn Robson
Covering from 1994 racing games to open world games today to what's coming up
play back AI to race against circuit based games
the destruction derby with a smaller arena
path following point to point with extra data
physics driven engines use extra data to emulate acceleration
spline is the optimal path
interpolation method
driving styles aggressive vs passive
driver behaviours
uses overtaking if you are slower than the AI would be
follow track in between the track splines - dynamically
also the barrier spline in between can be driven
use shortcut/ pit stop tactics
traffic spawning
group based systems
the rise of the open world
2001 - 2011
GTA serial
mafia II
road network like the spline circuit
though path finding trough the network
follow attack ram behaviours
following distance, pits used to keep the distance
weaving through traffic using gaps
traffic lights -> rule system
traffic density
street racing
2000-2006
midnight club, need for speed, etc.
weaving through traffic
drift vs racing <- improved vehicle simulation
traffic determinism
spawning is not needful anymore as a multiplayer would multiply the spawning traffic in a meeting point
open world norm
assassin creed (horse driven), GTA V, driver, forza horizon 3
off road navigation mesh
path following other vehicle types
(cars, cycles, heavy vehicles, flying objects, different speeds, styles behavioural rules)
determinism and local merge spawning
what to come
fill 3d
increased sim complexity
machine Learning
extended determinism aka social systems based on social behaviour types - time, weather, ...
(?public traffic, pedestrians?)
cloud computing
conclusion
from hand tuned to system driven virtually social bots
---------
BBC studios
developing new storytelling formats
ip development from TV (most)
how do we think about content
formats TV log short 360 vr ar games merch
but also audio vertical mobile real-time 360°-interactive
but brand <-> storytelling
landscape for TV is rapidly dramatically changing
where is the audience?
BBC 1 viewer 61 year older
16-24 console TV ratio 2:1
but average TV viewing 3.5 hours
if you build an ip now a days do not think horizontal (TV as a starting point) think vertical (3d?)
social engagement as an media for an IP like Doctor Who
Doctor WHO infinity episodic game
LIFE in VR BBC EARTH
behavioural AI's for observable characters
vr soundscape maps
crating a nature research based VR experience game (educate and entertain)
producing new formats requires a change of internal cultures, the way
YOU do things, establish new team members, through away old fashioned xp
example NEWS area
data visualisation
timelines
bots and chats
short videos & captions
AI stories
Horizontal / Vertical stories
and
Interactions (game like):
mobile first design
fly through content showing perspectives of the news context
(the backlog of the news)
tinder news (CHOICE driven news) - swipe right for content you want/like - left for bad.
Voice as a new format (ex-radio?) alexa and google
children's content is the current focus
Gaming first - build the new audience with the new gaming IP turn into other formats/franchises
BBC as a Publisher
---------
Arran Langmeed
Creating Art Tools In Unreal Engine 4
Hair Card Generation and Tree Generation
in Unreal Engine
Problem volume-metrical based shapes like hair cuts and trees.
As they are entity collections with moving entities
Current Process
we are just building planes with textures +
spline based movements
glow
high poly hair strains in real time and apply them to the hair card
bake it - allows to iterate must faster
iteration is key
Trees and hairs are mostly the same
The big problem we have with alpha is alpha overdraw.
Tree branch is a cylinder with a little bit noise on it.
Please download
Play with it
Feedback wanted
---------
Simon Hade SpaceApe Games
Life in the Fastlane Taking Creative Risks
Casual Core, mobile free to play
mobile games is hard for survival - so basically only strategy games
Explosive Arcade Action 'Racing' top down shooter
For the live ops team
Toybox - iterate .. AI opponent, price points, content changes, etc.
make it sustainable
Treadmill - make it small
1. push ads so long as players tolerate them DON't do the 99$ to go ads away
2. make ads work for both players and advertisers
ad exclusive content
rewarded, randomly server, for limited time, spenders & non-spenders
look for the long term retention rate of players to fix the ads rate
3. make a great game first, but design game specifically for ads
ads must feel like a natural part of the game (environment/play)
4, TRUTH keep people in your game! But ensure
people actually install your competitors' game
Don't try to outsmart the marketeers
bad practise:
watch ad to retry
Pre-race boosts
Opt in offers
Shop placements
Interstitials
Good
speed up energy to re-gen
end of race multiplier -> last race of the session
Reward cooldown -> sessioning
Invest in live ops tools
focus on the player proposition
AB test your retention
Don't bold ads on
Create value from ads for advertisers and players.
YouTube - make the game watchable - story(line), in-game jokes, side-chars,
worth for player and marketing
better loose players for game - you'll loose them anyway. Make the game worth for the player
--------
Chris Bateman
What Players Want: understanding Player Diversity
10 player motives:
Victory
Acquisition
Problem-solving
overcome a major challenge
horror social agency
comes with a downside
luck
thrill seeking
--
curiosity
narrative
just enjoy
borderline cases
educative purpose is not a player motive
1.
frustration(anger) relief -> triumph
'to easy' is nothing what a usual player would say
mario bros, sports, street fighter etc.
2.
triumph confusion < need patience to deal with
portal, lemmings, civilisation
reduce the confusion in puzzle games
to hit the mass market -> brain age, angry birds
3.
satisfaction < boredom
grind, levelling up, time invest, not bored by the repetition
role-play game, pokemon franchise, warcraft, harvest moon
you do not have to kill minorities to gain achievement points
Triumph via Enduring
4.
Luck
triumph without enduring anything!
excitement
bejeweled
untimed vs timed mode -> players enjoyed the untimed mode and found the timed one stressful annoying
cs go though skill based a huge effect by the weapon crates - rares - luck driven economy
magic the gathering
5-6.
Thrill seeking vs Horror
excitement - is enjoyed by a vast majority
Tetris you play the game until you die - no chance to win
high speed races
battle royal games like Fortnite
risking your players by perma death
fear disgust
resident evil, silent hill 2 etc. a good clever niche
Five Nights at Freddy's outlast
good for indie, hard for AAA
7.
Social
Amusement and Schadenfreude - humour by be engaged with other people
Mariokart
call of duty - multiplayer
Friendly competition and cooperative play
Words with friends
Pokemon GO -> event play
8.
Curiosity
first emotion : curiosity it self wandering what happens next
wonder
Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Key to Zelda Franchise
noticing: something I can do here
Boss fights: wonder and fear -> shadow of colossus
Minecraft
Hidden object games -> Gardens of Time
---> YouTube as a game motive is pure curiosity
9-10.
Narrative
vs. Agency
any and all emotions
final fantasy VI
Skyrim
Bioshock
Nintendogs create narrative via tools by the player
confusion
open worlds
Ultima
11.
non commercial
The aesthetic motive
DeusEx Machina
Tale of Tales
Journey
Dear Esther
Proteus
Sunset
Ubisoft Darryn Robson
Covering from 1994 racing games to open world games today to what's coming up
play back AI to race against circuit based games
the destruction derby with a smaller arena
path following point to point with extra data
physics driven engines use extra data to emulate acceleration
spline is the optimal path
interpolation method
driving styles aggressive vs passive
driver behaviours
uses overtaking if you are slower than the AI would be
follow track in between the track splines - dynamically
also the barrier spline in between can be driven
use shortcut/ pit stop tactics
traffic spawning
group based systems
the rise of the open world
2001 - 2011
GTA serial
mafia II
road network like the spline circuit
though path finding trough the network
follow attack ram behaviours
following distance, pits used to keep the distance
weaving through traffic using gaps
traffic lights -> rule system
traffic density
street racing
2000-2006
midnight club, need for speed, etc.
weaving through traffic
drift vs racing <- improved vehicle simulation
traffic determinism
spawning is not needful anymore as a multiplayer would multiply the spawning traffic in a meeting point
open world norm
assassin creed (horse driven), GTA V, driver, forza horizon 3
off road navigation mesh
path following other vehicle types
(cars, cycles, heavy vehicles, flying objects, different speeds, styles behavioural rules)
determinism and local merge spawning
what to come
fill 3d
increased sim complexity
machine Learning
extended determinism aka social systems based on social behaviour types - time, weather, ...
(?public traffic, pedestrians?)
cloud computing
conclusion
from hand tuned to system driven virtually social bots
---------
BBC studios
developing new storytelling formats
ip development from TV (most)
how do we think about content
formats TV log short 360 vr ar games merch
but also audio vertical mobile real-time 360°-interactive
but brand <-> storytelling
landscape for TV is rapidly dramatically changing
where is the audience?
BBC 1 viewer 61 year older
16-24 console TV ratio 2:1
but average TV viewing 3.5 hours
if you build an ip now a days do not think horizontal (TV as a starting point) think vertical (3d?)
social engagement as an media for an IP like Doctor Who
Doctor WHO infinity episodic game
LIFE in VR BBC EARTH
behavioural AI's for observable characters
vr soundscape maps
crating a nature research based VR experience game (educate and entertain)
producing new formats requires a change of internal cultures, the way
YOU do things, establish new team members, through away old fashioned xp
example NEWS area
data visualisation
timelines
bots and chats
short videos & captions
AI stories
Horizontal / Vertical stories
and
Interactions (game like):
mobile first design
fly through content showing perspectives of the news context
(the backlog of the news)
tinder news (CHOICE driven news) - swipe right for content you want/like - left for bad.
Voice as a new format (ex-radio?) alexa and google
children's content is the current focus
Gaming first - build the new audience with the new gaming IP turn into other formats/franchises
BBC as a Publisher
---------
Arran Langmeed
Creating Art Tools In Unreal Engine 4
Hair Card Generation and Tree Generation
in Unreal Engine
Problem volume-metrical based shapes like hair cuts and trees.
As they are entity collections with moving entities
Current Process
we are just building planes with textures +
spline based movements
glow
high poly hair strains in real time and apply them to the hair card
bake it - allows to iterate must faster
iteration is key
Trees and hairs are mostly the same
The big problem we have with alpha is alpha overdraw.
Tree branch is a cylinder with a little bit noise on it.
Please download
Play with it
Feedback wanted
---------
Simon Hade SpaceApe Games
Life in the Fastlane Taking Creative Risks
Casual Core, mobile free to play
mobile games is hard for survival - so basically only strategy games
Explosive Arcade Action 'Racing' top down shooter
For the live ops team
Toybox - iterate .. AI opponent, price points, content changes, etc.
make it sustainable
Treadmill - make it small
1. push ads so long as players tolerate them DON't do the 99$ to go ads away
2. make ads work for both players and advertisers
ad exclusive content
rewarded, randomly server, for limited time, spenders & non-spenders
look for the long term retention rate of players to fix the ads rate
3. make a great game first, but design game specifically for ads
ads must feel like a natural part of the game (environment/play)
4, TRUTH keep people in your game! But ensure
people actually install your competitors' game
Don't try to outsmart the marketeers
bad practise:
watch ad to retry
Pre-race boosts
Opt in offers
Shop placements
Interstitials
Good
speed up energy to re-gen
end of race multiplier -> last race of the session
Reward cooldown -> sessioning
Invest in live ops tools
focus on the player proposition
AB test your retention
Don't bold ads on
Create value from ads for advertisers and players.
YouTube - make the game watchable - story(line), in-game jokes, side-chars,
worth for player and marketing
better loose players for game - you'll loose them anyway. Make the game worth for the player
--------
Chris Bateman
What Players Want: understanding Player Diversity
10 player motives:
Victory
Acquisition
Problem-solving
overcome a major challenge
horror social agency
comes with a downside
luck
thrill seeking
--
curiosity
narrative
just enjoy
borderline cases
educative purpose is not a player motive
1.
frustration(anger) relief -> triumph
'to easy' is nothing what a usual player would say
mario bros, sports, street fighter etc.
2.
triumph confusion < need patience to deal with
portal, lemmings, civilisation
reduce the confusion in puzzle games
to hit the mass market -> brain age, angry birds
3.
satisfaction < boredom
grind, levelling up, time invest, not bored by the repetition
role-play game, pokemon franchise, warcraft, harvest moon
you do not have to kill minorities to gain achievement points
Triumph via Enduring
4.
Luck
triumph without enduring anything!
excitement
bejeweled
untimed vs timed mode -> players enjoyed the untimed mode and found the timed one stressful annoying
cs go though skill based a huge effect by the weapon crates - rares - luck driven economy
magic the gathering
5-6.
Thrill seeking vs Horror
excitement - is enjoyed by a vast majority
Tetris you play the game until you die - no chance to win
high speed races
battle royal games like Fortnite
risking your players by perma death
fear disgust
resident evil, silent hill 2 etc. a good clever niche
Five Nights at Freddy's outlast
good for indie, hard for AAA
7.
Social
Amusement and Schadenfreude - humour by be engaged with other people
Mariokart
call of duty - multiplayer
Friendly competition and cooperative play
Words with friends
Pokemon GO -> event play
8.
Curiosity
first emotion : curiosity it self wandering what happens next
wonder
Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Key to Zelda Franchise
noticing: something I can do here
Boss fights: wonder and fear -> shadow of colossus
Minecraft
Hidden object games -> Gardens of Time
---> YouTube as a game motive is pure curiosity
9-10.
Narrative
vs. Agency
any and all emotions
final fantasy VI
Skyrim
Bioshock
Nintendogs create narrative via tools by the player
confusion
open worlds
Ultima
11.
non commercial
The aesthetic motive
DeusEx Machina
Tale of Tales
Journey
Dear Esther
Proteus
Sunset
