Download or read book Virtual Character Design for Games and Interactive Media written by Robin James Stuart Sloan and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2015-05-07 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the earliest character representations in video games were rudimentary in terms of their presentation and performance, the virtual characters that appear in games today can be extremely complex and lifelike. These are characters that have the potential to make a powerful and emotional connection with gamers. As virtual characters become more

Download or read book Better Game Characters by Design written by Katherine Isbister and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2022-04-29 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Games are poised for a major evolution, driven by growth in technical sophistication and audience reach. Characters that create powerful social and emotional connections with players throughout the game-play itself (not just in cut scenes) will be essential to next-generation games. However, the principles of sophisticated character design and interaction are not widely understood within the game development community. Further complicating the situation are powerful gender and cultural issues that can influence perception of characters. Katherine Isbister has spent the last 10 years examining what makes interactions with computer characters useful and engaging to different audiences. This work has revealed that the key to good design is leveraging player psychology: understanding what's memorable, exciting, and useful to a person about real-life social interactions, and applying those insights to character design. Game designers who create great characters often make use of these psychological principles without realizing it. Better Game Characters by Design gives game design professionals and other interactive media designers a framework for understanding how social roles and perceptions affect players' reactions to characters, helping produce stronger designs and better results.

Download or read book Game Character Creation with Blender and Unity written by Chris Totten and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-06-01 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete guide to creating usable, realistic game characters with two powerful tools Creating viable game characters requires a combination of skills. This book teaches game creators how to create usable, realistic game assets using the power of an open-source 3D application and a free game engine. It presents a step-by-step approach to modeling, texturing, and animating a character using the popular Blender software, with emphasis on low polygon modeling and an eye for using sculpting and textures, and demonstrates how to bring the character into the Unity game engine. Game creation is a popular and productive pursuit for both hobbyists and serious developers; this guide brings together two effective tools to simplify and enhance the process Artists who are familiar with Blender or other 3D software but who lack experience with game development workflow will find this book fills important gaps in their knowledge Provides a complete tutorial on developing a game character, including modeling, UV unwrapping, sculpting, baking displacements, texturing, rigging, animation, and export Emphasizes low polygon modeling for game engines and shows how to bring the finished character into the Unity game engine Whether you're interested in a new hobby or eager to enter the field of professional game development, this book offers valuable guidance to increase your skills.

Download or read book Integrating Cognitive Architectures into Virtual Character Design written by Turner, Jeremy Owen and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2016-06-06 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cognitive architectures represent an umbrella term to describe ways in which the flow of thought can be engineered towards cerebral and behavioral outcomes. Cognitive Architectures are meant to provide top-down guidance, a knowledge base, interactive heuristics and concrete or fuzzy policies for which the virtual character can utilize for intelligent interaction with his/her/its situated virtual environment. Integrating Cognitive Architectures into Virtual Character Design presents emerging research on virtual character artificial intelligence systems and procedures and the integration of cognitive architectures. Emphasizing innovative methodologies for intelligent virtual character integration and design, this publication is an ideal reference source for graduate-level students, researchers, and professionals in the fields of artificial intelligence, gaming, and computer science.

Download or read book Video Games and Interactive Media written by Stephane Natkin and published by A K Peters/CRC Press. This book was released on 2006-03-16 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the development of the video game as a new form of interactive media and a template for future modes of entertainment. While television programs and movies are predominantly passive enterprises, video games engage the audience and provide not only audio-visual stimulation but also an enriching interaction that creates a heightened sense of immersion. Through a detailed discussion of gameplay and game design principles, Natkin explores the nature of this interaction and its impact on the entertainment industry. He explains the developmental process behind game design and the new concepts of narration and entertainment it has introduced. He then considers the future of gameplay with its potential for developing new means of artistic expression and its liability to be abused as an outlet for propaganda and coercion.

Download or read book The Art of Game Design written by Jesse Schell and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2008-08-04 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anyone can master the fundamentals of game design - no technological expertise is necessary. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses shows that the same basic principles of psychology that work for board games, card games and athletic games also are the keys to making top-quality videogames. Good game design happens when you view your game from many different perspectives, or lenses. While touring through the unusual territory that is game design, this book gives the reader one hundred of these lenses - one hundred sets of insightful questions to ask yourself that will help make your game better. These lenses are gathered from fields as diverse as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, writing, puzzle design, and anthropology. Anyone who reads this book will be inspired to become a better game designer - and will understand how to do it.

Download or read book Video Game Design written by Michael Salmond and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-07-06 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Video Game Design is a visual introduction to integrating core design essentials, such as critical analysis, mechanics and aesthetics, prototyping, level design, into game design. Using a raft of examples from a diverse range of leading international creatives and award-winning studios, this is a must-have guide for budding game designers. Industry perspectives from game industry professionals provide fascinating insights into this creative field, and each chapter concludes with a workshop project to help you put what you've learnt into practice to plan and develop your own games. With over 200 images from some of the best-selling, most creative games of the last 30 years, this is an essential introduction to industry practice, helping readers develop practical skills for video game creation. This book is for those seeking a career making video games as part of a studio, small team or as an independent creator. It will guide you from understanding how games engage, entertain and communicate with their audience and take you on a journey as a designer towards creating your own video game experiences. Interviewees include: James Portnow, CEO at Rainmaker Games Brandon Sheffield, Gamasutra.com/Game Developer magazine Steve Gaynor, co-founder The Fullbright Company (Gone Home) Kate Craig, Environment Artist. The Fullbright Company (Gone Home) Adam Saltsman, creator of Canabalt & Gravity Hook Jake Elliott & Tamas Kemenczy, Cardboard Computer (Kentucky Route Zero) Tyson Steele, User Interface Designer, Epic Games Tom Francis, Game Designer, Gunpoint & Floating Point Kareem Ettouney, Art Director, Media Molecule. Little Big Planet 1 & 2, Tearaway. Kenneth Young, Head of Audio, Media Molecule Rex Crowle, Creative Lead, Media Molecule

Download or read book Video Game Spaces written by Michael Nitsche and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2008-12-05 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of how we see, use, and make sense of modern video game worlds. The move to 3D graphics represents a dramatic artistic and technical development in the history of video games that suggests an overall transformation of games as media. The experience of space has become a key element of how we understand games and how we play them. In Video Game Spaces, Michael Nitsche investigates what this shift means for video game design and analysis. Navigable 3D spaces allow us to crawl, jump, fly, or even teleport through fictional worlds that come to life in our imagination. We encounter these spaces through a combination of perception and interaction. Drawing on concepts from literary studies, architecture, and cinema, Nitsche argues that game spaces can evoke narratives because the player is interpreting them in order to engage with them. Consequently, Nitsche approaches game spaces not as pure visual spectacles but as meaningful virtual locations. His argument investigates what structures are at work in these locations, proceeds to an in-depth analysis of the audiovisual presentation of gameworlds, and ultimately explores how we use and comprehend their functionality. Nitsche introduces five analytical layers—rule-based space, mediated space, fictional space, play space, and social space—and uses them in the analyses of games that range from early classics to recent titles. He revisits current topics in game research, including narrative, rules, and play, from this new perspective. Video Game Spaces provides a range of necessary arguments and tools for media scholars, designers, and game researchers with an interest in 3D game worlds and the new challenges they pose.

Download or read book Interactive Stories and Video Game Art written by Chris Solarski and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2017-01-20 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The success of storytelling in games depends on the entire development team—game designers, artists, writers, programmers and musicians, etc.—working harmoniously together towards a singular artistic vision. Interactive Stories and Video Game Art is first to define a common design language for understanding and orchestrating interactive masterpieces using techniques inherited from the rich history of art and craftsmanship that games build upon. Case studies of hit games like The Last of Us, Journey, and Minecraft illustrate the vital components needed to create emotionally-complex stories that are mindful of gaming’s principal relationship between player actions and video game aesthetics. This book is for developers of video games and virtual reality, filmmakers, gamification and transmedia experts, and everybody else interested in experiencing resonant and meaningful interactive stories. Key Features: The first book to define a common visual and interactive language for understanding and orchestrating sophisticated stories in video games Accessible to industry professionals as well as non-developers Featured concepts apply to all media with an interactive component including: transmedia, gamification and interactive art The definitive framework for designing interactive stories

Download or read book Creating Games with Unity and Maya written by Adam Watkins and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unity brings you ever closer to the "author once, deploy anywhere" dream. With its multiplatform capabilities, you can target desktop, web, mobile devices, and consoles using a single development engine. Little wonder that Unity has quickly become the #1 game engine out there. Mastering Unity is absolutely essential in an increasingly competitive games market where agility is expected, yet until now practical tutorials were nearly impossible to find. Creating Games with Unity and Maya gives you with an end-to-end solution for Unity game development with Maya. Written by a twelve-year veteran of the 3D animation and games industry and professor of 3D animation, this book takes you step-by-step through the process of developing an entire game from scratch-including coding, art, production, and deployment. This accessible guide provides a "non-programmer" entry point to the world of game creation. Aspiring developers with little or no coding experience will learn character development in Maya, scripts, GUI interface, and first- and third-person interactions.

Download or read book Digital Character Creation for Video Games and Collectibles written by Samuel King and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2023-06-27 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book covers the process of creating digital characters for video games as well as for 3D printing and collectibles. It looks at character asset creation for high-end AAA console games as well as asset creation for legacy devices and the ever-growing mobile gaming industry. Lastly, it covers creation of figurines for 3D printing and collectibles. Digital Character Creation for Video Games and Collectibles provides a step-by-step walkthrough of creating these assets at an industry level standard. It includes the necessary theory that you need to understand how to be an effective character artist, but primarily focuses on the practical skills needed for creating character assets in the modern games and collectibles industries. This book will be of great interest to all beginners and junior character artists currently working in the gaming or collectible industry and for those looking to enter these industries. There is also relevant content in the highly detailed examples for people currently working in the industry and looking to pick up a few new tips, tricks and knowledge.

Download or read book Aesthetics and Design for Game based Learning written by Michele D. Dickey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-20 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aesthetics and Design for Game-based Learning provides learning designers with insight into how the different elements that comprise game aesthetics can inform the design of game-based learning. Regardless of the cognitive complexities involved, games are essentially entertainment media, and aesthetics play a large role in how they are experienced. Yet too often the role of aesthetics in the research about game-based learning has been relegated to a surface discussion of graphics or neglected altogether. Aesthetics and Design for Game-based Learning begins by addressing the broad context of game aesthetics, then addresses specific elements with chapters focusing on: player positioning game mechanics narrative design environment design character design. Each chapter includes research and guidelines for design, and a conclusion addresses aesthetics in the research of game-based learning.

Download or read book Critical Gaming Interactive History and Virtual Heritage written by Erik Champion and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains how designing, playing and modifying computer games, and understanding the theory behind them, can strengthen the area of digital humanities. This book aims to help digital humanities scholars understand both the issues and also advantages of game design, as well as encouraging them to extend the field of computer game studies, particularly in their teaching and research in the field of virtual heritage. By looking at re-occurring issues in the design, playtesting and interface of serious games and game-based learning for cultural heritage and interactive history, this book highlights the importance of visualisation and self-learning in game studies and how this can intersect with digital humanities. It also asks whether such theoretical concepts can be applied to practical learning situations. It will be of particular interest to those who wish to investigate how games and virtual environments can be used in teaching and research to critique issues and topics in the humanities, particularly in virtual heritage and interactive history.

Download or read book Character Driven Game Design written by Petri Lankoski and published by Taik Books. This book was released on 2011-05 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do game characters contribute to shaping the playing experience? What kinds of design tools are available for character-based games that utilize methods from dramatic writing and game research? Writer Petri Lankoski has a theory for this. There is a need to tether character design to game design more tightly than has been the case in the past, as well as to pay attention to social networks of characters by the means of finding useful design patterns. “The use of Lajos Egri’s bone structure for a three dimensional-character and of Murray Smith’s three levels of imaginative engagement with characters allows the candidate to expose the full complexity of the imaginary persons represented and controlled in a single-player game. What makes his design-center approach even more interesting is that game play is an integral part of it.” Comments Bernard Perron, Associate Professor of Université de Montréal on Lankoski´s work.

Download or read book Virtual Body ownership in a VR Co op Game Linking Character Design and Player behaviour written by Laura Ariella Hantschel and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Designing Creatures and Characters written by Marc Taro Holmes and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-10-12 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All You Need Is a Pencil, Paper and Your Imagination! Ever wondered how you could become a character designer for video games, film or animation? Veteran art director and concept artist Marc Taro Holmes shares proven methods for honing the skills and building the portfolio necessary to become a pro gaming artist. This is the first and only work-at-your-own pace home study program that teaches the crucial insider knowledge needed to break into the entertainment-design industry and develop your own style--all you need are a pencil, paper and your imagination. The projects within this straightforward guide are constructed to help you apply your existing drawing and digital art skills to character design. Or, if you're still working on your skills, it will help you improve while at the same time turning your mind into an idea-generating machine. Unlock the Secrets to Character and Creature Design • Follow the creature design process from start to finish: 35 projects are divided into 4 challenge levels, ranging from brainstorming and drawing character blueprints to completing market-ready illustrations. As the levels advance, the projects become more complex. • Learn to solve design problems: Every project introduces you to an open-ended fictional assignment inspired by industry experience. Each project has a list of minimum deliverables--the basics to get to the next stage--plus bonus goals. You receive virtual merit badges for each achievement you complete. • Think like a pro: Over the 155 possible artistic achievements, you'll be asked to find a solution to every type of conceptual problem you might encounter as a professional creature or character designer. • Build your portfolio: Work toward creating an outstanding portfolio. Improve your skills and push yourself to create a fine-tuned presentation that could get you your eventual dream job. "This is a workout for the imagination, a boot camp for creativity." --Marc Taro Holmes

Download or read book Arabiyyat Al Naas Part Three written by Munther Younes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-20 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: �Arabiyyat al-Naas (Part Three): An Advanced Course in Arabic builds further on the groundbreaking approach used in Part One and Part Two of the series. It integrates Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and spoken Levantine in a way specially tailored to the needs of advanced students. Levantine Arabic strongly features in spoken discussions of MSA materials, reflecting authentic practice by native speakers. However, the overall ratio of MSA � the form employed for reading, writing and formal speaking in the Arab world � to Levantine has been increased, supporting students� mounting need for MSA as they progress further in their education. This textbook is designed to take learners from the Advanced Low to the Advanced High level according to the ACTFL criteria, and from level B2 to C1 on the CEFR proficiency scales. Features include: 18 theme-based units covering topics such as Arab minorities; education; religion; love and marriage; the Arab woman; economics; politics; military matters; and the environment thorough coverage of listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills with clear grammar explanations and lessons structured to provide opportunities for further practice humorous, realistic dialogues reflecting educated speech among Arabs, to build up strong and practical communication skills attention to issues highly relevant to modern Arab society, encouraging active engagement with the course and further exploration of the themes a rich variety of reading passages from contemporary sources such as Al Jazeera as well as excerpts from the classic works One Thousand and One Nights and Kalila wa Dimna an extensive range of stimulating exercises and activities, including crossword puzzles, root-and-pattern identification exercises, passage completions, and free compositions free companion website (www.routledge.com/cw/