Unit 72 Vehicle concept art

What is concept art in vehicle design used for?

Concept art is a key stage in the design process of vehicles. It allows the designers to have a clear image of what the vehicle will be used for, it is the process that brings the vehicles to life and shows the other members of a games design company exactly what its meant to do. There are many different forms of creating concept art, including digital manipulation programs such as photoshop and illustrator, and drawn methods.

Todd Marshall

Todd Marshall is a vehicle designer who focuses mainly on futuristic, robotic looking vehicles. He makes his designs by using hand drawn methods, and adds depth in to give a shadowy effect on parts hidden from direct light. despite the fact that some of his drawings are quite simple, his designs are easy enough to notice hidden detail while still looking like a great piece of artwork.

Here is another one of Todd's concept arts, he states on his website that he started the concept with a graphite under-drawing and then added detail and colour in photoshop cs2. He has added the opposite side of the model's legs as a transparent layer to give the reader the vision of what the model would look like, but to add effect and blend in with the background, he has left the layer transparent. I like Todd's work. He creates an interesting style of designs while utilizing photoshop's various manipulation features.

Vadim Sverdlov

Vadim is a Russian concept artist who mainly specializes in military style vehicles based on desert and jungle warfare. He creates some nice effects using shadows and textures like sand and dust which add an image of what the vehicle might be like in the field. Vadim now works for an Israeli company Gravity which specializes in graphic design.

Here is another one of Vadim's art pieces, I couldn't find a name for this piece but I can quite clearly see from the image that this vehicle is for mobile artillery shelling. He has added a small man in the middle of the piece to show how large the vehicle actually is and also give the image more of a realistic effect. This piece of art shows more examples of Vadim's use of particles; at the edge of the barrels there is a light and dark cloud of smoke which demonstrates how much firepower the cannon has, while in the background, there is a small sand cloud, which could either be from the recoil force of the cannon, or the terrains natural climate change, possibly a small sandstorm.

Adam Burn

Adam Burn is another artist who focuses on Sci-Fi style futuristic vehicles, he uses straight angled lines in his artwork to create a stereotypical style of vehicle that would often be associated with Sci-Fi films. Adam creates a perfect story background to his designs which when reading can be clearly noticed in the image. For example, this piece shows the Leviathan DSi which roams the moon to mine for precious minerals. He noted in the description that the vehicle leaves a large trail of dust which takes a large time to settle, as seen in the image, he brings his creations to life by adding a thin light layer of crushed moon rocks. I like how Adam has used different shades on the top left of his image, it shows the moons atmosphere and lights from the near by mining equipment whilst also creating the vast nothingness of space.

To sum it up...

Concept art is an important part of the design process in many industries such as the games industry, films industry, and even the music industry. Without this artwork, the visual masterpieces we see today, such as Avatar and Mass effect would not exist. Even if concept art is made to add to a portfolio or even just for fun, it will always remain a vital part of the modern day media. 

Game Engines Research Essay

Game Engines Investigation

CryEngine.

The CryEngine is a revolutionary games engine that allows real time world physics and astonishing graphics. It was first released on a game in November 2006 when “Far Cry” was released. It was originally produced to power the demo based beta version of Far Cry in early 2006 but was then made public as the first game was released. Since then, the CryEngine has been known to produce astonishing graphics with a high frame rate which would keep the overall system stats at their potential. The CryEngine has more recently produced a series of games called Crysis which delivers action packed game play with real time graphics and physics which made the game the masterpiece it is today.

In my opinion, I think that the CryEngine is a visual masterpiece, it provides decent, stable game play while also keeping the system properties at the right level, it works in a way where the player will not need to have a large system memory(for PCs) but could still be able to keep the desired frame rate while keeping the fantastic quality of the graphics. Many games companies have bought the rights to use the CryEngine at their company but so far few have succeeded in releasing a top selling game bar the Crysis series and Far cry.

The AI in Crysis 2 are programmed so that their line of sight is linked directly to the player, although in some cases the player can sneak past the AI by using the cloak, however after the player has been seen, the AI will automatically know where the player is even if he has resumed hiding, which is one of the few down points of the game engine. The unanimated AI in the Crysis games are programmed so that if the player hits a barrier or interacts with an object in a certain way, the surroundings will correspond the players action. For example, if the player hits an invisible barrier while walking through a street, it will trigger a mob of enemies to spawn at a certain point, this would mean the unanimated AI scripts would have to be linked with the enemy AI scripts. This particular script would also be an example of collision detections, for when the player hits the cube, he is actually hitting an object which has no material , so in theory, the player is actually hitting a wall.

When the player collides with an object such as the example above, there will be no difference in the game play, there will be no lag or frame rate drop as the CryEngine is programmed to prep the scripts needed as he approaches or interacts with the objects.

In some game engines like the Unreal engine, the player can easily notice a lack of frame rates and system lag when encountering some types of collision detection. Occasionally in the game play of Fallout New Vegas, when the player enters a new area he well often lag for a few seconds while the area loads, this does not happen with the CryEngine.

The graphic rendering in Crysis 2 loads as the player is approaching another area, so that the game will not have to load more than 2 areas at once, as the player leaves one area the graphic rendering follows the player so that if he is out of range of a certain area or object the graphics will dematerialize. If too large a portion of the area’s graphics are loaded at the same time it could cause the game’s frame rate to drop and the players game play quality to deteriorate.

Frostbite Game Engine

The frostbite engine is a recent, highly rated game engine produced by EA Digital Illusions, many games have been released using its software such as Battlefield 3 and Need for speed: The Run. The Frostbite engine is mostly known for its graphical abilities and real time physics. The Frostbite engine was originally released to the public in 2008 when Battlefield: Bad Company was released. At the time, the Frostbite 1 engine was one of the most technical, highly rated game engines available to use, but has since been overtaken by the CryEngine and the Rage engine, until 2013 that is, when the Frostbite 3 was announced and said to be used in the 8^th generation games such as Battlefield 4 and Dragon Age: III.

In my opinion, I would say that the Frostbite engine is possibly my favourite out of the ones I have researched, I like how EA have designed the physics in the game so they actually seem like they are real and animating around you, for example, in certain parts of Battlefield 3 gameplay, the player/other players connected to the game can destruct the environment around them through means of explosives, vehicles and phased destruction. My favourite part of the Frostbite engine would be that throughout the whole game and online multiplayer, there is never any screen lag, frame rate drop or graphic glitching(graphics don’t load).

In Battlefield 3, the AI enemies are programmed to spawn as the player hits a certain part of the game, in certain missions or areas different enemies will spawn based on what’s going to happen in the game, for example, if the player is in a vehicle or near a vehicle, a soldier might spawn with a rocket launcher to make the game a bit more challenging for the player, this is not always the case though, sometimes the spawns are completely random. The unanimated AI consists of things like when the game predicts an explosion, it’ll generate the exact pinpoint of where the explosive will hit and how it’ll affect the environment around it, where the game will need to create rubble, will any buildings, cars be affected? Etc.

Collision detection with the Frostbite engine is a lot different compared to that in the CryEngine or the Unreal engine, depending on what happens the overall game play could completely change, if two vehicles collided, the damage animation would respond as such. Battlefield 3 doesn’t use invisible barriers in the game play, the AI are set in a position to react when the player nears a certain area, a proximity radar.

The Frostbite engine doesn’t need to use graphic rendering, the graphics load before the level/area has started, this is because most of the games that use the engine are made for the actual multiplayer gameplay, and because so many people connect at once, the whole map must be loaded simultaneously.

Game Engines

Game engines

A game engine is a software designed for the use of developing games during game play. The engines are designed to render the graphics and pixels so the games can be played. Game engines provide a suite of development tools in addition to reusable software components.Many game engines are often created by the company producing the game, as they can be a lot cheaper to build than to purchase a license to use a pre-built one. For example, the rage engine, developed by rockstar, has been used in many different games of different genres, most of these games have been successful because there has been more money to spend on the actual gameplay, rather than the resources.

Examples of engines:

2D engines:

Hedgehog engine – used in sonic the hedgehog. Provides stable graphics for the fast paced 2D game.

Jogre – used in small games where only a small amount of rendering or processing power is needed. The game engine is used by many low-budget companies which need fast paced games Global illumination and Dynamic studios.

3D Engines:

Frostbite – used in large multiplayer games where lots of rendering is needed. Games such as battlefield 3 and medal of honor: warfighter use this engine as they can provide fast stable graphics. This engine in particular can accommodate a destructive influence. This means that the game can destruct buildings in a unique way when a certain amount of damage is inflicted.

Graphic rendering:

Graphic rendering is when a game engine uses wireframes or vector graphics to add a shape, object, player, AI etc to the environment. Vector graphics refers to the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves and other shapes based on mathematical equations. An example of a game which uses vector graphics is ‘Another world’, Released in 1991. Rendering is the physical "colouring" of a model in a video game which will colourize as the player approaches it. Depending on how fast the game engine or computer is, the graphics will either load faster or slower. Most high budget game engines will take less than a second to renderize and load in the game.

Animation:

 In animation, many frames are patched together to create the animated sequence. This could be used in cut scenes or animated films. Animation uses parts of structures such as characters and cars to tell the game engine how this object should function. The structures would have skeletal structures which show where the figure should move from, like the joints and muscles, or if it was something such as a car, where the wheels would attach and move or the mirrors and steering wheel etc. Animations are often sequences pre-coded but in more recent games they have animation generators that simulate animations as they happen. In more recent times, animators have developed new technology called "motion capture" which involves a person or animal wearing a body shaped suit with motion sensors attached to it to record the movement made by the person or object. The data is then added into an animation sequence and attached to a game object which makes for a much quicker way to create animation.

Physics:

Most modern games have physics used in some shape or form. Gravity is the main use of physics as most games use it. The game engine is loaded with the physics that will be used in the game to make decisions based on the physics. Gravity, water flow, explosions and cars colliding into objects and bouncing off would all be examples. Although most game engines have basic physics included, many games developers will often create more to add to the environment and objects to make them more realistic. For example, a game engine might not have the "float" physics of a plane, so the developers would create a script which allows the game to use the physics properly.

Collision detection:

Collision detection typically refers to the computational problem of detecting the intersection of two or more objects. Solving collision detection problems requires the use linear algebra and geometry. An example of collision detection would be when a car hits a booster pad on Mario kart, which instantly ups the speed for a few seconds or when a player suffers fall damage and the deducted health shows how far the player has fallen. Many game engines will include a calculator which detects collisions before they happen so the engine has a few seconds to start rendering the outcome. This process is often used in games to help with slower engines.

Artificial Intelligence:

AI  is a code written and designed for a computer controlled character or command, such as a race car in a game such as need for speed, or how a neutral character would act during a game such as Skyrim where a guard would have a set route which would change during certain days or after a an act of the player. AI would not always apply to an animated object, it could be anything in a game, even a tree if necessary, it is the process that calculates information on the game and figures out what the next move is, if any. Many video games often use AI to shape the game to the players game style. For example, on State of Decay, some types of zombies will get harder if the player has ease in killing them. Or less guns will be lootable if the player already has a large stockpile.

Sound:

The sound in game engines can be programmed to be activated from a certain point in the game, to give a 3D effect and a pinpoint location for a more realistic effect. The individual sounds can be assigned to objects in games to play when activated. Many sounds are added into the game through the use of file linking, the sounds will be imported into the game engine and then linked into the script or object, some older video games used to have a soundtrack linked to the background of the actual game, instead of a 3D orientating around the game(mono, stereo etc).

Components of game engines.

Components of Game Engines

Graphic rendering:

Graphic rendering is what keeps the game going without lagging or through the loss of frames, through the majority of games, graphic rendering usually works by loading the section of the map that the player can see within the view perspective, this can also help to minimalise glitches across the game, and reduce system usage, if the player is in one part of the level/world, there would be no reason to have CPU usage wasting due to a still functioning AI across the other side of the map. In some game engines, such as the Frostbite engine, the graphics will always render before the player(s) have entered the game, as the game's maps have to be quite large, the buildings and objects in the game usually have to be quite basic otherwise the engine could produce problems and glitches for the player(s). Occasionally the engine will glitch and the graphics can render blurry and discoloured but that rarely happens and also to a very small part of the area. Anti-aliasing is a feature used in most video games to smooth off edges of a map to make the game look tidier and nicer over all, when two parts of a map (in this case a building and the ground) could collide they would look very flat and sharp on the edges so the anti aliasing effect would help to make the game seem more realistic and boost the graphics output. If the player chooses the anti aliasing option on a ps3, it might lower the frame rate of the game compared to the xbox due to more graphical output coming out of the system. Most modern game engines will have some sort of shadow effect built into them, shadows give a realistic effect which works when a light source in the game, if the setting is dark, the shadows might not be necessary so they can sometimes be turned off to keep the frame rate up. Shadows work with subsurface systems to help calculate when and where the shadows will be needed in the world. In some games, there will come a time when the graphics need to be lowered to help with the frame rate and rendering of the world, when the quality of the graphics is at its highest,  there will be more pixels to load and every aspect of the game will be higher causing the game’s frame rate to drop(especially if the graphics card quality is bad). Radiosity is used when light sources such as the sun cannot directly reach an area (such as a building) and creates an indirect light source (lights, windows, etc) to illuminate an interior of a building. Depth testing is a method of graphical rendering that calculates if an object is in the player’s line of sight and if it isn’t it will render as the player draws closer to it, as this happens, objects opposite the player will disappear to prevent loss of frame rate and too many objects being in the world at any time. Most game engines feature some kind of pixel rendering unit, which operates using GPU to help render pixels using lighting and bump mapping and can be changed with the scene orientation to create silhouettes and other in game effects.

 Culling techniques are a part of the graphics system that help render an image based on the objects in visible view, there are 3 different types of culling methods:

 Back face culling:

 because meshes are hollow not solid objects , the backside of some polygons will never face the camera, this typically means there are no reason to draw the faces, this causes the effect in video games where if the camera is inside the mesh, it usually disappears.

Contribution culling: 

often, objects are so far away that they do not contribute to the final image that much. These objects are thrown away if the screen projection is too small.

Occlusion culling:

  objects that are completely behind other opaque objects may be culled. This is a very popular mechanism to speed up the rendering of large scenes that have medium to high depth complexity.

Animation systems:

Animation systems are a sequence of models linked together to play one after the other which give the illusion that players or objects etc, the animator would link certain parts of the object, for example the spine to the shoulders to the arm to the hand. This would give the computer an idea of how the structure of the object would look. The animator would then program sequences of this object together for an animation. The game engine would then have to use this animation clip to make the object play. Animation systems work in still objects as well, such as buildings and structures which will destruct on impact of explosion or a vehicle. An animation artist will pre-program the animation sequence to work with the collision detection and damage multiplier, if the damage multiplier is high enough the wall will collapse in the sequence created by the animator.  Another type of animation is forward kinematics. Forward kinematics refers to the use of the kinematic equations of a robot to compute the position of the end-effector from specified values for the joint parameters. There are two main spaces of Kinematics, Forward Kinematics and Inverse Kinematics. It is the motion of bodies without taking into consideration of the force or movement that is caused. Forward Kinematics is a mapping from joint space Q to Cartesian space W: F(Q) = W. Forward Kinematics problem isn't complexity deriving the equations. Animations can also be a sequence of a drawing or GCI where multiple copies are made with a slight change in each one, in an order, if these images are played quickly it resembles an object moving, this type of animation was the first to be used and has been used before electricity was invented, these were known as phenakistoscopes. Particle systems are often needed in game engines to create real world elements such as snow, dust, sand and smoke, in order to use particle systems, they must be animated to work however. When a particle system is created it would normally be created with options to be able to change the animation speed and technique, for example, if the world creator wanted to use snow, they might want it light, heavy, thick or thin,  so whatever options wanted would be changed as such in the game engines system editor.

Systems:

The systems are the stats of the game engine that control the actual game play, they are monitored by the game engine to keep the game working correctly, these functions include: AI functions, system CPU usage, Graphics systems, and frame rate. The system is the program that allows the game engine to function, it will often include effects or pre-programmed scripts  which help the system to function, some of these include: subsurface scattering, causistics and networking. Subsurface scattering is included in some game engines and is the effect that allows light to travel through objects and water. For translucent objects, the light is projected through and made to blur so it gives a blurry effect on the light.  Some Subsurface systems are included in the CryEngine and the Unreal engine. Causistics is when like is projected on and off objects by creating photons to help create mirrors, reflections, flares and concentrated light sources. Networking is where multiple different people or servers can connect to the game engine to provide multiplayer game play. The network must be connected by at least 2 different devices to function or the networking would be pointless. The data is transferred by connective cables which tell the game engine what will happen on the screen by fault of another player or game object.

Artificial Intelligence:

AI is a code written and designed for a computer controlled character or command, such as a race car in a game such as need for speed, or how a neutral character would act during a game such as Skyrim where a guard would have a set route which would change during certain days or after a an act of the player. Artificial intelligence does not always apply to Characters in a game; it could also be applied to scenery, buildings, and other objects. It is more commonly applied to characters though as small coding scripts are normally applied to inanimate objects instead. Most animations use path based coding where the object such as a person or a vehicle. A path is a set of way points linked together in an order that makes them seem like they are functioning or walking in a set line. The waypoints can be set to an environmental object such as a car or a wall for cover. The waypoints will always be an untextured object. World navigation is when you or another player will have to move around a world when one way is not possible, the game will calculate the way or the start of a way to move the player back on track, this is usually achieved by using a minimap with a GPS or an arrow which shows the player where to go. AI controlled characters also use this method, it is usually used when they need to follow the player or to calculate the easiest route to get to him, most characters are individually programmed, but more recent games have the ability of AI to make the engine create the route without the need of programming.

Middleware:

Middleware is the software that stands between game engines and physics; it is described by games designers as “software glue” as it helps piece things such as 3D models and in game assets together. The middleware is not an operating system or a game engine or even part of a management system, it is merely a small piece of software built into the game engine that helps designers work easily by linking the assets needed into the game engine from their fill. Overall, middleware is what designers use to help with the input/output and communication of games so they don’t have to spend time programming physics and game engines together.