Unit 1: Pre Production Techniques For The Creative Media Industries
When creating a game there is a cycle you should execute and follow this cycle.
You should communicate your aims and objective. To this effectively you should make priorities and share these with your colleagues
pre production.during the process of pre production is to get your team ready and form a schedule for the team with your goals and design in mind.
during the production of the game need to prepare for inevitable changes and adapt to them in the shortest time possible
when you release the game you need to finish certifying things
once the game has been released you need to get support for the game
Finance
Hardware:
In order to create computer game you will need a computer(obviously).
the average cost of a budget gaming computer is roughly £388.15 not including monitor and keyboard and mouse ETC. I may not need a gaming computer to run the game i am making but if i'm to make a game with the unreal engine i will have to have a good enough computer to run it.
The cost of a mouse and keyboard will vary depending on what and where you buy it fro. The minimum cost of a mouse is usually £10 but it does vary. The keyboard is usually a little more than the mouse £12 The mouse and key board are examples of peripherals some more examples include speakers, a mic and webcams. Once again the price vary's on quality.
Development kits help the creators of game by speeding up some processes in the computer. The price vary's on quality. I've seen them go for about £20 but can go into the thousands.
Software
UDK is free to download and is free whilst you're developing the game. Once you publish a game with this software you're required to pay a US $99.99 royalty bearing licence. If you earn $60000 you will need to pay $2500.
Unity is free to download but in order to access all options you must get the professional edition which is $75 a month.
I'm creating my game on game maker. This is free to download but there are a further 2 editions. (professional and master) professional comes with more features than the standard. And the master has them all.
the professional edition costs $149.99
the master edition costs $799.99
Maya is subscription based. $145 a month $1160 a year
Publishing
To submit a game in steam greenlight you will need to pay $100. It was raised to $100 to stop the numerous fake games anybody who is serious about there game could afford this.
The can vary to publish a game on id@Xbox is roughly £3000.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-07-30-id-xbox-dev-reveals-costs-of-launching-xbox-one-game
To publish a game on PSN it on average is $2500(PS3) but generally ranges from $1000 to $10000
http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/24/4553842/so-how-much-does-it-cost-to-develop-for-playstation-4
If you publish a game through apple it requires a annual fee of $100
Funding
Self Financing
Self funding is where you spend your money what you earn to fund the game and build it all up.
Ths can be be quite risky because you could create a game and no one would like it even after soending large amounts on software and hardware ETC. The majority of people will work on this after work in spare time which reduces the potential risk of financial issues.
Indie Funding And Crowd Funding
Most indie games are self funded, However the "indie fund" is a group set up to help indie independent developers with finance.
Crowd funding is where you get people to look at a product and they could donate a small amount of money from a large amount of people. Normally over internet and through kickstarter.
Grants
The creators of the UDK also give grant if they believe your prototype is worth a look into and would give the grant to further develop and improve your product.
Publisher Funding
Publisher funding is generally for the larger games where you have a whole team and have some kind of successful game before hand as they are reluctant to take major financial risks. The Pro's of this is that they would take all the financial risk however they would probably take full credit for the game and would own a part of the game and will only continue funding if you meet the deadlines.
Time
Deadlines
A deadline is a specific time set for something to be completed in. If you cannot complete this by the time set then it could get you into trouble with employees and drop your whole team behind in work. Not only should you have a deadline for completing a game you should also have smaller deadlines for individual tasks like coding and creating the sprites. Try to complete the work as soon as possible so you can check the game for bugs and by completing this early will allow you to fix the bugs and improve the game in other ways. Once the game is completed it would be wise to keep all your ideas so you can continue on creating another game with better experience than what you started with.
Availability of Equipment
If you're working in a team to create a game it may help you financially because if you're devoting every minute of everyday on it there will be no time for a job therefore any money what they've accumulated may be enough for some better hardware/software. This could be a disadvantage for those people who are making a game by themselves.
Availability of Personnel
If a member of your team is ill(which will inevitably happen) you will need to compensate for there loss. If you're working in a team you could have somebody else working with them(depending on the size of the team). If it's a large team then you might be able to make up for his loss easier but if you're working by yourself you may have to push yourself much harder to make up for this or extend the deadline which can be damaging.
Timescale Clearances
Time scale clearances is where your finished product needs to get tested. I'm not sure whether your team or producer has to test this(i'm pretty sure he/she has to look over it to point out flaws or improvements at some time though). However in some cases the police/government has to test this to make sure it doesn't have and major controversial scenes which could determine the age rating.
How I Will Manage The Time Spent On My Game
The 1st thing i would do is think about the most important aspects of the game and then break down to major aspects into multiple smaller ones.
If i end up working in a group i will assign them each a element of the game and expect them to complete it in the set deadline. To help with this i will do regular check up on the group so i know how far they are into the project to monitor progress
I will have to create a schedule on what.to do 1st. Such as designing sprites ETC. I will have to take into account on whether a person is sick as i said before the impact could possibly be lessened if you're in a group.
Job Roles
In Games Design
Animator
They create animations for sprites. They need to have experience with 2D and 3D animation techniques. They make the characters look more realistic with facial expressions ETC. This would be a good with the game i'm creating because i can experiment with different styles of movement depending on the sprite i'm using.
Assistant Producer
The main role of the assistant producer is to make sure everything is completed on time(met the deadline). As a assistant producer you need to be able to motivate your team and work under pressure coping with unexpected problems and dealing with them.
Audio Engineer
The audio engineer creates the soundtrack for the game and all the sound effects. They will also do character voices. I will need to have this on a game to make the game have a lively feel to it. For example trees rustling if you're in a forest or people speaking if you're in a city.
Creative Director
The creative director is responsible for the major decisions on the games look and feel to it. One of the roles is to point out places what people can improve on. You need to be quite artistic to have this role with experience. It is also partly responsible for whether it meets the deadline.
Games Designer
The games designer is a role which is best suited to be. The game designer is essentially the backbone of the whole team. It's job is to think of the overall idea for the game and to be able to communicate your idea to the people who work on the art and coding. I feel this is my role because it requires good narrative and story telling skills. and i can use a lot of my imagination in creating the game.
Games Programmer
A games programmer does the coding which make all the sprites react in a certain way for example pressing W will move a sprite forward (vary's through platforms) Aside from creating movement they'd also fix bugs in the game later on.
Games Artist
(concept art)
A games artist will create all the visual things in the game. There ideas are normally hand drawn and then created on software. They will create the vehicles, sprites,backgrounds and other items.
Lead Artist
The lead artist is responsible for the overall look of the game. As a lead artist you should try to stick to your chosen artistic style because depending on what you're doing switching in the middle of a game may not be a good idea.
Lead Programmer
As a lead programmer your job is lead the programmers and make sure the coding is done on time.
Level Editor
The job of level editor is to create things like buildings,the landscape and objects. They possibly have the most freedom because they only really have to stick to the main design given to them by the game designer but other than that they can create the map out of there own imagination.
Marketing Executive
These are in charge of promoting your product. Like advertisements and campaigns what you'd use.
Marketing Manager
The role of the marketing manager is to create the adverts and campaign necessary to promote your product.
Product Manager
The role of a product manager is help maximize sales by improving the marketing campaigns. It is important that they work with the marketing manager and marketing executives.
Public Relations Officer
Your role as a public relations officer is to monitor what the public think about you and to plan speeches/ interviews with people to gain information and to spread the word about your game.
QA Tester
The role of a QA tester is to test the game to find any bugs so the team can fix them before it goes public. They also suggest improvements what can be made to the game.
What Roles Will I Do In My Game
With my current game i'm using Game maker and i'm working by myself. I will have to do all of the following jobs except marketing executive and Product manager because i do not plan to sell the game. I've had little experience in making a game so i expect there to be a lot of flaws.However i have good story telling abilities and i believe i have a good imagination I can only improve the more i do things though. I'm normally available unless i'm too ill to get out of bed. The game will be made on free software since i'm not planning on publishing it.
Materials
When i make a game i will end up up using http://www.freesound.org/ and http://opengameart.org/ because they may make creating the game easier. I do hope to use a mixture of my skills and the websites. I hope to create some of my own sounds and art eventually. For the research i will need the internet because i can look at ratings people have given to games and make up for what they have not done or make what they have done better. I'm a terrible drawer but i think my skills at creating something written by far a surpass my artistic skills so creating a script and dialogue may be easier for me.
Contributors
For the game i'm currently making i plan to do most of the voices myself with some help of friends. But popular game franchises can hire voice actors to use in their game and hire professionals to help with the game mechanics. Successful game franchises like the elder scrolls series probably used professionals with the combat mechanics like how people used to use the weapons. The same goes with call of duty they use a military adviser to help with creating scenarios in the game.
Codes Of Practice
When creating a advertisement for a game you will need to consider a lot of things when creating.such as if i would offend anyone if it contains any violence of offensive terms. the ASA will monitor these and will act on complaints made against you.
PEGI informs people of the content in the game which determins what age this game is meant to be for.
You get a PEGI rating based on how much and how extreme these things are.
Violence
Bad language
Fear
Sex/nudity
Drugs
Discrimination
Gambling
Online game
Obviously the more of these you have the higher the PEGI rating is.
.
You should communicate your aims and objective. To this effectively you should make priorities and share these with your colleagues
pre production.during the process of pre production is to get your team ready and form a schedule for the team with your goals and design in mind.
during the production of the game need to prepare for inevitable changes and adapt to them in the shortest time possible
when you release the game you need to finish certifying things
once the game has been released you need to get support for the game
Finance
Hardware:
In order to create computer game you will need a computer(obviously).
the average cost of a budget gaming computer is roughly £388.15 not including monitor and keyboard and mouse ETC. I may not need a gaming computer to run the game i am making but if i'm to make a game with the unreal engine i will have to have a good enough computer to run it.
The cost of a mouse and keyboard will vary depending on what and where you buy it fro. The minimum cost of a mouse is usually £10 but it does vary. The keyboard is usually a little more than the mouse £12 The mouse and key board are examples of peripherals some more examples include speakers, a mic and webcams. Once again the price vary's on quality.
Development kits help the creators of game by speeding up some processes in the computer. The price vary's on quality. I've seen them go for about £20 but can go into the thousands.
Software
UDK is free to download and is free whilst you're developing the game. Once you publish a game with this software you're required to pay a US $99.99 royalty bearing licence. If you earn $60000 you will need to pay $2500.
Unity is free to download but in order to access all options you must get the professional edition which is $75 a month.
I'm creating my game on game maker. This is free to download but there are a further 2 editions. (professional and master) professional comes with more features than the standard. And the master has them all.
the professional edition costs $149.99
the master edition costs $799.99
Maya is subscription based. $145 a month $1160 a year
Publishing
To submit a game in steam greenlight you will need to pay $100. It was raised to $100 to stop the numerous fake games anybody who is serious about there game could afford this.
The can vary to publish a game on id@Xbox is roughly £3000.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-07-30-id-xbox-dev-reveals-costs-of-launching-xbox-one-game
To publish a game on PSN it on average is $2500(PS3) but generally ranges from $1000 to $10000
http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/24/4553842/so-how-much-does-it-cost-to-develop-for-playstation-4
If you publish a game through apple it requires a annual fee of $100
Funding
Self Financing
Self funding is where you spend your money what you earn to fund the game and build it all up.
Ths can be be quite risky because you could create a game and no one would like it even after soending large amounts on software and hardware ETC. The majority of people will work on this after work in spare time which reduces the potential risk of financial issues.
Indie Funding And Crowd Funding
Most indie games are self funded, However the "indie fund" is a group set up to help indie independent developers with finance.
Crowd funding is where you get people to look at a product and they could donate a small amount of money from a large amount of people. Normally over internet and through kickstarter.
Grants
The creators of the UDK also give grant if they believe your prototype is worth a look into and would give the grant to further develop and improve your product.
Publisher Funding
Publisher funding is generally for the larger games where you have a whole team and have some kind of successful game before hand as they are reluctant to take major financial risks. The Pro's of this is that they would take all the financial risk however they would probably take full credit for the game and would own a part of the game and will only continue funding if you meet the deadlines.
Time
Deadlines
A deadline is a specific time set for something to be completed in. If you cannot complete this by the time set then it could get you into trouble with employees and drop your whole team behind in work. Not only should you have a deadline for completing a game you should also have smaller deadlines for individual tasks like coding and creating the sprites. Try to complete the work as soon as possible so you can check the game for bugs and by completing this early will allow you to fix the bugs and improve the game in other ways. Once the game is completed it would be wise to keep all your ideas so you can continue on creating another game with better experience than what you started with.
Availability of Equipment
If you're working in a team to create a game it may help you financially because if you're devoting every minute of everyday on it there will be no time for a job therefore any money what they've accumulated may be enough for some better hardware/software. This could be a disadvantage for those people who are making a game by themselves.
Availability of Personnel
If a member of your team is ill(which will inevitably happen) you will need to compensate for there loss. If you're working in a team you could have somebody else working with them(depending on the size of the team). If it's a large team then you might be able to make up for his loss easier but if you're working by yourself you may have to push yourself much harder to make up for this or extend the deadline which can be damaging.
Timescale Clearances
Time scale clearances is where your finished product needs to get tested. I'm not sure whether your team or producer has to test this(i'm pretty sure he/she has to look over it to point out flaws or improvements at some time though). However in some cases the police/government has to test this to make sure it doesn't have and major controversial scenes which could determine the age rating.
How I Will Manage The Time Spent On My Game
The 1st thing i would do is think about the most important aspects of the game and then break down to major aspects into multiple smaller ones.
If i end up working in a group i will assign them each a element of the game and expect them to complete it in the set deadline. To help with this i will do regular check up on the group so i know how far they are into the project to monitor progress
I will have to create a schedule on what.to do 1st. Such as designing sprites ETC. I will have to take into account on whether a person is sick as i said before the impact could possibly be lessened if you're in a group.
Job Roles
In Games Design
Animator
They create animations for sprites. They need to have experience with 2D and 3D animation techniques. They make the characters look more realistic with facial expressions ETC. This would be a good with the game i'm creating because i can experiment with different styles of movement depending on the sprite i'm using.
Assistant Producer
The main role of the assistant producer is to make sure everything is completed on time(met the deadline). As a assistant producer you need to be able to motivate your team and work under pressure coping with unexpected problems and dealing with them.
Audio Engineer
The audio engineer creates the soundtrack for the game and all the sound effects. They will also do character voices. I will need to have this on a game to make the game have a lively feel to it. For example trees rustling if you're in a forest or people speaking if you're in a city.
Creative Director
The creative director is responsible for the major decisions on the games look and feel to it. One of the roles is to point out places what people can improve on. You need to be quite artistic to have this role with experience. It is also partly responsible for whether it meets the deadline.
Games Designer
The games designer is a role which is best suited to be. The game designer is essentially the backbone of the whole team. It's job is to think of the overall idea for the game and to be able to communicate your idea to the people who work on the art and coding. I feel this is my role because it requires good narrative and story telling skills. and i can use a lot of my imagination in creating the game.
Games Programmer
A games programmer does the coding which make all the sprites react in a certain way for example pressing W will move a sprite forward (vary's through platforms) Aside from creating movement they'd also fix bugs in the game later on.
Games Artist
(concept art)
A games artist will create all the visual things in the game. There ideas are normally hand drawn and then created on software. They will create the vehicles, sprites,backgrounds and other items.
Lead Artist
The lead artist is responsible for the overall look of the game. As a lead artist you should try to stick to your chosen artistic style because depending on what you're doing switching in the middle of a game may not be a good idea.
Lead Programmer
As a lead programmer your job is lead the programmers and make sure the coding is done on time.
Level Editor
The job of level editor is to create things like buildings,the landscape and objects. They possibly have the most freedom because they only really have to stick to the main design given to them by the game designer but other than that they can create the map out of there own imagination.
Marketing Executive
These are in charge of promoting your product. Like advertisements and campaigns what you'd use.
Marketing Manager
The role of the marketing manager is to create the adverts and campaign necessary to promote your product.
Product Manager
The role of a product manager is help maximize sales by improving the marketing campaigns. It is important that they work with the marketing manager and marketing executives.
Public Relations Officer
Your role as a public relations officer is to monitor what the public think about you and to plan speeches/ interviews with people to gain information and to spread the word about your game.
QA Tester
The role of a QA tester is to test the game to find any bugs so the team can fix them before it goes public. They also suggest improvements what can be made to the game.
What Roles Will I Do In My Game
With my current game i'm using Game maker and i'm working by myself. I will have to do all of the following jobs except marketing executive and Product manager because i do not plan to sell the game. I've had little experience in making a game so i expect there to be a lot of flaws.However i have good story telling abilities and i believe i have a good imagination I can only improve the more i do things though. I'm normally available unless i'm too ill to get out of bed. The game will be made on free software since i'm not planning on publishing it.
Materials
When i make a game i will end up up using http://www.freesound.org/ and http://opengameart.org/ because they may make creating the game easier. I do hope to use a mixture of my skills and the websites. I hope to create some of my own sounds and art eventually. For the research i will need the internet because i can look at ratings people have given to games and make up for what they have not done or make what they have done better. I'm a terrible drawer but i think my skills at creating something written by far a surpass my artistic skills so creating a script and dialogue may be easier for me.
Contributors
For the game i'm currently making i plan to do most of the voices myself with some help of friends. But popular game franchises can hire voice actors to use in their game and hire professionals to help with the game mechanics. Successful game franchises like the elder scrolls series probably used professionals with the combat mechanics like how people used to use the weapons. The same goes with call of duty they use a military adviser to help with creating scenarios in the game.
Codes Of Practice
When creating a advertisement for a game you will need to consider a lot of things when creating.such as if i would offend anyone if it contains any violence of offensive terms. the ASA will monitor these and will act on complaints made against you.
PEGI informs people of the content in the game which determins what age this game is meant to be for.
You get a PEGI rating based on how much and how extreme these things are.
Violence
Bad language
Fear
Sex/nudity
Drugs
Discrimination
Gambling
Online game
Obviously the more of these you have the higher the PEGI rating is.
.
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