Whether you agree or not, the screen of a game has become one of the most basic criteria for judging the quality of a game in many cases. The quality of the game's graphics is in the hands of a group of people - game art designers.
Unlike planning and programming, the game art industry does not use "project experience" to define capabilities, as long as there are enough thick and eye-catching works, you can join this bustling industry. As the proportion of game art being publicized in the game increases, game art designers begin to gradually go from behind the scenes to the front of the screen, there are more and more players concerned about who designs the game's screen, how to present, which makes the game art designers bear huge design pressure, under these pressures, how to ensure their pursuit of quality while ensuring the amount of completion, has become their biggest problem.
Wu Ren once worked at Xishanju and was one of the original painters of "Sword Man Love Online Edition III" (hereinafter referred to as Sword Net III). A few days ago, Wu Ren posted a text on Sina Weibo about the survival of game art designers, insisting that art design, planning, and procedures should work together as equals, rather than leadership, and these views caused a small range of debate in the original art circle.
Witch, a 27-year-old who majored in graphic art design in college, described her college days as a "mixed diploma" and a hobby of playing games to pass the time. The opportunity to enter the game industry is," said Teacher Ah Hua, the game industry needs professional art, I think it is right, well, just do this. "She loves design so much that she speaks of design with a tone of hidden pride." If I am a speller, there are a group of painters in China who dump me a few streets, but I can still work the design. ”
Before entering the industry, she only had one sentence about the domestic game art at that time, "It's deadly!" Later, because of playing Sword Net THREE, he created some related fan works, and was introduced to xishanju by the art manager at the time. When he first entered the West Mountain Residence, the witch described himself as "rampant" and said that if he could not enter the project team of sword net three, he would not go to the west mountain residence, "I came to the west mountain residence for the purpose of sword net three, and there is no point in doing anything else." ”
Face decoration designed by the witch
The tolerance and non-interference with the art content within the game project makes the witches feel good in the art department. At that time, the game was making various things that were required for the Tang men version, and the witches asked the masks of the Tang Men to design, which was later very popular among the players. And many of the designs he has been responsible for since then have even been ridiculed by a group of players as feeding a large number of fan peripherals. But the witch said to me, "You know what? When I was working on design, except for a very small amount of information, I got all the negative reviews, and the players were spraying design. ”
Players understand the project promotional poster as the original picture of the game, even if the original artists put the original design that has been optimized on the Internet, there will still be people who think "What is this thing?" Children also draw a little better." Players can't understand the aesthetics of game artists, and even feel that "artists" don't know what players like. Witch's idea of game art design is long-term, she does not want to be a screw in the project team, and refuses to do some overly commercial design. "If it is to pursue long-term design effects and guide the audience, it is necessary to accept the questions of players." No classic design is accepted by the public as soon as it is launched, if it is a commercial project that pursues short-term interests, as long as you can convince yourself, feel free to go on it. ”
From the creation to the design of a complete original painting, countless sketches must be discarded
The pursuit of the quality of art design over the quantity also caused the witch to break through the disaster in the project team. At that time, the witch was responsible for the design of a professional suit in the project team, because the first time to do this relatively large set design, there was no deadline concept, and the suit that should have been online dragged and dragged. "I'm the kind of person who drags out drafts to perfect the design, thanks to the boss." Repeated revisions and the pursuit of design perfection kept the witches from keeping up with the fast-paced pace that game art design should have. "Then it's too late!" It's too late! Let's have a set of candle days! It was done with the help of colleagues in the model group, and the black pot was carried by my leaders. ”
Design is not a brick-moving job, not a painting that can be completed in an eight-hour workday by specifying a single idea, and overtime is almost a common occurrence for every game industry practitioner. "I don't exclude overtime, I take the initiative to work overtime when I am in the project, as long as I can design something, I can tolerate it." But there is a very uncomfortable overtime, that is, illness. Candle day (game set) that will make me have to lie at home because of a heavy cold, this situation is still working overtime. After the work is on track, the body is getting worse and worse, because the brain is overused and the headache is heavy and overtime every menstrual period. "Even working overtime with illness is not the most terrible thing that witches find," the most terrible thing is not overtime, but even if you rest, sleep, and dream about those designs." "This high-intensity work was not improved by the constant overtime of the witches, and as the in-game suit became more popular with players, the project team increased the workload of the art." At that time, the leadership required that a new version be released in a quarter, that is to say, in addition to the various sect suits in half a year, several sets of clothes were needed, and the most terrible thing was that this was only the player's equipment, excluding the appearance, weapons, npc design and so on. ”
The "original paintings" that the player really sees are all processed, and the content used in the real project is much simpler
At that time, including the witch, the project team had less than seven people to design the original art paintings, and the witch recalled: "At that time, the project team's planning of art resources was so much that it did not care about the quality. "The witches firmly believe that the game art, programming, planning, etc. have built the game together, and no department should be qualified to say that it is the leader. She was very surprised that some company game art designers could not decide on their own design: "Art is managed by planning, and all the content of art actually has to be planned to decide whether to use it or not!" The scariest thing is that they simply don't know what good design is. ”
The witch has his own ideas about who qualifies to be the producer of the game: "Unless the leader himself has the professional knowledge of these departments and can effectively integrate all the personnel for resource allocation, there is no basic qualification to become a game producer." "For game art, she has always insisted on her own aesthetic, and believes that designers should be respected and valued." It's not called a designer who's always following behind someone else. This idea was an outlier among the game companies, and the physical pain and lack of due respect at work disappointed the witches, after which she left xishanju, where she had worked for two years.
Until now, the suit designed by the witch is still a classic in the hearts of players
"I'm not the type of person who goes out and works for work, I do it from start to finish to do what I want to do. I can't figure out why everyone understands that quality is more important than quantity or requires me to work only for quantity, and I am not happy, so I quit. In the two years since her resignation, the witch has rarely taken on outsourced work, and she hates the endless revision work, which she believes is draining her creativity.
In the witch population, she is a wayward person, after leaving the end game industry, she did not devote herself to any mobile game manufacturers, and even said that she would never consider the kind of manufacturers that pursue "daily flowing water xxx million". When I mentioned the current game market, all manufacturers are trying to attack the mobile game market, she said: "Stand-alone mobile games are OK, online mobile games in my opinion completely lost the fun that games can bring." The amount of market share does not dictate my choice of game. But I do not reject commercial games, but at present, commercial games are basically not my dish, and there are very few experimental innovations, and cold rice is fried and fried all day long. When talking about future plans, she mysteriously said, "I have my own plan now, let me fight for 3-5 years." ”
After the witch left, Nishiyamaju continued to update various suits every quarter at a pace, and the suits she designed in the project at that time were still regarded as classic suits by a group of players, and were heavily rubbed by players (a practice that requires players to pay for them to wear them permanently) on the characters.
Rod was one of my college teachers, with a cool moustache, and since I barely took lower grade classes, I was only lucky enough to hear him Twice. He spoke low, fast, logically, and like most of my teachers, he never forced his students to pay attention. "If he's interested, he'll listen."
Unlike the Witches, Rod also left the game company, but not because of the loss of hope in the industry. Rod enjoys working as a game art designer, and he feels the game industry can express its ideas, "although most project owners don't have much aesthetics." After working in a game company for a few years, Rod has the intention of stabilizing, "Just in love with buying a house, wanting to find a relatively stable environment, Beijing and Shanghai annual salary of 300,000 yuan to settle down is also difficult." So he quit his job from the game company and returned to his hometown to become a teacher at the university, and his colleagues around him were almost in a similar situation to him, wanting to be stable and no longer work overtime day and night and leave the game company.
At my alma mater, the Game Academy has always been a maverick model: never actively participating in the school's large-scale activities, organizing activities on their own, not publicizing themselves, even the senior internship students go earlier than other colleges, and the teachers also advise students to enter the company early to practice and not to delay time at school. Rod said: "Everyone says that the game line is unhealthy and deformed. Education is the most unhealthy. ”
Since 2003, Rod, who has been engaged in game art design, believes that the game art industry is much better than other industries, "at least much stronger than the animation industry, saying that game art squeezes creativity, and people in the animation industry are simply corpses." Of course, the income is also higher than in other industries. "He does not look at the value of game art too highly, nor does he think that the high-speed operation of the game industry is squeezing the creativity of designers, he believes that the initiative of game art design is still in the designer, although the market and the boss will influence the game art, but if they can explain the design, the general boss will accept." You have to know what you're doing. ”
Rod will show students some of his various works and tell them how to draw
"I started in 2003 and have been working on game art design, and I haven't completely left the game art design industry until now." Rod is very satisfied with the state of game art design that can express his ideas, and although he resigned from the company, he still does some work in the game industry. "Game art design is not only to turn the planned text into a picture, but also to add their own understanding of the game world view, the designer's own artistic taste, aesthetic orientation, and the requirements and expressiveness of the style." These requirements were also repeated in his teaching, and although I had not been a student of his direct department, one of my seniors admired him as a disciple of him. The senior said that Rod's art style is full of tension, "the impulse to draw when you see it, and you want to draw like him." "Later, my senior entered a studio in Tencent, and although he struggled with deadlines and overtime every day, he still enjoyed it.
In addition to taking graduates to school and teaching, Rod also works as an art director in several mobile game companies. After graduating from school, many students who entered the mobile game industry told me that in the game industry, game art design is the least valuable, and it is the cost of a company rather than capital. When I asked Rod what he thought of this view, he said: "This thing depends on how to compare, if compared with the entire industrial chain, the profit share may be slightly lower." But who is more than the boss project leader? Game art design is the pre-concept. The same is true of the film market, and it is certain that the early concept cannot be more than the star live action money. Now there are too many people in the industry, naturally divided into grades, for the boss most of the people are replaceable. Unless the ability to work or the industry is super famous to drive the audience, it is transformed into capital. So cost and capital considerations are two kinds, the general art design is the company's cost is the majority; the super ability is capital, very few, each team department basically one or two. ”
I asked Rod if he still had the enthusiasm when he entered the game industry, and he laughed and said, "Of course, there is enthusiasm, but you are not the boss yourself and you don't have 100% decision-making power, so it is a job." He only regards game art design as a job, and is more open-minded than other interviewees when talking about design, he entered the game industry as a scene game art designer from the heyday of end-game, and his proudest work is the scene art of "Perfect World". The first time I went to his class, he also mentioned it. "A lot of art design in China is not much different from foreign countries, but it is really another matter in the game."
Rod design works outside of work
Rod also occasionally plays mobile games. He loves 2D graphics, games with strong artistic expression. "The particularly good game is more unique in style, not particularly well drawn. For example, the artistic expression freedom of the theme of "Steam for All" is large; the stylization of "Ink Dye" is very strong; the strong comic style of "Walking with Wolves"; and then the bad taste art similar to "Pit Daddy Game". ”
He feels that art style is not the most important thing for game products, as long as you find the right expression for players who need to like it. Nowadays, popular pixels, low polygons, and sub-era models with tens of millions of faces are all inevitable phenomena in a small range of a certain period of time, and they are not the decisive factors of a game.
In games, it is common for art to pick up materials and change skins, and we have even studied in class how to pick up the parts we want from foreign or other similar game resources. These "tricks" that have slashed at work are popular in today's game art world. "As long as you copy it silently, or even stitch it together, you can't see the trace, even if it's your design."
When a game artist not only treats design as work, but also as a dream into reality, this strong sense of separation between reality and dreams will make them miserable. The boss's design attitude of asking for the same as xx games may make these designers very frustrated, but Rod said to me: "The direction of work is decided by others, and it is not happy to be happy, how to think about the problem is decided by yourself." ”
Elva, unlike the other designers I interviewed, graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts and studied "orthodox pure art"—oil painting. "I originally studied oil painting. The first time I did a game (art design) was when a friend graduated from the project and lacked an art design, so he invited me to join. At that time, I thought game design was too fun, and after graduation, I also entered the game industry. "There are not a few designers who have switched from pure art to game art design, especially at that time, mobile games were particularly popular." As far as I know, caucus has at least eight of us in one session, and two have entered Tencent. ”
As soon as Elva graduated, she joined a studio set up by a friend and began to do some outsourcing work in game art, and even had some big game manufacturers in cooperation. Not every company in the game industry has its own art team, and most of the art will still be outsourced to a personal studio, and the planning copy issued within the game project will be used as a basis for re-creation. "It's fun, it's just words. It's like a propositional essay, but it's not the same. You just have to imagine and then draw it. Although most of these imaginations do not meet the requirements of Party A at the beginning, they will be revised over and over again until the other party is satisfied.
Going to school at USC, Elva says she just wants to regain her lost creativity
Now elva has left the studio, and at the age of 25, she is back on campus to study game design at the University of Southern California School of Art. When we talked about the difference between foreign game design and domestic ones, Elva giggled across the screen: "It's so different, although the domestic one will not casually go up to the subject, but it is also eight or nine." Here, I literally opened the door to a new world, and every day I lamented that games could still do this! Elva, who has been doing outsourcing work at home for two years, lamented in the face of such a free and open environment abroad: I will not criticize how art designs are at home, how bad those designs are. Because I have done it, I know that in the big environment and time pressure, people can make 'design' is not bad, don't talk about what is good or bad. ”
Elva also has her own views on the slightly tense relationship between game planning and game art designers and whether users understand aesthetic issues: "As a professional designer, it is right to try to listen to the needs of users. As the proposer of game creativity, he may not necessarily understand the aesthetics of game art, but the minimum creativity is still worth following. After all, you're a game in a design plan, not a game you're imagining. "Although Elva has a sense of helplessness about the games produced on the assembly line, she does not deny that this is a way to seize the game market." In the gaming industry, if you don't go fast enough, you'll be eliminated. ”
Elva loves Nintendo so much that she thinks Nintendo is a company that really knows what a game is
Elva said, "In the domestic game circle, especially some of my friends who work in big game manufacturers, most of them are in favor of making products, especially making game art, and can't rely on their own hi to design." She curled up in front of the computer with a cup and said very quickly: "The reason why business is different from art is because the purpose of business is to make money, for the market." Of course I think games should be an art, but games are not made for me alone, it is marketable and players. ”
At USC, Elva would do small mobile games with her classmates. "It's all experimental, and I didn't think about making money with them." We're just like trying out all kinds of possibilities. If it is different from the domestic pursuit of blockbusters, then what is fun. Elva admits that she never wanted to be a part of the game industry to change the state of the game industry, "I am a person who has no design power, especially after coming to the United States, there are too many big cattle." I first got into the gaming industry because I made a lot of money, haha. Leaving the studio is finding yourself doing nothing but mechanical assembly line work, and fearing losing your creativity. I didn't think about changing the game industry, and it doesn't need me to change it. ”
When we come into contact with a new game, whether it is a terminal game or a mobile game, whether it is a game that pursues xx million months of flowing water, or an indie game full of feelings, when making the first judgment on whether it is fun or not, the game art is always the first element that allows us to make this judgment. The game's art designer is the magician of the Oz country hidden behind many illusions, giving the player a wonderful imagination space. As Cui Jian sang in the song: "I want everyone to see me, but they don't know who I am." ”
Although the designers I interviewed have all been crushed by the high-speed game industry, they still love the game industry, and even when I asked a few of them if they would leave the game industry because of one disappointment or another, they all said no.