In this article, Herb Marselas discusses how they translated their asset management needs into an effective asset management system for future games, and the technologies utilized in doing so. Westwood Studios co-founder Louis Castle draws upon personal experiences as examples of successful and not so successful approaches to product development and retaining key people in a very competitive market. This keynote address from the 1999 Game Developers Conference touches on many aspects of production including art direction, technical direction and, heaven forbid, marketing. All are equally important elements to consistently developing hit products. Or at least minimizing the misses.
Chances are good that one of the reasons is an acute case of feature creep.
If uncontrolled, changing requirements can overwhelm even the best-planned effort, and quickly put your project in trouble. By completely understanding your original design, all change requests, and the people involved, you can avoid feature creep without ever saying 'No' to a request. The first part of Hugh Hancock's article on game engine cutscene design looked at tool design, overall project management, and content creation for cutscenes. Game developers are coming to the realization that newly found graphical power can be harnessed not only in traditional gameplay sections, but also to replace the horrendous expense of prerendered cutscenes with in-engine cinematic sequences. Hugh Hancock provides insight into some of the most common mistakes and omissions made in real-time cutscene creation, and points out a few pathways to truly cinematic cutscenes within game engines.