markleung Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 (edited) Hi there. Game developer and project manager here working with 2 artists and 2 programmers using Unity. I've recently sunk 3 weeks into Skyrim to complete nearly the entire game. From an amateur developer's point of view, I cannot imagine how anyone could coordinate such an effort to create so much lore and so many unique areas, and then subsequently test and debug it all within a span of 4 years. Yes, 4 years is a long time, but there are things that you just can't do even when provided with nearly infinite resources. Though, I'm aware that all of Bethesda's largest franchises are similar and that they probably follow the same production pipeline using different incarnations of the same engine. As evident in Skyrim's dungeons, they all share a set of textures, objects and room designs. Yet they are all unique - the tombstones can be chipped off in a different manner; the stone bridges may form a different shape; the debris is always in a different shape and contains different sorts of dirt and junk. The style is consistent, but I'm not playing through copy & pasted content. The mazes and puzzles are always (slightly) different, and the characters and scripted events in there are not simply made without regard for the lore, exterior climate and questlines. The best guess is that they probably outsourced the art that involves lesser degrees of creativity to countries with lower wages. But to actually create the blueprints, jot down all the specifications, and get them outsourced properly is an impressive management feat. In Unity, we use the terrain tool to rapidly create maps. To a certain degree, we can 'paint' foliage so we can skip placing flowers down one by one, but there are things like cracked grounds and ceilings which we cannot make without building separate 3D assets. Does anyone have an insight to their art creation pipeline? Are they using some magic tool that I haven't heard of? As for writing, everything is linked in Skyrim. The guard's speeches react to the player's equipment and completed quests. The quests are linked to NPCs in different places, which must take into account of the time of day, local politics, whether or not another quest has been completed, whether the area can be entered under all circumstances and thus be completed. The lore makes deep references to the skill disciplines. The point is, every person involved in the smallest design decisions seem to cross territories. How can 20+ people meet in a room and reach an agreement on every aspect of the game lore? Okay, so let's say it's set up in a hierarchy where the lead writer delegates freedoms to other writers, but let's say the lead assigns a writer to write quests for Thieves' Guild and another to write quests for Dark Brotherhood, how then is the two faction's relationship and attitude towards each other decided? Discussions like this can take forever to resolve. Can anyone enlighten me how the writing was coordinated? Edited March 1, 2012 by markleung Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RSnider Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 (edited) Not meaning to deduct from Bethesda's efforts, but a huge part of Skyrim's lore comes from previous TES titles, which have been around MUCH longer than Skyrim has been in development. And if you played Skyrim at release, you already know that the test and debug period was probably not as long as it should have been. That's your first paragraph answered, sort of. Mind if I ask what game you're developing? Edited March 1, 2012 by RSnider Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
worldofscotty Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 (edited) Not meaning to deduct from Bethesda's efforts, but a huge part of Skyrim's lore comes from previous TES titles, which have been around MUCH longer than Skyrim has been in development. Still Bethesda though :D Edited March 1, 2012 by worldofscotty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gsmanners Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 Millions of dollars worth of pot beer and lots of kludging the hell out of updating and recoding the engine. Followed by many many hours of working the salaried voice actors like slaves (no doubt). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ContagiousCure Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 (edited) Millions of dollars worth of pot beer and lots of kludging the hell out of updating and recoding the engine. Followed by many many hours of working the salaried voice actors like slaves (no doubt).No doubt outside the recording booths of Bethesda there is a vending machine that charges that charges $1000 per bottle of water. Edited March 1, 2012 by ContagiousCure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eltucu Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 In Unity, we use the terrain tool to rapidly create maps. To a certain degree, we can 'paint' foliage so we can skip placing flowers down one by one, but there are things like cracked grounds and ceilings which we cannot make without building separate 3D assets. Does anyone have an insight to their art creation pipeline? Are they using some magic tool that I haven't heard of?Yes. You said it, building separate 3D assets lol Didnt you noticed all the cliff, rocks and all those meshes just lying around in mountains? Terrain in Skyrim is the same kind of terrain you see in any other game. They put lot of time into placing meshes around to make them look more unique, and to make cliffs and that sort of stuff. But its really simple height map based terrain, sculptured by hand once the details start to come into scene and with some rocks and rocky cliff meshes added on top to give it more shape. I'd thought that anyone could notice that... I guess that the cracked ceillings you mention are located in interior cells right? Interiors dont use height based terrain, they just use meshes all around. They use kits of dungeon parts based on a particular theme then add them as they need it. Just open up the Creation Kit and everything will become clear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markleung Posted March 1, 2012 Author Share Posted March 1, 2012 I am developing a turn-based 3D RPG for the iOS and Android platforms. It took all of us a painfully long time to figure out the best way to do it, so I decided to line up our future projects as RPGs as well, using our current game as a template. As a manager, I always wonder what the best way to run my team is. I have allowed creative freedom before with very little guidance, and it was horrible. People fought, and made shitty, unrealistic suggestions. Now, I do all the writing and design and dictate over my team. I'm not a good writer, but I don't know how to go about fitting a writer in my team. How do game writers work with each other (not applicable to my team) and with the rest of a team? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gsmanners Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 You already admit you're not a good writer. Good. That's the first step. Now, you need to find a story that can write you for a while. That's how stories get written. :thumbsup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
todd92371 Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 All I know.... My hats off to the creators of this brilliant game. Oblivion literally opened up a whole new world to me. I was staggered by it's culture, geography and history. I cannot imagine the creativity and coordination that must have come together for this to happen. I was standing high up in the mountains in a snow storm last night and just stopped and said, "wow". lol. It just amazes me how 00000000 and 1111111111's have come together to create a world that literally has life. I think that is where the brilliance resides. They have imbued the game with life. I am so thankful to these guys for creating so many awesome hours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDarkPrince Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 Keep on doing the good work buddy, nothing goes "unheard"... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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