Miriam Bellard
VP of Art: Visual Development at Rockstar Games
Design Principles
When designing architecture and environments for video games there are five overarching design criteria to consider
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Spatial Cinematography
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Visual Storytelling
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Player Interaction
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Aesthetics
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Pragmatics
A good design works for all of those areas. Often you need to make compromises in one area to make another area work - in those cases you want to minimise the impact on the compromised area. The ideal, when it's possible, is to find a solution that works for every criteria.
Spatial Cinematography
The player is in control of the camera, but we control the environment the player moves through, so we can still control what is on screen by controlling the environment.
This is architect as cinematographer.
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MY GDC TALK - https://youtu.be/L27Qb20AYmc
2D SCREEN
Environment designs are experienced by the player via the 2D screen.
We need to design the 3D for how it looks in 2D.
BOOK – Principles of Composition in Photography by Andreas Feininger
BLOG POST – Avoiding Tangents: 9 Visual Blunders Every Artist Should Watch Out For on EmptyEasel.com
BOOK – Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See by Donald D Hoffman
BOOK – The Visual Story by Bruce Block
BOOK – Picture This: How Pictures Work by Molly Bang
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MOVEMENT
The camera is attached to the player. To control (or at least influence) the camera movement we need to control (or at least influence) the player.
ACADEMIC ARTICLE – The moving eye of the beholder by R Rosenberg & C Klein, in Art, Aesthetics, and the Brain by JP Huston et al.
YOU TUBE VIDEO – Lecture 11: Visual Attention and Consciousness, Allen Institute
YOU TUBE VIDEO – Introduction Tutorial on Visual Attention and Visual Salience by Zhaoping Li
ACADEMIC STUDY – Visual Attention in 3D Video Games by Magy Seif El-Nasr & Su Yan
YOU TUBE VIDEO – Affordances – How Design Teaches Us Without Words, Extra Credits
ARTICLE – Defining Environment Language for Video Games by Emilia Schatz, 80.lv
BOOK – The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
ACADEMIC PAPER – Encoding natural movement as an agent-based system by Alasdair Turner & Alan Penn
GDC TALK - The Schema is (Still) Mightier than the Sword: How Cognition Predicts Player Spatial Coding Systems, by Vanessa Hemovich
BOOK – Origins of Architectural Pleasure by Grant Hildebrand
BOOK – The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch
ACADEMIC PAPER – The Network of Reference Frames Theory: A Synthesis of Graphs and Cognitive Maps by Tobias Meilinger
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TIME
Space is experienced over time. To control the experience over time, we need to control the experience over space.
BOOK – Experiencing Architecture by Steen Eiler Rasmussen
BOOK – Architecture: Form, Space & Order by Francis D.K. Ching
Visual Storytelling
Our role is similar to an actor or actress in that we are creating a character and playing a part. The biggest difference is the medium we use to express our characters - they use their own bodies, and their own physicality to express their characters, we use our environment designs.
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MY GDC TALK - https://youtu.be/L27Qb20AYmc
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MENTIONED IN TALK
References mentioned during the talk.
BOOK – Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You, by Sam Gosling
ARTICLE – Examples of Literary Tropes and How to Use Tropes in Writing, by MasterClass
LECTURE – Art, Reality, and the Brain: The Quest for Aesthetic Universals - Dr. V.S. Ramachandran
LECTURE – The Psychology of Aesthetics, by Steve Palmer (starts at 28:30)
ARTICLE – In Search of The Brain’s Social Road Maps, by Matthew Schafer and Daniela Schiller.
BOOK – The Visual Story by Bruce Block
BOOK – Architecture: Form, Space & Order by Francis D.K. Ching
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ENTERTAINMENT
Film, TV, Games, Theme Parks, etc.
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ALL
VIDEO - Designing for Entertainment - Industry Workshops by Mike Hill
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FILM & TV
BOOK – The Visual Story by Bruce Block
BOOK - If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die: The Power of Color in Visual Storytelling by Patti Bellantoni
BOOK - Filmcraft: Production Design by Fionnuala Hannigan
BLOG POST - Adam: Production design for the real-time short film, by Georgi Simeonov
VIDEO - Colour In Storytelling by The Cinema Cartography
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THEME PARKS
BOOK - Designing Disney: Imagineering and the Art of the Show by John Hench
COMICS
COMIC BOOK - Understanding comics : the invisible art by Scott McCloud
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GAMES
GDC VIDEO - A Geographer's Guide to Building Game Worlds by Kate Edwards
GDC VIDEO - The Level Design Of Gone Home by Steve Gaynor and Kate Craig
ARTICLE - Architecture in Video Games: Designing for Impact by Deanna Van Buren
GDC VIDEO - Creating Worlds by Feng Zhu
GDC VIDEO - AAA Level Design in a Day Bootcamp: Techniques for In-Level Storytelling, by Steve Gaynor
GDC AUDIO + SLIDES - Narrative Landscapes: Shaping Player Experience through World Geometry by Brian Upton
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ILLUSTRATION
TED TALK - The art of first impressions -- in design and life, by Chip Kidd
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GENERAL
VIDEO - Design is Storytelling by Ellen Lupton​
BOOK - Picture This: How Pictures Work by Molly Bang
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THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Geography and Architecture
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GEOGRAPHY
BOOK - Geographic Thought - A Critical Introduction by Tim Cresswell
BOOK - Narrative Environments and Experience Design by Tricia Austin
BOOK - Narrating Space / Spatializing Narrative: Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet by Marie-Laure Ryan, Kenneth E. Foote, Maoz Azaryahu
BOOK - Space and Place, The Perspective of Experience by Yi-Fu Tuan
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ARCHITECTURE
BOOK – Architecture: Form, Space & Order by Francis D.K. Ching
BOOK - Architecture and Narrative - The Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning by Sophia Psarra
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KNOWLEDGE, REALITY & COGNITION
Psychology, Neuroscience & Philosophy. Also some poetry & literature.
GENERAL
VIDEO - Very Short Introduction to Semiotics by Altin Kua
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NEUROSCIENCE
LECTURE – Art, Reality, and the Brain: The Quest for Aesthetic Universals - Dr. V.S. Ramachandran
ARTICLE – In Search of The Brain’s Social Road Maps, by Matthew Schafer and Daniela Schiller.
PSYCHOLOGY
LECTURE – The Psychology of Aesthetics, by Steve Palmer (starts at 28:30)
BOOK – Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You, by Sam Gosling
VIDEO - Lecture 06 Environment and Personality by Professor Daniel Stokols, UCI Media
BOOK - Emotional Design - Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things by Don Norman
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PHILOSOPHY
BOOK - Phenomenology: The Basics, by Dan Zahavi
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POETRY & LITERATURE
BOOK - The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard
ARTICLE – Examples of Literary Tropes and How to Use Tropes in Writing, by MasterClass
Player Interaction
Video games are products that need to function - in the same way that a vacuum cleaner or microwave is a product that needs to function.
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EARLY WIP REFERENCES
This is an area I'm currently researching, so this list will get longer in future.
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PRODUCT DESIGN
BOOK – The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
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USER RESEARCH
BOOK - The Gamer's Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Video Game Design by Celia Hodent
GDC VIDEO - The Schema is (Still) Mightier than the Sword: How Cognition Predicts Player Spatial Coding Systems by Vanessa Hemovich
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LEVEL DESIGN
ARTICLE - Defining Environment Language for Video Games by Emilia Schatz
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PSYCHOLOGY & NEUROSCIENCE
VIDEO - Lecture 05 - Environmental Cognition by Shalini Misra
BOOK - You Are Here: Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon, but Get Lost in the Mall by Colin Ellard
VIDEO - The ecological approach to perception & action by Harry Heft
BOOK - The Ecological Approach To Visual Perception by James Gibson
BOOK - Visual Intelligence: How We Create what We See by Donald D. Hoffman
BOOK - The Embodied Mind - Cognitive Science and Human Experience by Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, Eleanor Rosch
VIDEO - Is Your Red The Same as My Red? by Vsauce
BOOK - The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason by Mark Johnson [content warning - discusses rape]
Aesthetics
Video games also need to look good!
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EARLY WIP REFERENCES
More will be added to this over time.
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ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
BOOK - Experiencing Architecture by Steen Eiler Rasmussen
BOOK - Architecture: Form, Space, and Order by Francis D. K. Ching
BOOK - Interior Design Illustrated by Francis D. K. Ching
BOOK - Universal Principles of Design by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler
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COLOUR & LIGHT
BOOK - Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney
BOOK - Principles of Color: A Review of Past Traditions and Modern Theories of Color Harmony by Faber Birren
BOOK - Interaction of Color by Josef Albers
Pragmatics
Without being pragmatic we won't have a finished, usable game!
We need to make sure that our designs will work for other departments.
- Are we creating sizes that allow animation reuse?
- Is there room for the camera, navigation zones, etc?
- Will this cause tech or optimisation problems?
- How much work will this be for art, and is it good bang-for-buck production wise?
- Does it allow for asset reuse?
etc.
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EARLY WIP REFERENCES
There isn't much here yet, but more will be added over time. In general talks from the GDC vault are good for this area. Art Direction talks will generally be the most helpful, but Level Design, and Environment Art talks are also useful
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GDC TALK - The Art of Pre-Production by Greg Foertsch