So I found a 'new' Josh Sawyer talk called
Game Programmers The Heart of the Machine - lecture by Josh Sawyer - Code Europe Autumn 2016
Well, not new, but from 2016, as the title says.
Josh is taking about the respective roles of game designers and programmers, especially how the (mis)communication between those disciplines is crucial to any project.
As examples he uses:
- Fallout: New Vegas (the bullet-by-bullet reload animation was difficult to implement, F3-engine had no idea of that concept)
- Pillars of Eternity: example of making 2D art feel less static, details Tim Cain's role in the early system design stages.
- 'Project Louisiana' (which was ofc announced a few months later as being
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire): explains how dynamic weather was implemented, and the checks and balances they needed (realistic, not too spec demanding, situational etc.)
There are even some easter eggs towards the end about Icewind Dale and IWDII (!!). Apparently the latter's engine was so complicated and changed from both BG1 and IWD1, that
a) Josh got a letter from Bioware saying "how the hell did you do that" and
b) Beamdog for many years gave up doing an Enhanced Edition
Update:
I read Beamdog has something IWD2 related on the way, but fans are already moaning its a collection of mods rather than a proper definite edition.
Surprisingly, Josh doesnt thank Tim Cain in the end (final slide), although he's a master of this topic (see
Boyarsky's SINFO talk). But, Josh does mention Tim at 38min which is quite interesting.
Enjoy Codexers
- Digg
