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关于核心体验和功能堆积不协调的完美误差

发布时间:2017-03-09 10:32:01 Tags:,,

本文原作者:Sergio Ortiz 本文译者:ciel chen

你们好!我是Sergio,我接下来将简单地聊聊一个非常重要的主题,当然了,也是我觉得不能被忽略的一个主题。

正如你所知, 在任何项目你都应该遵循的一个简单规则就是:功能远比形式重要得多。也就是说,一款游戏中,最重要的是你的想法行得通跑得动而且你能从中得到你想要的那层快乐!(关于如何达成就是另外一个非常非常长的讨论了)。接着,你的关注点就可以随你所想地移到外观和图形上了。

你也许有一个漂亮的游戏,但是如果它充满了BUG或者——最糟糕的是——它很无聊,那没人会碰的。这是为什么一些老游戏永远都有不会失去魅力,而一些新游戏则只能坐在角落里积灰的原因。

We all know how this ended(from gamasutra.com)

We all know how this ended(from gamasutra.com)

当你到读到这个规则的时候也许觉得这很老套,但是现在的我们常常忘记这个简单的规则。这很自然,我们毕竟是人,就是喜欢闪亮漂亮的东西,我们就是会被这些东西吸引着。当我们有一个想法的时候,我们常常首先想到它看起来会是如何,或者它会让我们有什么样的感觉,而不是想到要如何实施它或者要如何将它适配进项目整体(这里又是另一个话题了,我们改天再就游戏设计和游戏心理学方面来进行更多的探讨)。

如果你是美术团队的一份子, 在没有给予你合适方向去做工作的情况下,你很容易就会掉进这个陷阱里。 我是一个卡通片绘制者,我经常会发现自己陷入了这种进退两难的境地。我能够经常思考如何才能给一个人物做出漂亮的动画循环,或者最精细和酷毙了的视觉冲击,但这是因为我们卡通片绘制者总想着我们是在做电影,然而情况并非如此(同样的情况也会出现在插图画家、音乐家、设计师等身上)。卡通动画需要看上去好看没错,但同样地,它也需要是实用性。

Twin FlamesTarzan(from gamasutra.com)

Twin FlamesTarzan(from gamasutra.com)

我来举个简单的例子。在大部分游戏里,你的角色是可以跳跃的。这个动作经常由一个按键来操作。你看超级玛丽(Mario),你按一个键他就跳起来了。这看起来很简单的。你会需要这个跳跃足够快来躲开陷阱和敌人。这是一个简单的规则。在这里我就只要跳跃,但你要的可能是一些其他你喜欢的动作比如:胖揍、用剑、设计或者其他合适你游戏的动作。

你可能也知道这个跳跃需要在你按下键的同时就让角色表现出来,尽可能地减少延迟,几乎得做到同时,这不仅因为你想在深处危机时马上靠这个动作快速逃离出来,也因为它会让你有真正在控制这个角色的感觉,它会让你有种身临其境之感。如果情况相反(如果有任何延迟或其它问题),你会不得不在每次跳的时候很纠结这个延迟,并且角色会反过来控制了你。

Twin Flames Mario(from gamasutra.com)

Twin Flames Mario(from gamasutra.com)

这是怎么跟卡通片绘制联系起来的呢?那,如果你是一个卡通绘制者或者是一个非常细心的人你就知道问题出在哪里了。为了做出一个令人信服的跳跃动作(或者其他动作),你需要有预备动作。 这意味着,在人物能够跳跃以前,他必须屈膝或者做点准备。 这是可以随卡通绘制者所想做把动作做得或大或小的,做卡通电影的时候你会感觉世界上的一切自由都是你的。但当你正做的是互动体验时,事情就不一样了。

Richard William’s anticipation of a Jump(from gamasutra.com)

Richard William’s anticipation of a Jump(from gamasutra.com)

正如你所见,这跟我上面说的那些完全相反:你需要一个一触即发的跳跃来运转游戏,但你同时也需要给他准备动作让他看上去好看。是否有一个神奇的公式来解决这个问题吗? 好吧,有的!而且我已经告诉你是什么了:

功能比形式远来的更重要。在这里,这句话意味着跳跃首先应该让人感觉良好,运作顺利,一旦做到以上,你就可以进入动画阶段,尽你所能让它变得好看.

这只是一个简单的例子,但也存在其他情况,你可能会想让你的人物故意跳跃得有点延迟或者笨拙(很多恐怖游戏常常为吓你而把这些概念加入到游戏中)。这就是为什么首先明确“你所想要的动作”、 “这个动作要如何适配进入游戏”,第二步再决定“这个动作的样子”是非常重要的(体育游戏,平台游戏,回合制RPG游戏,冒险游戏,战斗游戏等等都有着非常不一样的节奏,因此需要被区别对待才行)。

Dark Souls(from gamasutra.com)

Dark Souls(from gamasutra.com)

黑暗之魂(Dark Souls)就是个很好的例子,故意延缓的绘制动作来让角色给人以一种压迫、难搞、重量级的感觉。

在Twin Flames(我们的快节奏动作的游戏平台)中我们就自己的主要角色处理了很多的这方面问题。不仅仅是跳跃,我们要解决挥剑,猛冲,蹲伏,投掷甚至毁灭的画面处理。由于游戏本身的性质,所有动作都要非常快。这样在被攻击或者需要逃跑时你才能很快地扭转战斗局势。

Twin Flames Animations(from gamasutra.com)

Twin Flames Animations(from gamasutra.com)

这通常意味着接下来一连串的反复实验,开发者们得删去一些动画帧来让动画显得合适,或者动画绘制者还得多画一些额外帧来将动作跟人物表现更好地融合在一块。我们作为一个团队整体,一起学习一起工作。

总而言之,尽管游戏外观是游戏里非常重要的一部分,但它不能——或者说不应该——成为这个团队的主要关注点。一辆漂亮的车子,有一个差劲的引擎,它还是一部烂车。别老忘了那个简单的规则。不要害怕用gray boxes或者place holders干活;不要害怕做出改变,不要因为一个动画或者asset是现成的就拿来用,如果做出来的东西没法用,果断换掉。

再次地,听起来可能老生常谈了,但我觉得重复强调它是有价值的:功能比形式远来的更重要。如果你对我上面说的都清楚了,那我很乐意看到你在项目中能把这些东西运用起来。我很肯定我们都有因为忘记了这个规则而把事情搞砸的经历。那么如果这是你第一次听说,我希望它能够帮到你!

本文由游戏邦编译,译者ciel chen,转载请注明来源,或咨询游戏邦,微信zhengjintiao

A Beautiful Bad Game
by Sergio Ortiz on 03/05/17 09:18:00 pm
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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Hello! I’m Sergio and I’ll talk briefly about a very important subject that, while obvious, I think it should not be overlooked

As you may know, in any project you should obey one simple rule: the function is more important than the form. Meaning that, what’s important in a game is first and foremost that your idea works nicely and that you achieve the level of fun you desire! (how to do this is another loooong topic). After that, your focus can be on looks and graphics as much as you want.

You may have a beautiful game, but if it’s filled with bugs or -worst of all- boring, no one will touch it. That’s why some older games never lose their appeal, while some newer games sit there collecting dust.

We all know how this ended.

Now, this may sound obvious when you read it like that, but we often forget this simple rule. And that’s natural, we’re human beings and like shiny and beautiful things. We’re attracted to them. When we come up with an idea, we often think first on how it will look or how it will make us feel, but not how to do it or how it fits into the overall project (again, this is a topic for another day that has more to do with game design and psychology).

If you’re part of the art team, it’s very easy to fall into this trap (unless you’re a seasoned sea dog) if not given the proper direction to work with. I’m an animator, and I often find myself in this little dilemma. i can often think on how to make a beautiful animation cycle for a character, or the most detailed and cool looking attack, but that’s because we animators often think we’re making a movie, and that’s not the case (same can happen to illustrators, musicians, designers, etc.). The animation needs to be beautiful, yes, but it also needs to be functional.

In a movie, you’re a passive audience, so the animation is designed for you to look and marvel at it. In a game, you need to control it.
I’ll give you a quick example. In most games, your character can jump. This action is often performed with a single button press. You see Mario, you press a button and he immediately jumps. That’s simple. You need this jump to be quick because you’ll use it to avoid traps and enemies. It’s a simple principle. I chose a jump, but you may think of any other action that you like: punching, using a sword, shooting, or whatever suits your game.

You may also know that this jump needs to be performed by the character as soon as you press that button, with as little lag as possible. It needs to be almost instantaneous, not only because it’s a very quick paced action that you’ll want to use instinctively when you’re in peril, but also because it’ll make you feel like you’re actually controlling the character, it helps with immersion. If it was the other way around (if it had any lag or problems) you would have to consider this with every jump, and the character would be controlling you (and this is not soviet Russia).

Your ability to effectively control Mario’s jump can be the difference between sweet victory or a humiliating game over.

How does this ties in with animation? Well, if you’re an animator or a very observant person you may already see the problem. In order to make a convincing jump (or any other action, really), you need anticipation. This means that, before the character can jump, he needs to crouch or prepare himself a little bit. This can be done as subtle or as obvious as the animator desires, and when you’re making a movie you have all the freedom in the world. When you’re making an interactive experience, the story changes.

Richard William’s anticipation of a Jump.

As you see, this contradicts directly the things I explained above: you need a jump to be instantaneous for it to work, but you also need to anticipate it for it to look good. Is there a magic formula to solve this problem? Well, there is! And I already told you what it is:
The function is more important than the form. In this case, it means that the jump must feel good and work in the first place, and once that’s done, you can proceed to animate and do your best to make it look good.

This is just a quick example, there may be cases where you’ll want your character to jump with a delay or make him clumsy on purpose (a lot of horror games used to play with this concept in order to frustrate you and scare you more). That’s why it’s important to first define what kind of action you want, how it fits into your game and THEN decide how it will look (sport games, platformers, FPS, turn based RPGs, adventure games, fighters, etc. all have very different pacings that need to be addressed differently).

Dark Souls can also be a perfect example of delayed animation used on purpose for creating tension, difficulty and a heavy-feeling character.
In Twin Flames (our very own fast paced action platformer) we deal with this issue a lot with our main characters. Not just with the jumps, but also with sword swings, dash, crouch, throwing animation, even damage animation. Due to the nature of the game, it all needs to be very fast. This allows you to change the tides of a battle quickly if you’re being beaten, or run away if you need to.

This is the main combo of Joachim. Different weapons can alter it, but the main principle remains. Notice the little to no anticipation of his swings.

This often meant a process of trial and error, with the programmers having to cut some animation frames in order to make the animation fit, or the animators having to draw later some extra frames to accommodate for the action being performed by the characters. We learn together and work as a team.

Enemies work a little different (you’ll often want to delay their actions on purpose), but that’s a topic for another day.

This enemy has A LOT of anticipation. And that’s generally a good thing.

To sum this up, while the looks are a very important part of a game, it is not -or should not- be the main focus or the team. A beautiful car with a bad engine is still a bad car, after all. Do not forget this simple principle. Don’t be afraid to work with gray boxes or place holders. Don’t be afraid to change things, don’t use an animation or an asset just because it’s already done, if it doesn’t work, you should change it right away.

And I’m not saying that games can’t have beautiful and detailed animations, they most certainly can! But they need to be very smart about it. So, when you see a game that’s functional AND with really beautiful art, that means that a very talented team worked on that project! If you have examples of this, share them with us!

Again, this may sound a little on the obvious side, but I think it’s worth repeating. If you already knew all of this, I’d love to hear your input on the subject. We all have stories of things gone wrong because we forgot to follow this rule, I’m sure. And if this is the first time you hear about this, I hope it helped!

What other subjects would you like me to address in future posts? Was there something on this post that you would like to see further explained? Leave a comment and ask away! See you next time!(source:gamasutra

 


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