Game Team - who does what.

Discussion in 'General Gossip, Troll Wars & Game Development' started by JakeSimpson, Feb 7, 2015.

  1. JakeSimpson

    JakeSimpson Returning Developer One Of Us

    Don't normally post in this thread, but what the hell, should be open to all.

    So I've been blogging about the positions of a modern game dev team - what all the positions separate out to on a AAA dev team, with basic description of each. I figure students and others might find this interesting.

    It's a four part blog post, part 1 is
    http://jakeworld.org/JakeWorld/index.php/the-game-team-a-primer-in-who-does-what-and-why/

    part 2
    http://jakeworld.org/JakeWorld/index.php/the-game-team-2-art/

    Parts 3 and 4 are coming soon.

    Please, by all means retweet and share this. The idea is to get this info out into the world.
     
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  2. Dog

    Dog Artisan Cheese One Of Us

    You missed physics engineer.
     
  3. Demno

    Demno Sprite Monkey One Of Us

    " BattleField, for example, has specialists in just gun effects, never mind the rest of the game."

    Hmm, I must have missed that memo. ;) Source: Made some of the gun effects for battlefield last week, did other stuff this week.

    Fun note: we were a grand total of 3 vfx artists on BF4. One on Single Player, one on MP and one core.

    Cool article!
     
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  4. Scotcher

    Scotcher Guring Gama One Of Us

    Pssst, you have a grocer's apostrophe in the first paragraph of part 1.

    Cool stuff though.
     
  5. anonnymoose

    anonnymoose Industry God One Of Us

    WOOOOOAAHHHH there horsey! What?!?! Excuse me, AI coder here - not a damn scripter! Visual Studio, up to neck in whatever engine it is, at a AAA studio providing the AI commands that the scripters can use, plus more essential code that goes straight into the game. Non AAA - doing that plus the scripters work - if even working on a game that needs scripting.

    A Rather Large AAA game that I worked on had 3 full time AI coders (more than that in the credits, but not all worked together at the same time), in addition to other coders that worked very closely with us (physics, networking, animation coders, etc), on top of all the scripters using our code. There were in fact more AI coders than there were in-game animators, which I found surprising, to say the least!

    Anyway, other than that, good work :p
     
  6. Scotcher

    Scotcher Guring Gama One Of Us

    Aye, the splitting of the art disciplines looks more like a movie set-up than a games company. Modelling and texturing are normally done by the same artist at a feature level (World, Character, Vehicle etc), while rigging most commonly falls under Tech Art or Animation, not to a modeller. There are exceptions of course.
     
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  7. DoomBot

    DoomBot Unhinged Mike Oakenfield One Of Us

    Good read, thanks Jake. Not how I've experienced most studio set-ups but studios vary so much. Looking forward to the design part.
     
  8. JakeSimpson

    JakeSimpson Returning Developer One Of Us

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  9. EyeballKid

    EyeballKid Bitter. Twisted. Cynical. One Of Us

    Pfft.
    I don't see any Biologists or Biochemists in there. About half the 'proper' games I've worked on had at least one of each.

    (Oh. What do you mean most games don't bother modelling the Krebs cycle? Damn lightweight games these days, call themselves triple-A.... Sheesh... ;- )
     
  10. pharna

    pharna Bear of Despair One Of Us

    Few things:

    -UI Design should be an art position. Sure, it says DESIGNER but more often than not, this position requires a mix of art and code. Like reading bloody CSS.

    -Modeler/Rigger. Rigging is usually something that falls in tech artist domain given how animation and code are intertwining a lot and usually they do so at the skeleton and rig. The unglorious job of weight painting is usually still slumped on modelers.
     
  11. Hypercube

    Hypercube Industry Legend One Of Us

    Yeah in my experience on the programming side, if you're writing scripts you're also going to be writing C++. AI programmers may also use custom tools to create things like behaviour trees, but they're usually also writing C++ code to implement the behaviours used by those scripts/behavior trees.

    You do get people who only write scripts, but they tend to be on the game design/level design side. They're not responsible for the core AI behaviours though, just using the existing AI code/behaviour trees/scripts to achieve particular results.
     
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  12. Jaccident

    Jaccident Adminisbator Staff Member Administrator

    True, but every UI I've ever seen designed has been handled by a Designer or a Producer. At least up until the point that all screens have been mapped, key elements noted, and (particularly when a strong metaphor is in use) exceptions noted. Then it might be handed to a more technical person. Usually with this input, help from an artist, and a good eye, a competent programmer can take this on. Added benefits there being a good knowledge of TRC/TCRs which can be a life saver.
     
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  13. tricky

    tricky Meat Popsicle Staff Member Administrator

    Really well thought out and put together. I think a lot of people can definitely benefit from reading it.
     
  14. IFW

    IFW Not allowed to say NFTS are shit One Of Us

  15. danpaladin

    danpaladin Will Wright One Of Us

    hehe. I read Jake's post and realize how many positions aren't in existence here. w/e YOLO

    Great post that I hope spreads around. I think a lot of people aren't aware of how much of a breakdown happens at a lot of places.
     
  16. Kipper

    Kipper Hardcore Gamer One Of Us

    What?
     
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  17. danpaladin

    danpaladin Will Wright One Of Us

    Yeah, screw that. Programmers shouldn't have to work more than 40 hours a week like anyone else unless they feel like it. That's how it is here, anyway.
     
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  18. IFW

    IFW Not allowed to say NFTS are shit One Of Us

    First 80% of the project

    1. The Producer buys pizza
    2. The programmer sits around on facebook all day, trying to get motivation to work
    3. The designer is sat around playing lots of games, looking for "inspiration" (aka ideas to steal)
    4. The artist is playing with all the dolls on their desk

    During this time, the boss will arrange "team building" things, like lunch time yoga, massages, drinks at work on Friday afternoon, etc. Anything to get in the way of work getting done. During this period you'll often see people running around with nerf guns and generally acting like children.

    Last 20% of the project

    Everyone runs around like headless chickens while moaning they have to work weekends... All while wondering why the game wasnt done in the first 80% of the time.



    Rule of thumb : Regardless of discipline - dont be the idiot who does work in the first 80% of the game.. You'll regret it later when, due to you having put the most work in, you'll end up with the most bugs too.
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2015
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  19. RaspoFabs

    RaspoFabs Advanced Troll One Of Us

    3 AI programmer? Pfeh! Frontier had a team of 9 AI programmers while I was there working on Outsider.
     
  20. anonnymoose

    anonnymoose Industry God One Of Us

    What, just to fly some ships through zero-gravity? ;)