The 21st Century Art Director

Justin Muir
Introduction
• Stranglehold is Midway's first AAA title for next-gen
• First person action/adventure game sequel to John
Woo's classic film Hard Boiled

• Decision to outsource was primarily driven by project

timeline
• Amount of content needed requires us to look for
external solutions
Introduction
• Not just managing in-house teams any more
• Projects structured with shared efforts and in-sourcing

• Outsourcing becoming a standard part of our production

process
• Significant portion of art budget
• Sequels will have greater percentages of outsourced
content
Introduction
• Core Art Team
– Visual Direction/Concept.
– Innovation/R&D.
– Managing mission critical risks.
– Nailing Specifications.
– Proven Prototypes.
Evaluation
• Make the decision to outsource early
• Carefully consider what elements to outsource and the
pros/cons – more complexity = more preparation
• Evaluate your outsourcers well in advance of tasking
them with work – takes time to get responses
• Use vendor’s portfolio as starting point
• Create a detailed questionnaire
• Vendors may be great in one discipline but inexperienced
in another
• Test vendors with the types of assets you intend them
produce along intended timeline - crucial
Evaluation : Vendor Factors
• Management structure
• Team skills and structure
• Track record
• Software used
• Production bandwidth
• Proximity
• Cost
• Availability
• Financial state
• How much we are going to have to train them?
• Internal level of art direction and art quality
• Ability to incorporate feedback
• Emulation : can they reproduce our artwork?
• Level of technical ability
Evaluation : Art Quality
• Crucial for next-gen assets, given cost
• Closer an asset comes in to final quality : less
feedback/less risk
• Old adage of the last 10% can be 50% of the work
• Really trying to get to 90%+ for our assets (Color
correction, QA pass and migration to game tree)
• Changes can be expensive, untimely and ruinous
Evaluation : Testing
• Run outsourcers through the same tests so you have a
comparison point
• Each test should focus on a different element, function or
skill – structure them differently

• How well do they work with the reference we supply?

• How well do they work with the feedback we supply?
• How long does it take for an asset?

• Task them with making an asset before and after feedback.

• Can they nail it with a full paintover?
Evaluation : Summary
• Go out there for an on-site visit – meet the team – cheap
form of insurance
• Prepare to allocate a staff member at the start of
production to assist with ramp up time, art direction and
other intricacies
Preparation
• Outsourcing requires solid preparation
• Especially for near final assets with higher levels of project integration

• Involves a wide gamut of disciplines beyond art

• Legal : Contracts
• Design : Gameplay requirements
• Engineering : Engine, tools, plug-ins, scripts

• Large demand upon concept and art leadership

• Art : Visual style, art direction, reference
Prep : Low Level Details
• Tools/Engine/Plug-ins/Scripts
• Binaries, documentation

• Shared specifications and reference

• Completed Asset Samples
• Technical Specification Document
• Identify techniques that you want to see the outsourcer
observe in production of your assets
• Prepare a detailed tutorial for each technique
Prep : Technical Specs
• Invest heavily in a quality detailed document - derive it from
what your internal team uses

• Source asset details – paths, 3D/PSD file requirements

• Naming conventions
• Topology – closed edges, smoothing, tris/quads
• Use of transparency (alpha), separate textures
• UV mapping, texture resolution and allocation

• Leave some vacant texture space (we leave 1/16th)

• Supply pre-approved shaders - “That 100 instruction material

looks cool but we can’t use it!”
Prep : Visual Reference
• Communicate the visual vision of the project early so you
will need less during production
• Images are much more valuable to a remote and culturally
different vendor

• Provide as much reference as possible

• Supply concepts, drawings, screenshots to convey mood
• Breakout sheets illustrating components
• Material reference

• Sample completed assets and source files, indicative of

the desired quality
Prep : Individual Tasks
• Clearly define tasks along with their order and priorities

• Asset name
• Supply reference, drawings, proxy models
• Poly count, material
• Dimensions
• Special requirements

• Polygonal details compared to alpha masks

• Texture allocation, sharing and re-use

• Expect to spend time preparing details for each asset

Prep : Pre-Paintover
• Deals with multiple construction issues that are likely to
arise
• Can usually save a review iteration – no surprises
• Nominate polygonal divisions, construction, density
• Nominate texture usage – alpha and UV usage
Scheduling
• Outsourcing does not equal fast

• Allow time in schedule for feedback, ambiguity, training

and revisions.

• Don’t expect tasks to be done faster that what could be

achieved internally

• Incorporate in your own internal art schedule time for

polish and fix-ups
Scheduling : Asset Times
• Make sure there is time to get the vendor up to speed
with each asset class

• A five day task may take seven days to actually achieve,

plus a day of internal revision to get it up to 100%

• A time difference with an overseas outsourcer can drag

out even simple questions

• Allocate time for feedback based on the object, per

object – more complex assets will need more time to
correct
Art Direction & Feedback
• Managing outsourcing is a full time gig
• One person can purely focus on the outsourcing, and all the
auxiliary components such as legal, finance, etc.
• Good general art skills go a long way
• Single point for art direction – no confusion between
comments from multiple stakeholders. Discrepancy or
disagreement gets resolved transparently
• Internal team is buffered from the majority on questions and
requests from the outsource vendors
• Turn around and response time for any request is reduced to
a minimum
• ‘A dedicated person’ is preferred by 98.6% of vendors
Art Direction & Feedback
• Conference Calls
• Email
• Forums

• Intricate assets need more feedback

• Be judicious - revisions every day can slow things down
• Set targets - model, UV allocation, textures, in-engine

• Visual communication more effective across cultural boundaries

• Make feedback clear, concise and objective
• Get both an abridged format and the source where possible
Art Direction : Object Sheets
• In-game renders, wire-frames and thumbnails of all
textures used

• Polycount, topology, open edges

• UV allocation and texture ratio
• What, and how textures are being used (diffuse, specular
and normal)

• Serves as a base for paintovers

• Highly portable – easy to illustrate was has been delivered
• Max/Maya scripts to auto-generate
Art Direction : Word Paintover
• We’ve all seen these before – annotated drawings to
illuminate what needs to be changed
• Better for details, can still be ambiguous aesthetically
Art Direction : Image Paintover
• We draw in the exact changes we would like to the asset
• Add 10% grime becomes easy to understand and
eliminates confusion
• Textures can often be taken directly from the concept or
its layers in the PSD
• For an asset that has been troublesome to get right, its
one of the best things we have found
• Animated GIF – shows the before and after of the asset

• Be judicious – these they take a fair bit of time to prepare

Source (from object sheet)

Paintover

Hi-Res PSD provided for texture source

Delivery
• FTP , P4 and DVD delivery

• Mirrored Directory Structure

• Art from outsourcers gets quarantined here
• Pre-organized to specification
• Easy to check if the naming and placement is correct
and if anything is missing
• Both groups can work independently
• Neither group can interrupt each other
• An artist can migrate assets over into the game path as
they are double checked and verified
Summary

• Vet your potential outsourcers thoroughly

• Prepare extensively to reduce revisions
• Schedule appropriately – longer time per asset
with some cleanup
• Have dedicated art management for
outsourcing
• Use detailed visual feedback – have concept
bandwidth
Questions?

jmuir@midwaygames.com