Task 7

After reading through a few of these links, it’s clear that art direction is a very important aspect of the game industry. The art director’s guidance is vital to the overall vision of the game as it’s their responsibility to decide how it’s going to look. Their word can be absolutely imperative to gameplay factors as well when considering genres that rely heavily on atmospherics to involve the player.

I think it’s a very creative role as the director is one of the few people who can really express their vision of the game by setting the visual tone and style. They can then use their underling artist-slaves to express this style of theirs, forcing them to either take the graveyard shift or be shifted to the graveyard… at least, that is my understanding of the power of an evil art director. Na, in reality I think the art director has massive responsibilities as it is they who’ll have to get that overall feel of the game just right and make sure they’re able to express their views to the artists. It’s also up to them to keep up the morale of the artist team so I think it’s important that they’re considerate and understanding human beings who can really demonstrate leadership skills.

As games are interactive experiences, things such as colour and small environmental details can be very important to the overall feel of the game. This is where I feel game art direction differs from the film variety; a film director is able to choose what he wants you to see and from which angles should be best to see them to get the desired effect. In a game, this is often not the case as the player is able to explore and interact with the environment so this makes the art direction perhaps trickier to effectively utilise.

There are many qualities and skills I’d need to develop to become a game art director. I think the most important would be 3D modelling, drawing, teamwork and leadership skills. I definitely think the level or responsibility and pressure would be something difficult to cope with at first, but I imagine it’s a very enjoyable and rewarding job which would be a really effective way to get your vision of a game across.

Thanks for reading, and on a side note, it was really interesting to check out the views of real life game art director, Rick Nath. It was a great insight into how an art director works and what kind of responsibilities they’ve got to deal with. That game where you got to be the serial killer sounded sooo darn cool, why’d it have to be scrapped?! *sigh* …P.S. I am NOT a serial killer nor do I endorse serial killing!