BioWare has been making critically acclaimed games for ten years. Each new game we develop is a culmination of all the experience and talent that have been brought together to work under one roof with one goal in mind - to make great games. We continue our talks with some of the early BioWare employees who got their start as professionals in the games industry ten years ago working on Shattered Steel. Last week we got a peek into the early days of BioWare and the world of game development. This week, we caught up with artists Mike Sass, Dean Anderson, and Dave Hibbeln, designer John Winski, and producer Trent Oster to see what ten years in the business has taught them.

Mike Sass: Senior Promotional Artist

What is the difference in doing concept art such as what you did for Shattered Steel and your current role as Promotional Artist?

Mike: On Shattered Steel I was virtually the lone 2D artist, and as such I did a whole range of jobs that would fall under that role. For instance, I did concept art and all the textures in the game, and worked on the load screens, effects, and promotional art for the game. Being that I was a new worker in a new industry, I certainly wasn't an expert on anything and I was basically just doing what I thought was right without any standards or methods to use as guidance. All the editors and tools used for Shattered Steel were homemade or proprietary. Now, games being much larger and the technical roles more specialized, I concentrate solely on the promotional art for the games. This includes logos, advertising art, box art, magazine covers, desktops, and graphic design tasks. Most of my work can be seen on my website: www.sassart.com.

The main difference in my approach now is that I have a clearer notion of what good content looks like and what a good piece of illustration or concept art should have going for it to be effective.

Have you changed how you create your work in the years since you started in the games business?

Mike: Yes. I now concentrate mostly on whatever skill is most relevant to the creation of pictures rather than the individual building blocks of game art. When I started working on Shattered Steel, I was sat down on a PC for the first time (they used Macs in college) and the interface was DOS, not even Windows yet! Suffice to say, Interplay had to ship us up a Mac pretty fast, or I wasn't going to be of much use.

Now, I have used 3dsMax for many years, but I've stopped keeping up with the latest developments in modeling tools, as the techniques I know serve me well enough for my specialization. It's diminishing returns to keep up in all the areas at the expense of other basic art skills. A good composition will outweigh a good bump map in terms of the viewer's appreciation of a static image.

In terms of creating artwork, I have learned through experience what aspects of a job will require the most attention due to the job's purpose, and I can easily focus my energies on what will be important in any particular task.

What artists did you find inspiration in before you become a professional? Who do you look up to now?

Mike: During school, I was mostly into what was taught and focused on at the Alberta College of Art and Design. Commercial art, such as editorial and advertising illustration and graphic and corporate design, was what I learned and what I looked at most. These days, I am into old masters drawings and paintings, and I also enjoy classic (Greek and Roman) art. I also look up to many artists in my field, but since they are looking at the old masters as well, I'm more focused on the source rather than others' interpretation of those lessons.

Do you see the role of the artist changing in the future in the games industry?

Mike: Not really, actually. I think game artists are pretty well set in the ways that will be integral to this type of medium (games) for awhile. When computers fundamentally change and the gaming experience evolves, then you'll see the making of games being different. While technology is obviously more powerful now than ten years ago, the basics of pulling polygons and pushing pixels isn't very different. I foresee the biggest changes coming when your virtual actors are essentially little 3D people with as much detail as movies have, and you can force them to act things out in real-time like marionettes. This would spell the end of specialization for art tasks, and the beginning of pure creative content driving game creation. I'm assuming that when game content is this powerful, the tools will be easy and refined as well.

Dave Hibbeln: Director of Art

You were originally hired to help with animation on Shattered Steel. What was your previous experience or education in the field of animation prior to working on games?

Dave: I originally started out in 2D animation working locally for a National Film Board of Canada animated short film production called Cactus Swing. After that project was over I worked for a fellow who was doing contract computer animation out of his basement. That's where I learned how to use 3D graphic software. When I caught wind of a computer games company in Edmonton, I liked the potential I saw in BioWare and was hired on board as BioWare's first animator.

In the decade since you started, your role has changed significantly and you now wear the title of Director of Art. Is this quite a different turn of events from what you might have envisioned when you began working at BioWare?

Dave: Yes it is. BioWare was growing so fast that I felt it was necessary to help with that growth. There was an increasing need for Art management to strengthen our teams and I felt I could positively impact those changes. I also felt that my experience with art, animation, and completed games cycles would be advantageous to the company.

Art has become such a focus of games today with the increasing power of computers and graphics cards. How do you see your role as director of Art in helping BioWare stay current and exciting in today's market?

Dave: I believe in my team and I help to empower them and facilitate the creation of high quality art for our games. Within the art department, we have a unique mix of artistic vision, technical understanding, and passion for games that drives us to stay current in our rapidly evolving market place. It's our great people that balance and blend leading edge technology with superb art.

What part of the art process back in 1995 do you secretly miss that may have changed or been replaced by today's methods or technologies?

Dave: It is constraints, technological or otherwise, that drives innovation and creativity, not just in art, but in any endeavour of history. In a way, I miss the challenge of constraints that the early days of gaming placed upon art and animation. In Shattered Steel, I remember having six linear key frames and only a few articulated joints to make one of our robotic mechs look like it was walking. Having those limitations stirs within you a great creative force that compels you to squeeze "character" out of such a constraint. At the time, all you can think of is how great it would be to have more key frames, more pieces to move. Now looking back at it, there was an elegant simplicity to that. Currently, we can create animations with thousands of key frames and almost all the moving pieces you could want. It makes the quality more real, but the process more complicated - very much a double edged sword.

John Winski: Designer

How has design work changed in the ten years you have been making games?

John: For one thing, we have about 10 times the design team we had in the beginning. I started scripting missions in Shattered Steel with a very simple set of commands and now we have a scripting language that gives us both not too little and too much control. We designers are never happy unless we can mess with every little thing and complain to the programmers when things get out of control.

How did you get started in the games business?

John: I started by compiling a library of sound effects and using some of them for our first demo of Shattered Steel. I then moved on to making the missions for Shattered Steel.

What writers in the game industry today do you admire?

John: I personally don't really pay much attention to the writing in games. I find that I only notice when the writing is bad. The only good writing I pay attention to is what the writers at Bioware come up with. I especially like some of the wit of guys like Luke Kristjanson, Mike Laidlaw, and David Gaider.

What do you see as the biggest step forward for games in the last ten years in terms of story and writing?

John: Games now give the player more choices in character appearance, stats, good and evil, etc. Some games give too much choice while others are trying to find that happy medium. A game that can give you enough choices without distracting you from the main plot is a rare thing.

Dean Anderson: Art Director of BioWare's Upcoming PC RPG, Dragon Age

What is your art background or training?

Dean: I have been self-taught in all aspects of traditional and technical art. Having the incredible opportunity to work with and learn alongside so many gifted and talented artists over the past 10 years has significantly influenced and enhanced my traditional and technical art skills.

What work are you most proud of in your time with BioWare?

Dean: The entire Baldur's Gate series was very satisfying to work on. Being able to create an epic fantasy role-playing game(s) that is so well received from other gamers is a great reward, something I hope to continue with Dragon Age!

For Shattered Steel, you were credited with helping with concept art, and ten years later your job title is Art Director. How is your work different these days, and do you get a chance to do much hands-on art with your responsibilities?

Dean: It is very much the same, just more stress. ;) Years ago, I was more concerned with my current tasks and field (i.e, levels or characters), and how to enhance one specific portion of art. Now, I have to be very aware of the entire scope of the project. Keeping track of the art for an entire project is difficult and a lot of work; it is also incredibly satisfying since you can see firsthand the entirety of the project. I am currently lucky to get 3-4 hours a week of hands-on time. As Dragon Age ramps up into full production, I hope to split my time a little more evenly (25-75?) between managing and asset creation.

What are important fundamentals for an artist today who wants to work in the games business?

Dean: Traditional art skills, the ability to learn and adapt, and passion for the work you do.

Trent Oster: Project Director of Technology Architecture Group and Producer of Neverwinter Nights

What was your formal education and how did that lead into game development?

Trent: I'm formally trained as a programmer. Following my third year of Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan, I started a game development/computer consulting company with my older brother and a high school friend named Marcel Zeschuk. We worked as computer resellers/consultants during the day and our unpaid time was spent creating a shareware game called "Blasteroids 3D" as a proof of concept. Completing "Blasteroids 3D" proved it was possible for us to create a game (in 618k no less), so I abandoned my education and started work on a game we later called "Shattered Steel." Greg and Ray came along a little after and the rest is history. That's how I got started in game development.

You wore many hats during the development of Shattered Steel, including Lead 3D Artist, Sound/Hardware/Utility Programming, and Program Design. Did you start the project with all these skills or did you get a crash course in certain areas during development?

Trent: I'd have to say it was a crash course in everything. While co-designing the game, I worked in a programming role, implementing the input control system (mouse, keyboard, joystick) in both 16 bit and 32 bit assembly (love that extended DOS). I also wrote a sound system around the HMI middleware (which we grabbed after failing to write my own assembly sound engine in the two weeks allotted) and the basic AI system. The AI system was a quick placeholder job that was to be replaced before ship. ;-) The AI featured a very simple scripting language that was very syntactically and grammatically complex (not user friendly, sorry John). As well, the pathfinding system was an even more barbaric hack than the scripting system. About this time our 3D art requirements started to rise. I started working in 3D Studio rev 2, getting my feet wet. Soon I was our only 3D artist on the project. Initially I was responsible for every graphic item in the game, cinematics, GUI screens, etc. Luckily, we realized all that work was too much for one person and I wound up with most of my effort focused on the GUI screens. Even though I was able to offload the cinematics and some additional artwork, I was still responsible for all the code I had written and for co-designing major sections of game code.

If you could go back and give your pre-Neverwinter Nights self some advice on how to be the Producer of such a massive project what would you say?

Trent: I would say: Trent, my boy, this is going to be a boatload of fun and a serious kick in the guts at the same time. Approach everything head on and don't doubt your instincts. If you think a task can't be accomplished in the allocated time, it probably can't. I'd also tell myself to spend more time at home with my wife early on in the development cycle, as later on she was going to be a widow. I would tell myself to cut back the official campaign to a smaller, tighter story. I would advise spending more of my time working on the combat and animation systems, trying to keep them as simple as possible. I would also advise reworking the schedule early on and scheduling in demos more accurately.

What is the most exciting aspect of the project that you are working on now?

Trent: The most exciting aspect of working on the Eclipse Engine is the chance to design a completely new architecture to create games within. We can reflect on the experiences we've had, pull the best of what worked, the knowledge of what doesn't, and the ability to create some amazing new technology.

What are some changes you would like to see in the games industry in the future?

Trent: Wow, changes to the industry. That's a big topic. First off I'd like to see some technology standardization. Reinventing the wheel each iteration just costs too much. If the game engine just worked from day one we could spend our two plus years making a great game. I'd also like to see us do some sequels. We've spent so much time doing games from scratch lately we haven't been able to truly polish up our craft.

Games have grown into one of the biggest sectors of the global entertainment business. To succeed in this heavily competitive environment, a game developer must be organized, talented, flexible and passionate about what they do. BioWare has been very fortunate to employ some of the best artists, programmers, designers, and writers in the business and have them supported by a diverse group of marketing, administration, and human resources staff to make sure their work is recognized.

Happy 10 Years!

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