In my head I picture a black screen with a whole lot of numbers and letters, but how are video games actually made? How do they work? Say an open world survival game as an example.
In: Technology
A modern video game is collaborative art, just like a movie; and shares with movies the types of artists required to produce it.
A writer or team of writers come up with an argument and a story line. A sketch artist will draw some storyboards based on that. A producer or someone like that makes decisions to refine the story line, and there are a few iterations of that.
Once the story line is decided, other artists come into play. Someone designs the scenery, someone designs the 3D objects and characters, someone designs the sounds. All of those things are then produced using 2D and 3D drawing software, and so on. Music is composed, played, recorded. Actors play parts to be captured by motion capture devices and turned into movement for the 3D characters and objects. All of this happens under the supervision of an art director. Then it all needs to be edited together.
All modern video games are computer programs. Based on the story line, developers create programs that take input from devices like game controllers, keyboards, mice, and interpret them to make things move and happen in the video game. It could be as simple as changing the color of something, or as complex as applying aerodynamics to decide how some object will move through air. Once the program has decided on what the outcome should be, what should move where and how, it triggers those events to be displayed to the player on a screen.
Latest Answers