Comparing ACTIVISION to TALE OF TALES

Companies: Activision vs Tale of Tales

Activision in general is a big company that’s been around since 1979 with Bobby Kotick as the current CEO. They have a very professional looking website and their games mostly consist of movie/ comic licensed/ branded titles; Tony Hawk series, Transformer series, Spiderman series. The games are catered more to the multiplayer, social, casual audiences; Spyro the Dragon series, Prototype, Call of Duty series, Guitar Hero series. These games are available on multiplatforms; Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo. The employees working in Activision is estimated to be about 4000 people, so they pretty much have a massive web workflow within the company, although, recently in February 2011, more than 100 workers were given the sack due to bad sales.

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In contrast, Tale of Tales (TOT) is quite a new small company that’s been around only since 2002. Founded by Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn, TOT made several games that are catered to a rather indie, non-casual and experimental side of gaming world; The Graveyard, Vanitas, The Endless Forest and most of them are an  reconception that are based on old childhood references; The Path, Fatale. Its not stated anywhere how many employees are working in TOT, however, it is clear that it is a pretty budget company and there should be a clear and easy workflow within the company. So far, TOT only cater to PC and MAC which pretty much put them slightly off the radar of popular gaming and also in comparison to Activision, TOT’s website is quite unprofessional.

Games: Guitar Hero 5 vs The Path

Guitar Hero from Activision had evolved massively every since the 1^st time it came out, then only being able to be played by 2 player on guitar or controllers, now Guitar Hero 5, is playable up to more than 4 people at a time, this includes drums, singing, guitar, bass and multiple use of same instruments. Games such as Guitar Hero definitely benefits the company because such party game is easier to digest and to enjoy anytime and anywhere, for example, it can always be used at game conventions as a tournament or purely entertainment purpose or house party or any other even for that matter, more over, it is also multi-platforms, which means that it will not discourage people with different consoles to get their hands on it, which in turn will affect the business. Although not a novelty (there were guitar games before on arcades), this title influenced and launched the cultural phenomenon of musically inclined games such as; Rockband, Singstar, DJ Hero, Band Hero, Rock Revolution. From its 1^st release in 2005 till 2010, this franchise had release more than 20 games on the market and there a few more in line for 2011. Also when it started out, it doesn’t have any license to use any of the original songs, however it is now possible since the 2^nd game and even having artist and rockbands doing a motion capture for the in-game characters.

The Path from TOT in my opinion, is one of the most interesting and functional indie game I’ve ever experienced. The game let players choose 1 of the 6 sisters at a time and the objective is to get to the grandmother house, loosely based on the story of Red Riding Hood. The game only took about 5-8 minutes max for players to walk on the path as instructed and reach the grandmother’s house where the game ends; where it struck you that this is not how you actually want to play this game. Replay the game, explore the area anywhere but the path and you will experience a whole different perspective of this underrated creation. Each sisters have different desires of their own and their own metamorphic version of big bad wolf. It is very conceptual and at the end of every sister's story it gets rather graphically disturbing as well; all them sort of die in the end in the grandmother's house in a slightly abstract way. This may not be the kind of game for everyone and most people will not even bother to get off the path or just simply dismiss the game as boring without actually being patient enough to see its real content. It is of course a fine line, to claim some of these games from TOT to be “experimental” or “conceptual/artsy” in excuse for being lazy or for the sake of being different, although The Path in my opinion escapes those idea, some of the other games from TOT definitely is not as good; The Graveyard, a game whereby the player guides an old woman to sit in a graveyard and die, or The Endless Forest where we play as deer looking creatures and roam around endlessly in a forest for no apparent reason or goals. Yes, they might be relaxing games and original, but I thought that it is such a waste to pay for a game just to finish it in 5 minutes after killing an old woman or not knowing whatever is happening in the Endless Forest. They definitely posses lots of potentials and could be executed much better like The Path.

In Conclusion

So needless to say, Activision is definitely a more crowd friendly company, but I have to say that I respect TOT a lot more for doing what they do and gathering their kind of fans; just like any cult scenes, there may only be a few in the group, but they follow you to their grave. Although still, like I mentioned, most games from TOT are more likely to be an excuse of being lazy or for the sake of being different in disguise of experimental value, but game such as The Path is a quality creation and it gave me a whole new way to look at this company.

Game Company research

I emailed 3 key people from 3 game companies;

- Jenova Chen, That Game Company (FlOw, Flower, Journey)

- Alex Evans, Media Molecule (Little Big Planet 1 & 2)

- Fumito Ueda, Team ICO Sony (ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian)

I asked them about the company’s pipelines and workflow, also stuff like how they conduct research and if there is any specific kind of method for research or process in creating any of their games. Unfortunately only Jenova Chen got back to me and even then, he apologized as he is currently busy with his upcoming PSN game, Journey.

“Hi Elbert,

Sorry about the delay. And thank you very much for the kudos. The questions about pipeline is not something I can answer you without going into a lot of depth. And I'm afraid I won't be available to go through it this time due to the Journey production works and many conference talks I have to attend to. Sorry about the disappointment.

Sincerely,

Jenova”

It is still pretty cool to be able to reach someone that work I respect so much, and it is also very nice of him to actually reply even though he is busy. 

Animation

2D & 3D Animation

The project given to do is to create about 4 seconds animation either in 2d (using Adobe Photoshop) or 3D (using Autodesk Maya) with sound clips provided by the school. Even though it is not what I want to focus on, I decided to go with 3D, for 2 reasons; 

- 2D animations have more personality, yes, but it is also time consuming, while 3D, the hard part is to do the rig, which in this case, is already provided, so obviously animating in 3D is the best choice for now if I don't really want to focus so much on animation. (more effort and time can be put for other current projects such as Mudbox)

- secondly, since I'm not really into 3D as much, chances are I won't really go much for Maya in the future, so I should take this opportunity to try explore it. (since 2D photoshop is more frequently used in contrast)

I have used Maya before for character or object modeling but not for animation, and to be honest, it is like entirely learning a new software, Maya never ceases to surprise me on how complex it can be, I find it a challenge to follow and many of the classmates who uses this for the 1st time are really intimidated and immediately revert back to going 2D. Photoshop/ Adobe Flash is such a pie in creating an animation in comparison to Maya, even the interface is easier to understand in Mudbox. However, I still find that Maya a software that I have to know the basics about if I want to work in the game industries, after all, it really is a powerful software; God Of War 3 were engine were built in Maya and we all know that is quite a massive game. Of course, being done some character modelings before, I also see the link between concept art (something I want to pursue) and 3D model; they really go hand in hand in a working condition, so its good to know how a rig works or how a rig is suppose to be fit on a model.

In conclusion, I'm not really keen in working on animation with Maya, but I see a lot of potential that we can be created with this software, so I'll keep an open mind on it.

12 Principles of Animation (Good examples)

 

Squash and stretch

- defining the rigidity and mass of an object by 

distorting its shape during an action

 

This is Will E. Coyote trying to propel himself like an arrow using a bow.

He stretches his body along with the bow and let go, but obviously failed 

miserably and squashing himself instead.

Timing and motion

- spacing and actions to define the weight and

size of objects and the personality of characters

Follow through and overlapping action

- the termination of an action and establishing its

relationship to the next action

This is Road-runner stopping from a chase for a second, and its body sort of

wobbled back and forth when it does. creating an overlapping action for the

stopping action.

Straight ahead action and pose-to-pose action

- the two contrasting approaches to the creation of 

movement


Pose to pose
The Pose to Pose method of animation is possibly an alternative solution to the drawbacks of Straight Ahead Action. The Pose to Pose method is commonly a more ideal path for animators to work with, however, like every method in any profession or skill, there are pros, and there are cons.


Straight ahead animation
Straight ahead is generally considered the "newbie" way of animating, because of it's forward and improvisational nature, however, the professionals use straight-ahead runs in their animations, and at times such runs could produce a "magical" vitality that wasn't seen there before. When animating straight ahead, one merely draws from start to finish without any "guideposts" or key frames (storytelling drawings) or extremes. Just draw as you go.

Example of Straight ahead animation

Video of Tha Cliff 2 
by Xeffpatterson (Felix G. Harvey)

Anticipation

- the preparation for an action

That's the part when stickman is about to hit the cliff...

This is when the jetpack is about to explode...

and this last picture is when the stickman is going to catapult itself...

Staging

- presenting an idea so that it is unmistakably clear

The stickman on the right is obviously going to shoot the stickman on the left...

homage to lion king...

Slow in and out (ease in and out)

- the spacing of the in-between frames to achieve

subtlety of timing and movement

&

Arcs

- the visual path of action for natural movement

Homage to the movie 300, 

it slows down in midair and out when it made contact with the target.

Body moves in an arc.

Secondary action

-       the action of an object resulting from another action

(movement of stickman)

Exaggeration

- accentuating the essence of an idea via the design and the action

This is a good example of Japanese anime exaggeration style,

from One Piece; a scene involving Zoro & Sanji and their flexible

facial expressions

Appeal

- creating a design or an action that the audience enjoys

watching

Chocobo is definitely one of the most loved character for gamers around the world

Sackboy from Little Big Planet, who is easily likable 

Personality

- in character animation is the goal of all of the above

Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas

Jack Skellington's facial expressions

Solid drawing
- The idea behind this principle is that every frame in an animation should be able to stand out on its own as a solid drawing. In this following animation by TomSka; he uses a lot of still pictures (solid drawing).

                                                   

An example of solid drawing from the animation.

Bad Examples of animation

 These are examples of animation that are really bad simply because

 they do not apply the 12 main principles of animation properly

Examples on how music plays a big part in animation