Roles in Games Technology

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Roles in Games Technology Development

• Dr Manolya Kavakli
• Department of Computing
• Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia

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Roles in Game Design

• Producer
• Assistant Producer
• Game Director
• Game Designers
• Programmers
• Art Director
• Graphic Artists
• Animator
• Illustrator
• Sound Engineers
• Composer
• Actor

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Game Producer

• may earn 30000-100000 per annum.
• has an organisational and financial role on the
  project.
• facilitates communication between the project
  members and act as a central decision-making body
  for the game.
• compiles budgets and financial information.
• ensures that the game director's vision is
  realistically able to be achieved during the game
  development process.
• responsible for scheduling staff on a game, in
  order to meet milestones.
• required to organise research for the game.
• They are liaison between the project team and
  executives.

4
Assistant Producer

• may earn 25000-60000 per annum.
• responsible for assisting to facilitate
  communication between the project members.
• organises research for the game, and
• compile budgets and financial information.

5
Game Director

• like the conductor of the orchestra.
• ensures that the game comes to life.
• The game director's role is to turn the
  designers' vision into action.
• writes briefs for tasks required on the game and
• works very closely with the game designer
• Often, the game designer is also the game
  director.

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Game Designers

• may earn 30000-80000 per annum.
• acts like a movie scriptwriter.
• the storyteller and creative mind behind the game
  play.
• understand the underlying the logic of
  programming, game mechanics and theory.
• have an intuition of what's possible.
• have played a huge variety of games
• have studied a wide range of topics history,
  science, and the inner workings of games.

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• A designer
• not necessarily required to be a programmer
• or artist,
• but must be exteremely knowledgeable about these
  areas,
• the limitations involved and the boundaries
  within which they can work.
• must be avid game players and
• have excellent written and oral communication
  skills.
• The game designers main task
• to produce game design document
• which is a comprehensive style guide and bible
  for the creation of the game.
• A design document is the major form of reference
  for all team members.

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• responsible for the myriad of statistics,
  properties, and rules that go into a game, and
• have to balanced the details to make a game fun.
• spend a great deal of their time creating the
  content that goes into a game,
• such as the levels,
• the puzzles,
• the scenarios, and so on.
• spend about two months creating an overview
  document
• detailing whether a character can walk, swim or
  fly,
• where action takes place,
• the goal of the game,
• and other details.
• This is then fed to programmers and artists for
  their input.
• may work on a project for anything up to two
  years.

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Programmers

• may earn 30000-120000 per annum.
• writes the underlying game code, providing the
  structure for the game.
• work closely with the artists and designers in
  order to provide a cohesive framework.
• be required to work on the building tools for the
  game
• (often known as the game engine), and/or
• making the game happen using these tools.

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• proficient in computer programming languages such
  as C and assembly.
• write good quality code in C and C.
• have usually studied
• software design,
• algorithms,
• data structures, and
• maths.

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the tasks that a programmer may be required to do

• networking system
• artificial intelligence system
• rendering system (graphics)
• game sound system
• physics system
• game ecology
• animation system
• movement system
• documentation

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Art Director

• earn 50000-100000 per annum.
• manages a team of artists, creating the art
  content for the game.
• responsible for
• establishing production schedules, task lists,
  managing the art team on a day-to-day basis,
  maintaining the artistic consistency and overall
  quality of the art content, conducting risk
  analysis of the art pipeline and providing
  guidance to members of the art team.
• have ability to manage an art team to tight
  deadlines, good working knowledge of software
  packages
• such as 3D Studio Max and Character Studio,
  knowledge of spreadsheets and project management
  software.

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Graphic Artists

• may earn 30000-100000 per annum.
• proficient in drawing the 2D and 3D images used
  in games.
• have studied art and honed their artistic skills,
  
• which include texture and composition skills, as
  well as know how to use software such as
  Photoshop, 3D Studio Max, Lightwave, Maya,
  Softimage, and other graphics packages.
• build a portfolio by practising character design.
  http//www.3dpalette.com.

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• Games require both 2D and 3D art specialists to
  create the visual aspect of the game.
• A graphic artist would be required to do
  following tasks
• to create 3D models of characters, buildings, and
  other game units
• to illustrate and conceptualise in a 3D
  environment
• to have texturing skills
• to create realistic objects within a limited
  polygon count
• to sketch out models on paper before creating
  them using computer software

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Animator

• An animator is a 3D Graphic Artist
• creates animated objects within the game.
• require
• a good traditional animation training background
  and
• an understanding of the principles of animation.
• the skills of a 3D artist.
• may earn 30000-100000 per annum.

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Illustrator

• An illustrator is an artist working on
• character design and
• related environments for computer games.
• have
• traditional illustration and
• colour rendering skills to comprehensively render
  characters in 2D.

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Sound Engineers

• earn 30000-55000 per annum.
• musicians in their own right, and
• responsible for
• creating the sound effects and
• musical soundtracks for games.
• They are
• both musically inclined and
• sophisticated users of the latest in sound
  editing and music composition software and
  equipment.

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• An average game takes about
• six months to create the sounds.
• In an interactive game,
• one piece of animation may have six different
  optional audio tracks.
• The sound designer is responsible for
• organising the sound effects and
• sound track for the game.
• Their role is
• to enhance the quality of the sounds so they are
  suitable for the game.
• work closely with
• the game producer, game designer and composer in
  order to create the most appropriate soundscape
  for the game.

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Composer

• creates the game soundtrack.
• write the score and
• produce the music for the game.

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Actor

• Computer games require contract actors
• to play out parts in ingame cinematics, and
• to provide voice-overs where required.
• In Australia, an actor may earn 30 an hour.