Here's the 411 on makin' all the cool animals, buildings and other 3D game objects in Zoo Tycoon 2 video game - straight from a video game artist and developer from Blue Fang Games - the company that's making Zoo Tycoon 2 for Microsoft!
Name: Thomas Gale
Title: Artist (and very recently half-designer).
Responsible for: A lot of work overlaps with other team members, but I have been involved in the concept development and creation of the following features: buildings, scenery, trees, rocks, water, terrain, sky, fences, paths, lights, FX, and plenty of XML data tweaks. I have also contributed to lots of miscellaneous features and prototyping too.
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A day in the life of... I begin the day with my commute to work through the back roads, where the drive is a little more scenic than the highway. I leave for work after morning rush hour and leave for home after evening rush hour. Nice. Our office building is very large and reminiscent of a cruise ship from the look of the architecture. The building is shared with corporate businesses and Blue Fang's corner suite is just one of many. We "gamers" appear quite casual in contrast with the well-dressed whitecollars that we intercept in the common halls. Once inside the Blue Fang suite, you will see that it is filled with cubicles and personal offices. There is a kitchen, meeting rooms, and a relaxation/console gaming room. Desktop computers dominate the landscape. The office is decorated with nice framed prints of animals and various pop culture posters. People's cubicles are typically personalized with kitsch and clutter.
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We each have a coordinated schedule that helps us stay on track with production. There are various phases in a long development project such as Zoo Tycoon 2: Early on there are concepting and prototyping phases; then the production phase begins in earnest; and finally features get wrapped up as we enter a major debugging and tweaking phase. A typical day for an artist is mostly spent in 3DstudioMax animating, modeling, or texturing. All of the game assets are stored in a virtual repository. When somebody works on something they "check it out" and then "check it back in" when they are done. This is done so we don't step on each other's toes and so that all of our work is backed up. Sometimes we decide to revert to a previous version of a particular part of the game in order to debug. Specialized exporters, text editors, preview tools, and Photoshop are also applications you might glimpse running on a hard working artist's computer if you were to walk by. It's important to see your work in the game context, so we also run the game in its current state to test what we're working on at the time. A big part of development is communication so internal email is usually running constantly. Any remaining time is usually spent in meetings (big or small, official or unofficial) where the details come to life and decisions get made.
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When lunchtime arrives we may head down to the common cafeteria, drive out to a restaurant, or race down to the mall to pick up the latest game. In the mid-afternoon some folks like to take a stroll in the parking lot around the "cruise ship" building. At the end of the day we try to play intra-office multiplayer games or maybe take a spin on one of the consoles...or I could also skip down to the gym if I was ever needing a workout. Nah.
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Questions
Describe in detail how this feature works, what it involves, and improvements over the earlier version of Zoo Tycoon.
Objects in Zoo2 include everything that the player can place on the virtual terrain. Zoo2 carries over most of the standard buildings and objects from the original Zoo Tycoon such as benches, trashcans, food stands, and bathrooms; but there also numerous improvements and greatly expanded categories of objects. There are new guest related objects such as donation boxes, educator podiums, and viewing binoculars that add to gameplay depth and allow for more variety of guest activity. There are new animal enrichment objects such as climbing bars, balls, painting easels, and scratching posts that enliven and improve animal exhibits. There are also several stylized themes for certain buildings and objects that allow the player to blend and match structures to the surrounding natural environment. Overall Zoo Tycoon 2 offers a greater range of control and variety when players construct their virtual zoos.Click Here for more Zoo Tycoon 2 questions and answers.
