ARCHIVE EVENT: February 2009
"A Pragmatist's Guide to Making Launch Title Games"
With Neil Thompson, Art Director, SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT EUROPE
Wednesday 18th February, 6.30pm for 7pm start, £4
Swansea Metropolitan University's
Dynevor Centre for Art, Design and Media (Main Lecture Theatre)
Wipeout HD © Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
With the launch of Sony's PlayStation 3 in 2006 a new era of high-definition gaming was unleashed upon the world.
With the unprecedented leap in visual quality from the previous hardware generation, the challenge for developers was to meet the expectations of the gaming public while still aiming to keep timescales, team size and budgets under control.
Neil Thompson, Art Director at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, looked at how developing a game for console launch is a unique challenge: working with moving parameters and unfinished hardware is not for the faint hearted.
This presentation was an exploration into the development of the multi million selling "Formula 1: Championship Edition", a discussion of the tools developed and techniques deployed by the art team as they struggled with an 8 month deadline and shifting launch dates to produce 18 tracks, 20 cars, 20 drivers and a racing experience worthy of the most glamorous motorsport in the world!
This session was supported by Skillset Screen Academy Wales:
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Neil Thompson |
Neil Thompson is Art Director for the Sony Liverpool Studio, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and a Game’s industry veteran since 1987. After a background in illustration Neil began his career at Icon Design and then Lothlorien Ltd: stalwarts of the 8-bit era, providing content for Spectrum and Commodore 64 games. He joined Psygnosis in 1991 and was instrumental in their adoption and use of high end 3D software at the dawn of the PlayStation era. From the R & D group he contributed to the original “Wipeout” before taking the Art Director role at the fledgling Psygnosis Manchester studio. Independent development beckoned and Neil spent five years as co-owner and Art Director of Curly Monsters Ltd working with both Infogrammes and Microsoft on the first party Xbox title: “Quantum Redshift”. A return to Psygnosis (now Sony Liverpool) in 2003 saw Neil as Art Director on the “Formula 1” franchise culminating in the hugely successful PS3 launch title, “F1 Championship Edition”. With Sony’s acquisition of Evolution and bigBIG in 2007 Neil undertook the new challenge of Studio Art Director for Liverpool, Evolution and bigBIG studios. |
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