Column: 'Blogged Out: From Sketches To Rep'

This week's edition of 'Blogged Out', the news report that looks at the world of developer blogging and the conversations being had with the community at large, looks at representational sketches, John Romero, and representational reputations. In this extract, the first of these subjects is broached, as follows: "Rob 'Xemu' Fermier of Ensemble Studios has been talking about prototyping and 'The Hand Drawn Screenshot': 'We've been doing a lot of talking lately around here about the use of a "perfect scene" in our development process. Back in AOM we used a lot of conceptualized screenshots for prototyping things like god powers and our water effects, but really didn't get a perfect scene, as in, a representative high water mark for the graphics in the game, until fairly late in the process. One of the approaches we are taking to move that earlier in the developmental process this time is working more towards hand-drawn (or painted) representational sketches. That is to say, concept art not of units or environments but of what a hypothetical screenshot might be. This approach doesn't always capture the details of representation and rendering perfectly, but can really help for composition and structure.'" You can now read the full Gamasutra column on the subject, including more on what game developers have been blogging about recently (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from external websites).