This does not really have to do anything with games, but I recently wrote this piece for a subject at my college and I thought I would share with the rest of you. It is quite short since it is supposed a discussion posting. I have changed it a bit to suit the blog's focus.
Before I enrolled in Web Design Development at CIT, I studied Multimedia at university. During my studies, I learned the importance of storyboards and good planning. A potential idea can slowly begin to fade away and you subsequently lose the chance to share something that might have been important to someone. This is equally valid for writing a blog, since your discussion on art (even popular art), might have enriched someone's view on a topic. It is doubly important in the world of games.
Storyboards help to anchor your idea to the shores of the physical world. It can help you to see your vision in draft form, so that when you start to develop your project, you can envision which subjects have to be dealt with and have some idea where to start or what to do next. It will further give you, as writer and artist, a narrowed focus and with this vision you won’t stray off the path, trying to attempt the creation of creative coolness. This will allow the final project or documentation to actually make sense instead of being a mish-mash of ideas.
Even though the visual element of writing is buried within the minds and history of its readers and therefore it does exactly suit the features of storyboarding, but just by jotting a few ideas of paper to order ideas for a blog can go a long way in developing the initial draft of a blog post.
Let's move away from writing and look at the development of the imaginary worlds of games. During the development of any games, concept artists (and indie developers) have to draw hundreds of concept designs of characters, environments, and even gameplay functions. Using these designs, 3D artists and programmers can model a vast, believable, and breathtaking netherworld. Before 3Dimensionality made its appearance, 2D was king. Instead of creating models, artists would match the concept designs to the restrictions of computer and video game systems. Individual sprites were animated to give each character individuality and personality. Sometimes I miss 2D games...some people look down on old games, thinking that the graphics look horrible since they grew up with the polygonised worlds of the Playstation and Nintendo 64. If you look past the layer of blocky sprites, you might be able to witness the artistic merit of the graphics. Storyboards and character designs were just as important in the SUPER days of the NES, SNES, and Mega Drive (Genesis).
To find out more about the world of concept designs, I would recommend the following sites:
Creative Uncut
Amano's World
