Chapter 1 Character Shapes and Poses
Chapter 2 Character Animations
Chapter 3 Environment Shapes
Chapter 4 Pathways
Chapter 5 Framing
Chapter 6 Player Gestures
Chapter 7 Transitions in Games
Chapter 8 Transitions With Cutscenes
Chapter 9 Reiteration of Context
Chapter 10 Transition Hazards
Chapter 11 Transitions Without Cutscenes
Chapter 12 Transitions in Open World Games.
CHRIS SOLARSKI is an artist-game designer and author of the seminal book, Drawing Basics and Video Game Art: Classic to Cutting-Edge Art Techniques for Winning Game Design (Watson-Guptill 2012), which has been translated into Japanese and Korean. Chris’ professional background—which mixes game art development at Sony Computer Entertainment and fine art figurative painting—has led him to lecture on emotions and storytelling in video games at international events including the Smithsonian Museum's landmark The Art of Video Games exhibition, SXSW, Game Developers Conference, and FMX. Chris’ personal projects at Solarski Studio continue to explore the intersections between video games, classical art and film to develop new forms of player interaction and emotionally-rich experiences in games.
"The convergence of narrative in film, video games, and virtual
reality will fundamentally change the entertainment industry in
coming years. Chris Solarski’s book gives content creators crucial
insights into interactive story composition and how to adapt these
concepts for transmedia storytelling."
—Marc Forster, Film Director and Producer "The clever thing about
this book is that it bridges the worlds of game design and
storytelling. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to get
into game design and understand what’s going on beneath the
surface. It reminds me of Robert McKee’s Story, the classic book on
screenwriting. You read it and you think: Aha, this is how
storytelling works in film, it really can be explained! And you can
see this book as a companion volume that is essentially doing the
same thing for games."
—Tom Standage, Deputy Editor and Digital Strategist of The
Economist and a New York Times Bestselling Author "As a
gamification designer you look for inspiration from multiple
sources to create behavior-change and evoke emotions that help your
audience make decisions. Chris Solarski captures brilliantly how
dynamic composition techniques for transmedia storytelling can
assist in reaching your audience through shapes, flow, positioning
and much more."
—An Coppens, Chief Game Changer at Gamification Nation
Ltd."Interactive Stories and Video Game Art touches upon factors
that can be a barrier to the developers’ experience being
actualised: managing player attention, dealing with memory,
communicating how players should think about playing, in addition
to the practicalities of play. I feel I have a more robust means of
assessing the experience developers are aiming to achieve as a
result of these guidelines. The contractual nature of my work also
means that I’m tasked with quickly communicating the design intent
between the dev team and my team. The visual communication symbols
presented in each chapter are sure to play a part in that process
moving forward."
—Seb Long, UX Researcher at Player Research"As a game designer, I
think Interactive Stories and Video Game Art is a must-read. I love
how Chris Solarski puts game design and gameplay at the centre of
the whole artistic process, so everything is easily applicable to
any project and to both sides of development, to game design and
graphics."
—David Javet, Narrative Designer and Co-founder of Tchagata
Games"This book is an eye-opener. I haven't been in the games loop
for a while, but it transcends games. Reading it made me feel what
I felt when I first studied cinematography."
—Gustavo Sánchez-Perez, FX Artist at Mr. X"Chris Solarski's book is
extremely ambitious; from the smallest detail to broad concepts
that encompass an immense scale, its truly applied methodology
serves as a catalyst that enriches the reader's heart and promotes
the creation of pure art."—Erik Anzi, Producer, Screenwriter, and
Concept Artist on films including Ridley Scott's Alien and Blade
Runner"The concepts presented in Interactive Stories and Video Game
Art remind me of Joseph Campbell's powerful demonstration of a
universal storytelling structure. Coming from a technical game
design background yet being artistically inclined, I never
considered that atomic elements such as shapes, lines of movement
and transitions contain a vocabulary strong enough to sculpt our
mood, whether consciously or unconsciously. This book creates that
wonderful feeling of learning new letters, which soon prove useful
to form sentences for bringing new poetry to the world."—Stéphane
Assadourian, Veteran Game Production Consultant and founding member
of Ubisoft's Assassins' Creed franchise
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