HAFF 2012 Recap

As I mentioned before on this blog, one of the festivals I really wanted to go to was the HAFF festival. The main reason behind this was the two HAFFgames days, where the two worlds of animation and games would meet head to head.

1st HAFF day - The shorts day

During the first day I've seen a lot of shorts. In the back of my mind I knew that friday and saturday were the most relevant for my research, but having bought a passe-partout, I went anyway. I mean, not taking this opportunity to see all these international student films would be kind of silly and a waste of money. I went to three screenings in the Louis Hartlooper complex, the main hub of the festival. I won't go into detail about these screenings because I've seen so many beautiful short films (and I think I forgot most of them already anyway).  

One thing that really gripped me was the variety of visual styles on display. All these short stories, either complex or simple, had these great accompanying visuals. They evoked a smile or a whimper, depending on the mood of the story. But in all these cases the visuals were very much a part of the story. After the third screening I went home, my mind still buzzing from this visual bombardment. 

2nd HAFF day - The first HAFFgames day - Sneak peeks

The second day I went to 't Hoogt Filmtheater, located behind the Dutch Game Garden. This was the first of two HAFFgames days, held and presented by Control. These days centered around the idea of bringing the two worlds of animation and games together. This of course is very relevant to my project about crossmedia design. These days were the primary reason for me to visit this festival in the first place. This first day consisted of short "sneak peeks" for the talks on saturday. I will address these introductory talks shortly, because they are not all relevant for my research.

Talk 1 - Paul Veer - Pixel artist and animator - "Pixel art"

This first talk was about pixel art. Paul Veer is one of  the best Dutch pixel artist and a good friend of mine. This talk was about different forms of pixel art and what it takes to be a good pixel artist. To be honest, although I liked the talk, I'v always got some mixed feelings about this artform. And even this talk couldn't take that away. But still, I think it is very impressive if people want to constrain themselves so much visually. And the amount of patience needed must be immense.

Talk 2 - Illuster - "Anigamejam: The Tumblies"

The second talk was about an IP called the Tumblies of Illuster ( a Dutch animation studio located in Utrecht). The Tumblies is primarily a young kids' TV series revolving around a bunch of characters moving in stopmotion fashion. These characters consist of different body parts which can break apart and can be put together again. It's very slapstick, and aimed at pre-school kids (4 'till 6 years old). The talk centered around the fact of the Tumblies being gamified at that same exact moment during the Anigame jam. This jam was held at Born Digital and could be seen on internet. The most interesting thing about this crossover was how to keep the IP intact in another medium. The game designers of Monobanda working on the game had a lot of questions about the Tumblies. What exactly was possibly in this highly stylized world of these adorable creatures? This collaboration forced Illuster to think more and deeply about their created universe.

Talk 3 - Fons Schiedon - "Animation scenes in games"

This talk showed a couple of ingame cutscenes from games and took them apart. It was interesting to see the reactions and hear the opinions of an established director like Schiedon about these particular scenes.

The first scene was from Killzone 3. Schiedon called it impressive, but the story was a bit bombastic and shallow. It was obviously aimed at an adult gaming audience. Also he noted that playing the game was probably better than just looking at it. He admires the ambition of these game makers to make it more realistic and cinematic, but that is all that it is, really.

The second scene was from Lost Odyssey, a game formed by the former head of Square Enix and creator of Final Fantasy. It was a scene where one of the main character dies. And here is where the Eastern / Japanese influences shine through. The scene is anything but subtle. Tears, violins, screaming and yelling, all highly melodramatic and emotional. I couldn't help but cringe at this, it is so over the top. Who believes this junk? Schiedon justly stated that if they intended to evoke an emotion, they succeeded. But he wasn't really sure if it was the right emotion.

The third and final scene was from Heavy Rain, developed by Quantic Dreams. It was one of the first scenes of the games, where you lose your son in a mall. While looking for him, you find him outside where he is run over with a car. Again, a very emotional scene. It was interesting to see how a Western company tackles this compared to a Japanese one.

After seeing this clip, I think that everyone in the audience and in the panel agreed that the game took a really long time to get this feeling across, the loss of a loved one. If you would see this in a movie, it would a scene that would've dragged on, and on and on. The other main problem the animators and Schiedon had were focused on the visuals of the game. They complained about the lifelessness of the characters. Especially in the mall there were "hordes of zombies" were walking around aimlessly. The eyes of the characters were also directed at nothing. And one of the things that really bugged Schiedon were the badly written dialogues. They were very acute and bland, not really showing any emotion or connection to the story. 

After all these negative comments, someone in the audience remarked that playing this sequence really did stir some emotion. But taking the interactive part away does show the many flaws in storytelling in this game.  

Talk 4 - Niki Smit (Monobanda)  - "Cross-pollination between games and animation 2"

See HAFFday #3

Talk 5 - Joost van Dongen (Ronimo) - "Cross-pollination between games and animation 1"

Joost van Dongen, co-founder of Ronimo games, talked about game developers being inspired by animation or cartoons. This was also an interesting an interesting talk, seeing how game developers take these influences and making them their own. He showed the inspiration for their upcoming game Awesomenauts. It was none other than the 80's cartoon Mask, spectacular opening theme with blazing guitars included. Because it looks so much like a cartoon, they also wanted to take their 2D animation skills to a new level. There is a set of 2000 animations made for this game in total! That is quite impressive. 


Next to that he revealed that the visuals of Sword and Soldiers were inspired on the credits animation of Supermoine, an animation about a monk kicking Viking ass. After that he showed some more examples of other game designers tinkering around with influences from the animation field, like Rocketbirds. A game where you play a bird with a jetpack. He also showed a more artistic game, which was based on a computer generated music video called Relentless/Rev. The game that came from that has a unique feel.

Talk 6 - Geert Nellen (Digital Dreams) - "Interactive Storytelling"

Geert has always had a big passion for narrative in games. This talk was about the possibilities of the game medium to tell stories in an unique way. Through the interactive component stories can be told more vividly and actively. But as Heavy Rain clearly showed earlier, we aren't still quite there unfortunately. Still, we can learn from older games and how they approached stories.

Ico for example is a game with not a lot of goals, something which is a staple in games (get the highest score, complete the level etc.). It focuses on other things. It uses allegory, the use of symbolics and metaphors to tell a story. You rescue a frail blind girl and you have to escort her out of the castle. The enemies consist mainly of shadows and don't really have a form. The game is filled with these kind of things and leaves a lot to the imagination about the story and its meaning.

Another World

A classic game from the 90's, it was the first game with a deep story and cinematic gameplay by Eric Chahi. It was made with vectors and had a revolutionary systemeditor behind it. There were also rotoscoped animations in there, providing smooth animations and transitions from scene to scene. The story itself was about a scientist who ends up in another world and gets captured. He has to escape and befriends an alien. The games doesn't explain that much about the world and its inhabitants but leaves a lot to the player's imagination. The first of its kind.

Journey

This game, being the gem that is, uses a lot of ways to tell a story. But one of its main features is that people experience these together. It uses the possibilities of games as a medium to the fullest.

**After all these talks it was time for a discussion between game designers and animators. The animators where represented by Fons Schiedon and Michiel Snijders from Illuster. The game designers were represented by Ard Bonewald from GameHouse.**

The discussion went really fast, so here is a quick summary of it with some bullet points.

- Ard quickly made it clear that a game designer according to his previous experiences designs through goals and function. He sees animation as a tool in his designers toolbox to get his design across. The same goes for the visual style of a game.

- Michiel talked about the process of making animation and compared it to games. Animation as a medium is very focused on the end result, for example a finished feature length film. You can work a couple of months, maybe even years on 90 minutes of entertainment. The animation in the movie can also be the focus of it all, as an end of means. It can be so good that you forget that you are watching an animation.

- Ard countered this and said that as a game designer he works 4,5 months on 8 hours of gameplay. In that sense, games maybe provide more value. 

- According to Michiel it seems that games are now heavily focusing on achieving realism. So especially technical innovation. Animation has already moved onward from that point and is looking for other influences and is thus more focusing on stylistic innovation. Animation doesn't always have to work with realistic movements to convey something. That's why pixel art is interesting because its aesthetic value is so inherent to games and its very simple.

- Animation also focuses more on personal innovation. Technology has become so widespread that everyone can make a movie or animation. This has made a lot of things easier, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they've become better.

- How can we use the expertise of animation in games? Visually speaking; ditch realism, more suggestion. With animation, you have to make everything yourself. Shots, characters, environments. This means thinking about all these aspects in a very crude way and its form. What is the effect you are striving for? What do you want to get across?

- Games are all about actions. Most of the time these are displayed by very "functional" animations. By adding animation principles like squash and stretch and secondary motion to these, we can emphasize and enforce quirkiness and the behavior of the game character. This will enhance the player experience and immersion in the game.

- The visuals should reflect the story. Things that can be found in the visual design can help with forming the gameplay.

- At the end, the product, either an animation or game, should have coherent structure; everything should be in balanced from the visuals to the design and judged accordingly next to each other.

3rd HAFF day - The second HAFFgames day - Niki Smit's talk

Unfortunately I couldn't see the other talks, because I had to work in the morning. This wasn't a big issue. I was aiming to only see Niki's talk anyway, it being the most interesting talk for my research. 

Niki Smit - Co founder Monobanda - "Cross-pollination games and animation 2"

Niki Smit was looking in this talk for good and bad examples of cross-pollination between these two media. He focused his attention on games and how they handle animation (influences). His intention was to answer the question "What can games learn from animation?". A very interesting question indeed. Also he stated he was looking for a synthesis between animation and games. Not primarily finding new ways to animate characters or objects.

- First example was Bart's Nightmare. An old NES game based on the Simpson's character. Dreadful. Nothing more than a typical NES game with a Simpson sticker on it.

- The second example was the Smurfs for the SNES. I cringed, because I have played this game, it is so bad. Awful graphics, controls and it is just plain stupid. Nothing more than a way to try to cash in on an valuable IP.

- Next up was the 80's cartoon based on the first Super Mario Bros NES game. It's dreadful. The cartoon tries really hard to cramp in some narrative, creating new characters in the process, but it fails to succeed. The game itself didn't really have that much story (save the princess!) and that's why this was a bad idea.

- A bit of a time jump, Viewtiful Joe is up next. This game by Capcom is visually closing the gap due to its edgy, cartoony style. Unfortunately, the cartoon based off on it just plainly sucks. It doesn't expand on the story and is basically a dumbed down DBZ.

- Next up is Donkey Kong Country. This game used parallax scrolling in the backgrounds, an innovation which came from Disney with its invention of the multilane camera. This is basically a more technical and visual innovation by games.

- Earthworm Jim, a classic SNES game, featured wildly expressive and bizarre animations (but what do you want with a worm in space suit as a main character?). Niki stated Tex Avery, a well known animator from Warner Brothers (most famous for Daffy Duck), as the main influence here. His work concentrated on finding the  Note: There were traditional animators working on this game back in the day. It shows. It still looks awesome!

- Another influence which games have taken from animation is anthropomorphic animals. Talking animals to be exact. Ratchet and Clank, Spyro and Crash Bandicoot are great examples of this trend.

- A good example of a good crossover are the Naruto games. Especially visually. The games look like the anime and really form a unity.

- Another good example is Viva Pinata. It started off as a game on the XBOX360 and a cartoon has spawned from it. Both sport the same visuals and humor.

- And the best example is the phenomenon known as Pokemon. Started as a crappy game, it became a popular TV series, a movie, a card game, a supermarket chain and even a beer bar. But this is all about branding, or in other words, MAKING MONEY.

- Now let's move on to the good examples. Bill Plympton, an indie animator, probably inspired an artist experiment called Detuned on the PSN network. In this "character editor" there is a guy sitting in a chair and you can deform his face the same way  as in Plymptons creations. It's not really a game, but a good example of applying influences.

- Another good example is a game called Botanicula, made by Amanito Design. This is a game studio run by animators. The animation influences are very clear on display here. Especially the "handmade/crafted" textural visual artstyle is something which animators like to apply on their works, to enhance that more 'tangible' feel.

- Shadow of The Colossus is according to Niki one of the prime examples of animation/games synthesis. The game designer who worked on this was an animator and it shows through this title. It's not a typical with goals, power-ups or obstacles. Everything is stripped away to focus on the giant monsters you have to defeat. 


This space leaves a lot opportunities to focus on the animation. The sensibilities of movement of an animator shine through here. And that is what it does. The animation is the gameplay here. The Colossi move in a certain way and you have to figure out how to approach them and climb on top of them. The animation plays a bigger then merely showing something or performing an action.

- The Last Guardian, who has the same maker of the aforementioned title, there is also a great focus on the emotional bonds which you'll form with this giant bird thingy. The actions in the game are dictated by this animal. Again, it is not a typical game in any sense. There are no cutscenes or movies, the whole game is all the experience you'll need.

- Adventure Time. A cartoon made by someone who knows a lot about game culture. Every episode is like a new level in a game, with a protagonist who pro-actively goes on an adventure. 

- External World, also showing on HAFF, is an experimental animation which uses the unfinished polygonal aesthetics of games. I can't explain it, you should just see it.

- The last clip was from Kara, an animation made by the people of Quantic Dreams (yes, of Heavy Rain fame). It's more or less a showcase of their new engine, but it poses an interesting question about robotic "life". And it looked very good, of course.

- After this clip Niki was trying to say is this; The big part that animation can fulfill for games is breathe life into them. Into their narrative and characters. That is the most important addition of this medium to our medium.

- I spoke with Niki afterwards and I asked him about the possibility of visual cross-pollination between animation and games. He said that the technology has made so much progression it is now possible to thief off on another. That is an interesting thought.

Conclusion(s)

To be honest right of the batt; The HAFF festival left me with mixed feelings.

First of all: HAFF was a lot of fun. Meeting new people, watching movies and a chance to venture into this new and exciting medium. I've seen so many beautiful short movies and they reminded me of why I'm doing this, about being a creative individual. It was hugely inspirational and got me fired up again, after all these weeks of self-doubt and running around in circles.

The HAFF games day were OK at best, with the talk of Niki Smit being the exception. Most of the talks were pretty shallow, aimed at technical innovation instead of conceptual innovation. I learned that games and animation are two fields which keep themselves apart from each other, but do have some things in common.  Especially the technology that they use is similar (Photoshop, Maya etc.). But the way on how they approach their products is vastly different. 


Animation has a more holistic approach to things, where all the different aspects like story and design come together in the final product. Games tend to focus more on goals and function, with all of the other components like visuals and animation sporting a supporting role. Also games are now focusing on technical innovation whereas animation is further along the line and currently focusing more on stylistic innovation.

So, in short, I haven't learned something directly applicable to my project, but it was very informative research into animation nonetheless.