Game__&__Art__Workshop> > esp>>
Workshop Leader: Anne-Marie Schleiner (facilitated by fiftyfifty)
[Hangar, October 8-12, 2001, Barcelona]

Workshop Description:

  This workshop will expose participants to the culture of game modifications which flourished with the release of code for shooter games beginning in the mid 1990's. Avid computer gamers began to create their own themed remakes of game engines including altering game architecture, sound, level design, themes, and characters.

Artists with fine art backgrounds also discovered the editing tools that had become available for modifiying games and they inserted their own aesthetic and conceptual visions into game space and game play.

This workshop will provide participants with practical skills in "skinning" (creating custom characters for games like Quake or the Sims) and other aspects of game modification.
Invited artists will show their work and their techniques.

Software: Photoshop, Quake II, Quake III, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Shadow Man, Sims and Director
Hardware: PC

Syllabus:

 Day 1 [October 8]: Intro to Art and Games

Present:

  1. Intro to Art, Games and my own work in area(opensorcery.net)
  2. Art and Games shows: Cracking the Maze online exhibit, Synworld Exhibit of Unreal Mods at Public Netbase, Axis "Gameshow" exhibit at Montevideo in Amsterdam, "Gameshow" in Boston, SFMOMA Game/Art show, Ars Electronica, Ctrl-show at UC Irvine, Bouncing off the Satellites conference in Nottingham, Electrofringe Festival in Australia
  3. Importance of Play

Activity:

  1. Play Games
  2. Self-evaluating optional Quake quiz (minus questions 12-20)
Artist Presentation in Evening: none

Day 2 [October 9]:Skins and Game Character Fashion

Present:

  1. Skinners Rings,Tribes Ring, dress-up monster fashion for boys
  2. Skins in Mutation.fem: Gender Play + Monster Friendliness
  3. Monsters vs. "Realism": Counter-Strike terrorist skins, the Sims skins(and fantasy sims skins--fantasy inside realisism: anime sims skins , goth sims skins--the 7 deadly sims)
  4. Ultra-real Japanese 3-D CG artists:Kyoko Date, RinaSasaki, Cattle Mount, Na-na , Ryoko
  5. How to make Quake 2 Skin Demo

Activity:

  1. Begin Skins Environment Project: Create 3 skins which relate/comment to to the game environment. Could deal with ideas of camouflage, targeting, subverting the game genre, drawing attention away from game play or enhancing game play. Use Sims or Quake II.
Artist Presentation in Evening: Glaznost (Half-life) + Particpants own work

Day 3 [October 10]: Continue Skins

Present:

  1. How to make Sims Skin Demo

Activity:

  1. Finish Skins Environment Project
  2. Critique/Present Skins to eachother
Artist Presentation in Evening: Richard Porchner-Virtools + Participants own work
Day 4 [October 11]: Mods, Game Alterations and Creative Bug Exploitation

Present:

  1. History of shooters and modification
  2. Digital Folk Art--game modification by untrained artists vs. mods made by fine artists
  3. show jodi's sod, nullpointer's F-skin
  4. How I made my first game patch(mod) for Marathon
  5. Special Presentation by Retroyou of how made [retroYou R/C].

Activity:

  1. Modify Castle Wolfenstein.
Artist Presentation in Evening: Innothna
Day 5 [October 12]: Role Playing and Online Multiuser Games, also using Director for Games, Open-Source Game Development

Present:

  1. From table top Dungeons & Dragons to Online Graphical RPG's
  2. Tolkienesque Fantasy worlds
  3. RPG meets God Game: Black & White
  4. Japanese role playing games, importance of storytelling, H-games, Snow Blossom House, Shokushu High School
  5. Game in Developemnt--my + partner's current hentai rpg game in development using director and shockwave multi-user server
  6. Using Director for games: Chi-Chian, 2 Bit Toddlers , One Week Between Heaven and Earth, Arcane, The Intruder
  7. Open Source Game Developement: bSerene

Activity:

  1. Create characters w/ descriptions and play offline table-top multi-player d&d, or
  2. Director game exercise. A little 2-d game for Natalie's Metapet created by us collaboratively using only pixels + built-in behaviors? or
  3. Refine Skins or Castle Wolfenstein Mod.
Evening Workshop Presention: Present our skins and other work to Public