Autodesk: Standardised technology "a matter of time"
Games VP Marc Stevens believes stable technology will promote creativity and bring down costs
Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc., is the world's leading supplier of advanced 2D and 3D design, digital content creation,...
Autodesk's vice president of games Marc Stevens believes the standardisation of development tools and technology is an inevitable part of the industry's future.
Autodesk's suite of products is used for content creation in the majority of commercial game releases. It is currently working on Project Skyline, which aims to lower production costs by creating a unified pipeline.
"If you look at a lot of the larger companies, they're struggling right now to keep costs down and keep these big teams going," Stevens told GamesIndustry.biz in an exclusive presentation of Project Skyline at the company's Montreal offices.
"We have talked to some of them and it's a case of, 'If you have a solution for me and I don't have to do it, I'm happy to do that.' At a high level, conceptually, they know they make their money off being creative and creating new, interesting games, not necessarily rewriting technology all the time."
I think it's going to happen; it's just a question of when. If you look at other industries, everything standardises
Marc Stevens, Autodesk
Stevens agrees with the comments made by id Software's John Carmack to Eurogamer, where he predicted that the technology used to create and play games will become stable, placing more emphasis on the creative rather than the technical aspects of development.
"I would say that's where film-making is more ahead right now, just because the technology hasn't been there in games. Every new hardware cycle means a change of everything for everyone. It's been expensive. It's been tough. But it's starting to balance itself out now, and people can afford to standardise a bit more on the pipeline."
"Everything's maturing enough now that we should be able to do better at this... I think it's going to happen; it's just a question of when. If you look at other industries, everything standardises. It's just a matter of time. Are we at the right time here? I hope so."
For the full interview with Marc Stevens and Autodesk's character animation product manager Eric Plante, head over to the features section.
I certainly hope this will be the case. If game developers does not have to remake the same engine (and other "recyclable" technology and tools) the umptieth time, maybe just to upgrade the graphics and physics a tiny bit, the big winners will be us gamers. Think of how much they instead can spend on creating new game styles, crazy stories, cool art and other yet-to-be-thought-of features.
Of course there will always be a need for updates and experiments of engines and tools, so they can implement new ideas, but not to the extent that everybody has to invent the wheel over and over again, which has been the case for many FPS and other game types that rely a lot on graphics.
Posted:A year ago