A few weeks back I worked at Lionhead Studios for five days. My rather odd life this year unfortunately dictates that five days is all I can fit in before I have to move on elsewhere. You see, I’m doing this thing where I work fifty-two different jobs in one year. That’s one a week for those annually challenged
I know that’s not really that a normal way to live so I’ve attempted to explain the reasons why here.I’m currently forty-seven jobs in though, and I’m pleased to tell you that my time with the team at Lionhead was a definite highlight.Multiple Baftas, custom Fable Xbox 360s, a Demon Door lift and Chris ‘Hohbes’ Hohbein himself greeted me on the first morning. As I headed upstairs I got to meet the amazing community team and then get straight down to business with a tour of the offices with Fable Anniversary lead designer Ted Timmins. Ted’s been around at Lionhead for over a decade and was a tester on the original Fable. Now I loved the first Fable, but Ted lives and breathes it!What I think was intended to be a quick tour turned into a two hour adventure filled with so many different faces and glimpses into the work of the amazingly talented people who create the world of Albion.It became very apparent that although I’d previously liked to think I understood some of the processes involved, I really didn’t have any idea of just how much work and organisation is required to create the Lionhead games we eventually get to play at home. I was awestruck and wide-eyed at the things I was getting to see, and being Monday morning, the teams were all preparing themselves for the week ahead. But how do you go about organising over 100 people to make sure they’re all doing the right things to end up in the right place at the right time? Well, Lionhead use agile project management based on iterative and incremental development. This process is where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. Easy right? I was learning already! After my first lunch in the Lionhead canteen (good food!) I got to head out with Ted to the extremely Fabley town of Godalming. We were there to check in on how the completely re-mastered orchestral score and sound effects were coming along. Russell Shaw was the head of audio at Lionhead for over 15 years and has worked on and created the soundtracks for some incredible titles including some of my childhood favourites (Magic Carpet, Theme Park, Syndicate!). Spoilers: Fable Anniversary sounds awesome and I felt extremely privileged to witness the process and throw in my feedback on some of the new tweaks.The week then became of blur of mind-blowing sessions with the teams that make up the studio.On Tuesday I was taped (literally) into a tight lycra motion capture suit to learn about how the 20 cameras in the studio are synced to translate the infra red reflections bouncing off the markers velcroed all about my body. This data is then applied to the in-game character models to recreate the incredibly lifelike movements on screen. Andy Cousins, Lionhead’s Senior Mocap/Animation Technical Director was then kind enough to map my odd movements to some Fable characters to show during my end of week presentation. I’m not sure how people felt about my strange in-suit behaviours but watching them watching me was certainly more uncomfortable than the suit. Apparently, this may also be allowed to be seen publically at some point. Apologies in advance!I joined Steve and Mike who demonstrated the sometimes odd techniques and audio tricks used to find the perfect effects for use in game. For us that meant using various sticks to record some mid-air swishes and hollow pipes for...well, you’ll have to wait and hear. They’ve recently spent time in the Lake District grabbing environmental recordings for use in game. Using sine wave sweeps (or pop balloons) to take impulse recordings of various environments and their particular characteristics, they can then use a process known as convolution reverb to apply said characteristics to the in-game effects. The results are fantastic and mean whether fighting deep within dungeons or through forests the game will always sound just right. They can even alter the effects in real-time, sound by sound to tweak the final mix as they play and test the game in the studio. Through a session with lead writer on Fable Legends Andrew Walsh, I quickly learnt just how difficult it is to try write for games. The simple task of creating a couple of NPCs within the world of Albion became a lot harder than it first sounded.“Legends is definitely not a soap. There’s a lot more death and woolly hats” he told me as I tried to get my head around imagining up a couple of characters. His vast experience was immediately apparent with the kind of questions he asked me to think about. After allowing me time to try and figure the answers out he’d be able to give me a fully formed logical approach to each problem and I’d be able to progress further. I’m not sure if my undiscovered child genius or young abandoned shopkeeper will make it any further than my notebook but at least I’ll always remember the issues they caused me.I got to witness testing and learn about how technical and thorough the procedures are. They do so much more than play video games all day (what some of my friends assumed I’d be doing this week!).I sat with the artists who bring the initial concepts to life on the page, well... a drawing tablet. I’m not sure my childlike sketches will make it in, but I tried my best and was in awe of what they called ‘quick rough work’ when testing ideas.On my last day I was with Chris, Kristen and Katie in the community team and experienced how they’re such a vital part of the world of Fable. I had so much fun taking over the twitter account and interacting directly with the fans of the series answering the questions about my experiences. It was great to see a company that understood the importance of this interaction and two-way conversation. I learnt a huge amount about how such a huge task is managed and it’s going to be exciting witnessing the continuing expansion of their work the games continue to make it into our homes.Spending time within the Lionhead office I was continually gaining insight from each and every person I sat down with. It was phenomenal. I didn’t stop learning and I didn’t want to leave come Friday. I want to know (and play) so much more. The amount of skill and artistry I got to glimpse means I can’t wait to get my hands on Fable Anniversary and Fable Legends again and I really hope I’ll have the chance to cross paths with the team again!Thank you Lionhead!MattAKA @FiftyTwoJobs Discuss this on our forumshttp://www.lionhead.com/blog/rss/blog/2 ... -52-weeks/