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00:32Yes, I am a geek and a Greek.
00:35I would say I'm a hidden geek.
00:37I am a complete geek.
00:39Well, I don't think so.
00:41I like to keep up with the latest trends on the high streets.
00:44Suppose I am a bit of a geek.
00:45I've had the traditional geek bringing up.
00:46I had a chemistry set at the age of seven.
00:50Tim Lawrence is a very big geek, yeah,
00:52but I mean, we can sort of make exceptions for some people.
00:55Attention to all sorts of very obscure technical details
00:58that bores everybody stupid.
01:05CTG stands for Central Technology Group,
01:08and the purpose of the Central Technology Group
01:10is to create reusable technology
01:13that can be used by all of the game teams.
01:15If I asked you to build a house
01:17and presented you with a big pile of rocks and trees
01:21and concrete and so on,
01:23the first thing you'd probably ask me for
01:25would be the right tools.
01:26The specific advantages of CTG within the company for the games
01:30is that they can focus purely on the gameplay.
01:33They don't have to worry about writing tools again,
01:35writing technology again.
01:37The tools that we create are in use by the Fable team
01:39and they aren't tools that you can just buy off the shelf.
01:43A follow-up project or game
01:45will use the same code and tools that we've produced
01:48and they can go straight into making the game
01:50and producing cool games for everybody.
01:53Currently I'm working on a spline tool.
01:55That means splines are basically curves,
01:57so I'm trying to make a tool
01:59to help people put things on curves.
02:02Lionhead has been making these tools and games
02:04for the past ten years
02:05and to celebrate our anniversary,
02:07a big fancy dress party was planned.
02:10I've taken two days off to build my costume,
02:15which is Pyramid Head from Silent Head.
02:19I've spent so long deliberating
02:21whether I should go as the film version,
02:24which is a little bit more recognisable,
02:26or whether I should be really hardcore
02:27and go as the game version,
02:28and I kind of bottled out
02:30and went for the film version.
02:32Four hours in,
02:34and I don't seem to be getting anywhere really,
02:37but I might need to go for a little sit down.
02:40One of the things that's a real struggle
02:42for game developers is fitting all of those assets
02:44into memory and onto the DVDs.
02:47What we've done is develop some compression routines
02:50that squashes down the data
02:52so that it will fit in the available memory,
02:55and we've done this with animations
02:57which take up huge amounts of memory uncompressed.
03:00We've done it with textures,
03:01which are the sort of beautiful pictures
03:04that go onto the meshes that we create.
03:06In an animation,
03:07which is basically the movement
03:09of a character around the world,
03:10we've managed to squeeze those down
03:12to just 1% of their original size.
03:15and it just helps the pipeline,
03:18the content from the people,
03:20the creative people,
03:21through to the actual game itself.
03:27I told everyone that I was taking some days off
03:31to do some charity work.
03:34I'll be good, I'll be good.
03:37It's going well.
03:43In Lionhead,
03:45as we are focused on creating games
03:48which cost tens of millions of dollars,
03:50sometimes it's great to be able
03:52to have a small group of people
03:54who can actually spend some time
03:56that's not directly on the main game development,
03:59and instead can research
04:01a bit of blue-sky thinking.
04:03One example of that is
04:05we thought that it would be very interesting
04:06to look at new types of combat.
04:09We wanted to experiment with
04:10something that really brought the drama
04:13out of combat.
04:14Drama is important and vital for combat
04:17because it gives it a nice,
04:20full-fledged purpose,
04:22a motivation for the player.
04:24The whole idea about it
04:25is to try and leverage everything that you can
04:28to make the combat more exciting
04:30without actually changing the combat itself.
04:32So we can use a lot of stuff from movies,
04:34such as camera work and music,
04:37and we can also use everything
04:39that we've got in the games,
04:40like simulation and sound effects
04:42and the rumble on the joy pad.
04:44Drama is the one thing
04:45which will make the difference
04:47between just a normal fighting
04:49or repetitive fighting mechanics
04:51and turn it into an experience,
04:55a challenge.
05:04Apart from running out of paint
05:07and finding out that this is coming off
05:09all over me and my clothes,
05:14well, I'm a little bit behind,
05:16but I'll just work through the night again.
05:21There's a whole range of things
05:23that have gone into Fable 2
05:24to help the production of Fable 2
05:26and the game itself.
05:27The fog adds a certain sense of atmosphere.
05:31Pete thought it was a good idea
05:32to actually get a fog machine in.
05:36It was quite good fun, actually.
05:38We put it in a bucket
05:39and all of a sudden our bucket was full of mist
05:42and we just spent the entire day playing with it.
05:45It was great.
05:47We used it to get a good sense
05:50of how mist moves around
05:52and then I believe Peter Molland,
05:57who nicked it for his pond at home
05:59and he still hasn't returned it.
06:02Strange things are afoot in Peter's garden
06:06and it's not just the mystery
06:08of the missing fog machine.
06:11Lionhead celebrated its 10th anniversary in style.
06:13Hermit Head was in good company
06:15with numerous game celebrities in attendance.
06:46and I'll see you next time.
06:48Grazie a tutti
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