In this episode of Behind Massive Screens Alex Riviere, Audio Director on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, joins Petter & Dóri to dive into the role of an Audio Director. Hear about how Alex got to where he is, and of course about some of the design, systems, and tech behind the audio in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora now ..read more

In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, Petter and Dóri meet Johan Flote, Live Producer in the Ubisoft Connect team at Massive Entertainment, to find out more about how his job works and to talk about the open beta. During the summer, Ubisoft Connect launched their open beta. But why did they choose to have an open beta? What sort of feedback has been implemented? Also, what is a Live Producer and how to you become one? All these questions and more are among the things Petter, Dóri and Johan discuss on this episode of Behind Massive Screens ..read more

In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, Petter and Dóri meet Julia Stegemann, Lead Knowledge Manager in the Snowdrop team at Massive Entertainment and Ola Holmdahl, Snowdrop Operations Director, to find out more about how their job works, through a discussion that touches on Academia, table-top games, late medieval love songs and more! The Snowdrop engine, with its flexible and empowering tools, has helped develop a number of Ubisoft titles such as The Division, Mario + Rabbids, The Settlers, South Park and more upcoming games from Massive and Ubisoft. But how did Snowdrop come to be? Why w ..read more

In this 20th (!) episode of Behind Massive Screens, Petter and Dóri meets Conny Bengtsson, Technical Artist for Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, to find out what makes “technical art” technical. The discussion turns into a journey of spinning backpack fans, how you make glasses fit on characters’ faces, helmet shaders and – believe it a not – a big pile of virtual shirts that needed fixing. We also get an insight into how Conny and his team worked on the latest The Division 2 apparel event, Nexus, and what brand-new innovations they brought to it ..read more

Once a video game has been released, how do you keep track of all the discussions surrounding it? How do you gather actionable feedback to improve the game? How do you keep a conversation between developers and players going? And how do you make sure that a game’s community stays engaged and informed? In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, Petter and Dóri meet Daria Ilyina, Community Developer at Massive Entertainment for Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, to find out more about how their job works ..read more

In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, we delve into the subject of online programming together with Senior Online Programmer Omar Elbehaedi to find out what makes online games tick. We also delve into the subject of why code is beautiful and discuss that most forbidden topic – netcode. You head into a Team Deathmatch, the Dark Zone, or a 4000-player battle in a space MMORPG. The players are located all over the world. The bullets are flying. But how does the technology that makes all this possible actually work? What do the online programmers do behind the scenes to make sure the informat ..read more

In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, Petter and Dóri meet Marthe Jonkers, Associate Art Director at Massive Entertainment, to learn about the role that art direction plays when creating a game – the impact it has on a game’s development, how it helps set a game’s style and tone early on, and how it together with concept art communicates ideas to developers. We also get insights into what it is like to work in the Japanese games industry, and what it can take for someone from outside of Japan to ace a job interview there. And what role did a certain scary zombie girlfriend play in Marthe ..read more

When designing a game, how do you make sure that the player gets the information they need while playing? Or navigate menus and button prompts in an intuitive way? In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, UI artist Anna Kuzminska takes our dynamic hosts on a journey through the fascinating world of user interface design – from fonts and art to colors and shapes. Resources: We Can Fix It In UI - https://onewithmachines.notion.site/onewithmachines/WE-CAN-FIX-IT-IN-UI-9f588869324a45e2b2d0595546ce77d1 Design Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design - https://www.amazon.com/Designing ..read more

Ever wondered how game developers create stunning visual effects in video games? How they make red barrels blow up and explosions look great? How cars in racing games kick up dirt, or how the energy crackles from magical potions? In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, we meet John Behrens, VFX Artist at Massive Entertainment, who tells us about visual effects design and what is going on behind the scenes when the bullets hit the red barrel. Real-Time VFX - https://realtimevfx.com/ The Elementary Particles (GDC Vault) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7wFPkGmWdI Shader Sauce: How to use Sh ..read more

How do you become a playtester for video games and how does a playtest work? And what are the User Researchers, that are running the tests, looking for? In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, we meet User Researcher Hanna Rosvall, who will give us a look behind the scenes. What tools do User Researchers use, how does a games lab look, and what’s going on behind those mysterious one-way mirrors? Let’s find out ..read more