Video game art is a form of computer art employing video games as the artistic medium. Video game art often involves the use of patched or modified video games or the repurposing of existing games or game structures, however it relies on a broader range of artistic techniques and outcomes than artistic modification and it may also include painting, sculpture, appropriation, in-game intervention and performance, sampling, etc.[1][2] It may also include the creation of art games either from scratch or by modifying existing games.
Artistic modifications are frequently made possible through the use of level editors, though other techniques exist. Some artists make use of machinima applications to produce non-interactive animated artworks, however artistic modification is not synonymous with machinima as these form only a small proportion of artistic modifications.[citation needed] Machinima is distinct from art mods as it relies on different tools, though there are many similarities with some art mods.[citation needed]
Like video games, artistic game modifications are often interactive and may allow for single-player or multiplayer experience. Multiplayer works make use of networked environments to develop new kinds of interaction and collaborative art production.
Machinima is the use of real-time three-dimensional (3-D) graphics rendering engines to generate computer animation. The term also refers to works that incorporate this animation technique.
In-game intervention and performance
Artists may intervene in online games in a non-play manner, often disrupting games in progress in order to challenge or expose underlying conventions and functions of game play. Examples of this include Anne Marie Schleiner's Velvet-Strike (a project designed to allow players of realistic first person shooter games to use anti-war graffiti within the game to make an artistic statement[7]) and Dead in Iraq (an art project created by Joseph DeLappe in which the player character purposely allows himself to be shot and then recites the names of US soldiers who have died in the Iraq War).[8]
Site-specific installations and site-relative mods
Site-specificinstallations and site-relative gaming modifications ("mods"), replicate real-world places (often the art gallery in which they are displayed) to explore similarities and differences between real and virtual worlds. An example is What It Is Without the Hand That Wields It, where blood from kills in Counterstrike manifests and spills into a real life gallery.[9]
Real-time performance instruments
Video games can be incorporated into live audio and visual performance using a variety of instruments and computers such as electronic keyboards embedded with music chips.[citation needed] See also chiptune and the Fijuu project.[10]
Generative art mods
Generative art mods exploit the real-time capabilities of game technologies to produce ever-renewing autonomous artworks.[citation needed] Examples include Julian Oliver's ioq3apaint, a generative painting system that uses the actions of software agents in combat to drive the painting process,[11][12]Alison Mealy's UnrealArt which takes the movements of game entities and uses them to control a drawing process in an external program,[13][14]Kent Sheely's "Cities in Flux," a Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas mod that glitches and distorts the game's world in real-time,[15] and RetroYou's R/C Racer a modification of the graphic elements of a racing game which results in rich fields of colour and shape.[16][17]
↑ Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell (eds.),Videogames and Art (Intellect Books, 2006).
↑ Mail Away: War Correspondence at Home and Away, by Lindsay Kelley, in the Media-N Journal of the New Media Caucus "Media N Online Journal". Archived from the original on May 18, 2013. Retrieved March 10, 2013.
↑ 風紀委員 posted by alisonmealey.com on 2014年2月20日. "色々な風俗がありますが全部が魅力的すぎます". Alisonmealey.com. Archived from the original on 2014-03-07. Retrieved 2014-03-07.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Machinima, originally machinema, is the use of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production. The word "machinima" is a portmanteau of the words machine and cinema. According to Guinness World Records, machinima is the art of making animated narrative films from computer graphics, most commonly using the engines found in video games.
Video game modding is the process of alteration by players or fans of one or more aspects of a video game, such as how it looks or behaves, and is a sub-discipline of general modding. Mods may range from small changes and tweaks to complete overhauls, and can extend the replay value and interest of the game.
Red vs. Blue, often abbreviated as RvB, is an American web series created by Burnie Burns with his production company Rooster Teeth. The show is based on the setting of the military science fiction first-person shooter series and media franchise Halo. It is distributed through Rooster Teeth's website, as well as on DVD, Blu-ray, and formerly on the El Rey Network and Netflix. The series initially centers on two opposite teams fighting in an ostensible civil war—shown to actually be a live fire exercise for elite soldiers—in the middle of Blood Gulch, a desolate box canyon, in a parody of first-person shooter video games, military life, and science fiction films.
Katherine Anna Kang is an American video game designer.
Paul Marino is a film director, producer, animator, voice actor, and author currently focused on machinima, the art of using engines from video games to create films. He is a co-founder and the executive director of the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences (AMAS), a non-profit organization formed in 2002 to promote and organize the growth of machinima. Marino also co-founded the ILL Clan, a machinima production group, and, working under the pseudonym ILL Robinson, helped to create a number of the group's machinima pieces. In particular, he directed Hardly Workin', an August 2000 comedy video that won a Best in SHO award in Showtime's alt.SHO.com Alternative Media Festival, held on February 8, 2001, and an award for Best Acting at the AMAS's 2002 Machinima Film Festival.
Palle Torsson is a contemporary artist working with videos, interactive works, live video games and performance. He received a MFA from Royal College University of Fine Arts Stockholm in 1998, where he also met up with artist colleague Tobias Bernstrup.
Diary of a Camper is an American short film released in October 1996 that was made using id Software's first-person shooter video game Quake. The film was created by the Rangers, a clan or group of video game players, and first released over the Internet as a non-interactive game demo file. The minute and a half-long video is commonly considered the first example of machinima—the art of using real-time, virtual 3D environments, often game engines, to create animated films. The story centers on five members of the Rangers clan fighting against a lone camper in a multiplayer deathmatch.
Quake done Quick is a series of collaborative speedruns and machinima movies in which the video game Quake, its mission packs, and related games are completed as quickly as possible without the use of cheats. Most playthroughs use shortcuts or tricks, such as bunny hopping and rocket jumping, in order to achieve a faster time. These movies are available in the game engine's native demo format and in various multimedia formats such as AVI.
Operation Bayshield is a short 1997 film made by Clan Undead, a group of video game players. The work was created by using the machinima technique of recording a demonstration file of player actions in id Software's 1996 first-person shooter video game Quake, which could replay such files on demand. The group had seen the first known machinima productions, made by United Ranger Films, and decided to make a comedy film. The result, Operation Bayshield, follows a task force's attempts to thwart terrorists who have chemical explosives. Released on January 23, 1997, the work received praise from contemporary Quake movie review sites and helped to attract others, including Hugh Hancock of Strange Company and members of the ILL Clan, to machinima. It pioneered technical advances in machinima, such as the use of custom digital assets and of lip synchronization.
The concept of video games as a form of art is a commonly debated topic within the entertainment industry. Though video games have been afforded legal protection as creative works by the Supreme Court of the United States, the philosophical proposition that video games are works of art remains in question, even when considering the contribution of expressive elements such as acting, visuals, stories, interaction and music. Even art games, games purposely designed to be a work of creative expression, have been challenged as works of art by some critics.
Dance, Voldo, Dance is a machinima-based music video produced in 2002 by Chris Brandt. The video, created using the fighting game Soulcalibur, features two players both controlling the character Voldo, using existing in-game animation to have the characters perform a synchronized dance to the song "Hot in Herre" by musician Nelly. The result of over a week's full-time preparation and training, the video was conceived after Brandt noticed the character's animations and attacks could be triggered in sync with the beat of a song, and the reactions of onlookers to such a display. While several groups demonstrated interest in showcasing the video, complications arose from the copyright holders whose works were involved in creation.
Micro Star v. FormGen Inc. 154 F.3d 1107 is a legal case applying copyright law to video games, stopping the sales of a compilation of user-generated levels that infringed the copyright of Duke Nukem 3D. Micro Star downloaded the Duke Nukem 3D levels and re-packaged them as Nuke It, after seeing their popularity on the internet. Micro Star filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, asking for declaratory judgment that they had not infringed any copyright. Game publisher FormGen counter-sued, claiming that Micro Star created a derivative work based on Duke Nukem 3D and infringed their copyright.
An art game is a work of interactive new media digital software art as well as a member of the "art game" subgenre of the serious video game. The term "art game" was first used academically in 2002 and it has come to be understood as describing a video game designed to emphasize art or whose structure is intended to produce some kind of reaction in its audience. Art games are interactive and the result of artistic intent by the party offering the piece for consideration. They also typically go out of their way to have a unique, unconventional look, often standing out for aesthetic beauty or complexity in design. The concept has been extended by some art theorists to the realm of modified ("modded") gaming when modifications have been made to existing non-art games to produce graphic results intended to be viewed as an artistic display, as opposed to modifications intended to change game play scenarios or for storytelling. Modified games created for artistic purposes are sometimes referred to as "video game art".
Isabelle Arvers is a French media art curator, critic, and author, specializing in video and computer games, web animation, digital cinema, retrogaming, chip tunes and machinima. She was born in Paris in 1972 and currently lives in Marseille. She curated exhibitions in France and worldwide on the relationship between art, video and computer games, and politics. She also promotes free and open source culture as well as indie games and art games.
Anne-Marie Schleiner is a theorist, an educator, a new media and performance artist, a hacktivist, a scholar, a gamer, and a curator. Her work is focused on gender construction, ludic activism, situationist theory, political power struggles, experimental gaming design theory, urban play, the United States Military, avatar gender reification, the global south, and feminist film theory.
Based on Id Software's open stance towards game modifications, their Quake series became a popular subject for player mods beginning with Quake in 1996. Spurred by user-created hacked content on their previous games and the company's desire to encourage the hacker ethic, Id included dedicated modification tools into Quake, including the QuakeC programming language and a level editor. As a game that popularized online first-person shooter multiplayer, early games were team- and strategy-based and led to prominent mods like Team Fortress, whose developers were later hired by Valve to create a dedicated version for the company. Id's openness and modding tools led to a "Quake movie" community, which altered gameplay data to add camera angles in post-production, a practice that became known as machinima.
Joseph DeLappe is a UK-based American artist and academic best known for his art intervention pieces that explore contemporary issues in politics through new media installations and interactive gaming performances.
A cutscene or event scene is a sequence in a video game that is not interactive, interrupting the gameplay. Such scenes are used to show conversations between characters, set the mood, reward the player, introduce newer models and gameplay elements, show the effects of a player's actions, create emotional connections, improve pacing or foreshadow future events.
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