Behind Massive Screens - A Game Development Podcast

In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, Petter and Dóri meet Brenda Bae, Lead Concept Artist on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Océane Näsström, Associate Lead Character Artist on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Hear about their roles, how they got to where they are today, and what went into designing the clans and characters in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – and making them come to life in the game. How the environments in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora affected the characters in the game, in everything from their silhouettes, hairstyles, clothing and gear – and much more.

In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, Petter and Dóri meet Mikhail Greuli, Associate Art Director on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Kunal Luthra, Lead Technical Artist on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Hear about their roles, how they got to where they are today, and of course what it was like to create the immersive world of Pandora – as we deep-dive into the creation of biomes, scattering systems, shaders, destruction of plants, pollution systems, and so much more.

In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, Petter and Dóri meet Martin Jansén, Expert Game Designer at Massive Entertainment, to talk about the Game Design in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Hear about Martin's role, how he got to where he is today, and learn more about how Martin and the team worked with player movement, haptics, the three Cs (character, camera, controls) and much more.

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!

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.

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 was it developed in the first place, and how do you set up the users, the game developers, to easily find the information and guidelines they need to do their craft?

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.

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.

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 information is sent over the Internet, in the most effective way, and that all those connections are stable? Resources Books: A Tour of C++ 3rd edition, by Bjarne Stroustrup - https://www.stroustrup.com/Tour.html C++ Templates: The Complete Guide 2nd Edition by David Vandevoorde, Nicolai Josuttis, Douglas Gregor - http://www.tmplbook.com/ YouTube channels: That Dev Ops Guy YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@MarcelDempers Onur Mutlu Lectures - https://www.youtube.com/@OnurMutluLectures Tools: Kubernetes - https://kube.academy/ Intel VTune Valgrind perf (Linux) Prometheus Loki and promtail Grafana

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's career? Let's find out! Resources: Shotdeck - https://shotdeck.com/

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-Interfaces-Patterns-Effective-Interaction-ebook/dp/B082WQ28FM Behance - https://www.behance.net/ The Game Assembly - https://thegameassembly.com/ Game Empowerment Movement (GEM) - http://www.gamehabitat.se/gem/

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 Shaders to Create Stylized VFX (GDC Vault) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqdVG_qcKok John Behren's ArtStation - https://behjohn.artstation.com/

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!

Ever wondered how to start working on artificial intelligence in a video game and how the AI in The Division was put together? What do you need to keep in mind when creating AI for an NPC? And how do you get started in modding games and what can you create using the tools available? In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, Associate Game Director Drew Rechner covers these subjects in detail, since he's worked with both – and has built one of the most ambitious Neverwinter Nights mods ever created.

In this special episode of Behind Massive Screens, we meet Thomas Parrott, author of Compromised, the latest The Division novel! Learn about how Thomas immerses himself in the worlds he writes about, the research he does, what inspires him and how he has worked with the team at Massive on both Compromised and the previous book in the series, Recruited. And what is it with The Division universe and its characters that make them so fascinating to write about?

Join Petter and Dóri as they meet Keltic Vermeersch, Environment Artist at Massive Entertainment, to find out how environments in video games are created - from "simple" hallways to sprawling open worlds. They also learn brand new creative uses for lamps. Yes, lamps.

Welcome to the Behind Massive Screens podcast! But what is it? Let Petter and Dori explain it to you, and then join us as we dig deeper into the games industry, find out more about the people behind some of your favorite games, and learn about what life is like in the gaming industry.

In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, Petter and Dori sit down with Lead Game Designer Lau Korsgaard to talk about experimental game design, indie development versus AAA, what uses a regular controller can have beyond the norm, and how games without rules can encourage social interaction. From being a part of an indie development collective to working in AAA gaming, Lau has gone on quite the design journey. Join us as we find out more about how his past informs his present, and what impact the indie scene has had on the major development studios.

Join Petter and new co-host Dori as they sit down with Palle Hoffstein, Art Producer for The Division 2, and dive into his job and his long history in the games industry. What does an Art Producer do and how do they work with the artists? What was it like to work in the industry back in the 90s? How did you develop a fully fledged FPS with only 20 people? And how was the experience of moving from North America to Europe?

We sat down with Chella Ramanan, Narrative Designer at Massive Entertainment, to dig into the complicated subject of storytelling in video games – in everything from smaller indie projects to giant AAA games. Chella has had a long career, spanning over disciplines like literature, games journalism and indie games, before coming to Massive. How did all of them inform her current job? How does game journalism help a career in actual game development, and what can video games learn from literature and theater? Resources: GDC Narrative Talks Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY9igWPHZ4w&list=PL2e4mYbwSTbYD6zfuWTwz2nTfvKOZBWMe&index=1 AdventureX - https://adventurexpo.org/ Game Maker's Toolkit - https://www.youtube.com/c/MarkBrownGMT

In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, Petter meets Concept Artists Topi Pajunen and Marie Isacsson to talk about their job, concept art's role in game development, and how art can inspire the development teams and communicate ideas. We also gain insights into how fashion can help design characters, the limitations and freedoms artists have, how to deal with feedback and how they keep the creativity flowing. Resources: Artstation - https://www.artstation.com/ FZD School - https://www.youtube.com/user/FZDSCHOOL Blender Guru - https://www.blenderguru.com/

What goes into adapting a huge AAA video game to other languages and markets than simply English? How do localizers and translators work on the text, but also on voices and UI? How do you work with voice casting and actors, dialects, language differences, and any potential translation mistakes? And how many people are involved in localizing a giant AAA video game? Let Myriam Forbes, Localization Project Manager, and Patrick Görtjes, Associate Producer, give us a deep dive into all those subjects – and more! Resources: Books: Clyde Mandelin & Tony Kuchar – This be book bad translation, video games! https://www.amazon.com/This-book-translation-video-games/dp/194590898X Blogs: Algo más que traducir (Spanish) https://algomasquetraducir.com/

In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, Petter meets The Division 2's Creative Director Yannick Banchereau to talk about his job, his background and the new content for The Division 2 that released last week. What does a Creative Director on a Live game such as The Division 2 do, what decisions do they make and how do they work with – and encourage – their team? How does the game's smaller team create the new content? How has Yannick's background as Community Developer impacted his role as Creative Director? How did Covid-19 affect development? We also discuss the new Title Update, TU15, its content, what the idea behind the new game mode is, and dive into the continuation of the story as The Division 2 heads into Year 4.

In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, Technical Animator Rasmus Björk gives an insight into what technical animation is, how it works and its place in bringing characters to life in video games. How do you make sure that a human, or an orc, or even an animal move in a realistic way? How do you build a skeleton that animators can then use to work their magic?

In this episode of Behind Massive Screens, Cinematic Animator Soo Kang tells us how cutscenes in games are made – from script to motion capture, to ending up in a game. How do you plan for a recording, how do you use the motion capture data once it's done, how do you go from a pair of moving dots to a complete scene? How do you create drama and how do you connect it to gameplay? How do you use a mix of technology and storytelling to draw a player into the world of the game?

In our second episode of the Behind Massive Screens podcast, we sit down with Lead Game Designer Fredrik Thylander to discuss game design, how it works in practice and how you approach designing a new game from scratch. And how do you, with various tricks (and cheats), create fun, second-to-second gameplay?

Welcome to Behind Massive Screens, a new podcast from Massive Entertainment! In this inagural episode we meet Lead Data Scientist David Renaudie, who will tell us more about how data science can help us understand our players and our games better, and what it means for future development.

With all the puzzle pieces that make up a AAA video game, how do you make sure that those pieces are put together in the correct way and at the right time? This is where Associate Producer Lisa Kretschmer and her team comes in! How do you project manage all the different development teams in an efficient way? How do you plan the sprints – and what even are sprints? What is SCRUM and agile development? How do you manage creative people and enable them to do their magic? How do make sure deadlines are kept? And what does being a leader actually mean? Also, make sure you pay attention to the pastry Lisa brought - it might be one of the most beautiful ones ever featured on the Fika Sessions. Tools & Links: Books: Clinton Keith - Agile Game Development with SCRUM https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Development-Scrum-Addison-Wesley-Signature/dp/0321618521 Travis Bradberry, Jean Greaves – Emotional Intelligence 2.0 https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Intelligence-2-0-Travis-Bradberry/dp/0974320625 Susan Jeffers – Feel the Fear …and Do It Anyway https://www.amazon.com/Feel-Fear-Do-Anyway/dp/0345487427 Kim Scott – Radical Candor https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Candor-Kim-Scott/dp/B01KTIEFEE Joanna Root, Dean Hume – The People Manager https://www.amazon.com/People-Manager-Guide-First-Managers-ebook/dp/B084WVGG94 Patrick Lencioni – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756

In Episode 11 of the Fika Sessions, we meet UX Designer Izzy Martin to learn more about user experiences at Ubisoft Connect. How do you make sure that the users get the best experience possible? How is the design work done? What does the process look like, and how do you make sure - and test - that the user flows make sense? How do work with accessibility? Izzy answers all these questions and more as we dive into her job in detail. We'll also find out how you can go from being a “digital librarian” in the US to working at Massive Entertainment in Sweden. And make sure not to miss out on the fika Izzy brought. There's a story there, and also a lot of sugar. Tools & Tips: Game UX Summit 19 YouTube Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GblZTyg3XNM&list=PLt0pXp-xSmxa_UIPITlN3d132twVmhJHw

In this new episode of our Fika Sessions, we meet Daniel Gonzalez, Build & Infrastructure Engineer at Massive Entertainment, to discuss details about what it takes to get the actual game to your machines. So you have all the graphics, audio, animations and gameplay programming. How do you get all of that into one package you can play on your console or PC? Enter the Build Engineers. Daniel and his team take all of that, put it on their machines and start creating their game builds. Join us as we find out more about how that process works, but also about concepts such as devops (development operations), automation and alerts when working on major computer engineering projects. Also, for the fika itself, what ARE those things?! Tools & Links: Google Site Reliability Engineering Handbook - https://sre.google/sre-book/table-of-contents/

The Fika Sessions are back, this time with Gameplay Programmer Natalia Belova, to discuss programming and how features come alive in a video game. How does the process look to get a feature into a game? How does a programmer work together with the design team? What does it take to make a character pet a dog? Natalia answers all of these questions and more, as we dig deeper into the world of gameplay programming. Tools & Links: Learn 3D Engines: Unity Learn - https://learn.unity.com/ Learn How to Use Unreal Engine - https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/learn 2D Engines: Cocos 2D - https://www.cocos.com/en/

In this episode of the Fika Sessions, we meet Communications & Event Manager Emilia Drakeus, to discuss the inner world of corporate communications. What does it take to communicate to both employees and the outside world on a studio level? How do you become a communicator? What is the best way to get information out to the studio? Emilia also gives us practical tips on how to start writing. And if you don't like cream, how do you eat a traditional Swedish semla? Tools & Links: Books Dana Gioia & R.S. Gwynn, "The Art of the Short Story" - https://www.amazon.com/Art-Short-Story-Dana-Gioia/dp/0321363639 Online tools Grammarly - https://www.grammarly.com/

In this episode of the Fika Sessions, Luca Buonamici, Lead Lighting Artist at Massive Entertainment, gives us an insight into how you work with light and lighting in video games. Compared to the 2D planes of a movie screen, how do you light up a scene that can be viewed from 360 degrees? During the show, Luca shares his knowledge about how light affects mood, guide players and how it makes "the beautiful more beautiful". Also, what are those wafer-thin cookies on the table? Tools & Links: John Alton - Painting with Light. https://www.amazon.se/Painting-Light-John-Alton/dp/0520275845/ Blain Brown - Cinematography Theory Practice. https://www.amazon.se/Cinematography-Theory-Practice-Blain-Brown/dp/1138940925/

In this episode of the Fika Sessions, Andrada Greciuc, Lead Game Designer at Massive Entertainment, joins host Petter Mårtensson to answer the question "What is Game Design in Video Games?". While the phrase "game design" might seem a bit abstract, and the job of “game designer” being one of those easily romanticized, Andrada makes her role easy to understand as she gives us the details of her craft from concept to release. Together, she and Petter tackle topics like design documents, collaboration between teams, systems design and of course, how to develop fun game features. Andrada also brought some classic Swedish Fika, but with a bit of a twist! Are those name tags…? Resources: Celia Hodent – The Gamer's Brain https://www.amazon.com/Gamers-Brain-Neuroscience-Impact-Design/dp/1498775500 Benedict Carey – How we Learn https://www.amazon.com/How-We-Learn-Surprising-Happens/dp/0812984293 Raph Koster – Theory of Fun https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1449363210

In this episode of the Fika Sessions, Petter Mårtensson sits down with Alex Riviere, Audio Director at Massive Entertainment, to discuss audio direction for video games and his unique journey into the gaming industry. How do you create a sound? And how can a sound affect how we play and feel about a game? These are some of the many topics that Alex walks us through as he talks about his role as an Audio Director. It's a role that includes everything from defining strategies and visions for games, to implementing individual sounds, and travelling the world to capture the sounds of a specific bird. Alex also brought some fika that is highly inspired by his home country! Tools & Links: Books Aaron Marks “The Complete Guide to Game Audio” - https://www.amazon.com/Aaron-Marks-Complete-Guide-Audio/dp/1138795380 Articles: Florian Titus Ardelean “The Bible of Getting a Job in Game Audio” (a compilation of articles) - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sAd8xOdngsdLJqKfcOnyL8xRhPi3Uitys6fEXU9O2X0/mobilebasic Blogs: Audiokinetik Blog - https://blog.audiokinetic.com/ Massive Blog – Alex's Top 5 Audio Portfolio Tips - https://www.massive.se/blog/recruitment/my-top-5-portfolio-tips-audio/

In this episode of the Fika Sessions, Petter Mårtensson sits down with Océane Näsström, Character Artist at Massive Entertainment, to discuss the ins and outs of Character Art and 3D modelling. A Character Artist transforms 2D concept art into fully fledged 3D characters and bring them to life in the game. They master a wide range of artistic and technical skills, and seamlessly move between different software to create their art. Océane gives us an insight into how it all works, how Character Artists interact with other teams and her journey from being “the art kid” to working on AAA titles in the games industry. She also brought her own baked fika. What are those delicious things? Learn more about the Fika Sessions on our website - https://www.massive.se/the-fika-sessions/ Tools and links: Education: Game Assembly - https://www.thegameassembly.com/ Art sites: Polycount - https://polycount.com/ Artstation - https://www.artstation.com/ 3D modelling: Maya - https://www.autodesk.com/products/maya/overview Blender - https://www.blender.org/ Sculpting: Zbrush - https://pixologic.com/ Engines: Unity - https://unity.com/ Unreal - https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/ Cloth: Marvelous Designer - https://www.marvelousdesigner.com/ Texturing: Substance Painter - https://www.substance3d.com/products/substance-painter/ Substance Designer - https://www.substance3d.com/products/substance-designer/ Cruffin recipe: https://grabandgorecipes.com/easter-kulich-cruffin/

In this episode of The Fika Sessions, host Petter Mårtensson sits down with Ólafur Waage, senior programmer at Massive Entertainment, to discuss programming and how to get started with it. In the games industry, there are not only game developers – there is also a support structure to make sure that the games end up in your hands. Ólafur will not only give you an opportunity to learn about programming and his journey to the industry, but also give you insights into what this aspect of the games industry looks like. Also, what does that tasty, oblong fika bread taste like? Learn more: https://www.massive.se/the-fika-sessions/ Follow Ólafur on Twitter: https://twitter.com/olafurw Tools and links: Code{}School, season 1: https://www.massive.se/blog/games-technology/codeschool/ Beyond FPS playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSamxtiCIyM&list=PLcKpytGyWm9o6SHKuag4Rj-J_0yQxJ4PV Tom Scott's The Basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CINVwWHlzTY&list=PL5ZXG50fTM7oZBZmFhJygA2419Hsg6v8H Richard Feynman's Computer Heuristics Lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKWGGDXe5MA Pluralsight: https://www.pluralsight.com/ Include C++ Community: https://www.includecpp.org/

In this episode of the Fika Sessions, we meet Michael How, Lead Level Designer at Massive Entertainment, to find out more about how levels for video games are made. How do you start putting a level together? How do you make them fun and meaningful? And how do you work with the other game development teams to bring it to life? And perhaps most importantly - what pastry did Michael bring for the fika?

In this inaugural episode of the Fika Sessions, host Petter Mårtensson sits down with Anna Megill, Lead Writer at Massive Entertainment, to find out more about how writing stories and narratives for video games works. What makes writing for games different from other forms of writing? How does a game writer work together with the other development teams? What kind of material is a writer on a video game expected to write? What tools are used and what do you need to think about if you want to apply for the job in Narrative? Also, what does the tasty fika taste like? Tools and links: Twine https://twinery.org/ Scrivener https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview Final Draft https://www.finaldraft.com/ Ren'Py https://www.renpy.org/ Anna Megill on Twitter https://twitter.com/cynixy Lussekatter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron_bun https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lussekatt