An art director’s job is essentially the head of the entire art team for any given project; he alone decides the games art style and direction, ensuring all artistic standards gel throughout the entire game. This usually happens at the very start of a projects formation and ideally would take around 3 to 6 months although for the most part pre production takes place around 3 to 6 weeks during this time a games entire visual ‘personality’ is created including characters, environments, weapon designs anything that would make up the game visually is first drawn and conceived during this time. Without the correct standards; for example texture resolution, polycount etc elements of the game will look widely different to other elements - part of an art directors job is to reign in individual members and ensure all elements of the game not only suits the game style and plot but looks consistently professional throughout.
Take for example, Half Life 2 - the main Art Director, Viktor Antonov this person essentailly had to decide the games overall look and feel creating several stunning images - seriously look at the site, to give the various modellers, texture artists and various other specialist artists to produce a consistent enviroement both to his original vision and one that valve ould be proud of.
The art director also acts as the head for the entire art team, deciding whether a teams artistic goal is possible within a specified time and money budget, an average game simply for the art and design budget is around 3 million pounds (CHECK THIS!) so it is vital the art director can decide whether or not the design team can produce the work if not time and more importantly money is lost pursuing an over budget over time game.
Additionally technical specifications are written for sections of the game these documents detail the average poly count of a typical prop its texture resolution as well as any other elements that will determine the technical background of a game - the end specification of the console or pc it will end up running on is also considered - this is where the technical specifications come into there own a model can look stunning but if its too high poly for the end machine its useless.
For this the art director typically goes back and forth between the design team and the programmers ensuring there vision is possible and mapping out any limitations or drawbacks to the system it will be supporting
Being an art director means a person must be able to tie together an artistic vision bereft of technical limitations with a strict polygon and time limit of a modern game, the person must balance an artistic vision and allow every team member to envision this vision, there is little opportunity for individuality in the working environment, the art director ensuring all members are working to a similar goal. Unlike a number of jobs in the games sector which are individual to the sector, an art director’s job seems interchangeable with a number of other popular media's including TV and films.
Infect as games become increasingly more complex and the resulting art direction in turn becomes more complex wouldn’t it be possible for a person previously worked on the art direction for a number of major films to transfer to games? Well, not really - for the most part an art directors position in TV and films seems to be a more managerial position determining if a team can produce an artistic vision within a specified time limit - a games art director does this and more having to take into account the technical limitations of the games and the target platform
'One of the hardest things as a Art director is to get everyone to see your vision' - Rick Hath, Former Art director for Codemasters
