CamStudio

In game development, as in most other things, it's often the simplest of things that can have the biggest impact. Lately the BHG art team has latched on to CamStudio, a piece of shareware that has substantially improved the way in which we communicate with fellow artists as well as with other departments. Artists now regularly post "Do Not Disturb - RECORDING IN PROGRESS" signs on their door, hook up microphones and record Max and Zbrush tips and workflows.

We've began compiling a library of these recordings and it's turned into an efficient way to acclimate new hires and interns to our processes. Another huge benefit to our current project has been sending artist created videos over to our tools development team. Artists have pointed out particular workflows and tools in software that they're already comfortable with and programmers use the vids as a development guide. I've seen programmers scrubbing these vids back and forth, then pausing to code, then back to the vid for more scrubbing. Our proprietary Big Huge Engine tools that have been created as a result of this process have required far less back and forth communication between programmer and art end users. More importantly the tools are generally more art-friendly and familiar right out of the gate. I predict when it comes time to post-mortem our current project we'll place CamStudio video creation on the "What Went Right" list.