Photogrammetry

Game companies are now finding more ways to utilise art and photography to help develop their games even further. For example, Ubisoft’s game Far Cry 5, which was released in March 2018 used a process called photogrammetry to develop the game. The word photogrammetry is derived from three Greek words: photos - meaning "light", gramma- meaning "drawing" and metrein meaning "measurement" (Singh, U/K). However, photogrammetry wasn’t made to build 3D worlds, it was created by French Inventor, Aimé Laussedat who was the first person to use terrestrial photographs for topographic map compilation (Singh, U/K). Terrestrial Photogrammetry is when the camera is in a stationary position, but the camera is positioned on a slightly elevated level (Processing, 2014). This is the type of Photogrammetry that was used to help created Far Cry 5, the image below shows the camera in a stationary position, unlike aerial photogrammetry.

The team travelled to the State of Montana to explore the towns and the woodland areas so they could get to know the wildlife, landscape and people. While they were there, they took thousands of images so that they could recrate the landscape and create a small part of Montana in their game. They took images of objects such as trees, rocks, vegetation and buildings from multiple angles and used photogrammetry to scan them to create ultra-realistic 3D objects that could be used in the game. By doing this, they were able to build their most detailed game yet.

This image demonstrates the lengths that game designers are going through to create extremely accurate landscapes within simulated worlds. The tree on the right-hand side is the final result after putting all of the images through photogrammetry software, and they are breathtakingly similar. The attention to detail in the game in extraordinary, each road has signs to tell you where you are and what animal is in the area, there are also hundreds of billboards with locations and advertisements, and each sign and billboard aren’t just placed randomly, the game designers specifically placed them so the player can know where they are at all times and make them more alert.

The buildings and interiors are also a very large part of the game itself. They wanted each building to look lived in, so they had to do a lot of branding.

Every logo is almost a character in and of itself. You're always asking, ‘what's the history behind that? Who's the owner? What's next, where can I find this person? I see there's a shop, maybe I can find this shop somewhere?' And it attracts you to go and find it, so it ties into the exploration of the world as you see those signs. Philip Fournier (Reparez, 2017)

As well as this, by branding houses and businesses, it makes the game more realistic and makes the player feel more immersed in the world and makes it feel less like a game as it makes the buildings look lived in and like something you would see in a building in real life – none are plain and boring, they all have life, whether it’s lived in or abandoned, you can tell that it belonged to someone. It also makes the character seem less simulated, as the buildings almost possess the memories and feelings of the character.

Photography is a key tool in creating games, before companies started using photogrammetry, they built their worlds by taking photographs and copying them. It wasn’t as accurate as photogrammetry, but it still allowed the simulated worlds to be very realistic. Games such as Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) and Mafia III had to use photography to help build the landscapes as they are in fact based upon real places. GTA V is bases in modern day Los Angles, and Mafia II is based in 1960 New Orleans, so both needed to be very accurate to the real place to make players feel as though they are in los Angeles or have gone back in time to 1960 New Orleans.