GTA 4 IDEAS

Firstly they started collecting ideas. Locations, technology, gameplay, missions, basically everything and anything we want to include or do. We think about what we are trying to achieve in basic terms, we spend a bit of time sorting and discarding some of the initial ideas.

In terms of the art department, the character artists will start playing about with concepts, trying various main characters in the game, playing about with pushing the style a little, basically experimenting. The vehicle department will begin a first pass of every vehicle, the environment artists will lay out a road network and once we've all driven around on it for a bit will block in each city block roughly so we can start to see the skyline. The intention is that as soon as possible we have a very, very rough version of the game and then we begin to refine it. Like every other aspect of the game the artistic direction grows organically, we try stuff and things that work pull us in their direction and things that don't are changed.

Right at the start the ambient characters are blocked in, there is a first pass that gives us an initial version of them and as the style tightens and the artists become more confident with the tools we go over them again and again and tighten them up, add varieties and consistency. The main characters all wait for the script. We work from some initial biographies while the script is still in its early stages and then again push these further when the script evolves.

he story always comes a little later in the day. At the point when the characters are developed we tend to be working more from feel and a short biography. We know the kind of character the player is supposed to be and we know a little of his background but we still don't know what he is going to do and say. So in that sense we have to work with broad strokes. Niko's face looks like he's had a past, that he has done and seen things most people haven't and that this has affected him. That's a good basis to build on.

We found this on http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=4499

An interview on their first ideas of GTA 4 with Aaron -Art director of GTA

Adobe is to stop making software tools that allow Apple's iPhone and iPad to use its popular Flash technology.

The decision reverses an earlier pledge in which it said it would help get Flash working on the gadgets.

Flash is very widely used on the web and many sites use it to power animations, media players and other multimedia elements.

Despite this, Apple's products do not support Flash and it has made public statements criticising the technology.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8616274.stm

Flash moves on to smart phones

By Jonathan Fildes Technology reporter, BBC News One of the most common technologies for watching video on a computer will soon be available for most smartphones. Flash software is used to deliver around 75% of online video and is the key technology that underpins websites such as YouTube and Google Video. Until now, many smartphones and netbooks have used a "light" version of the program, because of the limited processing power of the devices. The new software is intended to work as well on a smartphone as a desktop PC.