Inspiration is a wonderful thing. It can hit us at anytime, come from anything, and allow artists to tell unique stories about the pieces they make. Once inspiration sets in, the next stage in the process is usually finding references and making sketches/thumbnails. But how are these ideas seen when there’s a darker side to them?
Recently, I learned about the Half Life Corpse reference. The video linked above goes into more detail about not only Half Life, but other games where violence and gore has been studied in order to render out correctly for the sake of video games.
Personal Thoughts
After hearing more detail about the corpse being used as reference for Half Life 2, I found myself thinking about how references are not only used for different mediums, but also how they’re found and where they originally come from. The idea of needing something so specific in order to create can lead into a relatively deep rabbit hole. Where could someone find exactly what they need in order to make something? How could someone do it if they didn’t have internet access? Or, what if they just couldn’t find what they needed based on extensive google searches and stock photos?
The thought of game developers studying violence, gore, and physical sickness is a pretty unpleasant thought. At first, one may think it’s absolutely sickening, and then the perspective could be twisted to make the developers seem like bad people. However, I feel as though it’s important to understand why good and bad things are studied: reference and accuracy.
As morbid as it seems to study dark topics for accuracy within a final product, it’s still important to consider the “why” of things. Not everyone wants to play a horror game with realistic graphics and potential blood. However, the entertainment value of a living room with broken perspective could also tank someone’s interest in a much more neutral game. It’s important to think about different desires for how games should be represented, which can sometimes include in-game violence. Though this can be seen as morally wrong, it doesn’t always mean that the artist who study these topics intend to act upon the harm they study.
The need for correct references in order to execute ideas don’t always end up pretty. Unfortunately, some references and inspiration can definitely come from dark things. This can sometimes lead to negative effects on the artist, proving that not all who study such things are bad people. I personally find the entirety of the reference hunt to be fascinating, because artists can end up on very different, yet interesting paths in order to create what they’d like.
