#I could probably try to finish those concept sketches I initially sent you

[wizardessheartprincess]

Bold of u to assume i have a title in mind (prologue, part 1/?)

Pairing; bakugou katsuki x reader

A/N; new au: reader’s sending out surveys and somehow one respondent makes it into a competition; reader is not paid enough to deal with this. So many wild assumptions, even the economics major in me is reeling. Many corners were cut. I’m mostly sorry. only ooc in this household. shoutout to @lady-bakuhoe whose incredible existence was the impetus for me to write a fic for the first time in 2 years. will i continue this? who knows!

edit: part 2 is here (x)

Your eyes are drawn to the little black text box that pops up in the bottom right corner of your screen - a new email. The subject line - a reply to the email you haven’t even finished sending to all the recipients yet.

You click into the notification, expecting it to be one of the business students critiquing your survey design - but no, it’s… from the Hero Course. Funny, since they’re usually off training, and you have to nag most of them multiple times to answer emails, even with the giant “[ACTION REQUIRED]” tag in the subject line.

You sit up from where you’re lazily draped over the bed, kicking aside the blanket as you decide to act more professional when you’re technically still on the clock for work. You shuffle over to the desk, gently placing your laptop on top of it before you’re much less gentle with how you plop yourself into the chair.

The survey was an exercise for the Support Course - meant to develop your communication skills with the heroes you would one day aid in their work. That meant designing a survey that your heroic audience would actually take the time to answer accurately, while providing you with feedback on your designs. 

Your specialty was in aerodynamics and chemistry - and the Hero Course student you most wanted to design for was Bakugou Katsuki. It was just your luck that he was also probably the worst “client” to work for… at least from what you’d heard from your classmates. Abrasive, picky, and downright destructive of his equipment - those were your classmates’ chief complaints about him. But while of course, you understood their annoyance at having to remake his costume every time he ran off into a new scuffle, part of you was attracted to the qualities that others seemed to hate. He was aggressive, and harsh on his support items, yes, but he demanded the best out of his own performance, too. It went both ways. Personally, you appreciated that he knew exactly what he needed, and you’d be happy to try to deliver-

It absolutely sucked, having two desires conflicting like this - one, to dive headfirst into your inventions, to create boundlessly, to really make an impact on the world through the users of your gifts - but the other, to simply create without having to interact with others. You envied people like Hatsume, who seemed to have endless energy to pour into marketing, to not just make, but also share. You? 

You had an equal ratio of 3D print files and trashed concept art, and a 100:0 ratio of ideas to actually publicized ideas. 

Sure, you’d tossed some small inventions into the metaphorical ring before, to some praise and interest from major support companies, but you’d always been too damn shy to really push anything to come out of those initial sparks of interest. 

You opened the email, drafting the survey you were originally planning to send out to Todoroki. He could wait.

Above the answers - quite thoughtfully composed, actually - was a note. 

“Is this the fastest reply you’ve gotten?” 

I quietly snort. Seriously? Not everything has to be a competition. But based on the way he acted in the Sports Festival (and everywhere else, let’s be honest)… you’re not entirely surprised.

You pause, curiously skimming his answers, slowing down every now and then so you can reciprocate his thoughts with your own, already brimming with fresh concepts to incorporate into existing designs. 

And... as much as you’d like to spiral into sketches and notes on how to buffer the shock wave effect of his large explosions on his own body, more complex biologic drug compounds to prevent any pulmonary issues from his quirk, and the possibility of adding an automatic shock wave source to his hero costume that would provide destructive interference with any aftershocks of his explosions that might put too much pressure on his body - 

First.

You check the reply time - he replied nineteen minutes after you sent the initial email. 

You hit the reply button.

“Dear Bakugou - 

Thank you for the prompt and thorough response! Unfortunately, Midoriya responded to the last survey in eighteen minutes - just a minute before you. 

- Y/N”

You hit send, and navigate promptly to the drafted email you were working on just before this one. While you could just mass email everyone, you’ve found that personalizing the emails generally gets better response and completion rates. Still, you’ve barely typed out Todoroki’s name before another notification pops up - 

“Did I beat it yet?” is the entire contents of the email.

You can’t help but smile a little - and you almost just reply with a short “Yes : )” and leave it at that, but…

This opportunity doesn’t come every day. You look at the clock - technically, you could stop now if you wanted. Even on school nights, you’re encouraged to generally stop working before it gets too late, to refresh your mind periodically. Still…

You open your files, navigating to the folder you have for Bakugou. While you have a folder for pretty much every student in the Hero Course, you’ve spent much more time designing possibilities for Bakugou’s costume, the potential of a better aerodynamic and versatile all-around tool for him to use in battle.

- Not that you’ve ever really shown these designs to anyone, let alone the person they were customized for.

But…

Screw it.

You attach a couple of files to your reply email.

“You beat the record.”

You make no written mention of the files - hopefully, he’ll see them anyway, because you have no idea how to introduce them out of the blue. Honestly, he’s probably too busy to study them too in-depth, and it’s just as well if he doesn’t notice the attachments, anyway. Maybe they’re not that useful after all.

You hit send again. 

It’s hours later when your phone lights up and dings with another notification - you sit up groggily in bed, trying to reach for it while cursing that you forgot to turn your notifications off overnight - when you see it’s another reply from Bakugou. Instantly, you’re awake, as if the man himself had come into your room and directed an explosion into your face.

Did he see your designs?

You scramble to tap on the email in your inbox, accidentally clicking into a reply from Kirishima that you instantly close out of, before you stop, and it’s as if the night has its own inertia in the still silence. 

“Can I talk to you about these tomorrow?”

Your throat goes dry - you swing your legs out of bed, and toddle to your desk again, turning on the room lights on your way. Flipping up your laptop screen again, you open all the 3D print iteration files, the word documents of notes, the code and corresponding comments, the CAD models, from Bakugou’s folder - there’s no way you’ll be able to sleep tonight.

Then, finally, you respond.

“What time?”

[aion-rsa]

Mortal Kombat: Sub-Zero and Scorpion’s Rivalry Explained

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Whether you’re a longtime Mortal Kombat fan or someone who is mostly just interested in the upcoming film’s status as one of the first proper blockbusters of 2021, you’re probably at least aware of the feud between the series’ resident ninjas: Sub-Zero and Scorpion. It’s a battle that almost transcends the already legendary franchise and has entered the public pop-culture consciousness in a way that makes many almost subconsciously think “rivals” whenever they see the two characters.

While the truth is that nearly everything about Sub-Zero and Scorpion makes them natural rivals, only those who have dared dive into the details of this series’ mind-blowing lore know the fascinating story that has fueled this franchise feud. While filmmakers everywhere have rarely struggled to find reasons for two ninjas to fight each other, the story of Sub-Zero and Scorpion’s rivalry goes so much deeper than two warriors battling to see who is best.

We’ll stop short of recounting every event in this twisted tale that takes place across multiple timelines, but if you’re just wondering why Sub-Zero and Scorpion can’t seem to get along despite shopping at the same stores, then here’s a brief look at the history of a rivalry that ranks among the best in fighting game history.

Scorpion and Sub-Zero Were Rivals From the Start

Before we dive into the lore aspects of the Sub-Zero/Scorpion rivalry, it should be noted that their feud was no accident or one of those things that just happened as the games evolved. It was actually one of those rare pieces of long-lasting lore that was pretty much planned from the start.

The story goes that Mortal Kombat co-creator John Tobias started reading a book called “China’s Ninja Connection” not long before the initial work on what would become Mortal Kombat began. The book tells the story of a clan of thieves and assassins in China that it claims essentially inspired the popular idea of the Japanese ninja. Fascinated by that concept, Tobias sketched a ninja warrior modeled after the story’s clan and lead characters. That fighter would go on to become Sub-Zero.

As Tobias revealed years later, he soon became aware that the cultural and historical claims in that book’s narrative were heavily disputed. As such, he decided to add a second ninja character to the game but that one would be of Japanese origins. That character eventually became Scorpion. 

The rivalry between those two fighters would be sealed by the MK team’s decision to rely on palette swaps for some of the game’s characters in order to ensure they didn’t need to come up with entirely new designs for every fighter. As such, Sub-Zero and Scorpion were given largely similar looks but aesthetically opposing colors (blue and orange). For a generation of MK fans, the fact that these two characters looked similar but wore different colors was actually their first indication that they were rivals.

Quan Chi’s Task Fuels the Sub-Zero/Scorpion Rivalry

In the spirit of their real-life origin stories, Sub-Zero and Scorpion were written to be members of opposing ninja clans in the MK universe. Sub-Zero (real name Bi-Han) belonged to the Lin Kuei clan and Scorpion (real name Hanzo Hasashi) pledged himself to the Shirai Ryu clan. Essentially, the two were natural rivals in the franchise’s universe before they even actually met. 

However, their rivalry wouldn’t properly begin until the sorcerer Quan Chi commissioned the Lin Kuei and Shirai Ryu clans to help him find an ancient artifact that he planned to use to resurrect his master, Shinnok. Naturally, the clans sent Sub-Zero and Scorpion as their respective representatives on this task.

As you can probably guess, Sub-Zero and Scorpion met while trying to complete their assignments and, despite the number of things they clearly had in common, decided to battle rather than strike a meaningful and lasting friendship that certainly could have saved everyone a lot of trouble down the line.  

Sub-Zero Kills Scorpion

Sub-Zero would end up winning the first battle between him and Scorpion, but it should be pointed out that Sub-Zero had the undeniably useful ability to manipulate ice at that time while Scorpion was just a renowned warrior that possessed mostly human (though certainly enhanced) abilities. 

Not content with merely beating Scorpion in battle, Sub-Zero decided to kill Scorpion and end this feud before it could go any further. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that his plan would go on to fail spectacularly.

Scorpion’s hard times wouldn’t end in death. As part of his “payment” to the Lin Kuei, Quan Chi wiped out the Shirai Ryu clan, which naturally included Scorpion’s family. In any other universe, such a flawless victory (see what we did there?) would make it easy to proclaim Sub-Zero the winner of this feud. However, this whole situation would soon take a strange turn. 

Scorpion’s Resurrection and New Powers

In sudden need of allies after his initial plans go wrong, Quan Chi runs across the spirit of Hanzo Hasashi in the Netherrealm and offers to resurrect him if he agrees to serve as his personal assassin. To ensure that Hasashi feels properly motivated to seek vengeance against Sub-Zero, Quan Chi conjures an image of Sub-Zero leading the assault against Scorpion’s clan and killing his family. In reality, that was all Quan Chi’s doing. 

Nevertheless, Hasashi buys into the lie, is resurrected as Scorpion, and even gains some supernatural fire-based powers that would not only go on to define his early in-game fatality and special moves but would add another way for players to clearly distinguish him from Sub-Zero (fire vs. ice).

Scorpion is asked to enter the Mortal Kombat tournament depicted in the first game as Sub-Zero has also joined the tournament on an assignment for the Lin Kuei. Scorpion gets the better of Sub-Zero this time around and kills the ninja during their next battle. In what you’re probably realizing is quickly becoming a recurring theme, the death of Sub-Zero does not end this rivalry. 

Read more

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Sub-Zero is Reborn as Noob Saibot

Since resurrection is kind of his thing, Quan Chi decides to bring Bi-Han back to life (kind of) and turn him into the soulless warrior known as Noob Saibot. Initially, Noob Saibot was mostly interested in taking his ruthless aggression out on the residents and rulers of the Netherrealm. He quickly established himself as one of the underworld’s most fearsome forces.

Interestingly, the entire Noob Saibot character was created as a joke by Ed Boon who wanted to add another secret character to MK2 that even Tobias didn’t know existed until the development of MK3 was underway. That’s particularly hilarious when you realize that Noob Saibot’s name is a reverse play on Boon and Tobias’ names. 

Saibot would become a bigger player in MK lore later on, but he certainly wasn’t initially intended to be the reincarnation of Bi-Han, and Scorpion’s rivalry with Sub-Zero didn’t immediately detour into battles against Noob Saibot. Instead, the Scorpion/Sub-Zero rivalry would properly continue with the emergence of Bai-Han’s brother, Kuai Liang.

Scorpion and Kuai Liang’s Feud and Alliance

After Scorpion murdered Sub-Zero in the MK tournament, Bi-Han’s brother Kuai Liang decided to abandon his own codename (the admittedly awesome “Tundra”) and assume the Sub-Zero moniker as he searched for his brother’s killer. 

Scorpion sees the new Sub-Zero during the MK2 tournament, thinks “new Sub-Zero, who dis?” and proceeds to battle the frozen warrior in the usual manner. Scorpion gets the upper hand, but he soon realizes that this isn’t the same Sub-Zero that he still believes killed his family. We’ll dive into the difficult job of reporting what happens next in a bit, but for the moment, let’s just say that the two actually form a kind of bond that grows into an alliance.

Quan Chi is having approximately none of that and (in one version of this story) works his magic to make Scorpion believe that Kuai Liang was involved in the massacre of Scorpion’s family as well. Scorpion nearly kills Kuai Liang, but Quan Chi steps in to finish the job himself. In the process, he can’t help but do a full James Bond villain monologue by revealing that he was responsible for the pair’s rivalry this whole time. While he tries to banish Scorpion before killing Sub-Zero, Scorpion is able to overcome Quan Chi and manages to drag him into the Netherrealm before the sorcerer is able to murder Sub-Zero. 

From here, things start to get a little weird.

Sub-Zero and Scorpion Settle Their Rivalry Across Multiple Timelines

There are several versions of what happens next (and even slightly before). Which one matters most depends on which game you’re talking about, which timeline you subscribe to, and how you choose to process a whole lot of multiverse shenanigans. 

To make things as simple as possible, there’s a version of this story in which Scorpion eventually dies in the Netherrealm while hunting Quan Chi. However, this ending is non-canonical and rarely refered to as anything more than a fascinating aside. 

There’s also a sequence of events that sees Scorpion escape the Netherrealm, become a servant to the Elder Gods, and eventually try to destroy those gods after they resurrect his clan as undead creatures. In that scenario, an enraged Scorpion is eventually killed by Sub-Zero. 

2011’s Mortal Kombat (which famously reworked the timelines as part of a massive series’ story retelling effort), suggests that Scorpion and Kuai Liang only battle after Raiden is unable to prevent Scorpion from killing Bi-Han. However, Scorpion is eventually sent to the Neatherrealm before he can kill Kuai Liang. In that game’s Sub-Zero ending, we see Kuai Liang learn what happened to Scorpion’s family and how Quai Chi’s deception is largely responsible for their rivalry. He shares that information with Scorpion, and the pair form an alliance. 

While Mortal Kombat X would play with that ending a bit by portraying the now-united Kuai Liang and Scorpion as specters, their humanity is eventually restored, and Scorpion is finally able to decapitate Quan Chi and claim the vengeance he sought after all these years. 

Without diving too deep into the insane bits of lore that make up later MK games, Sub-Zero (Kuai Liang) and Scorpion continue their alliance and rarely battle in the series’ stories outside of those aforementioned timeline shenanigans that sometimes see alternate versions of themselves (as well as their kin) continue their war against each other for various reasons. 

Ultimately, though, Sub-Zero and Scorpion’s rivalry began as a natural feud fuelled by lies and outside influences. It essentially ended when Sub-Zero’s brother and Hanzo Hasashi realized they had common enemies and decided to unite for the common good. 

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Given that the upcoming Mortal Kombat movie features the Bi-Han version of Sub-Zero, though, fans can expect that film to further the most classic version of this rivalry and the one that you probably think of when you imagine Sub-Zero and Scorpion battling. What happens next remains to be seen. 

The post Mortal Kombat: Sub-Zero and Scorpion’s Rivalry Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[symbianosgames]

Jason: As someone who loves to light, I am excited by this new tech and look forward to seeing it evolve over the next year or so. Not having spent a significant amount of time in this limits first hand experience, but the small amount thus far is encouraging. With any new software, tech or approach comes the learning curve.  This is accompanied by a rigid physically based boundary that can be hard to break out of when trying to explore. 

The long term challenge: Can we use that perfect scanned data simply as a base and springboard to a variant of that texture, while still maintaining all the physical based accuracy and detail from the scan?  On top of all that...can we get the varied look that our games need?  

- Twitter user Ara Carrasco asked:

What's the most important aspect of art direction for you?good lighting, good modelling & texturing...?

Jason: Practically speaking, I usually say lighting as it can alter the mood/tone of a scene with a simple dawning of the light.  Theoretically speaking, I would say tonal cohesion between what the game/film/movie is trying to represent with what the art is trying to communicate.  

Andrew: I'd have to say that it's the name for me. "Direction". I really like the word. I think we forget what it means sometimes behind the semantics of a job description, but directing for me is about asking the right questions rather the giving the right answers. I'm constantly amazed by how inventively creative people can solve a problem that you put in front of them. And as long as you are providing them with the right bounds and goals you get something that evolves way beyond what you could have initially anticipated. Power amplification is the name of the game. It sure is a lot of work to prevent things from going in diametrically opposite directions but to me it feels like if the artists have the room to roam within the bounds of the fictional worlds that they are creating the vision and direction get amplified tenfold providing for really rich and exciting experiences.

Greg: I would have to say that the most important part of Art Direction is the presentation.  Establishing where the camera is and how the game is going to be experienced by the player is paramount to me.  This is where the picture as a whole comes into focus.  It allows you to concept and design elements at an appropriate detail level.  In a lot of ways figuring out the presentation gives you the edges of your canvas.  It is the boundary that you create the picture in.  From there everything else flows.

Brian: Answer: I always start with the big picture, for environments it's Composition, Lighting, Motion and Context (What is the story of the environment) For characters, Silhouette and Motion.

Denis: That's a tough one there is so much to it. If I'd had to pick, I probably go with good communication and keeping your team motivated. Communication is key to optimize and limit iteration cycles. For that to happen it has to be a two sided dialogue, so you as AD can take in feedback and act according to it. For me personally the artistic decision making often happens during discussions with my team and I just make sure I follow through with it and keep people on track.

Motivation is essential for me because it keeps the team engaged and they will push for the best possible result, sometimes way beyond what was initially asked of them.

Both of these points in the end have direct impact on productivity, quality and efficiency - hey I'm German after all ;P 

- Twitter user Evan asked:

How do you balance advanced and detail visuals supported by modern consoles with practical design that supports gameplay? As in, keep clear indicators for the players while looking natural and not contrived for gameplay purposes at the same time?

Brian: It's always a conversation about goals.  On Tomb Raider we always tried to create believable worlds that the player instinctivly understood what was interactive or where they were supposed to go.  We use "Visual Language" to help guide the player with consistent visual cues. We mark climbable ledges with white paint, rope coils are always used to indicate where a rope arrow can go, bright pocked walls indicated axe climb surfaces and specifically cracked walls indicated places you could open with your axe.  We protect these patterns in the game so the player always knows how to interact when these examples of visual language show up in the game.

Greg: In a game like XCOM there are many design requirements that effect the art.  It is beneficial to try and identify what needs to be communicated by design early so that visual opportunities are more easily identified.  Being a turned based game can be seen as a huge challenge to immersion, but we saw this as one of our opportunities.  The camera in XCOM is a great example of this since it can literally be anywhere while you are playing.  By changing the camera we can reinforce the design mechanics and provide a tension that is difficult to convey from a more three quarter view.  However, the camera changes also provide some real art challenges.  We needed to make assets that read clearly from the top down view as well as in a close up cinematic camera.  This led us to the initial art direction of XCOM: Enemy Unknown that focused on a “miniatures” look with slightly exaggerated forms and more chunky geometry.  We didn’t want have the details be so small for the close up cameras that they would dance or shimmer from the default gameplay camera.  On the flip side we couldn’t make things so chunky that they destroyed the immersion when the camera dropped down. We spent a lot of time initially balancing these issues and setting very clear modeling and texturing rules.

Andrew:  Design dependencies are always a tricky subject. Confused or frustrated players can't enjoy the game so keeping them happy and their goals clear is a big part of art production. For us it's a constant back and forth. At the very beginning of a project we would iterate with design on gameplay relevant art elements to make sure we can produce art around it that integrates with it nicely. We always want to make sure not to muddy up our language. Exceptions are dangerous and confusing to the player. False positives are also a thing we have to look out for a lot especially in games like Uncharted where it's so easy to create a traversible path somewhere we don't actually want the players to go. 

Sounds trivial  but it's also incredibly valuable to have artists constantly play their levels. It's something that's easy to loose sight of in the heat of production.

And if all else fails it's time to break out the bird poop and yellow paint ;)

- Twitter user Will T Atkers asked:

About how long does it take for a main character to go from concept to final phase?

Andrew: Depends. I'm a strong proponent of getting something in the game as soon as possible, no matter how rough. But from then till someone rips the gold master from out of your sweaty sleep deprived hands it's continuous iteration and polish all the way. It's one of those art is never finished answers. It's important to note that it's easy to reach diminishing returns when you iterate for a very long time. And it's on you to plan and prioritize accordingly. The Pareto principle is a good example of how it usually breaks down: 80% of the work usually takes 20% of the time and the last 20% take the other 80% of time. The last percent come painfully slow, but they also provide most opportunity to grow. Taking something from 0 to 80% awesome is a relatively common skill, but the difference of 1% between 97% and 98% is almost infinitely more valuable. It is literally the "cutting edge" and sometimes takes weeks or months of work to get to.

Jason: In truth, I’ll say about 1 year.  This is strictly for a front and center character like Delsin.  I’ll try to break it down…

First is creative direction needs. What is the purpose of this character? What kind of attitude will they be exhibiting in the game? What kind of arc will this person have? Do they have a disarming or aggressive sensibility?   All of these conversations happen before we throw down any concept art.

Next we hit up concept and begin to sketch things out. Essentially, this process is fairly iterative with our creative direction team until we’re all in a good spot. One unique thing here I have experienced has been a found footage video concept or ‘personality rip-o-matic’.  

Then a fork happens.

On one road, the character team takes this into pre-production to build an in-game proxy model.  The goal is to check movement, scale, and begin to work out the sass of the character through prelim animations.  How do they run? How do they jump? What does this person do when in idle? What does the shape at a low poly look/feel like?

On the other road, we begin CASTING.  Since we use scans and full performance capture, this is very important process to our hero character model pipeline. The creative direction team creates a character description (2 page max) document of our hero. This usually entails basic details like sex, height, weight, and age. Then the remainder of the document explains this person’s motivations, goals, flaws, potential arcs, and habits.  Then we audition a ton of people in hopes that we find someone that can not only bring out the attitude we’re hoping to get, but also have a likeness that is in-line with our visual goals.  In the case of Delsin, Troy Baker fit the bill nicely.

After we cast an actor, we begin the scanning process.  Full body and facial expressions are scanned and sent back to our team.  Our concept and character team will work with the body scan to make any edits that are needed to fit our hero; shorter, taller, thicker, etc.   We take these measurements and send them to a fashion designer who makes patterns to use in Marvelous Designer. Now these two roads have largely converged and we’re onto the next steps.

From here its fairly straight forward. We create hi-poly models of our character based off concept art, bake down and replace our temp PROXY model.  Then comes quality bar iteration through various scenarios. In the past we have 2 scenarios that drive the biggest feedback.

First, the in-game model must be awesome. Since inFAMOUS is a third person action game, the in-game model matters the most. Seeing them running around in the game world with good lighting performing polished versions of those proxy model animations usually highlights a few issues. Sometimes we can’t see them at night so we add better shape or increase value.  Sometimes it’s simply “Delsin isn’t punk enough”, and we add some shiny flare on his vest.

Second, cutscenes will bring the personalities to life. Often cutscenes drive the high end quality bar for us. Unfortunately, cutscenes take a while to make and usually come fairly late in the game.  This is where we iterate on our character specific tech like eyes, skin shading, clothes and hair.

In short, it’s a lengthy process for Hero characters. I wouldn’t be lying if I said a year…  We spend a lot of time ensuring our main character is tonally sound in the marriage between Art Direction and Creative Direction.  For a second tier character we are looking at 2 or so months. 

Brian: Depending on the character, it varies. Heroes usually take longer. Lara took a full year to develop for Tomb Raider 2013 because we were reinventing her. Generally for principal cast models, we spend 2-4 weeks in concept development, hand sculpted realistic characters take 2+ months (High poly, Low Poly bake, textures/materials/shaders) Blend shapes for facial animation and rigging takes another month. Total time 4 months.  Secondary characters usually are created faster, 2 months from concept to finish. Scanning will change these metrics, but a lot more time is spent on preparation like casting, wardrobe, scanning, processing so a fully realistic character scan can get in game in about a month, but if you scan a bunch of bodies and heads at one time, the process is much faster.

Greg: The time that it takes to go from concept to final model depends on several factors.  By working with concept and design the complexity of the character gets defined and the amount of articulation can impact the timeline for production significantly.  Depending on how important of a role the character has will also dictate the time spent in concept.  For us we typically can take about two weeks in concept for one of our aliens in XCOM, but that can really vary and it will stay in concept until we are happy with the direction.  The modeling for something like an alien can take around 4 weeks on average.  With procedural characters, like the soldiers in XCOM it is much more difficult to quantify the time.  A lot of effort is put into developing the systems and how all the parts interact, as well as planning for armor upgrades and customization options. This is really a huge task and quite a bit different from a character that is more self-contained.  Pipelines are also much less linear than just going from concept to model and there is a ton of overlap now.  We typically have the modeler, animation and rigging team involved during the finalization of the concept.  All of these disciplines are able to give input before we go into real production of a final character. Once we are happy at the concept level the model is blocked in and goes to rigging and animation.  Feedback is compiled and applied to the model at this stage. The major point for us is that the model isn’t finished until it is in the game and moving.

- Twitter user Travis asked:

What can you do to keep a cohesive art direction between world assets and FX?

Denis: All my projects so far have been stylized and We went through heavy iteration to find the right style. One initials setups we did on my last project was a small art ready diorama. We made several versions of VFX to see how they'd fit. We also concepted some of the VFX which was helpful. But because of the abstract nature of effects I still consider them the hardest to iterate on. In the end it boiled down to try and error for us.

Combat FVX are a Beast of its own. They have  a lot of requirements like  damagetype, area of effect, faction/monster affiliation and on top it has to resonate really well with combat design, sound and animation.

Having so many pieces that have to collaborate on VFX you have to make sure that everyone knows what the goal is and where we are aiming artistically. Since constantly supervising this process is something you cant afford in production.

Greg: I don’t see these as separate things.  The overall rules for the look of the game directly apply to the effects just like any other element in the game.  Just like a prop in the environment, effects need to be developed in context and not in isolation.  Any effect is an extension of the thing it is attached to, whether it enhances the environment or a character’s ability.

Brian: I always think of them together, FX and Lighting will make every environment come to life.  It's important to ensure FX only dominate a location when they are the star, like being in a level that is on fire, or flooded, etc. But always ensure the style of FX matches the Art Direction of the Environment.  Zelda is my favorite example of stylized FX that match and enhance the Art Direction.

Andrew: Agreed with the gents that this issue is not specific to FX. Maintaining vision and boundaries is crucial with any aspect of art direction. And encouraging people and departments to communicate and collaborate is the timeless challenge of any production. Getting people in the same room to talk and removing middlemen is always the best remedy in my experience.

Technically there are issues with having particles look integrated and leveraging environment data is always a big help. Making sure particles light consistently and accurately under environment lighting and don't need any shader hackery is a big one. Using environment data like surface color or material for the types of squibs or fx to play also add a lot to tying it all together. There are cool geo-based particle approaches coming up so having them integrate with the world should become even easier.