#I spent so long sketching it all out and figuring out dialogue and composition and I'm finally cleaning it up let's gooo

[habken]

comic wips

[draco-omega]

10 months ago, I decided to make a game.

10 months later, I have a bunch of art and a bunch of interface code and a whole pile of design notes, and not much game.

This is my story.

(Now in bullet point form so that I can stop redrafting it >.>)

I have a treatment-resistant anxiety disorder which significantly interferes with my ability to work - both on my own projects and other things that might be called 'gainful employment'. (I still feel some shame at admitting this so bluntly, even though I feel ideologically that there should be no more shame in this than any physical impairment that resulted in the same. Fuck mental health stigma, defining self-worth by employment is toxic capitalist dogma, etc, etc.)

In part because of this, I had been effectively unemployed and living with my mother for a number of years. (I still did my best to hammer out projects, but nothing, y'know, actually PAID anything... >.>)

Then in late 2017, my mother died (somewhat unexpectedly) of cancer, which left me with no home (we'd been sharing an apartment that she had been covering most of the rent on) and literally zero income. Obviously grief and upheaval did not help with any of my prior difficulties managing employment, either.

After some debate, I decided to combine the savings I had left over from my last stint as a network administrator with a (modest) inheritance from my mother and try to actually make a living at making games. This is something I had always theoretically wanted to do, but never put actual money on the line for. (Okay, in a perfect world, I'd happily give all my work away for free and live on some minimum guaranteed income, but we do not yet live in such a world).

One of my historically biggest gamedev weaknesses was a lack of artistic ability, so this seemed a perfect thing to put money towards. I could hire an artist, which would not only allow me to make a more commercially appealing product, but would also free me up to focus on the mechanical and writing aspects of gamedev, which are the areas I most wanted to be working on and also consider myself best at. (Any followers that remember my work on ToK may recall me complaining there about how it seemed I spent my time on nothing but graphics? >.>

This was shortly after Touhou fangames had been given the official blessing to be sold on Steam, and some had already achieved great success there, so this seemed like a good way to create some instant appeal and interest in my game, while working with a franchise that I already loved to death and had written hundreds of thousands of words of fanfiction for (eg: This or that or this other thing)

And so Chronicle of False History was born!

...and yet I somehow still spent most of my time working on art. You see, having never worked with an actual artist before, I underestimated a number of things:

1) I underestimated how much work it would be to find a suitable artist in the first place (though at least this part is done)

2) I gravely underestimated how much of my time would be spent on 'art direction' or 'project management' or whatever you want to call it.

Every sprite that is created, even for canonical character designs, requires making a large number of decisions regarding:

What attack and spell poses it will have (and how to cover the broadest range of signature abilities with just two 'frames', for budget reasons)

Which of enumerable (and sometimes mutually-exclusive) costume details from canon (and fanon) should be selected (and do you have any idea just how many variations there are on things as straightforward as 'the hilt of Miko's sword'?)

Gathering a pile of reference images that clearly detail every element of the character (and action poses) to be drawn (which is also harder than you might think; a lot of art is sufficiently suggestive of details to view without actually being a good reference to reproduce and anything that isn't exactly what I'm looking for risks my artist misunderstanding my request entirely)

Designing alternate-history variants of this character in a way that can be clearly conveyed with minimal costume and color changes alone (as any significant redrawing would cost far more and the cast of the game is so large already) and doing so before the part of the game they would appear in is even written.

Gathering reference images for all of those things

Writing up a detailed description of all the decisions listed above (and often drawing actual diagrams of action poses and projectile overlays that are ambiguous to express with just words) and handing it over to my artist

Waiting a while, then getting sketches back and finding out that there is inevitably a whole pile of things that need changing (either because the artist misunderstood my request entirely - despite all that previous effort - or because an idea of mine looked far better in my own head than it does, or just the usual 'incremental improvements' to something that is on the right track but not quite there - like a sort of collaborative redrafting.)

Spending hours poking at these sketches in an image editor, testing how well individual details resolve at in-game size, how well the action frames snap together, and how I feel about each questionable element. This often extends to (crudely) adjusting and readjusting the position and angle of individual limbs and eyebrows and projectiles that feel 'off' so that I can figure out what I would like her to do with them (and whether it's even worth making her take the effort to do anything with them at all)

Finally, summarizing that feedback into a detailed list of change requests (often with new diagrams to clarify my words) and repeating the last two steps over and over and over again.

Like, she does great work - don't get me wrong. I'm very pleased with the end results and this is just an inevitable part of the process of making something professional. But it does also mean that my original idea that paying an artist would free me up to work on things other than art has been... laughable in retrospect, to say the very least. In fact, it's very possible that a greater percentage of my dev time is spent on art-related tasks than on previous projects where I was doing all the art myself - I just get better art for my trouble (and money....)

This is especially true given that:

3) I underestimated just how much art work I would still need to do completely independently of her

Raven is doing character sprites. These are arguably the most individually important art content in the game, and certainly the ones that give it the most screenshot appeal, but that has left me to do everything else. Which has included:

Figuring out how to make battle backgrounds that passably match the art style of the game (since commissioning enough of these to fill all the locations needed would absolutely blow my budget)

Designing the entire look and feel of the combat screen to mesh well with Raven's sprites while also being something I am personally capable of making (using only cheap/free resources)

Creating all tweened animations and particle effects

Designing every single little UI element that exists in the game:

Elemental symbols

Dialogue boxes

Spellcard icons (and the entire menu design that requires them in the first place)

Combat action menus

Icons to indicate spellcard usability

Spellcard tooltips

Targeting overlays

A turn order bar

Spellcard availability reminders

Font choice for damage/healing numbers, spellcard names,

More cursors that you can shake a stick at

Lots more stuff, I'm sure

And even the completed sprites I get from Raven still need multiple hours of processing each to split them into component parts with sufficient information to re-composite and animate in-game. (If you've ever wondered why my screenshots seem to only involve Nazrin while I've already shown sprites for multiple other characters, this is why)

It never ends!!

...which is a fact that has been extremely draining. Like, it is probably difficult to overstate just how demoralizing it has been to pay this much money and work this hard and long and still somehow be mostly doing art (or visual-related coding) when I naively thought this project would offer some freedom from this after the endless, endless hours I spent doing this for ToK.

And it has also revealed a very tangible (and extremely stressful and troubling) fact about this game's development:

I am going to run out of money before I am remotely close to having a saleable product

When I first laid out plans for this project, I ballparked a modest but realistic budget for the artwork. I chose an art style that could provide pleasing visuals for a very large cast of characters at a cost-effective rate (for a game, at least). I deliberately limited my cast size based upon the agreed-upon cost per character with my artist (and have repeatedly held myself back from various fun ideas because I felt I simply could not afford to make a habit of such things). I studied sales figures for comparable games to aim for a target that had a reasonable probability of sufficient return (or at least breaking even). Game development is always a gamble, of course, but I felt (and still feel) that I made a sensible budget call and it was an amount I was fully able to pay.

But in all this, I neglected to factor in what has been, by far, my most costly development expense: remaining alive.

You see, at the rate my artist is able to produce work, the cost of retaining her is utterly dwarfed by such banal things as food and rent and not freezing to death in the winter. I live about as modest a lifestyle as possible - a one-room apartment, no car, no eating out, nothing in the way of luxuries (I don't even own a cell phone) - but that is still awfully expensive when you have no income and no prospect of it in the immediate future either.

It's a vicious cycle. The less work I get done, the more I feel future financial pressures breathing down my neck, the less work I'm able to get done (due to stress and general demoralization), the more I feel future financial pressures, etc, etc, etc.

And there's a logistical problem even outside of my own stress and anxiety and being damnably human in my need for actual rest: I've spent nearly 10 months working together with my artist and thus have a pretty good sense of how fast she's able to get character art done. And unless something changes dramatically, the time required for her to finish the art assets for the game will be several years longer than I will have any savings left to pay for them - because, as it turns out, hiring an artist is actually a tiny expense compared to merely continuing to exist.

I... don't really have a good answer for this problem and I've spent a lot of time consumed by it at this point. I have faith that Chronicle of False History can be a great game... eventually. But that does no one any good if I can't stay afloat long enough to make it. I've considered pivoting to another smaller-scope game project in the meantime, in the hopes of generating some modest influx of cash that could be used to fund the rest of CoFH's development, but there are a whole slew of reasons this is dicey (not least of which is that small-scope projects have a tendency to not be nearly as small as one anticipates...)

I've also thought about exploring Patreon, but like... I'm fully aware that I don't currently produce nearly enough interesting content for people to just want to throw money at. Tantalizing glimpses of it, perhaps. The promise that in the future I might. But what do I really have to show for this at the moment?

And so, here I am, exhausted by a marathon of work I did not properly anticipate and without the tangible reward I'd expected to have by this point (not a finished game, by any means, but like... much more of one than I actually have). And every month that passes by in which I get less done on my game than anticipated is yet more cash bleeding out of my bank account, like I'm trapped on a badly leaking boat with no shore in sight. I need a rest from all these stressors (and some more personal ones not described here), but when time spent not working has itself become a stressor these days, where can I even find it?

...wow, this sure sounded upbeat, huh?

In any case, I still care a lot about CoFH and have no intention of stopping work on it. I just... need to figure out some way to allow myself to continue to do so without this enormous capitalist behemoth crushing me beneath it.

(I had originally intended to provide more of an overview of the useful work accomplished over these past 10 months here, with mockups showing the evolution of the game's visual design, but clearly that goes into a future post at this point).

[giant-head]

I wrote a script for the first part of the film - an opening montage telling the story of how the GIANT HEAD came into existence, how our protagonist fits in, etc. I’m going to get to boarding this tomorrow either with Krita or Blender Grease Pencil (I will definitely be using Blender to handle the virtual camera stuff that this script demands!)

all in all this calls for about eleven backgrounds - easily doable - and a lot of very complex perspective drawing animation, which is really going to push the limit of what I can do, but hey, that’s the whole point of this project!

the big concept is that each scene in the montage has text that’s physically present in the scene saying how long ago it is, and the camera flies through this text to transition from scene to scene.

film is divided into two parts: opening montage and main sequence. the opening montage tells the story of why there is a GIANT HEAD, the main sequence explains how the giant head is destroyed by one plucky antifascist lesbian

SCENE ONE locale: outdoor combat class the SWORDMASTER is training the GIRL GIRL is holding her bokken ready to strike, her eyes are shut, so there is a black screen she opens her eyes, dojo fades in her eyes narrow and she swings her bokken towards the camera camera pulls back, revealing other student who parries they lower swords, bow SWORDMASTER pats GIRL on the shoulder GIRL wipes away some sweat walks to edge of square, camera zooming to follow the TECHNOWITCH is standing at the edge of the square she passes the PROTAGONIST a ragged towel, they lean on the wall together camera pans upwards to slum skyline BIG RED WORDS: "ONE YEAR AGO" camera flies straight through the letter 'A' in 'YEAR'

required backgrounds: outdoor dojo panning up into slum skyline (panoramic perspective)

SCENE TWO exterior street scene; a busy market. various cyborgs wandering around. the protagonist buys something and then walks along the street to join the TECHNOWITCH, who is hanging out with a GAY COUPLE. atmosphere is relaxed. camera continues to pan as the group laugh at a joke. the pan reveals the words "ELEVEN MONTHS AGO" and we fly through the "O" in "AGO"

SCENE THREE street scene, past curfew. shuttered market stalls. scene is lit by moonlight - city lights in the distance, but not here. contrasting colour palette to the previous scene. there is a dark alleyway in a prominent place in the frame, with "TEN MONTHS AGO" stretching across it, and the barely visible silhouette of a parked car the same GAY COUPLE from the previous scene is running home, only to be stopped by car headlights suddenly appearing in alleyway. silhouetted in the lights is the COP ; body language aggressive and smug, e.g. tapping baton in hand (no dialogue). other COPS hanging back behind, laughing GAY COUPLE backs off, hands in the air. COP gets up in their space the GIRL sprints out of an alleyway and tackles the COP. two go sprawling into the street. girl shouts (again no VA, but clearly shouting) for the gay couple to run, and they do COP calls on his guys for backup, they start advancing forwards, with sort of 'i can't believe you did that but you are going down' expressions cop lights suddenly turn off, there is a spray of sparks blur of silhouette past the camera as the girl legs it camera flies through the "O" in "MONTHS"

backgrounds required: street scene dark, street scene lit by headlamps

SCENE FOUR exterior scene. a crowd is standing under a big pyramid, with cops in the same uniforms as the ones before - our specific cop is in the near foreground, possibly with a bruise. the FASCIST LEADER is giving a speech. (crowd should be static, don't try to animate a whole moving crowd). behind the crowd is some monumental architecture: lots of pillars and pyramids and such. symmetrical composition. balloons and drones float around in the sky. the words NINE MONTHS AGO stretch between the buildings above the podium camera pans up and zooms in on the FASCIST LEADER, who's doing some exaggerated gestures. we don't spent much time with him - this is just to establish who he is (a bad dude). nasty sneer. camera rises over his head and zooms through the "O" in MONTHS

SCENE FIVE interior scene. some kind of map room, prominently featuring a map of the city with little models of the various monumental architecture. we can see the boulevard where he's giving the speech. there is a line of portraits on the back wall of previous fascist leaders in front of buildings they've created. intended message: he wants to build a building to one-up his predecessors. the FASCIST LEADER is standing over the map, reading some kind of report. a nervous-looking FUNCTIONARY is standing nearby, rubbing his hands together. the FASCIST LEADER sneers and tears up the report. he picks up one of the models on the table and throws it over his shoulder. the FUNCTIONARY runs after it as the leader peers at the table. the FASCIST LEADER gets an idea. he walks to the back of the room, and picks up a bust of himself, and lugs it over to the table. he places it down, on top of the area that represents the slum where our protag lives. the FASCIST LEADER nods, looking very pleased with himself. camera zooms in on the table where there is tiny red letters reading "EIGHT MONTHS AGO" and flies through the "A" in "AGO" just to shake things up

SCENE SIX a street scene in a clearly residential area. a large crowd of people are gathered, looking shocked. facing them is a bunch of cops and some bulldozers (only they're like, cyborg bulldozers with someone like physically wired in or something). the GIRL, TECHNOWITCH and SWORDMASTER are near the front; the NERVOUS-LOOKING FUNCTIONARY is standing beside the lead cop with a long roll of paper. in the gap between the two crowds is the words "SEVEN MONTHS AGO". try for a kind of spherical fish eye perspective where we can zoom in without it looking weird? the camera zooms in on our protagonist; she shakes her head like "no you are not going to bulldoze our houses to build a giant fascist head". the camera then pans quickly over to the COP and the FUNCTIONARY. the COP smirks; the FUNCTIONARY legs it into the cop line. the COPS start firing tear gas rounds and shooting their guns in the air, conveniently avoiding the requirement to draw an entire crowd running away at once. blurry figures leg it from the crowd. a few people run forwards instead - our protagonist among them. the camera zooms through the battle into the "O" in "MONTHS"

SCENE SEVEN interior scene of the GIRL and the TECHNO WITCH's room. tech paraphernalia is scattered around; there's the GIRL's martial arts equipment. on screen left is a window; on screen right is the door in. the bed is in the foreground. suddenly, the door pops a bit in; the GIRL jumps out of bed the COP bursts in through the door only to get hit over the head by the GIRL with a chair or something. meanwhile, the TECHNOWITCH kicks out the window, and starts climbing out. they jump out the window. the camera flies through the window this time - oh shit we're having two scenes in this part of the montage?

SCENE EIGHT the camera looks down onto a street scene from the first floor outsie the window, the cops are advancing down the street with riot shields. behind them they have flame tanks; the street is on fire. they're just fucking shooting people the GIRL and the TECHNOWITCH run across the street and duck into an alleyway. they can't do shit against this. the camera flies into the flames, where it meets the words 6 MONTHS AGO with a really big 6 and goes through the hole in the 6

SCENE NINE the GIRL and the TECHNO WITCH are running under a bridge in a dry canal. a bunch of trucks are driving overhead carrying sheets of copper for the GIANT HEAD (right to left). a truck drives in carrying the words FOUR MONTHS AGO and we fly through the "A" in "AGO"

SCENE TEN the FASCIST LEADER is standing on a metal platform with camera drones flying around. behind him is the GIANT HEAD, but in broad daylight. he's nodding and looking very proud of himself. the head is in a slightly earlier stage of completion. the camera pulls BACK this time, and a CRT scanline filter is applied. as we pull back, we find ourselves in a dusty room containing the GIRL and the TECHNOWITCH; the TECHNOWITCH turns off the TV, revealing the words TWO MONTHS AGO. we fly in through the O

SCENE TEN an interior scene. a dusty room; a sketch of the GIANT HEAD on the wall, next to a window with the construction site in the distance. the GIRL is sitting, tapping her foot. the GAY COUPLE from earlier are also there, and some other PARTISANS. the TECHNOWITCH is pointing at something on the diagram. there is an arrow running along the bridge we saw on the TV, down the scaffolding, and to the base of the GIANT HEAD - and she scribbles an explosion in there. the camera goes out the window towards the building site. this leads us to the word YESTERDAY and we go through the D, leading us to the scene in progress now.

[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.