Character Creation and Content, from the Character Art Devs

PART 1 - Where are...
Hi All,

I am Qball and I am the Character Lead on Shroud of the Avatar. I'm sorry I have been off the forums so long, the character "team" and I are buried up to our neck in content delivery. I want to take some time to answer some of the questions that have popped up and possibly explain the process of game development, at least with characters, a bit further. 1st I want to thank all those who have such a passion for the game characters and opinions they would like to see. Myrcello, thanks for starting this and pushing for a response, I realize you are all the dark and from time to time. I will try and jump on here from whenI can and give you all some answers.

Honestly, I avoid the forums, and tell my "team" to do the same. Don’t get me wrong, its not because we don't think your posts are valuable but more so because allot of them can be less than helpful, if not downright mean. As an artist and as the lead over an art team, the last thing we need is a comment to rip down the work we do before its done. Having an artist down or angry is bad thing for production and overall morale.

Just to give you some background on my experience and knowledge. I have worked on over a dozen games, a few tv commercials and a couple of films. I have lead teams large and small. I've even been an Art Director on several projects as well. Nine or so of the games I've worked on are considered AAA games, though I have worked on several smaller ones as well. So let’s just say that with my 15 years in the industry, I’ve been around the block a few times. The devs at Portalarium are here because of the love and passion for what we are trying to achieve. This is a revolutionary game development cycle and if we can pull it off you all get to be part of it. No one in this studio is here to make bank or exploit anyone, as I've heard other complain. We all are experienced, hardworking developers who, above anything else, want to make the best game we can with the limited resources we have. I don't think people understand that all of the dev team are taking a big risk working on a big title on a tiny budget. It’s an untested development funding type, as games are usually created like any other mass media type. Pitch, funding, budgets, deadlines, release all with a big brother watching over us ( sometimes more than one). Because of that we have had the pleasure of working with some pros for only a short period, as they move on to the certainty of a paycheck and flashy projects that larger companies can provide. My wife has one of those gigs, and it is because of that I am able to follow this dream( yes my wife works in the industry as UI lead). Ok enough of how I feel about the project and company, let’s get to the specifics of my department

Knowing that we have a small amount of funds, let me say this not a big team. It is not also not normal dev cycle by any stretch of the imagination. To start with, this project is the definition of a skeleton crew. My "team" consists of myself, another artist and… oh wait that’s it! Just the two of us. For a while we had another brilliant artist but for right now that's it, a big whopping 2. Some people put animation into the character team category but that is a whole world unto itself, and they have their own lead ( just an FYI they too number 2 ). We had a brilliant concept artist for a while and while his specialty was bringing RG's visions to life, he often made time for us with concepts. At this point though we don't have that either, and that this is a key point I will touch upon later. Resources are expensive and something we can't afford em, especially this early on. Eventually hopefully we will be able to afford staffing up, maybe after we launch and become an overnight success!

Now what does that mean in production? What would be a normal amount of character people on a project? To give you some perspective, when I was working on Guitar Hero for the Wii we had 20 artists that were generalist, 4 or 5 of them worked specifically on characters. When I was working on GH 7 (never released) for PS3/360 we had a 20+ man team just for characters (not including concept), and even that was a low ball amount. I've worked at places that outsourced character work as well. From my experience this always come back to the in house art staff reworking the stuff we get back. Even when we had a team working with the outsourced studio, it still always had hiccups. There is something about having your staff in house that keeps the direction on course. So when I discuss this team being limited, I am not blowing smoke about who is delivering the character content. Right now it’s just me and the other artist. As for content here is a list of the content above and beyond the base Character models we have to create.

The character team is responsible for creating;(I love lists)

• All the monsters (including versions elf archer, elf magician, elf fighter, etc),
• all the human npcs,
• Concepting if needed when not available
• All the animals and their variations,
• All the armor,
• All cloth dynamic work,
• All the hair and face options
• All the weapons,
• Usually skinning the characters,
• Building all the outfits in the game, including monster ones you can loot
• Skinning all the outfits to the avatars
• Skinning tweaking the hair dynamics we've recently added in
• Setting up the textures so they will work correctly with the shaders in Unity (Even the custom shaders we've made)
• I’m sure I could go on but I think you get the idea, and this doesn't even speak to the complexity each task has.
  • (on a side note I am also working with another person on the Character FX design and implementation)

This is not a list to ask for your sympathy, but more to give you real world truth about our game development, and why some things people request take time. In all actuality, this list is not much different from most games I’ve worked on, its just our compressed schedule and resources thats different. A normal Character Dev cycle, especially for the lead character of a game, can take the whole game development, up to 3 years or more. That includes pre production, which on this game, is something I was not a part of, because I came in later. This is with a completely dedicated artist going through iteration after iteration of models. In our game we have had 2 iterations on the female and 3 on the male. Each iteration only took at most 3 week of development, with the last few being closer to one week.

Next we will talk about realistic time frames for development and what is involved. I will also tell you why some of the examples posted on the forums can not be compared to in game assets...

Thanks for reading,

Qball

 

Thank you for your time tell us this info!

 

Qball, we really appreciate all of the fine work that you and your fellow artist have done so far I am rather shocked to hear that the character team consists of only two of you, especially in light of your past experience with a "normal" sized character team Hopefully, additional funding will flow in, allowing Portalarium to expand its artistic staff

 

Looking forward to future posts. I love the information and appreciate what you do. Thanks also for standing in on PotA a couple times as I've found your information beneficial to understanding design and art for video games.

 

Greetings from the freezing north!

Thanks for taking time to post this.
I'm not surprised devs stay away from the forums

That's a long list of things you two (or three, before) are working on!

I wish you high morale, and more minions... and I hope us, the community will have patience.

 

Thanks peeps, one and all! That is one scary picture!

Qball

 

Geez I know Stephen had fun with the ice bucket challenge, but that's just taking it too far!

 

I appreciate this post and all your hard work and look forward to learning more about it. Although things aren't perfect everything looks really awesome with there only being two of you! Anyways keep up the amazing work.

 

I admit when you talk about the tiny team and budgets and team members moving on - it worries me a little, I've always thought the scope of this world would be huge based on the KS and then wondered who would have time to do all the artwork!

Really enjoyed the read though, every time I've had a chance to speak to or read the thoughts of a team-member I've always come away very impressed. Really looking forward to your next "installment"!

 

Qball, a million thanks for this post. It really places a lot in perspective.
I'm grateful for the passion that drives you and the whole Portalarium team. Thank you for going against your instinct and giving the forums some attention.

I was running through Holtrot yesterday and noticed anew some pretty things (the rocks and trees for instance) and I wondered how quickly one becomes accustomed to the background. As long as it looks right, no one really notices it. It's when it is wrong that it stands out. That's a terrible way to have a compliment: when no one complains. But some times we do notice and appreciate.

 

I am sincerely thankful each time any of the dev team comes out and gives us words to let us know how things are going. Good, bad, or other. You are all working hard and it is shown in the world we call home. I can only speak for myself but I am thankful for all you guys do. Even with such an extremely small team, you are sincerely pulling out BIG miracles.

Thank you!

 

Very typical info, but always good to have reminders of it for many who have no experience so they can help get an inside look at Game Development. Thanks QBall!!!! <3

 

Thank you for sharing this info. Thank you for all the work you do here.

 

Thank you Qball for taking time out of an insane schedule to give us this information. It really helps to have a better idea what's going on behind the scenes - you guys are awesome!
as for graphics, omg i LOVE all the beautiful scenery! sent a pic of me standing on the roof of my house with the fields outside of owls head as a backgound to my mom - she was amazed how real it looked!
Thanks for all you do, and please keep up the wonderful work you've been doing.

 

Thank you Qball. I always appreciate insights.

 

OKies, finished cleaning up the off-topic posts. (And if your post was moderated, consider this your notice. ) Please keep the speculation and rumor-mongering in check please and remember to stick to the topic at hand.

Also, notes from the Standup Corner are Founders only and not appropriate to share in the General forums. And last, but not least, lets all remember that you are getting a nitty gritty look behind the scenes of Game Development on a small team that most people never get to see. So sometimes it might not be all glamor and rainbows. But that doesn't mean it's a sign of the Apocalypse!

Thanks for understanding!

 

I haven't read this thread at all, but I like the direction of the character generation process.

 

One thing I would like to see is some fiery red hair, and maybe some long wavy style for those of us that need it.

 

You all know one person who is going to have purple hair if that's ever an option... And I second the long and wavy. Just sayin!



And hat's off to our wonderfully talented art team!

 

Yeah I don't see any reason there wouldn't be some kind of hair dye in Novia. It is an early civilization in the sense that it is rebuilding from a major cataclysm, but they have preserved so much technology from the former civilization. Magic or not Lunar Towers are definitely not stone age technology in any world.

So I think purple and red hair dyes should be a reasonable item in game. In fact, I would bet hair dyes would fall under one of the crafting trees already. It's just a matter of when it gets added.