Star Citizen: Reverse the Verse 2.13 - LA

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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   [Music] hello everyone and welcome back to ver

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   of verse we had some small technical difficulties there we have some newer technology we're playing with and uh this is a nice fun test so we're going to run through the top of the show again but get started immediately welcome to reverse the verse if you haven't been here before it's our weekly live stream uh this week we're doing it out of Los Angeles Studio to follow up with our Los Angeles around the verse specifically we're going to focus on the character pipeline my name is Eric Karen Davis I'll be your host joining me to my right is Corey Johnson our lead character artist hello and for Stefan our CG supervisor so in the same vein of the character pipeline video the then and now that's why we've invited these gentlemen to kind of extend the conversation dig into a few additional topics uh if you haven't been here before please head over to robertsspaceindustries.com community/ chat title your questions with the bracket question and we will pick them up and run with them so to get started uh let's dive in um and uh thank

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   everyone for doing this obviously thank you subscribers for letting us do this um and our first question for you guys are uh what's the most fun part of the pipeline what do you guys really look forward to what do the character team look forward to then and now or even if it's all the same answer would you say it's zbrush or re topologizing uh definitely zbrush H poly is the it's the most fun part uh texturing is good as well uh game mesh and UV is just kind of on your headphones yeah it's the meditative like you just have to do it and get through it um and and what what is the what does that mean what layman's terms what does that mean when you read I something uh just building a a mesh that can actually go in the game got um yeah cuz the high poly can

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   be you know several million tens of million Poes and that's can never go in so essentially you kind of freeze your mesh kind of like you have your high poly then you bring you know then you what I guess decimate it and then bring it into your uh retopology tool and then start tracing over with Poes and try to recreate the same exact shape with the least amount of Poes as possible yet for to be able to move it around and likey mentions in the um the video yeah uh about having to keep the silhouette and making sure that no matter what angle you look at that thing in a 3D space it will always create the exact same silhouette that way the character doesn't get lost the translation between the high and low that's cool I I would assumed you guys would have said the high polyphase because you get to make so such detail but I think that's cool the challenge

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   you guys it seems like you're attracted to the challenge of going all right we got this really pretty thing that looks awesome a lot of a lot of Poes will never work in game but now we get to put it in game and and and ultimately get to see it yeah there's two aspects there's the making it as good as you want it to be and then there's the ability to get it in the game to mimic how you know great your original Source looked totally okay our questions are rolling in so uh on top of that one we just asked uh yesterday um in yesterday's ATV I saw a short clip of the character Eugene Maro talking as an animation teacher I'm worried by the lack of eyelids and eyebrow muscle movement which makes life him look more lifeless is it's as if the muscles in the face stop working below the eye bags and above is this going to be fixed because you'd be surprised at how much eyelids and eyebrows movement there is when people talk not only that if you EXT exaggerate those muscles let all

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   exaggerate those muscles uh rather than toning them down the characters will become even more believable rather than lifeless I love that question that's a great question so I took that video and uh the first thing was when I did it uh there's actually a longer version uh uh that he goes to this whole uh these lines that he he recorded for us and I noticed when I took the video that he never blinked MH at all and like there was very little muscle movement around the eyes in general and I was like this is weird this doesn't the one we got it in in the engine you yeah yeah yeah and uh and I'm like this is just strange like he's not blinking and so I went back and I pulled up all of his videos of the actor himself MH uh and actually watched the entire clips

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   of the same exact lines that I had playing on the character cuz I'm like oh Sur the animation just didn't add the the eye blinks and everything and he doesn't blink the actor never actually blink never blinks the entire time I'm like this is not this can't be right cuz when they blink we get that data and our characters blink and our the lines that are 100% acted out and set yeah you know they uh everything uh you know moves accordingly including the eyelids that's so it's a it was an acting Choice partially but also it's interesting that and you see this in other areas within C the CG world of by adding imperfections or adding more human elements you can make it more realistic right that's the whole lens Grime effect and things like that on the ca the character team did a great job at taking our base heads and then adding this right that's great so

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   tell the actor to Blink more that's the I think there is I think there a good point though um you do we do find that you know when you EX exaggerate things it can bring it to life more especially like on a computer screen we're putting all effects over it um there's only so much realism you're still not 100% there yet and so you got to exaggerate things and it catch that person's attention but heads are also hard because they're the things that we always look at we all know what a head is supposed to look like cuz we stare at them totally so so so Cory are the eyelids there are the eye muscles there right do we take those into consideration on the heads yeah yeah I mean all that stuff's there it's it's it's just if the actor chooses not Ed them yeah if it wasn't in the in the basically the source material the capture um that's something that if it ends up bothering enough people animators can surely go in and add that

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   but it's becomes that just adds to the Mario character he is just a guy who doesn't blink that off he's super intense he's all lot of eyebrow raises not a lot of blinking very cool okay U another question we had here uh so on the video we saw you wearing headphones I would think audio has nothing to do with the character creation so what do you need the headphones for I think this is partially funny funny question lots of music and videos sure to keep you going cuz you're sit on a computer eight plus hours a day so I have headphones cuz I share an office with Sean Sean Tracy yes the great the Epic Sean Tracy be very loud yeah yeah in fact yeah Josh Herman our art director is right next door with Steve Bender yeah and when Sean's at a meeting I see them politely walk over to the glass shut the door slide and shut I put my headphones on we all hear that passion but I think this

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    speaks to environment kind of right what you create your simulating environment of of you can stay focused you can knock things out it's it kind of speaks to production and speed and right you're creating the right surroundings because we are in a larger atmosphere right we have this team in atmosphere these art pits or these design areas but we you know we got a we got work to do so instead of sticking everybody in offices or in small cubicles it's this open area which is nice but you find yourself not need to focus and put a movie on or you know music on yeah and sometimes it's fun if you're working on something sci-fi listen to sci-fi music and just get in a Zone I love doing yeah definitely if I I have different playlists on my Spotify if I'm working on VFX I listen to One playlist that I have I'm you know what inspires that creative side of you yeah documentation I have another one I have my nonword playlist versus my word playlist you know that's awesome um Cory the 2D

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    versus 3D concepting what do you prefer um both are great um with Jeremiah when he does the 3D concept it's great cuz it's usually something you can start from so it kind of jump starts the process of making it um but 2D is great too because you get to interpret things so just slight slightly different things you get to do with both totally they're both good and so they and they kind of offer you two different things I'd assume right you get you get more creative license when it's a 2d concept because you don't necessar even if you do orthos right you still may not know exactly what the back or the sides look like until you put it in yeah and for us it's usually just front and back so uh Forest here's a question do you like to create art in your spare time if so what I create all kinds of Art in my story

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    time all the time keep making art I keep doing things yeah all the time uh yeah I mean it's uh well one thing that I do is I I in my free time because you know with the the CG supervisor role or just kind of jumping around from the different pipelines it's really important that I always keep very up to dat on latest software and also understand what other software applications are doing to try to get a make sure that we're staying um on par with everybody else if not ahead right so I really understand other game engines I understand uh lots of different software packages when a new type of application comes out whether it's a new version of substance designer or a new version of uh you know marvelous whatever like I'll I'll I'll push myself to make a little piece of art to utilize all the new features out of these applications and then I'll do

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    that and then I'll be like and I always will finish whenever I start an art thing I don't just start working on a piece of art and then kind of go through the process um cuz I really enjoy building out the pipeline I want to know how to go from this program to this program to this program and make it as good as possible right and also uh cuz I don't always spend a lot of time you know like I don't build characters for you know eight years out of my career so when I jump to these different disciplines um I really try to utilize my inexperience with not having 8 years of doing something solid but only 2 years years yeah and to really utilize what the software has to offer to get me you know really far as far as how far I could push things you know yeah and so you know I really enjoy the utilizing software and then that generates some cool art you know yeah totally and and pushes you to um learn new things and

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    learn new tactics and I I think what's exciting about what forest does too is that he's allowed to R&D some ideas you know well while Cory is executing and getting things done so we don't NE negatively impact the pipeline but we're always looking ahead right and that's kind of the idea cool um Cory what kind of simple question what goes simple simple question maybe not simple answer what goes into texturing these models um it's a pretty interesting workflow um so it's the way we do it we have subm materials and each subm material can have four layers um the fourth layer is the base layer um and then we build up variation on top of that um but it's pretty much just like a layer stack in Photoshop cool so we have been working on making new materials and then you

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    just layer those up to get a cool effect cool yeah that's great good um Forest this one I think this speaks to you I think this was a piece you were talking about in the in the episode yesterday uh in ATV you mentioned that the cloth cloth mesh can be seen when players get really close to each other actually maybe Josh that was the clip through everything bug already solved so this is possible I don't understand that question uh when the player there's hug if they clip through each other uh maybe let's go with that we will ask for more clarification on that question but there is a bonus question think they mentioned that the cloth mesh can be seen when players get really close to each other was the clip through everything bug already solved bonus question to extend will players be able to personalize their armor by modifying uh PBR settings oh okay well let me ask answer to the

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    latter one sure um cuz I'm not sure about the clip bug but um I haven't had any clipping isues recently so I'd imagine that it probably was solved and then feel free if you have a clarification on that question toss it in there for us and we will we will yeah so to extent so the bonus question for us just mentions to which extend will players extent will players be able to personalize their armor by modifying PBR set so I don't think in the in the fact there there's a there's a yes and a no to that question so um in the theory that you will more than likely I'd be willing to bet uh be able to uh select different surface types for the different pieces of armor and stuff like that you know like maybe this specific item supports three different types of materials right and and then that could be a you know a plastic compared to a metal uh you know um compared to a

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    carbon fiber okay and uh in that you would be choosing which one you would want So in theory you would be changing your PBR settings because you would be choosing these predefined things um but you wouldn't have the option to like drag the specular around and try to figure out and we wouldn't want to expect you to know that you know 152 153 151 is a specific surface type you know because everything is kind of uh hardcoded in there as far as what the recommended settings are to get the optimal visuals with your lining conditions so um that could be a little tricky uh but in the fashion that you'll be able to select through different surface types and then within that surface type select the different supported Fabrics or textiles that would make up the patterns right of that maybe a secondary option would be about as far as I would imagine we would take it the

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    colors of course of course the colors col good absolutely it's a big one um Cory here's a question for you um interesting kind of creative question how much of yourself do you put into your characters I think that's a a really interesting question because I think we all have different levels of ownership and excitement about this project and we may not impact the whole thing but we each have our piece so how much how much of yourself do you sneak in or add to these characters you when I'm at work um it's not a ton because it's I feel like when I'm at work I'm a production artist and I'm producing a specific piece of art that needs to fit within certain requirements um personal work it's a lot more cuz it's like that's like passion that you're putting in there and of course you do the same that with work but again it's I need to get to this

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    result totally and whatever it takes to get to there total yeah that's great that's a that's a good that's a good question cuz I think that what on the creative kind of is a driving force of passion is a huge part of everything we do right whether you work at home so that's great um so here's a question for uh Forest how long does it take to create a completely new character like the San noad well I think me and you know we could both speak for that in fact what I'd like to extend that question to I think this was inting I tell how long did it used to take how long did it used to take and then you tell me how long it takes now than now uh so well originally the character would go through uh a great deal of revisions in the past because uh it was very difficult getting getting to the Quality

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    bar that we needed with the approach that was being taken um in regards to the requirements needed right um I think the old approach going taken works great for certain situations uh but some of the limitations that uh you know the MMO portion puts on that and stresses on that really um didn't let the characters get to their full potential so you know you would have a character artist or a group of them working on an asset for a couple months and then uh it wouldn't pass a final approval process because it just wasn't quite right and as we saw in the before and after you know in yesterday's video um it was very clear that when we were seeing those you know they what we see now and what you see in the after is how we envisioned it to look and then before we would see it and we' be like this is just not there yet

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    we know that potential is not tapped yet and Chris is very persistent in making sure we've tapped the potential of what we're capable of doing and so uh you would move on to an additional month now you're at four months and then you would go through one more revision and now you're at five months and the character is still not final but now how long are we so now uh so they it was I think three artists touched it worked on it at different points and all that um and from the time they got the go ahead it was probably 3 weeks at most I think three weeks for the entire we're talking five months is something that was not you know as good as it could be and that's with r& ding new materials for it it's all new materials and this sad forest and James worked on CL that we had never done before that's great I

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    mean the character team now are just killing it like you can see the they're just amazing and and a big part of it is the the talent's there but now we've got the tech to support the talent like people don't realize it's want there there's a foundation in place and the text still isn't perfect yet but now we have a foundation we're creating things we're getting things approved and out the door right which is the most important thing now and now we can only improve the process totally so yeah that's wonderful um this was an interesting question about ideas where the ideas come from um Corey do you come up with some of the ideas for like the worm and the sand no man or does someone else tell you what you should create like something that they need um um the sandworm that was mostly Josh taking feedback and then just coming up

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    with something um with the creatures I feel like there's going to be a lot of freedom um but with something like the marine armor that Omar was working on like that's there's like a there's a design brief there's very specific things that needs to hit um yeah so I mean just different assets allow different amounts of freedom and um all of us walk by Jeremiah and we make comments on the art he's doing so yeah and that stuff makes its way in totally I mean well that's the creative process of being on one group yeah as many eyes as possible on something it's going to be better tot absolutely yeah I think that's uh I think it's interesting that cuz some are very design heavy if they're they they're for the world they're for the lore obviously it all comes from design or narrative but then ultimately right there's places that there flexibility which is great I think that allows more creativity from

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    everybody when you have a little level stake in in the product that's great um so what kinds of things are you given before you start working on a character model to give you an idea of what to make and how much Freedom we kind of talked about that a little bit but what kinds of things now like let's talk about details you would get from either design or from the the worm conversation right like what speciic aspects or yeah so in terms of design brief that kind of runs through um materials and stuff like that and that helps guide us towards that stuff for texturing um and the rest is just the concept because Chris gets his eyes on that gets approved and then it's all right make this get it in game and go go do the thing do the thing there you go awesome that's great that's wonderful and and um this kind of for both of you guys as an artist what's the most challenging aspect in creating a

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    character from very different perspectives or different background but what's the most challenging aspect to creating one of these characters I think uh for me uh definitely you know cuz I'm trying to come from the making sure you know we could ship the product with these characters right that's my primary objective you know hit the visual Quality Bar be a be shippable those are the two challenges right so for me the biggest challenge is creating a character that's up to these standards and where you know you know how good Corey Omar Josh you know are are incredibly talented character team how good they can make a character their their ability I want to be able to make sure that that is getting into the game and we're not downsizing and and you know you get I think we've all Corners make it we've all played games where uh we've seen Assets in the game and you're

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    like I bet you that's not what it looked like when the artist was done with it right and so I really one thing that I really wanted to make sure of is that when the artist was done with it that's what it looks like in the game right and so that to me is a challenging thing is hitting all your performance specs but keeping that quality you know up right yeah totally yeah it's tough um anything else challenging from your perspective and creating one of these characters uh I don't know there's any one specific thing but it's usually with every character there's one thing where it's a different a different aspect of the pipeline where it's like on this one the game mesh is being really annoying because you worked on it for a while and it's like you need to you need to go back fix stuff update the UVS and and move back on the texturing and it just

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    it really depends on the asset CU sometimes it just runs smooth and other times there one part where it's just like I can't get dis approved I can't I can't move through it that's interesting but you could extrapolate all kinds of reasons for the why that's happening and and I mean there's a lot of challenges too like the character artists have to do things that that normally uh I think in the past has been generally accepted as you know um okay like hard surfaces anything that's metal you know the character artists have to build this topology that now supports a hard object on top of a an an object that's rigid and so like previously you know played like The Witcher they move their arm up and down the metal bends and everything and you could just read apologize it but now you got to be like how does this turn that is a challenge getting it approved by rigging right you got to like okay well we have this chest plate

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    can you abandon all the things that you need cuz now we're I think to me I see that you know yeah yeah there was plenty of like I was working on a character and had a metal chest plate and it's like well how how's your arm going to go forward so it's like you know you start to nudge things in and then things get ironed out but it's like frustrating it's like why did I think of that I was doing this cuz like it looks pretty and and then our riger put like hockey gear on us and he's like could you do that in this he does and then I'm like no and he goes and you can't do it in the game some of wear this all day some the coolest looking stuff generally never really would work in reality right you'd put it on you like yeah in the end it is a game so there's the balance between cool and functional absolutely you need both totally you just got to find a balance but at the same time you know I've known a lot of people that are quite successful artwise with the uh mentality that a good design will sell itself

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    visually will scre if you have top of a good design totally y absolutely and with that gentlemen I think we've come to the end sadly but uh we've got a couple quick updates before we wrap up um a couple Community updates the prowler uh art contest ends today Ms paint contest did you guys jump in and do that am I going to see a forest okay I don't even know about itend that ends today that ends today how long do I have uh well today end of the day this is wrap it up I'm not working today that's his Focus uh and then next week uh live stream is at 1 pm PST now that we've transitioned times so a reminder we will not have round the verse nor will will we have reverse the verse next week so it'll all be wrapped up into our live

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    stream we look forward to having you back in this uh same place uh next Friday and uh thanks to our wonderful guests the character Team character folks then and now forest and Cory thank you very much um Jared is secretly working behind the the scenes so thank you Jared for helping us with this thank you all subscribers and um we'll see you guys next week for uh our wonderful live stream take care