10 for the Developers: Episode 10

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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   [Music] hey everybody and welcome back to a 10 for the developers I am Eric kyen Davis Senior producer and I'm with Gage hman associate rigger and character artist wow you do it all substitute character arst there you go uh before we get started we always want to thank the subscribers without you without yall we couldn't do any of this really excellent content we're really happy to be here and uh we really appreciate everything

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   you give us to allow us to to share the whole process of Star Citizen and Squadron 42 and everything we're doing so with that being said shall we get started let's do it okay question number one comes from bacon of War love that name simple question few words will cig release the style guides um I like this question and uh I I really think it's an interesting one because here at cig we like to share everything all the time which is like why we're doing here answering questions um St style guides I I can't speak specifically to yes we will definitely release those I couldn't see why we wouldn't in the future um I think it's it's pretty evident what we're making and what's kind of um inspiring us and inspiring Chris and inspiring our art team to make so you could probably figure out what our style

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   guides are if you kind of dug in um but I I can't see why we would in the future I mean we've got a ton at this point with all of our manufacturers and our clothing manufacturers and things coming online you know we need we need Sal guys more and more so that's a great question and I I think it's something we should definitely look into if we aren't going to do it already yeah of course cool all right question two question number two from o burst ages ago there was talk about cooperation with world hor Studios where they'd let Star Citizen use their clothes layering system how did that develop so that's a pretty complex question but it's very related to all the things that we are implementing in 2.4 right now I made a little handy list for myself um so it starts with removing cdfs from the way we do our character loadouts and moving to a persistent system we're going to do that by

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   basically converting everything we have in cdfs to a Loadout item which has been developed by teams all over the US that we have with code um here in Austin Texas and I believe some people in the UK too have all been put in the system together transitioning into persistence which has been a big feature for 2.4 we are moving away from cdfs and into an item based Loadout system that has involved our code teams throughout all of our Studios um people like Rober ringer Sean Tracy of course Paul ryelle they've all put this together and it's been working really well lately and for the past I think month or two we've been working around the clock to get this thing working smoothly to get this working and back on to the subject of warhorse that

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   was before I was here but I took a look at it after reading this question and we are doing something actually very similar um over the past two months I've been working on a system to have all the clothes functionally layer over each other without any clipping or any problems and that's been quite a task because you always have issues when a shirt as it is normally if you keep that static it cannot have a jacket over it in 3D space because things will naturally clip like folds and you need to have the compression so we've been working to get different types of clothing like skin tight loose all working together um with a series of defining volumes and that has been like the main I think problem to overcome but it's been going pretty pretty smoothly so far and we're working out the rest of the Kinks right no yeah that's it's

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   interesting the challenges that that raises right you don't I mean you don't think about it if you're not a rigger but you also don't think about it until you get to see it in game and you get to play with it in the engine yeah when it's in practice is when it finally like really shows to held breaks down yeah exactly and you're like oh wow it's almost like you have to experience that to then fix it right because you can assume and you can always be like this is perfect that's right and I think it's really interesting just it's really about game development in general that you have that you don't know until you know and then when you know you can fix it it's a l of back and forth yeah totally awesome okay cool question number three in order uh hi Eric hi Daz this is from Daz um Daz uh writes the cig careers page has positions for approximately 60 people can you explain what are the most important

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   characteristics you are looking for in a future cig 542 applicants how do you go about attracting the type of people that would work on this project and retain them wow I I was really excited about this question because hiring and recruiting is is it's it's crucial to creative project I mean it's crucial in any company where you need to work with other people right but within a creative project um working under the tutelage of Chris Roberts we're really looking for what strengths we need at that time as well as the future so a lot of this comes down to where where do we currently sit with our talent like what what do we have across the entire Studio not just here in LA but what do we have across the entire Globe um and we evaluate the staff and we evaluate the our talents and we see okay this is what we need to do accomplish these goals and this is kind of what we think we need

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   for the next six months year two years Infinity as we're working on playing this game and having fun as it comes out um so it's a it's a really great question because we're looking for all kinds of things one of them is a culture fit you want somebody that kind of fits into the environment that we're trying to create um you don't always necessarily just need to find somebody with the skills skills you can teach but personalities you can't culture you can't teach so it's a lot of times it's about finding someone that fits into what we're trying to make and we do have a great team we do LA's got a great team all the teams are starting to come together really really well as we start solidifying the the future plans and it's a it's a I like this one a lot because I spend a lot of time with the leads and with the directors looking at you know how can we make the experience not just great for our current staff but for future staff and for future employees and family members I mean these people we're going to spend a lot of our waking hours with yeah we've

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   developed a lot of close bonds here totally so there's a lot of things that go into it I mean if we're looking for a specific thing so like if we talk for instance about the associate Tech animator role we just opened up that role which we just closed we just found a candidate we're excited about that um we were looking for somebody that could Implement mannequin right that specifically work and mannequin work with the animation team for our persistent Universe it was a very specific thing we needed but there were obviously a ton of other things on top of that that we were looking for so applicants we were looking for if they had that experience that'd be great uh if they could work within this environment um the the tech content team that Sean leads that that um Gage is a part of it it's kind of an amorphous type of team so it's you know can you kind of roll with the punches can you flow with things as they come in it's a it's a it's a unique kind of team so we're looking for culture we're looking

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    for experience we're looking for talent and then we want to get you in here so we can meet you and talk to you and and see if you're the right fit so there's a lot of things that go into it and then how do we Attract it uh we keep making cool stuff we keep making as cool stuff as we possibly can and trying to make an impact like we're trying to do and try to get out there and you know go to hiring events as needed whenever we need candidates um and retaining them I don't know I mean we've done a pretty good job so far I think yeah I think we try to house an environment that's fun to work in that somebody wants to stay and invest their life in invest their time in yeah you know we may spend a lot of hours here working on this game and these games and all the things we want to come out with especially with this new studio it's been a lot better yeah totally and it's weird how just those little environment tweaks can make all the difference that Mak some want to stay forever or you know for a while at least so it's um it's a it's a tough

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    question it's it's an goinging question for every studio and every company out there but for us we want you to be passionate about what we're doing about the scale and the scope of what we're trying to create working alongside Chris and the Fantastic Team that we've all built here um and then ultimately make an impact with us we want somebody that's going to bring in their talents and their unique strengths it's not it's it's not beneficial to have the same type of person across the entire Studio or Globe right we want diversity we want um different types of personalities we want you know a quiet shy person with a loud and gregarious person like want those those types of personalities because they will create a better environment a more uh a more Dynamic environment where we can challenge each other to be better if we're all the same we won't necessarily do that per se we'll just stick with what we're good at and that's it so and it's games so we'll track Gamers and people that like making

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    games and you know so we kind of get some things naturally just by being a game company so all right so question number four from Leonard sapala regarding male and female clothing and body shapes how would you describe C's stance on realism and ially correct or more of a classic video game look have have you been given any specific guidance on how to strike that balance and if so what is it so I can't speak directly on how the characters are made and like what the influence will be because that's not what I do but I can tell you that they are basically 3D scans of real people that's about as real I think as we can get in the current day and age Y and then um our great artists like Omar and then our Tech artist Mark McCall and Sean Tracy and Forest all go over constantly to try and improve those 3D scans and make them match the real people as much as we can

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    and they spend an insane amount of time perfecting that look yeah so yeah and and I think the universe is going to be um not this just High Fantastical Universe it's going to be somewhat of a realistic if I was in space and flying a spaceship you know you're going to probably look like us maybe not aliens but you know 900 years from now little Vel yeah yeah little vuel or little Vel human babies that's going to be different one uh but yeah I think the I think the scanning kind of dictated it right once we decided we want to use real humans that kind of pushes us down that path we I think we've taken creative Liberties where it makes sense right it's necessary but I think the base is definitely the and then with the outfits and the environments we put them in that'll add the extra character and the sort of sci-fi look so for sure awesome all right question number five from Delta Ohio oh uh Ohio I almost said Ohio again

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    as a developer making a high stakes game how is your work life Balan when you know there is so much writing on everything you do that is a uh that is a very intense question um and I may be the wrong person to answer this question uh striking a work life balance when you're working on something you're passionate about is incredibly difficult prioritizing life is very difficult to do um we are all very passionate about what we're working on here we're working for someone that's also very passionate about what he's creating oh yeah and I think it it rubs off on all of us we all want to be here until we know it necessarily needs to be done um there's so much to do and so much we want to do it's it's I rarely go home and feel like I accomplished everything I plann for for that day but I do feel like I made a chunk I've gotten chunk done to get

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    ready for that's the best feeling like you made a difference that day move on to the next one that's right so sometimes you just got to put your pencil down and go home because you're you've been here so long uh sometimes you have to plan life take make sure you take a vacation make sure you use some of that PTO time that we've got those wonderful benefits and sometimes hey you got to put in all the hours and do what you got to do so it's really tough it's it's I don't know I don't know I can't it's hard to explain when you when you're working on something you love it's when do you want to stop right I think the goal is you want to do something you love so much that you never want to stop doing it so we have to force ourselves even more to to to take a break step away from it go have fun go do a team event have a little holiday party whatever the case may be just you know go out see a movie and and have that little bit of break when you can and I think you've been a big part of that too like since you came on board the environment has definitely improved

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    cool thank you um and then on another note I think to speak to this this question um the management team the executive team they're incredibly supportive on just life happening right if if something occurs or something goes on you have you know they've got your back and you can take the time you need to to make sure life's sorted out and it it just seems like you know and I and I know this from the leadership side we we are always proactively trying to look at are people burning out are they working too hard is what they're working on what they should be working on and how can we simplify that to make their lives better um when do we just tell them to go home be away take time off uh because those are all things we're always trying to look out for and that does happen I remember uh earlier this week when trying to work on 2.4 Force n Sean kept telling me like go home you got to go home but that's right yeah that's right

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    back for sport so we do it I try to do it to ourselves but then we also for those that we're responsible for we try to take care of them because I I the ultimate goal is to not Crunch and if we're doing our job and we have a good understanding of the schedule which I say it but it's very hard to do uh it is try to get reduce any kind of crazy overtime needed be able to do your job within the hours allotted to you that's fair and equal to your employment laws around your wherever you live but also just for our mental state the reason those exist is because we just you know there gets to a point where diminishing returns got to be healthy yeah you got to be healthy and if something happens cig totally supports it and I've seen that happen time and time again even since I've been here when I hurt myself you know I had the support of Chris and those to just help heal get back to where you need to be and then come back to work and keep doing it so from subscriber tranon question number six

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    since working on the start citizen project what would you say has been your most Innovative contribution that has impacted the game so far thank you Tron um good question very polite Tron is very polite I like Tron a lot yeah um I've worked on quite a few things since I've been here and jumped around a lot but um I think since becoming an associate rigger and working with John Rigs and the tech content team that is when I've really made the biggest contribution I feel because I've been given a lot more responsibility to start taking my own Direction I think and trying to improve things that don't actually exist yet so within the past month I've been working on the clothing system in 2.4 while all the code guys handle the implementation I've been working on the 3D aspect and making sure the art fits together and works well within the game and I've been working really hard on that and taking it over

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    from the outsourcers and I feel like that has been probably the most rewarding and beneficial experience so far totally and I think people are going are enjoying it cuz I think it's got a really cool that specific impact is going to it's such a cool feature for the persistent Universe it's like one of the large pillars of persistent universes not all of them but shopping and and the clothing aspect of persistent universe is such a big deal so it's kind of cool to be the ground floor the first person set the Milestones that's good yeah so anything that happens from here out would be like that was what Gage worked on there you go we built the foundation awesome cool all right from vacation that's very applicable to the topics we've had isn't it ation says I was wondering about the character from the pupil to Planet video I thought he looked fantastic I was wondering if that character is from

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    Squadron 42 or an example of what we could expect to be able to make from the Character Creator this is a good question um we're starting to get a lot of questions about character creator I can't imagine why people want customization for their characters it's a big one I know they're actively working on the design Dock and and just the overall implementation um but that character was one of our head scans as uh Gage mentioned earlier on one of the questions about what our characters look like that was an actor that we scanned in and it's one of the first implementations of that character in the game that we're we're excited CU at some point um all these characters we'd like them to be in some form or fashion right um depending on if they fit or not into the lore or to the universe we can use these for both Squad 42 and for pers the persistent universe so so yeah that was one of the ones that uh we wanted to use for that video and it's the one that's kind of starting to come online and

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    we're all pretty excited about it so and we basically um have a whole lineup ready we're just sort of perfecting one and then we're going to apply down the pipeline to the rest yeah it's going to be it should hopefully simplify it's like if you work on any kind of creative content the the beginning 80% the beginning is just like the most intense and you trying to figure out the most because then after that it should it should just fly right you're making small tweaks along the way as you learn new tech and new things come online but you should be able to you know like a template Mass Supply got them all going and then you can start simplifying and then you can start seeing things quicker come out quicker play with them quicker have fun with them quicker right it's like when you any game you make you start and you make a bunch of tools and those tools help you make everything else faster all about that pipeline that's there you go set that pipeline up right the first time or the second or third time and then that thing should St right yeah yeah but thank you we I agree

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    I think that character look great oh yeah all right question eight number eight from the deadly Kenny does Star Citizen plan to have loose clothing physics as in if you had a trench coat or a cape you moved would the clothing flutter or flap in both atmospheric environments and in space I like that those trench coat and cap or Cape I I want a character with a cape on it we don't have capes yet but we could get there we need to work on capes um okay so for this question it's not set in stone yet we will definitely be getting simulated clothing eventually but um it's very experimental right now as people know like we finally got physics grids in and all that all the physics are sort of falling into place um and then simulations within those will fall into place afterward so we've been doing experiments with the characters um so far but nothing solid yet nothing in the pipeline like the actual active pipeline

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    but yeah I've seen a lot of the R&D Mark Mcall and a coule blowing through it all blowing through it looks really really cool I think it'll be a really it's obviously a nice feature right the the immersion is in the detail sometimes especially in space I want to see that happen oh yes I know everyone does and we we'll get there floating um also although on the topic of that I was mentioned earlier the cdfs so the cdfs were basically the way we implemented all the simulations they were all input as data in the CDF but that's not persistent so we we first got the clothing into the persistent item loadouts that we're going to be giving players in 2.4 and then we had um arel you start implementing the simulation data from the cdfs into the item loadouts as well so coming later we can simulate within the persistent close but it'll come it's coming it's coming it's it's looking really cool too all right

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    next question number nine number nine right n okay kiwi Pete says how has the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42 of course evolved in terms of art style and gameplay as cig has developed or deployed Leading Edge Technologies can you give some examples of before and after examples thanks yes uh how is it involved so I guess the answer to the question is yes it has I guess that's not the answer to the question but part of the question is it has evolved it will continue to evolve and any kind of living Pro uh um project or organism especially the pr Universe type of thing it will we will try to continue to push the boundaries until we've breaken all boundaries and then those boundaries better and keep making them better um so how has it so I think you know since even since I've been here I just had my anniversary last a couple weeks ago

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    right after we've been here for a year already um one of the iterations that I've been here for that I was really excited and I worked alongside those guys on yourself partially as well was the constellation so we're on the next Mark of the constellation that's true um Chris Smith and uh Josh Coons and everybody kind of really took that thing by the horns to get that ready for multi crew and um the new version of that ship looks amazing that was phenomenal yeah and and what they did was they got all the things that had led up to the pipeline when they started that ship and even during they tweaked it but that was a new iteration of the pipeline it was a new iteration of art style it was a new iteration of how can we make this look even better with this poly count within this engine as the engine gets optimized you can do more with art so it's kind of a it's this back and forth that we'll always do and that's the one I think of the most I don't know if you have another example perfect example um I

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    think that was for the LA Studio that was sort of like our first well la and all the US teams the first major pipeline movement for the ships and then on top of that um Len's team they've been able to just fly forward yeah based on all these optimizations we have now it's great to watch too and you know speaking of Ln you know even the ships are working on now it's cool that you know he's like putting a lot up front but the plan is to you know help move through the PIP quier it does pay off and it and it sometimes it's a lot of hard again upfront work but it should pay off if you're doing it right it should pay off got to go fast to Coast so yeah it'll continue to evolve and you know the more and more we do this one we come out with I think the goal is to keep making it look as cool as we can with with the tech right y yeah all right so question number 10 Perry hope what is your favorite CL you say hey there Gage he's talking to you or this person is talking to you okay okay okay

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    going do some third person role playing all right so question number 10 from Perry hope hey there Gage hello what is your favorite cloth that you have made and can you show it to us cheers so my favorite so far has been the big Benny outfit and and that actually has an interesting story behind it because it was originally unintended it was like as it came out as an April fools joke all the April fools content was originally things that the teams did on their own as like their own little goofy side projects and then we brought together thanks to Jared and the way the outfit came together was it was a personal test for myself to learn the pipeline so that I can start integrating what I do with the character team um so yeah it was just it's really it was a really fun one that kind of came online and I think you'll you know cuz there's a lot of things we need to

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    test internally that aren't necessarily meant for public consumption oh yeah the kind of perk here is that we get to share that stuff right when we make it but I I've been a part of things like that in the past where it's just fun you you kind of get a chuckle internally but it's always fun when we be like look at this how funny is this and you know then it of course inspires oh well can I get that outfit what do I need to do for that outfit right so that's always a question that we get and you never know you never know what sneaks in there right never know and we're glad the fans love it so who knows what we might do with it that's right we see you never know you never know what we'll sneak in that's right all right I think that that's all of our questions do you have any secret questions anywhere you wanted to answer um question number 11 no no question okay I think that's it awesome there's our 10 questions for 10 for the developers thank you guys so much for uh taking the time to chat with us and again thank you subscribers for making this possible we couldn't talk to you about these 10 great questions without

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    you uh helping us out and and paying for all this content and being a part of this journey and then also of course thank to the all the backers for making all this possible of course we we couldn't be living the dream and working our our tales off to try to make something cool and they make it worth it too I love talking to backers and all the subscribers great feedback it it adds to the creation that much more yeah yeah we love it all right we're signing off thank you so much again that's 10 for the developers talk to you soon hey guys thanks for watching um temp for the chairman if you guys would like to uh see more episodes go here if you guys would like to subscribe subribe to our YouTube channel and always keep up to date with all our video content go here and uh if you guys would like to

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    watch episodes of R the verse go here please and I will see you in the verse [Applause]