Inside Star Citizen: Alpha 4.0 - Creatures and Characters

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:00

   hello everybody and welcome to another episode of inside Star Citizen I'm your host Jared Huckabee on the show this week cows space cows an entire episode dedicated to cows how are they going to do that we have no idea but I bet it won't be well enjoy so what is the space cow hey jar can you give us can you give us 15 minutes on a cow it's like it's always quazy or quasi and everyone always says it differently because the Montreal guys are the character people so they're always like you know quasi and we're like quazy so the the quazy Gaza is um [Music]

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   why do creatures matter what do they add to our video game well this is a cow and it moves so it's incredibly exciting um creatures in general had believable ability to the world and the experience and in general when you're flying your ship or driving around seeing Forno running around and just being in the world it's like oh cool I'm actually like you know on a planet I'm in an [Laughter] environment they present lots of opportunities for Unique gameplay situations and allow you to see the Landscapes perhaps in a new way I think

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   players are already really enjoying the creatures that we've got in the game the actual release was fine but when we did the initial release into like PTU there were problems with the creature desyncing and things like that but we've been working on fixing that up and you know making sure that the creatures are responsive and well engaging really the biggest challenge in programming creatures is bringing them to life making sure that all the incredible animations that we've got uh placed in the right way and that they're working together as this whole creature that's not just an individual set of animations but something that's living and breathing so the Quasi Grazer is quite a simple creature we kind of Cally call it the space cow we like to put space in

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   front of every other creature we' had the space dog and the space bird and now we've got the space how it's got quite simple behaviors they're very gentle creatures we look at how cows look well not how they look but how they act and you know they're space mooing and you know they're eating grass they're roaming around in herds and well except the main difference is that they have eggs which is pretty gross talk to me about space moing what's space moing um he wants me to do the noise and I'm going to refrain uh I'll let one of the audio people handle that but the direct the what we always give direction to the audio team is like we'll be like moo and then then pempus like alien or space just so they don't end up like you

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   know just giving us a regular moo cuz you know cows actually have Regional accents so if you listen to a cow moo in the south of England or the north of England they sound very different so you're right love moo what does a Stanton cow moo sound like versus you know like a a manchest the cow moo um we're getting off topic yeah we are there are five different types of Quasi grazers in 4.0 and you'll see them scattered in various biomes the desert variant of the Quasi Grazer is the one you all familiar with that you've seen in like the star engine trailer and is going to be on Hurston it doesn't have fur it's uh made for the desert so it's more like a thick skin it's similar to a cow but it doesn't have horns it has a

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   typical amount of eggs for a quasi Grazer what is a typical amount of eggs it is randomized but there is like a typical medium that we go with it's consistently inconsistent so some cows will have more eggs than others yes why because you think of like Spanish cows right they tend to be a lot skinnier than like North American cows cuz they like eat a lot more they have access to like a lot more water they've got a lot more food versus like hot areas do you think this is a good use of your time Zach um I think I am sick at looking at videos of cows and sending them to animators and be like no the tail needs to move like this the next kind is the Boreal forest which is quite nice as they are on

7. 00:05:18

   Microtech you'll see that it has hair around its neck and its face plate is more pronounced so they will be spawning near copons and near the Mars as well and if they ever end up Crossing path there will be arguments between them I don't think that the Copans will loot the cow eggs but it just means there's a nice systemic gameplay that you can come across where a copion has hunted a cow in this case the grassland version of the Quasi graer you'll see that they have darker fur and in general a more darker shade on their skin as well the grassland was Grazer looks more like a buffalo with the we forur is made like the dessert was graser it also have eggs that you can loot they live in the Savana area of Microtech and it will be joined by a

8. 00:06:07

   jungle variant which will be sharing the Savannah for the time being and lastly the one I'm most excited about is the Arctic Varian you will find the tundra space cow in the tundra the more cold areas of microt the Arctic space cow we did was one animal that we actually had to do fully covered in fur which is quite a challenge I remember Chris saying we want to see hordes of them passing by so he's talking about 20 or 30 or even hundreds of them passing by so it would have to be really optimized and at the same time would have to hit the quality bar we managed to create a very interesting fluffy creature that you're going to be able to enjoy very soon it's fully covered in hair and it's using similar Tech to what we have on the human beings and you know you imagine like winds and when it moves and things like that it's fur is basically

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   fully reactive to those elements so it makes the animations a lot more alive and it really shows how having these simulated elements on the creature using our hair Tech is just gorgeous we're also very excited to see how this opens up a lot of possibilities and opportunities for the creatures in the future as this was a breakthrough for us to be able to cover such a large creature with so much fur the uh ones with fur look really super cute I think we want some tongue physics in there well cuz normal cows are quite quite licky okay the views and opinions man DAV you that represent those of clad appan games Robert Space Industries or subsidiaries and having to say this too much

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    lately interestingly it is the only variant without eggs and instead you'll be able to loot this creature's tongue what yeah the tongue Andrew talked about the tongue he he wanted to add tongue physics yeah no probably not it' be a bit weird what what noise does a tongue detaching make anyway you know what I mean like oh you'll make that sound but not the space move I'm not making an animal noise it's not the weekend yet one of the really cool features we've got is that the creatures respond to the day night cycle during the night time they're more likely to be sleeping whereas during the day they're more to be grazing it's a very non-lethal kind of

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    set dressing for planets type of animal the real Trouble Comes if you disturb these gentle creatures by attacking them or there's a hostile nearby if you are mean to the cows in any capacity what they will do is the majority of them will run away however one will come and knock you over and it will only do a small amount of damage but you know I would like to track the Telemetry on how many people die to them which would be interesting they can be quite deadly as cows are in real life four or five deaths in the UK every year by cows so yeah it's quite a dangerous Creature if you raise its anger do you ever consider making them mourn the death of another that's that's really depressing um one of my team is very very keen to

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    uh to get petting of quas grazers in there but I think that's a whole whole other feature have to wait for another day let us pet the cow what happens if you are aggressive to the cow if you are aggressive to the cow one cow will end up charging you and knocking you over this episode is issue to show y back to you h so for the next release we're getting

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    some new features for the character customizer that I think you're really going to like we're starting with some new hairstyles let's start with the mullet we're going to have a new mullet this mullet was designed to be really grungy and disav great to fit with the new pyro stuff there's also a lovely twin braid that is just parted in the middle it's an airstyle that you can actually use to still be fashionable and uh and and practical because it's all tied up then we also have another style which is a big curly hair very very volumetric uh feel to it it's quite amazing it's going to be amazing to make it look with the with the hats and the masks and all that and and the way it will fit I'm pretty sure this is going to cause a great visual

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    impact additionally for the next release we're getting tattoos finally you're going to be able to give yourself that specific styling that you're not going to match anyone else in the verse the tattoo system is really great you can select from a plef of tattoos and you can adjust the colors so you get them just as you like them and you can also set the age on them to make them look like you've had them for a long time for the tattoos on the first batch we have a bunch of different style we have some organic tattoos we have the tattoos of flowers we have one that's small old school American style like pico always a winner right there's a Pico tattoo oh there's a Pico tattoo he's going to be surfing down

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    everyone's necks get ready for Pico NE P neck tattoo oh yeah that's the stuff that's some Cody Road right there I don't even know what that is but yes we have used a bunch of team that are part of the game like the like the creatures uh and the ships also we have a tattoo for the javelin which we're showing different side of the ship we have a tattoo for the copion which is more of the old school style we have the Mok which has kind of a c influence we have one that's a full face call also I think this one the p is going to like still limited but uh as time goes

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    on we we plan to release more and more of these people should care about the tattoos because they let you personalize yourself and express yourself in a way that you couldn't with the previous features of the character customizer it's always been about expressing yourself that's the whole deal about it but now this will allow you to get something printed on your face that immediately communicates something to other players about what you are about what does a face tattoo communicate about you to other people lots of things I I've I've seen I've seen some stuff in addition to the tattoos we're also looking into piercings right now we have five different areas that you can

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    apply them to we have ears one and two we have eyebrows one and two and the lower lip and nose we're also pursuing different piercing Styles so the simple one from an implementation perspective is studs so we have a range of different stud piercings that you can apply rings are a bit more complicated but because as you shape the face the Rings will have to deform as well as the face so that might be a little bit longer and last but not least we're bringing a new stubble feature to the character customizer obviously we have a huge selection of facial hair already but now you can change them all to have a

18. 00:14:38

    stubble built in stubble that you can actually use with any other beard so you you can combine it with a longer beard or a mustache or something just to give you that different look we also have two new beers one that is longer groomed and when there's a bit shorter it was important to add stubble just to give you a more realistic look for people that want to look like more like a fighter and less like a a prince so uh if you're looking for this spiral look or this look of you're a minor you're worker you're something then this is just going to give you the edge on your look so you just tick the Box stubble and now you can add that to your sweet

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    Abraham Lincoln beard that you love so much so that's all of the new features for the character customizer for the next release sorry if we couldn't show you everything today but we're working hard on it I hope you are as excited as we are for these new features and I hope you also feel that this is going to allow you to further show your own Persona in the verse so what did we learn this week well ah me oh my I like to Moo so much moo moo yeah we're just we're just out in the cold here just doing cow stuff out out out in the cold hey we always move like

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    that and eat loads of grass I ow it's soing cold move skull for milk moo moo like moo foreign