TL;DRThe team now invests more in concept work upfront, front-loads pipeline setup, works closely with design and animation, and keeps adapting to changing metrics, the female rig, attachments and new features.
I mean, I'll start on the weapon side. I think one of the things that has, not necessarily improved over the years, changed over the years, is that we try and invest a little bit more time in the concept phase, like Jake's already mentioned, to try and make sure that we're solving all the visual questions as early as possible and trying to get that concept nailed down from the start. It works out a lot better for the development team, the guys that are actually delivering the asset, if there's not changes in the direction during the process, if possible. There's always going to be challenges and things that you need to resolve when the concepts come in. You don't see the concepts in the player's hand. You're not running around with it. And until you get to that point, you don't know exactly. It can be the prettiest weapon in the world, and then you get it in the character's hands and you're like, it doesn't quite look how I expected it. And concept take care of that, and they do a lot of things with the character models and things. But I think until it's got into the animators', the designers', the weapons artists' hands to play with, it's kind of difficult to judge. And I think that's probably the other change that we've tried to make, at least more recently, is that we now try and front-load as much of the setup work as we can in the pipeline so that we're not taking an asset to a final asset and then it gets handed over to the other department. The makeup of the team has changed slightly, so we're working much closer with design and animation to make sure that as soon as the concept comes in, the artists, like David and Jake, try and get that in game as quickly as possible. It might look a bit rough, but it gets the idea in game and lets people play with it.
Yeah, we talk with the animators quite a lot now. I think that's probably the team we're the closest with in terms of how often we're talking with them. We'll get that blockout in, and then they'll be like, oh, this doesn't quite work, let's review this. I think with the shotgun in particular, the shoulder would have to stretch way forward. That wouldn't quite work. So we had to make that shotgun much stubbier. And overall, that changes the design, quite surprisingly. So yeah, that's really beneficial of the new pipeline that we've got and any changes that we've made.
I think metrics are probably one of the biggest changes for every content team, not just weapons and props. As the game progresses, metrics get refined, better defined.
Also the female rig that we added, that also caused a couple of issues that we had to rethink or go back to older assets and change them a little bit. So you have the grip a little bit more towards the character, so the arm doesn't stretch too far to the front. And I think just things like that, that we didn't think about earlier.
I mean, I think the key is as well, the process keeps changing as we go. Like Dave said, you have the female rig, that adds some more steps in the process. You add attachments, you've then got to make sure you do all the attachment checks as you go as part of the pipeline. And then for the future stuff like magazine stripping, we've now got to think about the process and how that changes going forward. So it's constantly evolving and updating based off how the game changes.
It's very much the same on the prop side of it, really. If you take, for example, usables, a lot of assets that were previously considered just dressing, you could consider, it's going to be carryable, it might have power, it might have certain features associated with it. There are instances where we've created these assets purely as an art content team, we've created them as dressing, and then we're having to retroactively, as new features come online, consider how those impact our existing assets. We're a lot more conscious of getting ahead of the curve now than we were five years ago when it comes to, okay, I'm creating a new asset, there aren't any existing ones, let's make a template for it, make sure it gets signed off by the relevant departments. We're creating a usable and there's an existing asset, let's corral our library of assets and review them, and if there are inconsistencies, make sure we're correcting those. Basically, also just considering how to make...
And also there's one of those elements, especially with the props, that you dress an environment and then you get a designer or someone running around that environment and they're like, it'd actually be really cool if this asset would do X, Y or Z, or I could do a mission here and we could have whatever functionality we might then need. And it's like, yeah, cool, I just thought it was a bin, but okay, if we need to add support for additional things. There are things that we could do if we had the time to do them. Everything can function, but it's about seeing what's the most important for missions and that sort of stuff. But a lot of it, like I say, you get from just getting in the environment, running around, being like, oh, this would be really cool, and then that gets added to the 'can we have this feature, please?'
TL;DRAlien FPS weapons are something the team wants and plans to do at some point, but they are focusing on standard human-manufacturer weapons first, with no commitment on timing.
I can speak to this from a design side first if you want. Basically, it's something that we really, really want to do. And obviously, we plan on doing it at some point. But I think I may have said this before. Essentially, we're trying to build out our more standard set of weapons first. So everything you'd basically expect to see in an FPS game, all of the tools available. You want your anti-vehicle weapons, LMGs, rifles, all that stuff. And we've got these existing human manufacturers that we want to build out while we've got our heads in the right space to do them, so we're not jumping all over the place. But yeah, it's the most exciting part of making weapons in my eyes. When we start to visit this new tech, we get to speak to the writing team and talk with them about what would this alien race have technology-wise that differs them from these human manufacturers. Then that ties into the art and it's like, how can we get this tech level across and this special functionality across in how the weapon looks? Which then ties into animation, and you talk to them as well, and everyone's just getting really excited about this new thing that you're doing, and everyone gets to input and shape this weapon together. And an example of that is what we've done before with the Atzkav. That was a new manufacturer when it was coming out. It was new tech because it was an electron weapon. And you're going through all of these really exciting steps of collaborating with all of the other teams and going, how does it work? What happens when you shoot someone? Speak to the VFX team, speak to the art team. What's it going to look like? How's it going to feel? It's just very exciting stuff. So yeah, certainly something that we on the design team want to get to doing at some point. And we're starting to move very slowly in that direction.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I really do. With the alien weapons, they're quite complex, and they're much more organic in their form. So I think they'll be more challenging, but that's part of the fun of it, really. So yeah, I'd like to do some more alien weapons.
Yeah, and I think pretty much everyone's really excited about getting onto alien stuff at some point. I think the scope there to do some really fun weaponry is massive. Like JJ says, at the moment we've got our focus, and as we tick off all of that stuff we get to explore the new stuff, especially when we start exploring other systems. Not committing that the next system is going to be an alien system, but what I'm saying is that as we do a game with as many star systems in it as we're looking to deliver, if it was all human, personally... I can see Jared looking at me being like, what's he going to say? I survived last week, so I'm bulletproof. From my point of view, there's scope for so much variation, not just alien, but advanced tech.
TL;DRA few weapons already have glowing parts, but glow should serve a purpose, since tactical weapons don't usually glow, though futuristic or alien weapons may get more.
I think we have a couple of glowy bits on the Gemini weapons, the blue spinner, and the glowy bits on that SMG that Jake did. Of course, we need to be a little bit careful because it needs to have a certain purpose when it glows. We can't just put glowy stuff on it because it looks cool. It needs to make sense that it's on there. I mean, weapons usually, from a tactical perspective, don't glow that much. Of course, futuristic weapons like the Atzkav, they have glowy bits, and when you reload or if the flaps at the front open, you can see glowy bits inside. We have a lot of stuff like this, not all over the place, but where it makes sense, I would say.
TL;DRThe team would like non-lethal options like a taser-style electron weapon, shock gloves, or turning any object into a weapon, though melee must look good in both first and third person.
Sure. I mean, from a feature point of view, we've obviously got electron damage already in. We can pull the levers on that to either be lethal or go full stun, essentially, and knock someone out. Or we've even got the idea of blunt force actually doing stun damage as well with the melee combat. So personally, it ties in really well. We could certainly do something like a taser-like weapon that purely does electron damage that will basically knock someone out unconscious and allow them to be captured.
Actually, internally, we did a little test on one melee thing. And the thing is, you need to make sure that it looks really good from the first-person perspective. And that's where most games cheat a little bit, where it's right in front of your face, basically, and that's not how you hold the weapon. And we need to also make sure that it looks good in third person from the outside, and that's also a problem that you need to solve, basically, when doing such weapons.
Yeah, we've got the toy pistols and they're technically a non-lethal weapon. I'd love to expand it. We worked hard to get those in. And I guess non-lethal... I don't know. For me, what I'd love anyway is anything should be a weapon. I keep on banging on about that to the feature team. If I'm in a bar and there's bottles, tick, weapon. If you're in your ship, in engineering, and there's tools, weapon. Sandwich, yeah. I think being able to pick up anything that makes sense... Actually, we can throw stuff at the moment and do that sort of thing, but we're not that far away, surely.
TL;DRThe props team still uses 3ds Max (weapons use Maya), because the existing scripts, custom exporter, and retraining costs make Blender impractical for daily production, though some concept artists use it.
We are definitely still very pleb-like in our use of 3ds Max. I'll put it this way. There's a lot of artists who are very enthusiastic about Blender and would love to use it on a day-to-day basis. However, and this is just my personal opinion, we have a massive library of scripts and also a custom exporter for our engine, and obviously all of that would need to be ported over before it was something we could consider. I'm not sure how the tool programmers feel about that; probably they're like, 'nah, mate.' So there are artists who are very passionate about the use of Blender. I'm not one of them, I'm still a knuckle-dragging idiot, but I would love to learn to use Blender, I just don't really have time at the moment. But yeah, basically not right now. Some of the concept artists use Blender and they take advantage of the fact it's got its own PBR engine to present stuff. It's a very nice workflow for them as a production workflow without massive amounts of work from tools programmers. I couldn't see it being used day to day.
I'm sure there's also the element of a learning curve for production artists as well. Take a week out of one person's schedule, it's cool. Take a week out of 200 artists' schedules, and all of a sudden you've got a reasonable amount of delays in that.
It's a bit like when people say, why aren't you using a different game engine? And it's like, well, the amount of resources we've invested into our workflows make it very challenging to make such a drastic pivot. I'm sure people will still ask about it though. They're still basically saying, we're interested in this tool or in this program. Personally, I don't see it coming in. But that's not to say there's any reason other than that. It would just take a lot of time for programmers.
On weapons, we usually use Maya, which is also a struggle. If you come from Max to Maya, you need to learn a lot. The same thing would apply for Blender. So if one person has a Blender file and the other person needs to work in that file, they would also need to know the software. And training people and so on, that takes a lot of time. And as Corey said, all the tools need to be converted to the other software, and people need to know everything about it and all the little tricks. And getting one file from one software to the other causes a lot of problems, especially if you consider animations, rigging and so on. And yeah, that's the whole reason behind it, I would say.
TL;DRThe panel names the crossbow, with its intricate cable-and-cam rig and high polygon count, and a Volt rifle as exciting current work, while others deflect or say they can't discuss theirs.
Definitely the crossbow for me. I know that has been wanted for a really long time. And when that concept was coming through, I was like, I want to do that. Look at it. I really thought it looked good. And so far, it's been a real challenge, but also really, really fun.
It's quite complex in its geo as well. There's a dense amount of detail to that. There's four arms to it. Just getting that under the poly count, which for us is quite high naturally because of our custom normal workflow, getting that under that highest poly count was pretty tough, while keeping it looking really dense in detail. But I did it. So it's there.
The Volt stuff? Yeah, that's all right. I'm working on that Volt Parallax rifle right now, which is also pretty cool and has lots of detail and has the same issues as the crossbow of too many polygons that need to get optimized. And yeah, that's a really cool one, and I really like that.
Jared, I'm excited about everything we're doing. And I'm in the very fortunate position where I get to see a lot of it in my day to day. So there's nothing in particular. And there's probably a lot of things that I'm not allowed to talk about. So let's leave it at that.
Obviously I spend a lot of my time doing management stuff, making sure the teams are all happy and all that. I do sneak in a few assets here and there just because, obviously, I'm an artist and I enjoy making artwork. So I do little bits here and there, things like hip flasks, flair items and stuff, stuff that's not really a release task. So something that's on the back burner, I jump on some of that stuff. So yeah, hip flask. I did the handcuffs for the Star Runner trailer. They were really fun. Stuff like that.
TL;DRProps broadly follow the environment's style and have an associated tech level, but because of their variety and use in ships, it's more a spectrum than strict categories.
Yes, we split props into, I guess, location-specific props and then props that are separate from locations. If we're making a bench for microTech, it would adhere to that art style. But if we're making a generic flashlight that is used everywhere, that would have its own concept, whether it's high-tech or low-tech. We'd still have a tech level associated with it. And obviously, it would borrow style elements from that.
Yeah, I guess it's like a yes with the high tech, low tech, and universal. But due to the nature of props and the variety that we make, it's more of a spectrum than specific categories.
But since props are not only in environments, but also sometimes in ships, there's a lot more variety for that. Because the ships are not necessarily bound to the style of the environment.
TL;DRMore wood-furnished weapons would more likely come from future form-over-function manufacturers, since current ones are functionality-focused; a Kalashnikov isn't promised, though it may serve as reference for assault rifles.
It comes down to manufacturers, to answer it sensibly. It kind of loops back to the why no leather. Someone's going to prove me wrong that there is a manufacturer out there making military weapons with wooden stocks, I'm sure. But anyway, it comes down to: a lot of the manufacturers we've got at the moment are functionality-based manufacturers over form. When we get to the form-over-functionality manufacturers, the people that are making custom weapons or weapons that are not meant for a battlefield with however many hundreds of thousands of people using them, I think that's where you'll see a bit more experimentation in the materials used.
There's a market for high-end weapons in the universe. But obviously, a lot of the manufacturers, based on the fact they're quite, I don't want to say bog-standard weapons, but we're covering our bases in terms of the more generic weapon manufacturers, I suppose. They're more like your bread and butter. There's obviously more exotic weapons in the game. There's the explosive pistol whose name eludes me right now. Very ornate design. Lightning Bolt Company obviously furnish their weapons with some interesting stuff.
I was just going to say, it's interesting, because it comes out of that conversation between the writers, design and art, where Lightning Bolt Company, when we were assigning the manufacturers to this type of weapon, fit perfectly in terms of description. But when you looked at the company, it was actually almost like a Russian-based company that was brought into the future. I think even their original logo, their description, some of it was in Cyrillic even. So it's that very Russian aesthetic.
We had the UI solely in Cyrillic. No one understands it, but it'd be cool. It looks great. And it looks great because I'm not Russian and I can't read it. A Russian guy was probably like, yeah, it's normal.
A lot of the early reference that came out, I think even for the Atzkav, one of the reference weapons we had was the Dragunov. And while obviously the tech is completely different to that, it's not even a ballistic weapon, and the barrel's completely different because it's got that electron tech in there, we wanted some elements of that to come into the silhouette, and obviously some of the elements from that to come into the materials that are used as well. So I think even in part of that process, you mentioned the Kalashnikov, I think that was brought up at some point. And while I'm not saying we're going to make a Kalashnikov, that will probably come up as reference when we start looking at assault rifles for the company.
I remember years ago having a bit of a discussion with one of our designers about magazines and newspapers and how they shouldn't be a thing in the universe because there's no trees. And it's like, wait, there's no trees? And then that was discussed with narrative and stuff, like, oh, yeah, we're not doing magazines because there's no trees. There's planets filled with trees. What are you on about? Why are we not doing newspapers and magazine stuff? They're like, why would anyone ship one of those across the universe? Think how long it would take and how much it would cost to ship a magazine across. And you're like, yeah, all right, that's a valid argument. I accept that. But when it comes to bespoke weaponry or furniture or these sorts of assets, then it's probably something someone's going to keep and not just throw away instantly.
We're trying to convey an aesthetic at the end of the day. It's the same with the cardboard boxes, for instance. We have a lot of cardboard boxes in the game. That's just an asset that was made quite a while ago, and it's just proliferated since because it was a box. It's easy dressing, right? And then people are like, why would they use cardboard? It's the future, where the level of scarcity for resources and the refinement of resources is much more advanced. Why do people still have cardboard boxes? And it's like, well, should we have cardboard boxes? I don't know. I'm sure some people will tell you we should, some people will tell you we shouldn't.
Yeah, it's a resource at the end of the day, right? Like plastics and stuff, you need to get it from somewhere. So I guess it depends on what resources you have available.