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Hey Dreamers, Dreams Quest would like to invite you on a short journey into animation within our company!
Animation has an amazing potential to tell stories and create fantastic things that simply don’t exist in our world. It’s quite a complex set of tasks though, so we thought that it would be a pretty fun experience to go through most vital parts of the process.
So, without further ado, let's take the first step, shall we?
The first step on the road to success and quite an important one is the planning stage.
Curiously enough the original design tends to divert quite far from the end product of the final approved animation.
This happens due to multitude of potential challenges along the way, plus, since animation is quite a time consuming process, the original designs tend to change along the way.
The initial step is taken by the writers, which means a lot of lore relevant stuff that fits neatly into the story, while being interesting enough to warrant creation. No need to include Bob the fisher if he’s not adding anything, unless he’s really funny that is.
Once the writers reach their final consensus and decide the general role, description, clothing lore, importance etc of the character, Paulii, together with Steve and Matteo fine tune it further.
After full approval of the concept it moves onto the 2D artists, where they can begin creating the initial sketches.
In some cases, certain characters are changed in later stages and have to be redesigned once more.
Of course it’s not something that anyone wants to happen but some major characters evolve quite a lot and require improvements, more often than not, they serve as an upgrade rather than downgrade from the previous implementation.
First hurdle cleared, let's move onto the second step of our journey!
Here the 2D artists begin the process of putting everything into visual form, removing the burden of imagination and granting the “first breath of life” into the character.
The size, shape, colours, body language, hair, ornaments everything plays some part in the very identity of this new person that is a denizen of a mysterious world of Azoria.
Taking all of that into account requires a decent amount of skill and experience, lucky for us our 2D artist, Kate is our specialist in the field.
Creating completely new characters can be quite challenging. Descriptions and references are certainly very helpful to assist with the task though. I personally tend to help myself out by creating multiple versions of the character, as with every new iteration I draw out the best possible, in my opinion, final draft. Once I’m fully satisfied with the results, it’s time for feedback and suggestions.
The overall complexity of every new sketch is on a case to case basis, the details of their clothing, body shape, whether they’re humanoid or more beast-like can significantly increase the time to create them.
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The initial sketches are quicker to produce than it is to create orthographic projections, which are extremely useful to show the character from a multitude of different angles. It’s very important in the creation of the 3D models down the production pipeline since being able to see character from all the sides is very crucial when 3D artists are sculpting the model.
To further satiate our curiosity, we inquired a little bit about the personal inspirations of Kate, which she was quite happy to share with us!
The visual assistance and descriptions I receive with the task are usually quite sufficient honestly. While I do draw some inspiration from both real life and other art pieces, most of the time the references, along with my own knowledge, is more than enough to create cool sketches for our 3D artists to work on.
Another step taken as we draw to the midpoint of the animation process, next stop, the 3D model!.
Using the sketches and concept art from Kate, we move onto the third stage of the production. Luckily, we’ve got Adrian, our 3D artist to shed some light on the process.
When it comes to turning 2D concepts into 3D models, there are certain things to consider.
The complexity of the characters becomes more apparent. This is an important part to address, as each layer affects the other, after all, the clothes, hats, rings, necklaces need to be accounted for as either a part of the character or an entirely separate entity that both affect each other. Which as you can imagine, can be quite tricky to account for if there’s too much of it, even if it looks cool!
Indeed, there are quite a few things that 3D artists need to pay attention to.
The previously mentioned layers of each character can be quite time consuming to complete work on if they’re meant to look great and feel natural enough.
Things like physics of an object, avoiding clipping through each other and general visual presentation all take both time and effort. A careful balance must be struck between the time spent to design the character and its final visual quality and realistic feel. Due to this balance, this stage can affect the original design of the approved 2D model we mentioned before.
Another important part when designing a 3D model for animation is, naturally, getting constant feedback. It helps to address concerns and work out the solutions before they arise, significantly cutting down the time spent on the production process. Especially when working with animators since, unsurprisingly, they will be the ones that give a third breath of life to the character after me.
Both the 2D artists and the 3D artists receive plenty of feedback and visual/written references from other team members while ,of course, they also have their own sources of inspiration to assist them in the process of creating the best possible models and sketches.
When it comes to my own inspiration, I tend to stick to what our team members created for me. So visual aids, feedback etc. Of course if it’s something that I’ve had experience working on before it helps out too, I do try to keep outside influences to a minimum at work though.
Whenever I work on personal projects though, I like to check out some unique and less mainstream art styles and artists, both to admire and to further hone my own craft.
As usual, final back and forth with feedback seals this step as we move onto the final step(s) of the whole process, the bit where we finally see movement, animation!
And we’re here, we’re finally arrived at the animation stage.
This is where the previously motionless creations receive the third and the final “breath of life”.
Like a culmination of everyone's efforts coming together in a collaborative effort to bring the vision of all its participants in an almost magical and mystical unity!
We were lucky and (hopefully) charming enough to secure some time from two of our animators, Farshad and Yaroslav, both offering important insight into the complex topic of animation.
Hooded character climbing animation (Pre-alpha)
I like to have fun with animation! - says Farshad.
When you think about it, life itself is our greatest source of inspiration, everything that was created is based on our observation of nature and ourselves. It’s quite fascinating really. Whenever I work on something, I draw a lot of ideas from real life. Even from myself actually! Simply recording my own movements and then studying them is a great way for me to make the animations very lifelike and realistic!.
The animation itself is, as we’ve mentioned before, a lengthy process.
Once the animator receives the 3D model to work with, he can begin the process known as “rigging”.
Rigging is basically giving the character a “skeleton” that the animator can then manipulate to create motion.
Think of a puppeteer that attaches strings to the puppet, the more strings, the more precise the movement.
If there’s enough aforementioned bones, the movement becomes more fluid and precise. With enough hardware and powerful software, it's possible to achieve near life-like movements, down to the smallest finger twitching.
Experience is a key factor in animation I believe. - adds Yaroslav.
The more time you spend in your respectable field, the easier and quicker it gets to achieve your goals, especially when working with many professionals within the company, as I am right now. Without that, even having fine tuned tools that you’re familiar with aren’t going to be as effective!
Hooded character charged attack animation (Pre-alpha)
Since this is the culmination of the whole process, it’s the one that is influenced the most by previous steps, the concept art from the 2D artists and the full 3D model from the 3D artists.
Making it important for the animators to account for how much of the original concept can be effectively applied to the final animation.
Which requires quite a bit of feedback from respective artists and team leads.
There’s a lot to learn from the previous generations of artists and their techniques, not to mindlessly copy them obviously but to build upon the most effective ones and create your own distinct style through perfecting your own craft. Kind of like paying a homage to the old guard, hahaha! I’m sure they’d be glad to see us, the new blood, find inspiration from them. - mentions Farshad.
Animation though, isn’t one size fits all. Certain animations are tailored for movies for example, while others are created for video games.
So, let's talk about these as separate entities!
Limora's Meditation Beginners Class ep.4 - short
Marketing animation is quite an important part of showing off the awesome visuals. Shorts, full length animations, they’re all part of it.
To put it simply, this is where the animators can put their full skill and experience to the test. Highest possible visual quality, precise movements and everything else to bring out the vision that original designers and writers had in mind when they created the original descriptions, concepts and models.
To effectively create marketing animations it’s essential to have both the script and 2D sketches to support the animator in its creation.
Mariona, our 2D artist, is quite skilled in drawing such scenes.
Whenever I create a scene, I try to imagine where it happens and who participates in it. After all, nothing happens in a vacuum! Once my mental visualisation is complete, I move onto creating multiple sketch drafts. This helps me to further improve the final draft before moving onto feedback. Once that’s done, depending on the scene I tend to jump on a quick call with the animator to get small details sorted out.
Marketing animation tends to have an upper hand over video game animations since it has less limitations. Since, depending on the medium, it can be as good as possible without having to worry about where it’s going to be used.
Mariona herself finds the process of creating scenes very interesting and a great way to sharpen her skills even further.
When it comes to creating scenes, it’s definitely more complicated than, say, making a single character. There are factors to account for, whether they interact with the environment or with other characters within the scene. By visual, uh, projection I can create very rough drafts and then create more detailed versions afterwards. I do enjoy the challenge though!
Once the animators are satisfied, final feedback with changes/improvements takes place.
After approval, the rest can be added into it. Music, voices, intro/outro etc to further enhance the final marketing animation video.
It’s quite a journey alright!
Hooded character's exploration through falling orbs (Pre-alpha)
Video game animation varies quite a bit depending on where it’s going to be used.
Whether it’s console, mobile phone, PC etc. Furthermore the game engine on which it will be running on is a deciding factor.
The game in Unreal engine will be different from a game running in Unity engine or Source engine.
There are plenty of animation tools for animators to use. Says Yaroslav Becoming skilled in using one is very important but sometimes we have to adapt to alternatives. From my experience, I’d say that learning the one that offers more options and better feedback as to why things don’t work will get you a lot more mileage out of it. Just bear in mind the price for licensing if you’re a beginner!
As an indie developer company, Dreams Quest is using Unity game engine for our upcoming Origins: The Fall of Azoria game and importing models into Unity from blender can sometimes require a bit of finesse and technical know-how.
Previously rigged characters from marketing animation can end up with less “bones” than before, which our experienced animators employ their creative solutions to mitigate the problem of less fluid and precise movement.
Animation within video games is a different kind of challenge in comparison to, lets say, marketing animations. mentions Farshad In marketing videos, we have full control over where the camera goes, the angles, scene, timing. We’re basically the driver taking the viewers on a trip making sure they enjoy the experience. In video game animations, the wheel is in the hands of the player, which means that we can only hope that we did our best and that the players will find out the cool stuff we did on their own.
Hooded character combat vs training dummy (Pre-alpha)
Indeed, the animators, developers, writers, VFX, 2D and 3D artists can only do their best when it comes to bringing their combined vision into reality.
Everything is in the hands of the players themselves, we can only hope that we’ve given you the best possible tools to enjoy the world of Azoria as we’ve intended for it to be enjoyed. But again, we can only hope for the best while we put the best possible effort to achieve that!
We’re confident enough though that all the hard work put in by our fantastic team will be more than enough to deliver an unforgettable experience.
After all, everyone is doing their best to bring out the most out of the mystical and dream-like world of Azoria!
It’s always fun to show off the impressive work that our team creates but unfortunately we can’t credit every single person involved in the process.
But we’re very glad and thankful to the Founders, team leaders, game developers, artists and everyone else who supports their tireless work on creating Origins: The Falls of Azoria and all the other Dreams Quest IP!
We hope we’ll be able to share their stories in the future!
Until next time Dreamers!
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