How long does it take to do a leader animation?

[demidyad]

Do you really think 3-4 weeks to animate? Like I said I am kind of on the fringes of the VFX industry and no experience in gaming, but I am in fact a full-time animator and that seems like an overestimate. But I guess, I haven't actually been watching many of the livestreams so I don't have a very solid idea of how many different animations each leader head has - and, are you assuming a single animator working on it? I was assuming a team of 3-4, each working on a different animation for the same leader.

 

[hugojackson18]

Do you really think 3-4 weeks to animate? Like I said I am kind of on the fringes of the VFX industry and no experience in gaming, but I am in fact a full-time animator and that seems like an overestimate. But I guess, I haven't actually been watching many of the livestreams so I don't have a very solid idea of how many different animations each leader head has - and, are you assuming a single animator working on it? I was assuming a team of 3-4, each working on a different animation for the same leader.

In my first estimate, I was thinking of it as a team, where everything is done in parallel. I am not an animator but I have quoted many jobs in advertising, and this is the kind of time we usually quote for something like this. There seems to be at least 6-8 state for each leader, and although I think a very skilled animator could do all 8 states on his own in maybe 2 weeks, but I reckon this is the time they had allocated for each leader to do it as good as possible. Although now that I think about it, a lot of the leaders animations, even in the lets play videos, were snappy and buggy at times, so maybe they did spend a lot less time.

I am in fact a full-time animator

This is very interesting! I am a modeler and look dev guy, and I am going to move into a new flat at the end of the month with a rigger/animator who's also a Civ fan and we're planning on trying to do a few leaders, so if you are interested in helping, you're most welcome!

 

[demidyad]

That is interesting, and you're in London too... where is this flat? As I'm also in London (Peckham)

 

[TPangolin]

Just adding some quick stats to this discussion for no other reason to well... contribute stats. So far I've counted 21 states for leader animation (there may be more or less) from watching preview videos which seem to be:

• Initial First Meet
  
• Neutral (6) - Greeting, Idle, Negative Feedback, PositiveFeedback, Transition to Grumpy, Transition to Happy
• Happy (5)- Idle, Negative Feedback, Positive Feedback, Transition to Grumpy, Transition to Neutral
• Grumpy (5) - Idle, Negative Feedback, Positive Feedback, Transition to Grumpy, Transition to Neutral
  
• Super Mad
• Thanks
• Declaration of War (on You)
• Declaration of War (Against them)
• Depressing Defeat Animation

Another thing to consider is how to enact your pipeline in terms of how long this all takes. When working as a team, the process can go much quicker (especially if you're not a one man wonder like Sukritact). Right now in CL, although we're really being quite lax - we've essentially laid out the blueprint for our first mod - Vietnam as led by the Trung Sisters. The reason we've gotten so far so quickly is because we have different people allocated to loresmithing/dialogue, designing, logistics, modelling, texturing, researching and doing concept art (some/most of us have our hands in different jars too).

When it comes to modding, it helps to know how best you operate - is it in a team environment? If so, what sort of environment are you looking for - i.e group loose individuals coming together for a short project, committed focused team (or a compromise between the two). If you're heading it solo, then you have a long path ahead of you - but on the plus side there's a lot of room for personal growth and the satisfaction of being self-sufficient. In the case of our team - everyone is encouraged to do their own projects. The team aspect comes from the notion that early VI will be a learning experience, and being a team ensures that we have a likeminded focus and a unified goal to work towards. When the time comes, no doubt we'll go our seperate ways and collaborate with entirely new people. Having an understanding of your own preferences shapes this timeline in terms of man hours need to create content like this(as many have been talking about before).

For the Trung Sisters for example, here's what our pipeline looks like for just the leaders specifically (your mileage may vary) :

• Research into historically accurate clothing
• Personality research
• Concept art for character based on personality and historically accurate clothing
• Unique dialogue for all ~40 or so diplo actions
• Concept art with T-Poses and the like
• Modelling
• Texturing
• Posing

If leader animations are possible, then we'd also need to find a voice actor. We're also planning to release with a new Natural Wonder (Ha Long Bay), Unique Unit (Mông Đồng), Buildings (Water Puppet Pond), Great People, Artifacts and Policy Cards. I mean this all sounds daunting, especially if you're trying to find people to work with. Truth be told, our "unified team" is the result of a few PMs where I pitched ideas, and a discord channel where we're all getting to know each other. With multiple people assigned to different categories, this whole process has gone rather smoothly (and I can't wait to actually get started).

There can be a lot of nervousness when it comes to initiating contact, but in the end if you do it for a while you can find yourself working with some awesome new people (which allows you to diversify what you do because the general talent spread is now wider). Anecdotally speaking, once you can fulfil other people's niches ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) and vice versa, you can find more time to organise other things to better the overall product (i.e voice acting).

There's a loooot of work to do with the Trung Sisters, and we're being ridiculously ambitious to have this as our first project - but pushing the boundaries is always fun.

Side note: Since the rumors are that we're now using the proprietary Blizzard .blp and .mdx files (each with a wealth of tools and ridiculously well established modding communities), the pipeline/timeline vs Civ V may have increased significantly. Especially if we have powerhouses like Deliverator leading the way in terms of being something of a Rosetta Stone.

This post was more rather aimed at the side of "pretty much everything other than animation" but that was kind of the point. If you're an animator and have material to work with from motivated people, you may just end up getting motivation via osmosis due to the high quality of what you actually have to work with.

Civ VI isn't even out and we have modders all over already at different stages of development. There's never really been a better time to scout the forums and see if there are any people you want to work with. They're only a PM away

....oh and if anyone is interested in working with the CL team, I'm only a PM away too

 

[Deliverator]

I'm still quite skeptical about that Blizzard format rumour based on the naming of a folder and some file extensions. The art director is quoted as a saying "The graphics engine is completely new ... there’s a lot of new technology there". They developed their own bespoke graphics engine called LORE for Civ V and it sounds like they've built on that experience for Civ VI. I therefore think it's highly unlikely that we'll be using Warcraft 3/World of Warcraft tools to mod Civ VI but I could be wrong. The thing is that it sounds like Firaxis have thought hard about 3D modding and are hopefully going to provide better tools than they've provided before. So hopefully a Rosetta Stone won't be required .

 

[TPangolin]

For what it's worth, I've heard that some rumours that certain files (probably xml and the like) are remaining functionally the same, but now have different filenames. My theory is that the final game wont be populated by xml/lua/mdx/blp files, but simplified new names that the LORE system recognises, but remain functionally the same as their predecessor files.