Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Nevermind.

Tyen said:

That is not realistic whatsoever.

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Which is why I deleted it.

Thought some of you might be interested to hear some of Todd"s views on Copernicus as of now.
So according to Wikipedia, you"re the art director for Curt Schilling"s 38 Studios. How is work coming along on the new MMO? What art style are you considering?

When I signed up with Curt, my bigger concept was less about 2D concept art -- I wanted the whole to be better than the parts. I told Curt that the one thing I"d be the most intrigued about would be the animation. It"s not something I"ve dealt with a lot, but it"s something that frustrates me when I see video games. Now with motion capture, advances have been made...but not necessarily in the MMO genre.

So one of the things that we"re doing is creating characters who are interesting to look at...stylistic, but not so much so that it becomes annoying. [Then, the question is], is the gameplay more fun? When our guy casts a spell, mounts a horse, or stabs someone, does he look cooler? When a giant 600-pound beast stops running, does it feel like it weighs 600 pounds? You have to have a good design to care, but once you"ve got that, how do you put it all together?

There"s another big company out there that makes World of Warcraft. They have the "WoW" factor; what I"m working for is the "woah" factor. They can have "wow," we want "woah." [laughs] When you"re playing, and your character does something you"ve never seen before, you say, "woah...that"s cool!" A few of the guys who work with me stuck their head into my office the other day, while I was going over things with [38 Studios headquarters in] Boston over a video linkup. They watched some things moving on the screen, and in just a few minutes they picked up on the subtlety. Again, we"re not trying to re-invent the wheel - we"re trying to polish it up, put chrome on it. The wheel is there, now how can we make it sexier? It doesn"t have to be obvious; it can be in the subtlety of how a character sheathes and unsheathes his sword. Can we do that in a more dramatic, realistic, and interesting fashion than the other guys do?

We haven"t said a lot of stuff [about the 38 Studios MMO game], but a tremendous amount of work has gone into it. Curt has assembled a good group of people. I deal with them: I see the environments, the characters, and the animation, and these guys all get it. These guys have been dazzling me: I"ll see a character running, and the jowls bounce, the ears move a little...it"s just stuff that feels real, not robotic. There are limitations, but there are tricks too: animation is all about tricking the eye. Even though that guy is two inches tall on your screen, I want him to feel alive, like a real, living creature.

Lets see if your running animations are better than Darkfalls. Can get get a generic example?

From the look of things EQ1 has better looks then Darkfall. That 30 minute long video was sorry to look at.

Ngruk said:

Thought some of you might be interested to hear some of Todd"s views on Copernicus as of now.
So according to Wikipedia, you"re the art director for Curt Schilling"s 38 Studios. How is work coming along on the new MMO? What art style are you considering?

When I signed up with Curt, my bigger concept was less about 2D concept art -- I wanted the whole to be better than the parts. I told Curt that the one thing I"d be the most intrigued about would be the animation. It"s not something I"ve dealt with a lot, but it"s something that frustrates me when I see video games. Now with motion capture, advances have been made...but not necessarily in the MMO genre.

So one of the things that we"re doing is creating characters who are interesting to look at...stylistic, but not so much so that it becomes annoying. [Then, the question is], is the gameplay more fun? When our guy casts a spell, mounts a horse, or stabs someone, does he look cooler? When a giant 600-pound beast stops running, does it feel like it weighs 600 pounds? You have to have a good design to care, but once you"ve got that, how do you put it all together?

There"s another big company out there that makes World of Warcraft. They have the "WoW" factor; what I"m working for is the "woah" factor. They can have "wow," we want "woah." [laughs] When you"re playing, and your character does something you"ve never seen before, you say, "woah...that"s cool!" A few of the guys who work with me stuck their head into my office the other day, while I was going over things with [38 Studios headquarters in] Boston over a video linkup. They watched some things moving on the screen, and in just a few minutes they picked up on the subtlety. Again, we"re not trying to re-invent the wheel - we"re trying to polish it up, put chrome on it. The wheel is there, now how can we make it sexier? It doesn"t have to be obvious; it can be in the subtlety of how a character sheathes and unsheathes his sword. Can we do that in a more dramatic, realistic, and interesting fashion than the other guys do?

We haven"t said a lot of stuff [about the 38 Studios MMO game], but a tremendous amount of work has gone into it. Curt has assembled a good group of people. I deal with them: I see the environments, the characters, and the animation, and these guys all get it. These guys have been dazzling me: I"ll see a character running, and the jowls bounce, the ears move a little...it"s just stuff that feels real, not robotic. There are limitations, but there are tricks too: animation is all about tricking the eye. Even though that guy is two inches tall on your screen, I want him to feel alive, like a real, living creature.

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The problem with interesting is that it gets stale, and then what?

The first time your dude unsheathes his dagger by spinning it around in his hand, throwing it under his leg and back over the shoulder, that"s cool.

After he"s done it at the start of EVERY FIGHT since day one; not so much.

Now, maybe he only learns that "trick" at lvl 40, and at lvl XX-39 he was doing something different. Adds life, but still gets old. Adds minor dev time.

Maybe that trick is actually a chain of 3 move snippets, and each time you unsheathe the server rolls up a different random 1-5 move snippet chain. More interesting longer, but MASSIVE dev timesink and additional server load. Quite likely looks like ass too, since setting up all the snippets to chain in any order smoothly is monumental.

Etc.

Wow you really looked way to far into that.

Yea seriously. Think EverQuest II vs. Assassin"s Creed animations for what is being talked about there. Videos in spoilers.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
EverQuest II
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Assassin"s Creed
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Ninen said:

The problem with interesting is that it gets stale, and then what?

The first time your dude unsheathes his dagger by spinning it around in his hand, throwing it under his leg and back over the shoulder, that"s cool.

After he"s done it at the start of EVERY FIGHT since day one; not so much.

Now, maybe he only learns that "trick" at lvl 40, and at lvl XX-39 he was doing something different. Adds life, but still gets old. Adds minor dev time.

Maybe that trick is actually a chain of 3 move snippets, and each time you unsheathe the server rolls up a different random 1-5 move snippet chain. More interesting longer, but MASSIVE dev timesink and additional server load. Quite likely looks like ass too, since setting up all the snippets to chain in any order smoothly is monumental.

Etc.

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I agree with that. Wow should really be the model for every other game in terms of animation,and syncing up the animations with the button presses.

Speaking of animations and the leveling process...that was one cool thing that EQ did where spell animations started getting bigger after you"ve gained levels...no one has ever copied that though....

Wuzit said:

Speaking of animations and the leveling process...that was one cool thing that EQ did where spell animations started getting bigger after you"ve gained levels...no one has ever copied that though....

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DAoC did, and yes it was very cool. I hate that my fireball in WoW looks exactly the same 80 levels and a ridiculous time investment later as it did at level 1. Hell Blizzard"s new favourite thing to do is give people aesthetic upgrades, this should be right up their alley. In fact they"ve already done this to an extent, mages can buy books in dalaran that will, for an exorbitant amount of gold, upgrade the graphics for a few of their spells (polymorph, arcane brilliance being the most noteable).

Wonder if we"ll see an expansion on that in the future, either as a gold sink or some kind of reward.

Though knowing Blizz, they"ll probably make it a rare card in their trading card game you have to go spend $50 in booster packs to find.

Ya Assassin"s Creed"s animations were great (even though the game play was repetitive as hell) but can you imagine doing that with 50 other people around?

It would turn into a slide show faster then you can say "WTF I just bought this video card 3 years ago and it should still look good!"

Quince said:

Ya Assassin"s Creed"s animations were great (even though the game play was repetitive as hell) but can you imagine doing that with 50 other people around?

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Frankly, if I look cool, and the guy I"m fighting against at the moment looks cool, the other people around me can be shadows or wireframes for all I care.

column said:

I agree with that. Wow should really be the model for every other game in terms of animation,and syncing up the animations with the button presses.

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Agreed.
That and take a look at L4D"s character interaction for voice. They talk about it in the dev commentary.
Every action has like 5-8 thing the character might say, then the other characters have 5-8 things they might say in relation to what the first person said. Creating massive chains of potential dialogue that"s random.
Applying a similar concept to animation would be potentially amazing as well.

Caliane said:

Agreed.
That and take a look at L4D"s character interaction for voice. They talk about it in the dev commentary.
Every action has like 5-8 thing the character might say, then the other characters have 5-8 things they might say in relation to what the first person said. Creating massive chains of potential dialogue that"s random.
Applying a similar concept to animation would be potentially amazing as well.

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This really wouldn"t be that difficult to create a unique feel in every fight.

Say a character has an ability they cast twice, then cast another ability. Make 10 animations for each one and you have 900 possible combinations of animations.

Any of you WoW folks out there that use the AA, we"ve added a Facebook application to the personal character emails you receive. Drop me a line if you have it and have used it, interested in hearing feedback.

less WoW and more Copernicus pls

Ya the info has really been sparse lately. I understand not over hyping the game but a screen shot or two that isn"t concept art would be nice.

Likely going to be sparse for a good while longer. Hunkering down at this point and dealing with making a game for the foreseeable future.