LOKR - HOW DEVELOPMENT IS DONE AND ITS INTRICACIES - ART I: Character Models, Hairstyles and Outfits (Patreon)

Hello everybody. Here is a relatively small document relating how we are developing the project, for those who are interested. This small compilation will be divided into simple areas and/or categories, which are the specific areas of each of the team members. These areas/categories are: Art/UI, Animation, Coding and Lore/Dialogue. We decided to develop this little compilation to show how the whole game manufacturing process really is in an attempt to reduce any communication gap that may exist between us and some small fibs that still exist around. We'll first start with ART, specifically: Model creation, hairstyles and outfits and do one more from a different area each week. Well, let's get straight to the point.

ART I: Character Model and Outfits: Creative Process to Final Art

How is art done for LOKR? Those who watched one of Kuja's streams already know that the process sometimes can be quite technical. The complete process of the artistic part of a character, for example, can be divided into several smaller categories, the same being: Sketch, Sketch II, Team’s Analysis/Feedback of Sketch II, Analysis of received feedback, Corrections, Sketch III, Team’s Analysis/Feedback of Sketch III, Analysis of received feedback and finally Final Corrections and the Final Art. This entire process is repeated for all angles of a character, outfit and so on. Sometimes, certain characters have multiple additional angles, such as our so-called 3/4f B, 3/4b B, and Side View B, which are needed depending on the existence of asymmetry in a character's final design. These angles then join the total list of angles, which can range from 6 to 8 angles in total, namely: Front, Back, Side A, Side B, 3/4f A, 3/4f B, 3/4b A , 3/4b B. Most characters, however, have asymmetrical designs in some specific parts of their body, hairstyle or outfit, making this additional work necessary. After that, this whole process is repeated for the characters' clothes, which also have multiple angles and must be made in such a way that they can be reused on characters with similar bodies/frames/silhouettes. And that's not all; some specific animations require new parts like new fingers, hands, feet, arms or legs. It all depends on what will be shown on the screen at that particular moment in terms of animation. Not to mention that each model has a set of more than 20 facial expressions in Side View and 3/4f angles (at the moment only K has those of 3/4f).

ART: Character Model and Outfits: Converting an illustration into a proper animation-ready model through technical cropping and filling.

How are finished character models then converted into ready-to-animate models?

This is the technical part of the creative area and the one that takes the most time. It takes even more time than the creation of characters itself, because every detail has to be perfect so that it works perfectly when animated. A finished multi-angled character illustration can take about 3 to 4 days depending on it’s complexity. Adding in the time it takes to convert it to the animation-ready state, you can add up to 6 or 7 days to get a full character. Well, that's if there aren't any last minute changes to it’s design, which can also happen sometimes and would also affect the overall time needed for its completion.

But what are these technical processes and why do they take so long?

Well, I can say that this process is composed of the following parts. The first one would be: Talking to the team to find out if the model will have any extra action beyond the conventional actions that will be animated. Example: Uylani will dance, which requires extra parts for the model. Then do what I like to call a “technical cropping”, where I separate all the parts of the characters into different parts: Thigh, Shin, Foot, Heel, Separated Toes, Trunk, Neck, so on… The variety of parts depends a lot on the complexity of the animation, so this process is closely examined by the animators. Some characters are so complex that they have more than 250 parts per angle! Which is the case of K itself, which has about 250+ parts in her common form, not counting the clothes parts, skins or even additional parts like extra hairstyles and other parts that will still be included like new skins and clothes.

After this process is done, we then have to work on what I like to call “technical filling”, which is a simple yet very demanding and specific process that consists of filling each individual “gap” for each individual part of a character, hairstyle or outfit,, all angles included. By “gap”, I mean the invisible parts that are not normally seen in a part. It basically consists of extending joints and body/outfit parts so when they’re either curved, distorted, moved or changed in size, a gap or even unwanted part of said body/outfit part would not be shown during its animation. Think of a set of teeth being completely drawn from the top gingivae to the bottom gingivae just so you would have a seamless illustration without any possible errors when it’s being moved or animated.

ART: Character Model and Outfits: Technical Adjustments

There is also the last part, which is the technical adjustments. These are made up of several small details that help animators in the technical process of animation. Some of these adjustments are: Convert or retexture a Character Model to Pink, which helps to have infinite color ranges for each part of a character without having to manually recolor them. Initially, this process was done with each part of a model individually after it was completed, but models have been done this way since the beginning today in order to save time. Other adjustments range from placing the character's body parts in "strange" places in the file, such as placing the characters' arms separate from the body in a highly specific location before exporting the file so that the animator can adapt various "styles" or frames of different bodies in a single Character RIG.

Welp, that's it for now. I'll be back next week with part II. Thanks for the read! Reference images below. Bye o/