What would you ask a Game Dev?

[Kura]

Oooooo! Can't wait! Any ETA more specific than 'this week by any chance??

Afraid not, to be honest! I don't wanna give any false promises! But there should be a video before Saturday at least. I'll update the thread when it's up :)

 

[Kura]

Hey guys!
Not sure if I'm allowed to double-post but the first video is up now here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMKztSwEUtA

I ran into a lot of technical errors (and personal issues.. an allergic reaction that made my eyes all swollen!) and I reshot the video like 5-6 times. I wanted to send out the content as quickly as possible and I'm quite new to editing so thanks for being patient with me doing it this way!

I will post Xin's questions and those after him in the next coming videos.
For the questions I didn't answer:

Yes we have our own engine :) We built it in-house.
I don't know the anime "New Game."
There are no reload animations for the same reason as there are no synced animation (budget.)
Animation signoff is just reviewing the team's animations both in-game and as a resource, making sure it's working properly, and placing the task from "in progress/in review" to "done." Whilst also checking with Games Workshop that they are happy with the assets, too.

Stay turned for the next video! :) And thanks for letting me be able to share it this way with you guys! Youtube is a really fun challenge for me and actually a lot harder than it seems!

 

[Nah]

For some reason the link just brings me to my channel page and not Kura's video. Is it just me or...?

 

[Satoshi Ookami]

For some reason the link just brings me to my channel page and not Kura's video. Is it just me or...?

Yea, seems to be redirecting to personal list of videos instead of the actual video.

 

[Kura]

For some reason the link just brings me to my channel page and not Kura's video. Is it just me or...?

Oops yes! Broken link! Should be better now :)

 

[Argenta]

Hope your eyes are better now?

That's a very nice video really enjoyed it! Can't wait to see more. =)

 

[Arsenic]

Super cool video! Hope to see more from you featuring my questions soon!

 

[Kura]

Hi guys!
New video alert here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOgYj9v7jIg&feature=youtu.be


I wanted to make this video focus more on the animation aspect of things, so for the other unanswered questions:

Spoiler:

Anyway, Warhammer related:
1) What where your favorite things in working with Total War: Warhammer as well as Alien Isolation. Like things you enjoyed working with the most.
2) As a follow up to the first question, the least favorite things when working on those said games?
3) Among the factions in Warhammer lore, which are your favorites? Space Marines? Orks? Tau? Necrons?

1) I didn't work directly on Alien Isolation (though my face is in the game lol) but my fav thing in Warhammer was probably the wyvern *_*.. it was really fun to animate!
2) Least favourite.. probably bug-fixes and trying to work when the tools are broken lol..
3)Hmm.. I like Empire (griffons!) Oh and Lizardmen! Skaven are cool too!

There is only one possible question.
WHEN IS THE FREAKING PSO2 COMING WEST?! :D

PS02? I don't even know what that is..

"When you see something leak that is 100% true... what goes through your mind that tells you denying it instead of just ignoring it is a good idea?"

I don't deny stuff. I just ignore it or if someone pesters me, I'll just say "no" to everything or just shrug and say "sorry I can't say" or "I dunno" or laugh. If someone's not going to respect my contract then I won't pay attention to them.

Might be the wrong person to ask given your area, but are you ever under pressure to rush a product for an earlier release by the publisher or whoever at the expense of the final product?

I'm not really under pressure, to be honest, but I do work overtime from time to time even at the beginning of the project. We try and schedule so that no one has to do overtime during the project, but sometimes it's either inevitable, or it's by choice because we personally want to make a feature better. Every feature is planned and scoped accordingly. Sometimes bugs pop up that aren't expected to happen and then they cause blockers or eat into the time of other tasks and that's probably why some bits don't get released as polished as we would like but we do our best to catch them and polish them up ASAP.

Oh! And how is your perspective on other big devs out there. Especially ones in the same genre? Do you collaborate with them at all? Is there any jealousy around your workplace towards other dev companies?

We don't collaborate with others no, unless there's some sort of legal partnership (Warhammer and Total War, for example.) I can't speak for the studio, but for myself, there isn't any jealousy or competition. During conferences or events that I've met other devs, everyone is all really cool and I've gotten along really well with everyone. We're all just here to make cool games, share knowledge, and yeah.. just show our passion to the world :3

Oh and Nick Wilde, I tried answering your other question about what happens when we first start a project but it ended up being like.. 20 minutes just trying to explain it because there is a lot that goes on but basically:
Upper management/command team get together. Create a pitch and pinpoint what the project is going to focus on and what features will be important. This will trickle down to leads, a lot of features get brainstormed and estimates (how long will it take/ how possible is it to do) will be established. This gets sent to production to see if it'll fit in the schedule. Then with some shifting around, concepts are made, first characters are modelled and rigged, and prototyping will be done. Production will then start, but prototypes may still continue for an extent (prototypes are sometimes continuous throughout the project.) Everything is tracked in a scheduler and also reviewed to make sure it hits quality benchmarks to make sure we hit alpha, then we polish and the schedule will still be updated to make sure we finish the game in time.

 

[Arsenic]

Hi guys!
New video alert here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOgYj9v7jIg&feature=youtu.be


I wanted to make this video focus more on the animation aspect of things, so for the other unanswered questions:

Spoiler:

1) I didn't work directly on Alien Isolation (though my face is in the game lol) but my fav thing in Warhammer was probably the wyvern *_*.. it was really fun to animate!
2) Least favourite.. probably bug-fixes and trying to work when the tools are broken lol..
3)Hmm.. I like Empire (griffons!) Oh and Lizardmen! Skaven are cool too!


PS02? I don't even know what that is..


I don't deny stuff. I just ignore it or if someone pesters me, I'll just say "no" to everything or just shrug and say "sorry I can't say" or "I dunno" or laugh. If someone's not going to respect my contract then I won't pay attention to them.


I'm not really under pressure, to be honest, but I do work overtime from time to time even at the beginning of the project. We try and schedule so that no one has to do overtime during the project, but sometimes it's either inevitable, or it's by choice because we personally want to make a feature better. Every feature is planned and scoped accordingly. Sometimes bugs pop up that aren't expected to happen and then they cause blockers or eat into the time of other tasks and that's probably why some bits don't get released as polished as we would like but we do our best to catch them and polish them up ASAP.


We don't collaborate with others no, unless there's some sort of legal partnership (Warhammer and Total War, for example.) I can't speak for the studio, but for myself, there isn't any jealousy or competition. During conferences or events that I've met other devs, everyone is all really cool and I've gotten along really well with everyone. We're all just here to make cool games, share knowledge, and yeah.. just show our passion to the world :3

Oh and Nick Wilde, I tried answering your other question about what happens when we first start a project but it ended up being like.. 20 minutes just trying to explain it because there is a lot that goes on but basically:
Upper management/command team get together. Create a pitch and pinpoint what the project is going to focus on and what features will be important. This will trickle down to leads, a lot of features get brainstormed and estimates (how long will it take/ how possible is it to do) will be established. This gets sent to production to see if it'll fit in the schedule. Then with some shifting around, concepts are made, first characters are modelled and rigged, and prototyping will be done. Production will then start, but prototypes may still continue for an extent (prototypes are sometimes continuous throughout the project.) Everything is tracked in a scheduler and also reviewed to make sure it hits quality benchmarks to make sure we hit alpha, then we polish and the schedule will still be updated to make sure we finish the game in time.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, and yet another wonderful video! You have a nack for this!

And just to say, Halo Wars 2 is my most anticipated game of 2017 so far! Soooo, CANT WAIT!!! (The beta was excellent!)

Do you plan on doing any more of these?

 

[Argenta]

Thanks a lot for the information. And thanks for taking the time to do that.

Your channel is educational only? What other plans you have for it? You have our support =)

 

[Kura]

Thanks a lot for the information. And thanks for taking the time to do that.

Your channel is educational only? What other plans you have for it? You have our support =)

Thinking of doing some new fun things like vlogging, recording my drawings, even baking stuff that's video-game related! :D I'm just trying to get into the swing of things by uploading once a week. I'm learning also how to do motion-graphics, too!

I'd love to also do a twitch stream or podcast sometime soon with the Pokecommunity, so if this sounds interesting, get in touch :D!!

 

[Legobricks]

Hi again. For my third question you answered... unexpectedly? I mean, I said "no doubt it's due to the difficulty of animating so many different creatures" and your explanation was exactly that. I understood that and what my question was getting at was if the animation changes reflect a gameplay mechanics change (you could even springboard off this into an explanation of how animation and other artwork generally affects (or doesn't affect) the gameplay of a final product and vice versa, if you like), or if it is purely due to workload as you described. Interesting that you worked out how long it would take, in any case.

And I still don't know what signoff is in this context. I have 'googled it', I promise. :(
Is it checking what the animators under you do and 'signing off' their work as 'complete'?