Solasta II - Dev Update #04

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Dev update #4 for Solasta II:

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Dev Update #04 - A Chat with our Art Director

What exactly changed between Crown of the Magister and Solasta II in the art direction?

Hello there you fine folks!

I hope our previous article gave you some reassurance regarding our character models! Today we're going to be having a little interview with Thierry Dunter, our Art Director, in order to better understand exactly what changed - and how - between Crown of the Magister and Solasta II to make such a difference. But as usual, before that....

Getting to know our Art Director

Hello Thierry, can you give us some information about yourself?
Hello there everyone. I am Thierry Dunter, the Art Director of Tactical Adventures. I've been with the studio since the very start, and have worked in quite a range of different games before that - such as XIII, RUSE, the Ghost Recon and Steel Division franchises. In my spare time I enjoy painting, cooking and I'm quite into airsoft!

RUSE and Steel Division? That's thematically quite a far cry from Solasta, isn't it?
It is! However, as an Art Director it is a challenge that is very interesting to tackle - I believe growth as an Art Director comes from exploring new horizons and challenging your existing views and techniques. The high fantasy world of Solasta as you currently know it took a lot of experimentation and researches - we've shared some early concept art in our Solasta Sourcebook, but there are many more sketches lost on hard drive or even my iPad (got to keep my hands busy during those train rides).

And what a world it turned out to be! If you don't mind me asking, players have noted that while the environment ended up quite striking in Crown of the Magister, our character faces were fairly rudimentary. What happened there?
A hard hitting question, but one that resulted in our character models taking a big step up in quality with Solasta II! Let's start from the beginning: You have to remember that our team started very small developing Solasta I. I'm talking no more than TWO people doing research on faces during pre-production - as you can imagine, that did not give us a lot of time to experiment.

Pre-production? Could you explain a little more for those who may not know this term?
Of course. Pre-production is the period during which we do research, experiment and establish pipelines. So for example here: How do we make a character face, from drawing it in 2D to having it available in-game. What are all the little steps, and how long do they take to create? This is an important step because it allows our Producer to estimate how much time it would take to make 20, 40, 100 different faces - and more importantly, if we have the time to make that many different faces during Production (which follow pre-production)!

So if I understand correctly, you're saying that we had to settle on a pipeline during pre-production?
Exactly. Once pre-production ends, we can't go back and keep changing the pipeline - so we had to settle with what we had. As you saw in-game, the result was... not ideal. We had a very limited amount of polygons to play with due to how scenes were handled in Unity, and our limited budget and time meant we had to quickly move onwards to start production.

It is also important for artists to check in-game from time to time. Is that an old character model? Is the lighting off? Etc...

But that's different with Solasta II, correct?
Absolutely, and there are many reasons for that! First is switching to Unreal Engine, which allowed us to basically multiply by 10 the number of polygons in our character faces. Second is our areas of focus - with Solasta II, making faces better was a goal from the start, so we started working on them earlier to make sure we're satisfied with what we have before production

Would you say anything changed in our philosophy regarding character models?
Yes, in Solasta II as we're able to add more details we want characters to be able to tell their story through their appearance. In a way, we're keeping a realistic artstyle.. But also exaggerating a few traits a little more for visual storytelling. Something similar to characters you would describe on Tabletop - the Paladin stands tall and strong, their appearance noble and unblemished. The grizzled old veteran sports a cleanly shaven beard, a heavily scarred face eyeing you with a stern look.

We're also leaning back into more classical medieval fantasy codes, with characters that are more visually appealing overall. You know, how characters in med-fan shows always have white teeth or look fairly fine after trekking in the woods for two weeks. That doesn't mean everyone will look perfect, far from it - but that should reduce the amount of uncanny valley some Solasta I faces gave off.

Can you give us some juicy bits of info about the upcoming Character Creator?
Well we're still very much working on it, but we do want to push customization a lot more than in Crown of the Magister. No promises, but we're currently playing with sliders quite a bit and I'm sure you will be able to be much more creative this time when building up your party of adventurers!

Thank you Thierry! I'm very excited to see what happens next with the Character Models!
Thank you! Look forward to our Character Creator once it's implemented!

Article by Tactical Myzzrym