While yesterday the model was extracted from the alpha client, the developers were quick to react by publishing in the evening a new Artcraft focusing on the model of the male tauren (even if, given the length of the text, it must have been expected anyway). In the first issues, the developers mainly explained to us that they had kept the essence of the initial races, without straying too far from the original model. Even if Steve Aguilar (head of the animation team) slips it back to us at the turn of a sentence, he and his team go into much more detail here, sometimes technical, of the animation of the different postures.
In this first part, he reveals the adjustments which were deemed necessary for the transformation. I find it very interesting to see the model as it is manipulated by the animators, reduced to basic shapes of circles and rectangles. And now there is a comparison video between the original model and the modified model.
Kevin "Snap 'n' Point" Rucker then talks to us about theface animation, directly using the techniques learned with the pandaren. Today, they are able to move the eyebrows, eyes, cheeks and mouth (in the past, only the latter came to life). The character can now adopt different poses: smile, sulk, talk ...
We do not realize the work that this represents. Just to make the character speak correctly, it is necessary to create expressions for all the phonemes.
And if you prefer a video, here is our very talkative tauren!
The article continues and addresses the subject of movement of the characters, which is based on new frames, offering more realistic movements. Jeremy "Goonies never say die" Collins explains to us that the reinforcements are manipulated via controllers, curves which actuate the articulations placed by the graphic designers and which allow the deformation (way in which the mesh stretches and moves to pass from a pose to another) of the model.
Here is a short video presenting the creation of a racing animation.
And the comparison between old and new models. It is clear that it is much more fluid on the right!
In the last part, two developers tell us about emotions. Carman "Boba Muscles" Cheung explains to us that all the animations are created by hand, allowing to have a perfect rendering and to give a personality and a realism which could not be brought if the animation were generated dynamically by the engine. game or other motion capture.
David "Coffee Corn" Edwards dwells on his favorite things about the animation process: adding facial expressions and adjusting a character's timing or posture. He admits to us that it is difficult not to be a perfectionist. There is so much work to be done that they cannot give full attention to all the animations. They therefore created 3 groups of animations (phases):
- movement animations (walking, running), emotes and spells.
- combat animations (attacks, stuns).
- the rest (swimming, fishing ...).
Even if all the animations are changed, the cleaning will be more thorough in the first phase, the most visible animations in the game.
If you want to know more, feel free to read the entire excellent topic on the official site!
