YS: We have been asked this before during other interviews at Gamescom, and I have been telling everyone that it would be 25 hours, because that’s just how I felt. But when I told that to my Japanese staff yesterday night, they were like “no, it’ll probably take a lot longer than th
It took three different designers to arrive at the character you see now: One made the original concept, another made the full rough design, and a third (that’s me!) added all the additional details. I also worked on the designs for the other machine lifeforms you’ll find in NieR: Automata, making sure they have an appropriate amount of visual detail. I also check over all these designs with an eye towards what configurations and mechanical details would make for the best possible 3D character models.
NieR: Automata represents a big step forward for the series, as it attempts to correct the many mistakes that were made in the original NieR while also preserving its core sense of identity. Fans of the original game praise its story and character development as its biggest selling points, and NieR: Automata will have to carefully balance all of the innovations it is bringing to combat with the things that made the first NieR memorable in spite of its fl
Character models are animated through a system of joints that we call “bones.” Each of these colorful lines is one of the boss’s bones. She has 364 bones in total – 249 in her body, plus another 115 in cloth details like her cape and dress. The metal skirt that makes up her lower body is collapsed in this view, so it’s covered by her cloth dress
In an action game, the response time between when a player pushes a button and when their attack is performed has to feel great. To improve this response time, we use a special tool to fine-tune when each animation can be canceled into other actions, and occasionally even make subtle adjustments to their total speed. We have to be careful, though – if the animators catch us changing the speed too much, they get pretty mad…
“Join androids 2B and 9S and their ferocious battle to reclaim a machine-driven dystopia overrun by powerful machine lifeforms… NieR: Automata is a fresh take on the action role-playing game genre that gracefully blends mesmerising action with a captivating sto
While some among the easily offended crowd might take issue at the display, a whole lot of artistically-inclined fans appear to be appreciating, and that has given birth to a veritable cornucopia of fan art prominently showcasing 2B’s rear
The trickiest part is properly controlling the movement of her cloth details. Robots tend to look bland and lifeless when they aren’t moving, so making her cape flow in a somewhat exaggerated, almost heroic manner helps her look more dynamic. It was harder than we expected to keep her metal skirt from sticking out from under the cloth dress when she moves! The more we tried to fix it, the more her dress stretched out to its limits. It took a lot of time and effort to keep her dress shaped properly.
Here we’re working on an animation for the boss robot you saw in the E3 2016 trailer. This boss came with some special directions from the designer in charge of mechanical characters: She has a lot of joints that can only bend back and forth in one direction, giving her believably robotic movements. For example, in her shoulders alone there’s a detailed division between parts that can only turn one way, and parts that can only turn the other way. This robotic joint structure applies to this character’s entire model, as well as other robots in NieR: Automata.
This year’s Square Enix E3 2016 presentation largely centered around Final Fantasy 15 , and rightfully so – the game took a decade to develop and has been heralded as one of the best JRPGs in recent memory. Unfortunately, however, and perhaps unjustly, that meant Platinum Games’ NieR: Automata took a backseat on the grandest gaming stage of them all. Ever since gamers caught a first look at NieR: Automata , they’ve been intrigued by NieR: Automata ‘s grim industrial world and mysterious android protagonist, and news about the upcoming title has been difficult to come
Those interested in checking out what should be one of the first big RPG releases of 2017 should head over to the PlayStation Store now to begin downloading their copy of the demo. First impressions matter a lot, and if the buzz surrounding the demo is any indication, NieR: Automata could be a sleeper hit waiting to happen – perhaps Square Enix and Platinum Games will be able to combine to top the former’s incredible 2016 after
