When we started Project Me, it was still in the Sandrock proportions. As we started Evershine, the director asked the artists to stretch Avery to a normal height and ratio and add some more details just to see what it's like. The result went something like this: "Wow wow wow! That looks great! GREAT! Let's try it for all the other characters!" The director shouted exitedly. "That would mean we have to do all the environmental assets at a higher quality as well, that's a lot of extra cost!" The CEO reminded her. "It. Will. Be. Worth. It." was the reply. *Of course, we also did surveys and other research for this decision.
We've been chatting with the concept art team about how to tweak the proportions. Initially, we just shifted to a 5-head-body ratio, making it a bit taller. But we still felt it wasn't quite there yet. Then Qin, who's always been our character designer for the previous two games, tried his hand at it. And we were like, yes, this is it! This is the final character design you guys see now. The core members of our concept art team have basically been with us since 'Portia' and 'Sandrock', coming up on over ten years. Our art team became more and more experienced after each game. We're really stoked that the whole team was able to handle this change.
But we ran into another unexpected challenge. Our character modeling department was tackling this realistic proportion thing for the first time, with a higher demand for precision. It seriously took us like 2-3 months of searching and adjusting our direction multiple times. Eventually, we even got our lead terrain editor from 'Planet Explorers' to give character modeling a shot because she had experience with more realistic characters before. After another half-month of trying stuff out, she totally delivered and created the model for Freya that finally made us feel like the style of the character model was just right and we were satisfied. Of course, we lost a lead terrain editor in the process, haha. Then, the model for Avery also turned out really well, and the whole character team gradually got used to the new art style and production process.
So here we are. New body proportions as well as a more realistic style. We think the overall quality upgrade will give core fans something fresh, at the same time it will be able to attract more new players. There have been feedback from some players that worry we will have less fun designs and diversity, and become more generic in general. That was also one of our main worries as well, especially in the early going. Worry not though, after our artists got use to the new style and started pushing the envolope, we're currently satisfied with our direction. We have been able to design fun and diverse characters in the new style. And we'll continue to tweak characters as well to make them more unique. The last thing we want is to be called generic, our pride is on the line.
With higher quality characters, we also require higher quality animation. Stuff that we used to get away with when the body proportions were still cartoony, we won't be able to get away with today. Take for example facial animation and mouth movement. Many players have commented that our character faces in our current screenshots and trailer look stiff. That's a great observation. It's because our new system of motion captured animation aren't in game yet. We're still using some legacy Sandrock stuff. Our aim is to achieve animation quality close to Kingdom Hearts or Xenoblade in the end.
Finally, what does this mean for player customization? Well, we're hopefull we can reach a certain stretch goal so that we can add in player height and body shape. Because we have so many character interactions, this isn't something that can be easily done. On top of that, we will have multiple facial and hair choices, including proper beards, that's a promise. We know that character customization was a very welcomed feature in both Portia and Sandrock, we'll continue that tradtion here.
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