Why Is Ffxiv Art So Different From Final Fantasy

Hello everyone, this is Miyamiya from the Promotional squad!

FFXIV Backstage investigators is a blog series that share behind-the-scenes stories from the team members who piece of work on all aspects of FFXIV.

The subject of our eighth interview is...

VFX Creative person Takayasu Ishii!

Visual effects, often abbreviated as VFX, refers to in-game imagery that enhances the game'due south expressiveness and vibrance in ways that wouldn't exist possible in the existent earth. For this interview, we'll be going backstage to larn near how VFX are created!

▲ A screenshot of the grapheme Mr. Ishii uses during development. He's a long-time "colleague" to Mr. Ishii, who's been using the same character since A Realm Reborn!

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Miyamiya: To begin, could you tell us nigh what you worked on before you lot joined the FFXIV development squad?

Ishii: I originally worked for an animation production company, where I created composite shots (the procedure of merging multiple 3DCG or 2D art assets into one). My experiences there led to an interest in visual furnishings for games. Foursquare Enix was the starting time company that came to mind when it came to graphical pattern, so I joined in 2007. Later joining the company, I worked in diverse teams including those for DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY, DISSIDIA 012 Last FANTASY, Concluding FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: The Crystal Bearers, and Terminal FANTASY Blazon-0. Afterward building up experience through those titles, I was assigned to the FFXIV team around when the A Realm Reborn project was put into move.

Miyamiya: What sort of work does the VFX team do in FFXIV?

Ishii: The VFX squad is largely divided into 3 major specializations: the Cutscene VFX squad, the Background VFX squad, and the Battle VFX team.

Equally implied by their proper noun, the Cutscene VFX team specializes in creating furnishings for cutscenes. The Groundwork VFX squad is in charge of ecology visual furnishings; for example, rain, snow, volcanic smoke, water splashing from a waterfall, besides as mechanics related to the environment in boss battles.

▲ Flashy cutscene furnishings are absurd too, but fine details like teary eyes can also grip our hearts!

▲ The Limitless Blue trial is brimming with conditions-related mechanics like the clouds and pelting, all of which were created by the Background VFX team!

As for me, I am the lead of the Boxing VFX team, which creates actor and enemy-related effects. Some of the aspects we're in accuse of include boxing actions, crafting and gathering actions, mounts, emotes, minions, and weapons.

▲ The /pigment emotes were also created by the Boxing VFX squad! Perhaps yous remember them from Sigmascape V2.0?

Miyamiya: Seems like VFX are just about everywhere! Could you explicate how boxing VFX are mostly created?

Ishii: When information technology comes to task actions, the designers provide documentation for each action, which tell united states of america whether an activity will be an attack or a heal, and if information technology'll be unmarried-target or area-of-event. The documentation is typically text-based, so the artists are given gratis rein over the imagery.

From there, the Blitheness team drafts several animations for each action as possible candidates. Those are then reviewed by the Animation team, VFX team, and Shinya Ichida (Art team Lead) to decide which typhoon to go on with. Once that's decided, we begin creating the visual effects based on the blitheness and refine them into their final form, while making sure that the design doesn't contradict the intended purpose or the specifications of the action.

Equally such, the VFX team generally has free rein over how the imagery is visualized. Still, at that place are exceptions when the visual furnishings need to comprise preestablished assets, such as the magic circle for Zodiark. In such cases, the Art team provides a design based on the lore, which we then use to design the visual effects.

Miyamiya: I see, so the visual furnishings and animations of boxing deportment go hand-in-hand. How did your team create the unique visual furnishings for the Endwalker jobs, reaper and sage?

Ishii: Nosotros already knew reaper would wield a scythe and summon an avatar from the void, then we went for dark imagery based on those details. However, using nighttime colors alone would make reaper visually similar to nighttime knight or Ascians. And then we decided to give reaper a unique base of operations color, which resulted in its blackness and cyan color scheme.

Although bright dark-green colors were common for healer jobs, they weren't used very often for DPS and tank jobs, and we felt it could be a distinguishing feature for reaper. Furthermore, visual effects for previous jobs ofttimes emphasized the impact of a hit, for reaper, we emphasized the "trail" of their distinctive sweeping attacks to fix their visual identity autonomously from other jobs.

▲ The scythe's cyan trails are certain to take hold of your attending during battle!

▲ On the other hand, the visual effects switch to black and red once the avatar takes over, ensuring that the colors match the lore.

With sage, we had a brilliant colour palette in mind considering of its office as a healer. We also already had the base of operations designs of the nouliths, likewise as artwork for Alphinaud and the sage gear, then the colors of white and blue were easily decided. The Art team asked us to give the nouliths a tailing visual effect when they were drawn or sheathed. This likewise worked well in white and blue, and was another contributing cistron in deciding the colors.

As for the job actions, in contrast to the calorie-free and airy spells that white mage uses, sage uses geometric barriers and laser attacks, so we chose a somewhat sleek design based on Sharlayan engineering. Additionally, sage's attacks and heals are conducted through the nouliths, rather than releasing energy from the grapheme themselves. The nouliths needed to exist the center of attention, which proved to be a perplexing claiming for the staff member in charge.

Miyamiya: Then deciding a job's base colors at the outset helps you to maintain a consistent look with their visual effects. There are many blueprint-related roles in the industry, but what would you say are some unique appeals of working with visual effects?

Ishii: I believe the diversity and liberty of expression is the appeal of visual furnishings. As I mentioned earlier, although the FFXIV squad has documentation on what needs to be fabricated, nosotros're allowed to have free rein over creating the imagery. Rather than being overly specific in their requests to the VFX team, they outset past assuasive u.s. to create whatever we like and will requite united states of america the green light equally long as the specifications and quality are befitting of FFXIV'southward standards.

Of course, existence granted total creative freedom comes with its own struggles, simply having no restraints and beingness allowed to create what we want is fun and rewarding.

Miyamiya: I imagine that creative liberty is what enables yous to keep creating distinctive and fresh visual effects, even when nosotros have so much content and many different jobs. Of all the visual effects you've worked on in FFXIV, is there one that you find most memorable?

Ishii: For me, that would be paladin'southward Passage of Artillery.

▲ Passage of Arms is a paladin power that increases the user's block rate and reduces damage for party members continuing behind them. It can be used almost anywhere, both in combat and in cities.

In addition to Passage of Artillery existence usable anywhere and having to wait good in any environment, it also had to emphasize the event of standing behind the user. I had an extremely hard time with these difficult prerequisites, and information technology ended up being the task where I cycled between creating something and scrapping it most ofttimes. I'1000 sure any artist can relate, but when you focus on a project for too long, you starting time to lose sight of whether it looks practiced or bad and fall into this feeling of, "What am I even making once more...?"

In the midst of that, I showed my original typhoon to my leader at the time and Producer & Director Yoshida. Their positive feedback helped me feel that I was onto something, which additional my motivation and helped me finish the projection. So, for me, Passage of Artillery is my most memorable work because information technology reminds me of my struggle and accomplishment.

Miyamiya: Passage of Arms is very cool and flashy, and I like how it really makes you lot feel protected! Adjacent, I'd similar to ask about weapons with visual effects. There have been many memorable "glowing weapons" thus far, but practice you accept any particular favorites out of the ones you've worked on?

Ishii: Of the weapons I've worked on, Ravana's Hive weapons are my favorite.

▲ The Hive weapons feature a ruddy glow and fluttering butterflies.

Weapon effects are constantly displayed while the weapon is fatigued, so they accept stricter limitations. This makes information technology hard to requite them lavish animations compared to something like battle furnishings, which are just displayed once per activation.

Among such limitations, I managed to make the fluttering butterflies using models created with minimal polygons. This involved researching super-tedious movement footage of real butterflies to replicate their movements as closely as possible, which was a tremendously meticulous endeavor for me at the time.

▲ The butterflies are fabricated past adding textures to this mesh (a collection of polygons) and scaling/rotating/moving them to make them announced to be flapping their wings.

Miyamiya: It sounds like every endeavor involves giving the weapons every bit much visual affect as possible within the provided limitations. Could y'all perhaps give us a hint equally to what the weapon rewards from Dragonsong'southward Reprise (Ultimate) will be like?

Ishii: Previous Ultimate weapons featured a motif of the see, such equally the gears and cogs on the weapons from the Ballsy of Alexander. In a similar way, the weapons from Dragonsong's Reprise likewise characteristic a motif, but as for what that may be... delight look forrad to it. (laughs)

Miyamiya: I'thou actually looking forrad to it! Finally, practise you have any parting words for our players, or maybe your resolutions for the time to come?

Ishii: I've received a lot of encouragement through your comments on social media and the Letter Live broadcasts. At times, the plethora of feedback you've provided has pointed out new aspects for me to meliorate upon. So, if you have any thoughts regarding visual effects, I'd be glad if you lot could post them on the forums or social media.

FFXIV places a lot of importance in the variances of color perception, while besides striving to provide visibility and coherence in everyone's gameplay. Gameplay experiences tin can also be further improved with rousing moments, likewise every bit drawing out the appeal of the various jobs and characters. These are the concepts I'd like to keep in mind as I continue to pursue the fine art of creating attractive visual effects.

I hope this interview was able to pique your interest in visual furnishings. Thank you for your continued support!

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How did you savor our interview with VFX Creative person Takayasu Ishii?

Visual effects can provide myriad different expressions, whether it be "cute" or "cool," or even "terrifying" or "eerie" at times. Taking a closer await at these visual details is certain to immerse you even farther into the earth of FFXIV!

Encounter yous side by side fourth dimension!

Previous Editions of FFXIV Backstage Investigators
・ (No. 1): Main Scenario Writer Banri Oda
・ (No. 2): Lead Level Designer Arata Takahashi
・ (No. 3): Web Managing director Hiroyuki Takachi
・ (No. iv): Lead UI Artist Yoichi Seki
・ (No. 5): Grapheme Concept Artist Hiroyuki Nagamine
・ (No. 6): Community Planner Takeshi Kato
・ (No. vii): Lead Technical Artist Tatsuya Okahisa

Miyamiya
- Promotional squad

millergranxis.blogspot.com

Source: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/blog/003308.html

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