Introduction
My name is Katarzyna Bech and I'm the Lead Character Concept Artist at Techland. I joined this company almost 6 years ago to work on Dying Light 2 Stay Human. I graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw and my specialization was Industrial Design, but I always knew that creating games would be my dream job. I have an older brother, so games and fantasy books were always something important in my life. I got my first job in Techland as a Junior Concept Artist and ended up as a Lead. I also got an opportunity to develop my 3D skills at Techland and now I’m also creating 3D models, which makes my work even more satisfying because I can translate my designs into actual in-game assets.
介绍
我的名字是Katarzyna Bech，我是Techland的主角概念艺术家。大约6年前，我加入了这家公司，从事《消逝的光芒2 Stay Human》的制作。我毕业于弗罗茨瓦夫美术学院，我的专业是工业设计，但我一直知道创造游戏将是我梦寐以求的工作。我有一个哥哥，所以游戏和幻想书一直是我生命中重要的东西。我在Techland的第一份工作是一名初级概念艺术家，最终成为一名Lead。我还有机会在Techland发展我的3D技能，现在我还在创建3D模型，这使我的工作更加令人满意，因为我可以将我的设计转化为实际的游戏内资产。



My name is Dominik Wasienko. I am a Lead 3D Character Artist. My adventure with Techland started almost 7 years ago. It was quite a fun story as I was posting my character models on one of the Polish 3D forums dreaming about a job as Character Artist. One day I was approached through a private message on a forum by one of Techland's artists and asked if I would like to meet with them to talk about potential roles. That was a dream come true for me. To be honest, I was quite nervous feeling it might be now or never for me getting to the industry, and thankfully I was hired by Techland as a Junior Character Artist.
我的名字是Dominik Wasienko。我是一名首席3D角色艺术家。我在Techland的冒险始于大约7年前。这是一个非常有趣的故事，因为我在波兰的一个3D论坛上发布了我的角色模型，梦想着成为角色艺术家的工作。有一天，Techland的一位艺术家在论坛上通过私人消息找到我，问我是否愿意与他们见面，讨论潜在的角色。这对我来说是一个梦想成真。老实说，我感到非常紧张，觉得现在或永远不会进入这个行业，谢天谢地，我被Techland聘为初级角色艺术家。

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Currently, our Character Team consists of 7 Character Artists, 4 Concept Artists, and a Technical Artist. They are all very talented and skilled. But what is most important for us, we are all like one big family together. We actually like each other and we can always say what’s on our minds. People here are very helpful and always ready to share knowledge.
目前，我们的角色团队由7名角色艺术家，4名概念艺术家和一名技术艺术家组成。他们都非常有才华和技能。但对我们来说最重要的是，我们都像一个大家庭在一起。我们实际上喜欢彼此，我们总是可以说出我们的想法。这里的人们非常乐于助人，随时准备分享知识。

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Character Goals for Dying Light 2
The main idea behind Dying Light 2 Stay Human's art direction was to achieve the vibe of the Dark Ages but with a modern twist. We approached it by keeping shapes of some elements inspired by the Dark Ages like cloaks, small capes, hoods, and tunics and tried to translate them into pieces that can be found nowadays.

For example, if we use a hood, we make it as part of a sweatshirt hoodie or waterproof jacket, when it's a tunic – it's made out of a large t-shirt with graphics on it, banded with a belt. A very important part of designing characters this way was to apply modern materials like plastic, nylon, military fabrics, etc. The other way around – if we have characters wearing mostly nowadays clothing, we added some accessories like belts, bags, and holders made out of leather, ropes, or linen.
《消逝的光芒2》的角色目标
《垂死之光2 Stay Human》艺术指导背后的主要思想是实现黑暗时代的氛围，但带有现代风格。我们通过保留一些受黑暗时代启发的元素的形状来接近它，如斗篷，小斗篷，兜帽和长袍，并试图将它们转化为现在可以找到的作品。

例如，如果我们使用兜帽，我们会将其作为运动衫连帽衫或防水夹克的一部分，当它是一件束腰外衣时 - 它由一件带有图形的大T恤制成，并绑着皮带。以这种方式设计角色的一个非常重要的部分是应用现代材料，如塑料，尼龙，军用织物等。反之亦然-如果我们的角色现在主要穿着衣服，我们会添加一些配件，例如皮带，包包和用皮革，绳索或亚麻制成的支架。

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This way of thinking is also represented in archetypes of factions that we have. The Peacekeepers with their code based on honor and rules remind us of medieval knights. They also wear armor, use melee weapons and helmets, but all of it is based on sport/military weapons or hand-made out of rifled metal. Just to have a balance between modern and historical feeling and still keep as much realism as we could. That part was for sure the most tricky, not to fall too much into one of those two directions. Having those rules in mind, we could design any character that was needed from the narration/gameplay side.
这种思维方式也体现在我们所拥有的派系的原型中。维和人员基于荣誉和规则的守则让我们想起了中世纪的骑士。他们还穿着盔甲，使用近战武器和头盔，但所有这些都是基于运动/军事武器或由线膛金属手工制作的。只是为了在现代和历史感觉之间取得平衡，并尽可能多地保持现实主义。这部分肯定是最棘手的，不要过多地陷入这两个方向之一。考虑到这些规则，我们可以从旁白/游戏方面设计任何需要的角色。

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The process of creating characters in DL2SH was divided into productional steps. It looks similar whether it’s the infected's design or that of humans. First, we get a narrational brief about a specific character, or from the gameplay team if it’s an enemy. We usually work closely together to make sure we are on the same page and that we know the core of it. For that, Concept Artists read the brief, talk to the story team when they have some questions, collect references, and sketch first ideas. The best is when they depict different approaches, but still fitting to the description.
在DL2SH中创建角色的过程分为生产步骤。无论是感染者的设计还是人类的设计，它看起来都是相似的。首先，我们得到一个关于特定角色的叙述性简报，或者如果它是敌人，则从游戏团队那里得到。我们通常密切合作，以确保我们在同一页面上，并且我们知道它的核心。为此，概念艺术家阅读简报，在有问题时与故事团队交谈，收集参考资料，并勾勒出第一个想法。最好的是当它们描绘了不同的方法，但仍然适合描述时。

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Pictures are the best words and arguments in our work. Sometimes, the story or personality of a character can be changed when finally we can see it “getting created”. We are working very closely with 3D modelers, sometimes we brainstormed and always try to give feedback to each other on a daily basis. While concepting, we still have in mind that this image will finally be transformed into a 3D model and also will be animated. So, we need to understand the principles, rules, and technical boundaries of every idea that we have.
图片是我们工作中最好的话语和论据。有时，当一个角色的故事或个性最终可以“被创造”时，我们可以改变它。我们与3D建模人员密切合作，有时我们会集思广益，并总是尝试每天相互反馈。在构思时，我们仍然牢记，该图像最终将被转换为3D模型，并且还将进行动画处理。因此，我们需要了解我们拥有的每个想法的原则，规则和技术边界。

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We collaborate closely with 3D modelers, so they are always in a loop and can react in every stage of the design if something is undoable or will be problematic. When the direction of a character is set, we finalize concept art with details, reference boards, and additional assets if needed. The next step is creating a 3D model and textures.
我们与3D建模人员密切合作，因此他们始终处于循环中，如果某些事情无法恢复或出现问题，他们可以在设计的每个阶段做出反应。当设定角色的方向时，我们会用细节，参考板和额外的资源（如果需要）来完成概念艺术。下一步是创建 3D 模型和纹理。

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Designing Main Characters
We usually start designing story characters by getting familiar with the description from the narration team and doing good research. We look for different images connected to our art direction and the archetype of each character. Sometimes it takes most of the time to get the right inspiration, each image leads us to another to get our imagination to the next level. We spend a lot of time depicting different ideas on concept art with iterations that lead us from a wide spectrum of different proposals to one that works the best. I think that the thing that makes our main characters unique is the overall idea of the Modern Dark Ages in the apocalypse world and this mix is not seen in any other games.
设计主要角色
我们通常通过熟悉叙述团队的描述并进行良好的研究来开始设计故事人物。我们寻找与我们的艺术方向和每个角色的原型相关的不同图像。有时需要花费大部分时间才能获得正确的灵感，每张图片都会将我们带到另一幅图像，以将我们的想象力提升到一个新的水平。我们花了很多时间描绘关于概念艺术的不同想法，迭代将我们从广泛的不同建议引导到效果最好的建议。我认为，使我们的主要角色与众不同的是世界末日世界中现代黑暗时代的整体想法，这种组合在任何其他游戏中都看不到。

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We also usually make sure that the main story characters’ attitudes and backstory are represented in visuals and individual elements. For example, we thought that Lawan would need some cool graphic or other symbols that would tell something “between the lines” about her. So, we came up with an idea of an embroidered patch on the back of her jacket that depicts a special kind of flower – Epiphyllum Oxypetalum. This plant blooms only at night and it's called "The Queen of the Night" so we thought that this would be an interesting metaphor for her as an aspiring Nightrunner. Her strong and independent nature led us also to pick Rosario Dawson as an actress to play her role.
我们通常还确保主要故事人物的态度和背景故事以视觉效果和单个元素呈现。例如，我们认为Lawan需要一些很酷的图形或其他符号来讲述关于她的“字里行间”。所以，我们想出了一个想法，在她的夹克背面绣上一块刺绣的补丁，描绘了一种特殊的花 - Epiphyllum Oxypetalum。这种植物只在晚上开花，它被称为“夜之女王”，所以我们认为这将是她作为有抱负的夜行者的一个有趣的隐喻。她坚强而独立的天性也促使我们选择罗萨里奥·道森（Rosario Dawson）作为女演员来扮演她的角色。

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The Production Process
With NPCs that are background or just non-main characters, we used clothing, hair, and add-on systems. First, we had to design all of those elements for having an overall idea of the look of the whole factions like Peacekeepers, Survivors, Renegades, and bandit survivors. Each group has a unique feeling based on clothing, graphics, and accessories but also different vibes on their faces. Having that direction in mind, we could design each dialogue NPC based on meshes that we created, but highly connected to the story of each character and mixed in the most visually appealing way. We always had some new ideas about what elements we could add to our system that would fit different characters and at the same time give them more characteristics. That very systemic approach allowed us to create in total almost 1400 unique character models that can be seen in-game.
生产过程
对于背景或只是非主要角色的NPC，我们使用服装，头发和附加系统。首先，我们必须设计所有这些元素，以便对整个派系（如维和人员，幸存者，叛徒和土匪幸存者）的外观有一个整体的了解。每个群体都有一种独特的感觉，基于服装，图形和配饰，但他们的脸上也有不同的共鸣。考虑到这个方向，我们可以根据我们创建的网格设计每个对话NPC，但与每个角色的故事高度相关，并以最具视觉吸引力的方式混合。我们总是有一些新的想法，关于我们可以在我们的系统中添加哪些元素来适应不同的角色，同时赋予他们更多的特征。这种非常系统的方法使我们能够创建总共近1400个独特的角色模型，这些模型可以在游戏中看到。

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Regarding main NPCs – crucial for us was to make them unique and stand out from the less important characters. So our main heroes were all modeled as fully individual characters with their unique designs.

We also developed a player clothing system that allows players to wear basically any outfit they want. The outfit is split into parts such as bracers, gloves, torso, headwear, pants, and shoes and each of those can be exchanged for visually different models, and you create your own unique outfit. When we are producing 3D assets we go through standard processes such as high poly modeling, low poly, texturing, and in-game setup.
关于主要的NPC，对我们来说至关重要的是让他们独一无二，并从不太重要的角色中脱颖而出。因此，我们的主要英雄都被塑造成具有独特设计的完全独立的角色。

我们还开发了一个玩家服装系统，允许玩家基本上穿任何他们想要的衣服。服装分为手镯，手套，躯干，头饰，裤子和鞋子等部分，每个部分都可以交换视觉上不同的模特，您可以创建自己独特的服装。当我们制作 3D 资产时，我们会经历标准流程，例如高多边形建模、低多边形建模、纹理化和游戏内设置。

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We also developed an in-house character editor integrated with our C-Engine which allowed us to build full character models from a library of available assets.

To support the whole idea we took our time working out the character clothing system, which allowed us to mix together a lot of different parts. For example mix one jacket with different pants, different add-ons, materials/colors, etc, different faces, haircuts, etc. On top of that, we developed a scanning team pipeline of heads creation which allowed us to build a really big library of faces that we have available to use in-game.
我们还开发了一个与我们的C-Engine集成的内部角色编辑器，使我们能够从可用资源库中构建完整的角色模型。

为了支持整个想法，我们花时间研究了角色服装系统，这使我们能够将许多不同的部分混合在一起。例如，将一件夹克与不同的裤子，不同的附加组件，材料/颜色等，不同的面孔，发型等混合在一起。最重要的是，我们开发了一个扫描团队的头部创建管道，这使我们能够构建一个非常大的面部库，我们可以在游戏中使用。

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Currently, we have 200 unique head models, and thanks to our systemic approach we are able to basically mix every head with a different one, which gives us an enormous number of possible face visuals, and at the same time doesn't cost us any additional memory resources.

Our approach translated even to hairstyles. Our haircuts are mostly built from systems, which means we don't use unique haircuts models too often, as our system is built from different parts like fringes, ponytails, base shapes, etc. This way we can build a huge amount of unique haircuts without having any issues performance-wise.

When we had everything established, it allowed us to assemble any new needed character in an extremely short time. It is one of the things that we are very proud of how it worked out.
目前，我们有200个独特的头部模型，由于我们的系统方法，我们基本上能够将每个头部与不同的头部混合在一起，这为我们提供了大量可能的面部视觉效果，同时不会花费我们任何额外的内存资源。

我们的方法甚至转化为发型。我们的发型大多是从系统中构建的，这意味着我们不会经常使用独特的发型模型，因为我们的系统是由不同的部分构建的，如流苏，马尾辫，基础形状等。通过这种方式，我们可以构建大量独特的发型，而不会在性能方面出现任何问题。

当我们建立了一切之后，它使我们能够在极短的时间内组装任何新的角色。这是我们为它如何成功而感到非常自豪的事情之一。

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Clothes and Accessories
For asset creation, we used tools like ZBrush for high poly modeling, 3ds Max/Maya/Blender for low poly preparation, and Substance 3D Painter as our main tool for material preparation.

For clothes modeling, we are using Marvelous Designer, which is a really cool software that helps to achieve very realistic and high-quality clothes, mixed with hand sculpting in ZBrush, because our post-apocalyptic setting in Dying Light 2 Stay Human requires clothing to be more destroyed and worn out. When it comes to head modeling we mix hand sculpting and scanning as mentioned previously. We feel that artistic input is still essential to achieve a charismatic look that meets our expectations.
衣服和配饰
对于资源创建，我们使用 ZBrush 等工具进行高多边形建模，使用 3ds Max/Maya/Blender 进行低多边形制备，并使用 Substance 3D Painter 等工具作为材料准备的主要工具。

对于服装建模，我们使用的是Marvelous Designer，这是一个非常酷的软件，有助于实现非常逼真和高质量的衣服，并在ZBrush中混合了手工雕刻，因为我们在Dying Light 2 Stay Human中的后世界末日设定要求服装更加破坏和磨损。在头部建模方面，如前所述，我们将手部雕刻和扫描相结合。我们认为，艺术投入对于实现符合我们期望的魅力外观仍然至关重要。

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Animations
Our approach to mixing Motion Capture and Keyframe animation is very flexible. Traditionally for first-person animation, it makes more sense to use keyframe animation, and that was our main approach in Dying Light. In the production of Dying Light 2 Stay Human, we found methods to mix motion capture with keyframe even for first-person view. This came with our direction of making the protagonist feel like parkouring humans, not just a floating camera. Therefore not just hands but the entire body is animated and that’s where motion capture is very handy.
动画
我们混合动作捕捉和关键帧动画的方法非常灵活。传统上，对于第一人称动画，使用关键帧动画更有意义，这是我们在《消逝的光芒》中的主要方法。在《消逝的光芒2 Stay Human》的制作中，我们找到了将动作捕捉与关键帧混合的方法，即使是第一人称视角也是如此。我们的方向是让主角感觉像在跑酷人类，而不仅仅是一个漂浮的相机。因此，不仅仅是手，整个身体都是动画的，这就是动作捕捉非常方便的地方。

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We had parkour masters captured like David Belle and we used motion capture to analyze and extract what is essential to feel great in the first person, to make it believable but also understandable for the players in FPP.  We treat Motion Capture just as a tool to achieve our goals faster and in more consistent quality so we mix and match it wherever it is useful. On the other hand, the area where keyframes are still needed is to enhance the abilities of infected and even some humans – very powerful attacks, huge leaps, some iconic hit reactions – those needed keyframe treatment to feel powerful enough. Another area that uses keyframe animation is prototyping, it’s just much faster to quickly animate and iterate without the need to record body performance, thus allowing us to work faster in the early stages of the production.
我们捕捉了像大卫·贝尔（David Belle）这样的跑酷大师，我们使用动作捕捉来分析和提取第一人称感觉很棒的东西，使其可信，但对于FPP中的玩家来说也是可以理解的。我们将动作捕捉视为一种工具，可以更快，更一致的质量实现我们的目标，因此我们在有用的地方进行混合和匹配。另一方面，仍然需要关键帧的领域是增强感染者甚至一些人的能力 - 非常强大的攻击，巨大的飞跃，一些标志性的命中反应 - 那些需要关键帧处理才能感觉足够强大。使用关键帧动画的另一个领域是原型设计，在不需要记录身体性能的情况下快速制作动画和迭代要快得多，从而使我们能够在制作的早期阶段更快地工作。

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Main Challenges
The biggest challenge was to create this previously mentioned mesh system from which we built our characters and still make them look unique and cohesive. Dying Light 2 Stay Human is a big open-world game with a lot of NPCs, different stories behind them, attitudes, factions, etc. Our goal was to deliver Dying Light 2 Stay Human for new and old-gen consoles, so of course, we couldn’t have each character made from scratch with unique meshes. A wide spectrum of different elements of clothing gave us quite a good playground for totally different characters. From a concept art point of view, it was challenging to reuse existing elements in totally different ways. That was our biggest challenge, but also the biggest success in terms of design and development. Those systemic and technical restrictions were sometimes a real test of our creativity.
主要挑战
最大的挑战是创建前面提到的网格系统，我们从中构建角色，并仍然使它们看起来独特而有凝聚力。《消逝的光芒2 Stay Human》是一款大型开放世界游戏，有很多NPC，他们背后的不同故事，态度，派系等。我们的目标是为新一代和旧代游戏机提供《消逝的光芒2 Stay Human》，所以当然，我们不能用独特的网格从头开始制作每个角色。各种不同的服装元素为我们提供了一个完全不同的角色的游乐场。从概念艺术的角度来看，以完全不同的方式重用现有元素是一项挑战。这是我们最大的挑战，也是设计和开发方面最大的成功。这些系统性和技术性限制有时是对我们的创造力的真正考验。

Introduction
My name is Katarzyna Bech and I'm the Lead Character Concept Artist at Techland. I joined this company almost 6 years ago to work on Dying Light 2 Stay Human. I graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw and my specialization was Industrial Design, but I always knew that creating games would be my dream job. I have an older brother, so games and fantasy books were always something important in my life. I got my first job in Techland as a Junior Concept Artist and ended up as a Lead. I also got an opportunity to develop my 3D skills at Techland and now I’m also creating 3D models, which makes my work even more satisfying because I can translate my designs into actual in-game assets.
介绍
我的名字是Katarzyna Bech，我是Techland的主角概念艺术家。大约6年前，我加入了这家公司，从事《消逝的光芒2 Stay Human》的制作。我毕业于弗罗茨瓦夫美术学院，我的专业是工业设计，但我一直知道创造游戏将是我梦寐以求的工作。我有一个哥哥，所以游戏和幻想书一直是我生命中重要的东西。我在Techland的第一份工作是一名初级概念艺术家，最终成为一名Lead。我还有机会在Techland发展我的3D技能，现在我还在创建3D模型，这使我的工作更加令人满意，因为我可以将我的设计转化为实际的游戏内资产。



My name is Dominik Wasienko. I am a Lead 3D Character Artist. My adventure with Techland started almost 7 years ago. It was quite a fun story as I was posting my character models on one of the Polish 3D forums dreaming about a job as Character Artist. One day I was approached through a private message on a forum by one of Techland's artists and asked if I would like to meet with them to talk about potential roles. That was a dream come true for me. To be honest, I was quite nervous feeling it might be now or never for me getting to the industry, and thankfully I was hired by Techland as a Junior Character Artist.
我的名字是Dominik Wasienko。我是一名首席3D角色艺术家。我在Techland的冒险始于大约7年前。这是一个非常有趣的故事，因为我在波兰的一个3D论坛上发布了我的角色模型，梦想着成为角色艺术家的工作。有一天，Techland的一位艺术家在论坛上通过私人消息找到我，问我是否愿意与他们见面，讨论潜在的角色。这对我来说是一个梦想成真。老实说，我感到非常紧张，觉得现在或永远不会进入这个行业，谢天谢地，我被Techland聘为初级角色艺术家。

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Currently, our Character Team consists of 7 Character Artists, 4 Concept Artists, and a Technical Artist. They are all very talented and skilled. But what is most important for us, we are all like one big family together. We actually like each other and we can always say what’s on our minds. People here are very helpful and always ready to share knowledge.
目前，我们的角色团队由7名角色艺术家，4名概念艺术家和一名技术艺术家组成。他们都非常有才华和技能。但对我们来说最重要的是，我们都像一个大家庭在一起。我们实际上喜欢彼此，我们总是可以说出我们的想法。这里的人们非常乐于助人，随时准备分享知识。

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Character Goals for Dying Light 2
The main idea behind Dying Light 2 Stay Human's art direction was to achieve the vibe of the Dark Ages but with a modern twist. We approached it by keeping shapes of some elements inspired by the Dark Ages like cloaks, small capes, hoods, and tunics and tried to translate them into pieces that can be found nowadays.

For example, if we use a hood, we make it as part of a sweatshirt hoodie or waterproof jacket, when it's a tunic – it's made out of a large t-shirt with graphics on it, banded with a belt. A very important part of designing characters this way was to apply modern materials like plastic, nylon, military fabrics, etc. The other way around – if we have characters wearing mostly nowadays clothing, we added some accessories like belts, bags, and holders made out of leather, ropes, or linen.
《消逝的光芒2》的角色目标
《垂死之光2 Stay Human》艺术指导背后的主要思想是实现黑暗时代的氛围，但带有现代风格。我们通过保留一些受黑暗时代启发的元素的形状来接近它，如斗篷，小斗篷，兜帽和长袍，并试图将它们转化为现在可以找到的作品。

例如，如果我们使用兜帽，我们会将其作为运动衫连帽衫或防水夹克的一部分，当它是一件束腰外衣时 - 它由一件带有图形的大T恤制成，并绑着皮带。以这种方式设计角色的一个非常重要的部分是应用现代材料，如塑料，尼龙，军用织物等。反之亦然-如果我们的角色现在主要穿着衣服，我们会添加一些配件，例如皮带，包包和用皮革，绳索或亚麻制成的支架。

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This way of thinking is also represented in archetypes of factions that we have. The Peacekeepers with their code based on honor and rules remind us of medieval knights. They also wear armor, use melee weapons and helmets, but all of it is based on sport/military weapons or hand-made out of rifled metal. Just to have a balance between modern and historical feeling and still keep as much realism as we could. That part was for sure the most tricky, not to fall too much into one of those two directions. Having those rules in mind, we could design any character that was needed from the narration/gameplay side.
这种思维方式也体现在我们所拥有的派系的原型中。维和人员基于荣誉和规则的守则让我们想起了中世纪的骑士。他们还穿着盔甲，使用近战武器和头盔，但所有这些都是基于运动/军事武器或由线膛金属手工制作的。只是为了在现代和历史感觉之间取得平衡，并尽可能多地保持现实主义。这部分肯定是最棘手的，不要过多地陷入这两个方向之一。考虑到这些规则，我们可以从旁白/游戏方面设计任何需要的角色。

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The process of creating characters in DL2SH was divided into productional steps. It looks similar whether it’s the infected's design or that of humans. First, we get a narrational brief about a specific character, or from the gameplay team if it’s an enemy. We usually work closely together to make sure we are on the same page and that we know the core of it. For that, Concept Artists read the brief, talk to the story team when they have some questions, collect references, and sketch first ideas. The best is when they depict different approaches, but still fitting to the description.
在DL2SH中创建角色的过程分为生产步骤。无论是感染者的设计还是人类的设计，它看起来都是相似的。首先，我们得到一个关于特定角色的叙述性简报，或者如果它是敌人，则从游戏团队那里得到。我们通常密切合作，以确保我们在同一页面上，并且我们知道它的核心。为此，概念艺术家阅读简报，在有问题时与故事团队交谈，收集参考资料，并勾勒出第一个想法。最好的是当它们描绘了不同的方法，但仍然适合描述时。

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Pictures are the best words and arguments in our work. Sometimes, the story or personality of a character can be changed when finally we can see it “getting created”. We are working very closely with 3D modelers, sometimes we brainstormed and always try to give feedback to each other on a daily basis. While concepting, we still have in mind that this image will finally be transformed into a 3D model and also will be animated. So, we need to understand the principles, rules, and technical boundaries of every idea that we have.
图片是我们工作中最好的话语和论据。有时，当一个角色的故事或个性最终可以“被创造”时，我们可以改变它。我们与3D建模人员密切合作，有时我们会集思广益，并总是尝试每天相互反馈。在构思时，我们仍然牢记，该图像最终将被转换为3D模型，并且还将进行动画处理。因此，我们需要了解我们拥有的每个想法的原则，规则和技术边界。

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We collaborate closely with 3D modelers, so they are always in a loop and can react in every stage of the design if something is undoable or will be problematic. When the direction of a character is set, we finalize concept art with details, reference boards, and additional assets if needed. The next step is creating a 3D model and textures.
我们与3D建模人员密切合作，因此他们始终处于循环中，如果某些事情无法恢复或出现问题，他们可以在设计的每个阶段做出反应。当设定角色的方向时，我们会用细节，参考板和额外的资源（如果需要）来完成概念艺术。下一步是创建 3D 模型和纹理。

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Designing Main Characters
We usually start designing story characters by getting familiar with the description from the narration team and doing good research. We look for different images connected to our art direction and the archetype of each character. Sometimes it takes most of the time to get the right inspiration, each image leads us to another to get our imagination to the next level. We spend a lot of time depicting different ideas on concept art with iterations that lead us from a wide spectrum of different proposals to one that works the best. I think that the thing that makes our main characters unique is the overall idea of the Modern Dark Ages in the apocalypse world and this mix is not seen in any other games.
设计主要角色
我们通常通过熟悉叙述团队的描述并进行良好的研究来开始设计故事人物。我们寻找与我们的艺术方向和每个角色的原型相关的不同图像。有时需要花费大部分时间才能获得正确的灵感，每张图片都会将我们带到另一幅图像，以将我们的想象力提升到一个新的水平。我们花了很多时间描绘关于概念艺术的不同想法，迭代将我们从广泛的不同建议引导到效果最好的建议。我认为，使我们的主要角色与众不同的是世界末日世界中现代黑暗时代的整体想法，这种组合在任何其他游戏中都看不到。

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We also usually make sure that the main story characters’ attitudes and backstory are represented in visuals and individual elements. For example, we thought that Lawan would need some cool graphic or other symbols that would tell something “between the lines” about her. So, we came up with an idea of an embroidered patch on the back of her jacket that depicts a special kind of flower – Epiphyllum Oxypetalum. This plant blooms only at night and it's called "The Queen of the Night" so we thought that this would be an interesting metaphor for her as an aspiring Nightrunner. Her strong and independent nature led us also to pick Rosario Dawson as an actress to play her role.
我们通常还确保主要故事人物的态度和背景故事以视觉效果和单个元素呈现。例如，我们认为Lawan需要一些很酷的图形或其他符号来讲述关于她的“字里行间”。所以，我们想出了一个想法，在她的夹克背面绣上一块刺绣的补丁，描绘了一种特殊的花 - Epiphyllum Oxypetalum。这种植物只在晚上开花，它被称为“夜之女王”，所以我们认为这将是她作为有抱负的夜行者的一个有趣的隐喻。她坚强而独立的天性也促使我们选择罗萨里奥·道森（Rosario Dawson）作为女演员来扮演她的角色。

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The Production Process
With NPCs that are background or just non-main characters, we used clothing, hair, and add-on systems. First, we had to design all of those elements for having an overall idea of the look of the whole factions like Peacekeepers, Survivors, Renegades, and bandit survivors. Each group has a unique feeling based on clothing, graphics, and accessories but also different vibes on their faces. Having that direction in mind, we could design each dialogue NPC based on meshes that we created, but highly connected to the story of each character and mixed in the most visually appealing way. We always had some new ideas about what elements we could add to our system that would fit different characters and at the same time give them more characteristics. That very systemic approach allowed us to create in total almost 1400 unique character models that can be seen in-game.
生产过程
对于背景或只是非主要角色的NPC，我们使用服装，头发和附加系统。首先，我们必须设计所有这些元素，以便对整个派系（如维和人员，幸存者，叛徒和土匪幸存者）的外观有一个整体的了解。每个群体都有一种独特的感觉，基于服装，图形和配饰，但他们的脸上也有不同的共鸣。考虑到这个方向，我们可以根据我们创建的网格设计每个对话NPC，但与每个角色的故事高度相关，并以最具视觉吸引力的方式混合。我们总是有一些新的想法，关于我们可以在我们的系统中添加哪些元素来适应不同的角色，同时赋予他们更多的特征。这种非常系统的方法使我们能够创建总共近1400个独特的角色模型，这些模型可以在游戏中看到。

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Regarding main NPCs – crucial for us was to make them unique and stand out from the less important characters. So our main heroes were all modeled as fully individual characters with their unique designs.

We also developed a player clothing system that allows players to wear basically any outfit they want. The outfit is split into parts such as bracers, gloves, torso, headwear, pants, and shoes and each of those can be exchanged for visually different models, and you create your own unique outfit. When we are producing 3D assets we go through standard processes such as high poly modeling, low poly, texturing, and in-game setup.
关于主要的NPC，对我们来说至关重要的是让他们独一无二，并从不太重要的角色中脱颖而出。因此，我们的主要英雄都被塑造成具有独特设计的完全独立的角色。

我们还开发了一个玩家服装系统，允许玩家基本上穿任何他们想要的衣服。服装分为手镯，手套，躯干，头饰，裤子和鞋子等部分，每个部分都可以交换视觉上不同的模特，您可以创建自己独特的服装。当我们制作 3D 资产时，我们会经历标准流程，例如高多边形建模、低多边形建模、纹理化和游戏内设置。

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We also developed an in-house character editor integrated with our C-Engine which allowed us to build full character models from a library of available assets.

To support the whole idea we took our time working out the character clothing system, which allowed us to mix together a lot of different parts. For example mix one jacket with different pants, different add-ons, materials/colors, etc, different faces, haircuts, etc. On top of that, we developed a scanning team pipeline of heads creation which allowed us to build a really big library of faces that we have available to use in-game.
我们还开发了一个与我们的C-Engine集成的内部角色编辑器，使我们能够从可用资源库中构建完整的角色模型。

为了支持整个想法，我们花时间研究了角色服装系统，这使我们能够将许多不同的部分混合在一起。例如，将一件夹克与不同的裤子，不同的附加组件，材料/颜色等，不同的面孔，发型等混合在一起。最重要的是，我们开发了一个扫描团队的头部创建管道，这使我们能够构建一个非常大的面部库，我们可以在游戏中使用。

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Currently, we have 200 unique head models, and thanks to our systemic approach we are able to basically mix every head with a different one, which gives us an enormous number of possible face visuals, and at the same time doesn't cost us any additional memory resources.

Our approach translated even to hairstyles. Our haircuts are mostly built from systems, which means we don't use unique haircuts models too often, as our system is built from different parts like fringes, ponytails, base shapes, etc. This way we can build a huge amount of unique haircuts without having any issues performance-wise.

When we had everything established, it allowed us to assemble any new needed character in an extremely short time. It is one of the things that we are very proud of how it worked out.
目前，我们有200个独特的头部模型，由于我们的系统方法，我们基本上能够将每个头部与不同的头部混合在一起，这为我们提供了大量可能的面部视觉效果，同时不会花费我们任何额外的内存资源。

我们的方法甚至转化为发型。我们的发型大多是从系统中构建的，这意味着我们不会经常使用独特的发型模型，因为我们的系统是由不同的部分构建的，如流苏，马尾辫，基础形状等。通过这种方式，我们可以构建大量独特的发型，而不会在性能方面出现任何问题。

当我们建立了一切之后，它使我们能够在极短的时间内组装任何新的角色。这是我们为它如何成功而感到非常自豪的事情之一。

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Clothes and Accessories
For asset creation, we used tools like ZBrush for high poly modeling, 3ds Max/Maya/Blender for low poly preparation, and Substance 3D Painter as our main tool for material preparation.

For clothes modeling, we are using Marvelous Designer, which is a really cool software that helps to achieve very realistic and high-quality clothes, mixed with hand sculpting in ZBrush, because our post-apocalyptic setting in Dying Light 2 Stay Human requires clothing to be more destroyed and worn out. When it comes to head modeling we mix hand sculpting and scanning as mentioned previously. We feel that artistic input is still essential to achieve a charismatic look that meets our expectations.
衣服和配饰
对于资源创建，我们使用 ZBrush 等工具进行高多边形建模，使用 3ds Max/Maya/Blender 进行低多边形制备，并使用 Substance 3D Painter 等工具作为材料准备的主要工具。

对于服装建模，我们使用的是Marvelous Designer，这是一个非常酷的软件，有助于实现非常逼真和高质量的衣服，并在ZBrush中混合了手工雕刻，因为我们在Dying Light 2 Stay Human中的后世界末日设定要求服装更加破坏和磨损。在头部建模方面，如前所述，我们将手部雕刻和扫描相结合。我们认为，艺术投入对于实现符合我们期望的魅力外观仍然至关重要。

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Animations
Our approach to mixing Motion Capture and Keyframe animation is very flexible. Traditionally for first-person animation, it makes more sense to use keyframe animation, and that was our main approach in Dying Light. In the production of Dying Light 2 Stay Human, we found methods to mix motion capture with keyframe even for first-person view. This came with our direction of making the protagonist feel like parkouring humans, not just a floating camera. Therefore not just hands but the entire body is animated and that’s where motion capture is very handy.
动画
我们混合动作捕捉和关键帧动画的方法非常灵活。传统上，对于第一人称动画，使用关键帧动画更有意义，这是我们在《消逝的光芒》中的主要方法。在《消逝的光芒2 Stay Human》的制作中，我们找到了将动作捕捉与关键帧混合的方法，即使是第一人称视角也是如此。我们的方向是让主角感觉像在跑酷人类，而不仅仅是一个漂浮的相机。因此，不仅仅是手，整个身体都是动画的，这就是动作捕捉非常方便的地方。

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We had parkour masters captured like David Belle and we used motion capture to analyze and extract what is essential to feel great in the first person, to make it believable but also understandable for the players in FPP.  We treat Motion Capture just as a tool to achieve our goals faster and in more consistent quality so we mix and match it wherever it is useful. On the other hand, the area where keyframes are still needed is to enhance the abilities of infected and even some humans – very powerful attacks, huge leaps, some iconic hit reactions – those needed keyframe treatment to feel powerful enough. Another area that uses keyframe animation is prototyping, it’s just much faster to quickly animate and iterate without the need to record body performance, thus allowing us to work faster in the early stages of the production.
我们捕捉了像大卫·贝尔（David Belle）这样的跑酷大师，我们使用动作捕捉来分析和提取第一人称感觉很棒的东西，使其可信，但对于FPP中的玩家来说也是可以理解的。我们将动作捕捉视为一种工具，可以更快，更一致的质量实现我们的目标，因此我们在有用的地方进行混合和匹配。另一方面，仍然需要关键帧的领域是增强感染者甚至一些人的能力 - 非常强大的攻击，巨大的飞跃，一些标志性的命中反应 - 那些需要关键帧处理才能感觉足够强大。使用关键帧动画的另一个领域是原型设计，在不需要记录身体性能的情况下快速制作动画和迭代要快得多，从而使我们能够在制作的早期阶段更快地工作。

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Main Challenges
The biggest challenge was to create this previously mentioned mesh system from which we built our characters and still make them look unique and cohesive. Dying Light 2 Stay Human is a big open-world game with a lot of NPCs, different stories behind them, attitudes, factions, etc. Our goal was to deliver Dying Light 2 Stay Human for new and old-gen consoles, so of course, we couldn’t have each character made from scratch with unique meshes. A wide spectrum of different elements of clothing gave us quite a good playground for totally different characters. From a concept art point of view, it was challenging to reuse existing elements in totally different ways. That was our biggest challenge, but also the biggest success in terms of design and development. Those systemic and technical restrictions were sometimes a real test of our creativity.
主要挑战
最大的挑战是创建前面提到的网格系统，我们从中构建角色，并仍然使它们看起来独特而有凝聚力。《消逝的光芒2 Stay Human》是一款大型开放世界游戏，有很多NPC，他们背后的不同故事，态度，派系等。我们的目标是为新一代和旧代游戏机提供《消逝的光芒2 Stay Human》，所以当然，我们不能用独特的网格从头开始制作每个角色。各种不同的服装元素为我们提供了一个完全不同的角色的游乐场。从概念艺术的角度来看，以完全不同的方式重用现有元素是一项挑战。这是我们最大的挑战，也是设计和开发方面最大的成功。这些系统性和技术性限制有时是对我们的创造力的真正考验。