6 months to create ONE equipment set!?

[Ilean]

6 months is an unforgivable amount of time for one equipment set. How long would it take to make a zone, 5 years?

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;D

[Preypacer]

I would like to know on average how many concepts get thrown out making the artist have to start again as well, if somthing isnt up to scratch for the devs it will get scrapped. I could imagine its atleast 10 sketches for each piece of gear, because it needs to work with all models.

I don't even think it's a matter of "having to start again". I think it's more a system of iterative refinement.

In most cases, they'll come up with a bunch of different concepts to begin with. Each is a bit different, has a different style, etc... From there, they're reviewed and a decision is made on which concepts seem the best in line with what they're after. The artists might be asked to create additional concepts that are a mix of 2 or 3 of them... They'll go, create those concepts... come back... review, etc.

Ultimately, the final design is decided, and the artist then creates the final, high quality concepts (which are the ones we usually see). They'll create studies of them in different poses; in this case, it might be a character wearing the armor.. They'll also create the concept art for the modelers to use as reference which are typically drawn at specific orthographic angles (front, side, etc).

I don't know exactly how SE does it, but that's the general approach used by many/most studios.

Like you, though, I would also be interested to know how much of it ends up "on the cutting room floor", so to speak.

[Randis]

absolutely unrealistic time frame, that would be much too slow.

Try this...
1) Conceptual design ( artist sketch on paper/ hand draw ) for all races = 3 weeks
2) Model that concept design with simple wire frame/few texture for ALL RACES = 3-4 weeks
3) Detailed sculpture for 3D model for all race = 2 months
4) Texture creation and lightning = 2 Months ( can start after #3 finish for 1 month )
5) Apply armor physic and touch up = 2 months

I think it's reasonable timeframe for their design effort. I'm not sure what is the real development lifecycle for make new gear is but I'm sure for 1 things.... there are 8 races to make and that's why it take time a lot.

Try imagine above work yourself before complain....

[Reika]

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;D

You know none of us want any more black shrouds to happen!

[zaviermhigo]

You know it takes 9 months to make a baby, and people really care about their babies most of the time. 6 months for a piece of gear just means we should care more about it, because of the effort that goes into it. Right now its kind of hard, because some of the gear is rather meh. But w/e why diss how long it takes them to make gear, when that's how they do it, if you don't like it, why don't you go make a game with comparable graphics and see who long it takes you to make gear. Did you even watch making of eorzea? As a consumer we have a right to judge quality, but not how long it takes them to do things, we just don't have the know how, no one on this forums has made a game even close to FFXIV.

[viion]

Try this...
1) Conceptual design ( artist sketch on paper/ hand draw ) for all races = 3 weeks
2) Model that concept design with simple wire frame/few texture for ALL RACES = 3-4 weeks
3) Detailed sculpture for 3D model for all race = 2 months
4) Texture creation and lightning = 2 Months ( can start after #3 finish for 1 month )
5) Apply armor physic and touch up = 2 months

I think it's reasonable timeframe for their design effort. I'm not sure what is the real development lifecycle for make new gear is but I'm sure for 1 things.... there are 8 races to make and that's why it take time a lot.

Try imagine above work yourself before complain....

Thats waaaaaaaaay over bored.

Ceoncept 3 weeks? Noway that is just stupid if they are given 3 weeks to work on 1 piece, many designers will work at most 1 week, even vehicle and character concepts for SP Games dont take 3 weeks...

The simple thing I dont get, as SE dont model simple then do it better letter on, this is proven by development stages of gear in our files. Hell even the AF shown in the concept is in our files now, but ofc it will take them another month to do something with it...

Detailed scuplture idk where you got 2 months from, view CGsociety, people do insanely more work and detailed than what XIV needs when they sculpt and they spent a fragment of the time lol 2-3 weeks. Some even a few days (the pros who do it for a living).

I think SE just have a very bad setup of how they do things and they have their development team to busy multi-tasking too much stuff that some things just get forgotten about and not touched for a long time.

Take Batraal for example he has been in our files for months now untextured and only this update is he ingame, textured, etc. But there is another mob, fully textured and animated (including battle animations) that has not yet seen any appearance ingame. Because they to busy coming up with some other stuff for it or not working on it at all.

[Khalus]

Dunno if any of ya remember this video:

Eorzea ― The Making of a Realm #3 ~ Equipping Eorzea, but it shows how they make the armor!

[Physic]

The process involves the creation of a number of different concept sketches, reviews, modifications, approvals. They could be picking and choosing between a number of different possibilities, perhaps mixing elements from one concept with that of another. It's not a straight-forward process where one person is drawing away in their studio for a couple days, turning the work in as "finished" and moving on to the next one.

I am an artist, i have done this process, and basically if it takes that long its a combination of lazyness on my part, poor management on their part and a excessive amount of complete redos. And even that is probably bull, cause thats how long it might take me, when i do it for like an hour a day, and am doing long distance freelance work with someone who is always busy. If im working 8 hours, and my boss can see and respond to what im doing normally it wouldnt take close to that amount of time.

Done properly you do a lot of rough concept work that is fairly fast, it doesnt require in depth rendering, just the rough idea, that can take a day.

then you get some feedback, that may take another day, then you work on the actual straight mock up, maybe another day, then back to the management with tweaks and changes, the whole process shouldnt really take more than a week even in a bad situation.

from what i ve seen, i think he was basically exaggerating to give himself room, if it really takes 6 months to make one model, no game they have made in the past 10 or so years would have been finished in less than 10 years.

how many npcs/pcs are in your usuall ff game? do you really think it takes them 6 months per chr? if this is really the case how do students in a 3d modeling class with 5 classes a semmester do the same thing in a few hours a day and no real expeience multiple times throughout the class? you ever been to conceptart.org? do you see how much stuff some of these guys push out in 6 months?

Its either him misrepresenting the situation, or they have a serious problem with management and art development.

[miqokini]

No, we should not accept this if it's true. Yes, we should complain. No, I don't have to go make a game like FFXIV before I have the right to complain.

6 months is insane no matter what they are working with.

I also took art and design classes in college. If I were to tell my professors about this, they would laugh in my face and wonder how the f SE is such a big company.

Actually, that's most likely the problem. SE itself is huge, but how many people are actually working on XIV? Like 11?

[Charismatic]

No, we should not accept this if it's true. Yes, we should complain. No, I don't have to go make a game like FFXIV before I have the right to complain.

6 months is insane no matter what they are working with.

I also took art and design classes in college. If I were to tell my professors about this, they would laugh in my face and wonder how the f SE is such a big company.

Actually, that's most likely the problem. SE itself is huge, but how many people are actually working on XIV? Like 11?

Wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to put a lot of people on the project especially not for the artwork and such, the core of the game is what is important for them to change to get this game into a ready state so they can actually begin to make money off of it instead of hemorrhaging cash.