Vortex Gaming

On the 18th (Monday) local time, at the GDC 2024 event that marked the beginning of the full-fledged event, a summit was held where you could hear the candid stories of the animators in charge of character animation for 'Apex Legends'.

The three animators from Respawn Entertainment, who gave a lecture on the theme of behind-the-scenes of 'Apex Legends' animation, shared the process of how animation is made based on their respective fields. In particular, the process of 1st-person view model animator Haydn Cooper filming reference videos received the most attention that day.

The secret to first-person animation is a cell phone in your mouth?

Haydn Cooper, animator, introduced the process of creating first-person perspective animations. Among them, 'Apex Legends' puts a lot of animator's effort into the 'Hero Weapons', which are melee weapons containing the legends' stories. Haydn Cooper is in charge of the legend's view model (referring to elements involved in the first-person perspective, such as shoulders, fingers, weapons, and cameras) according to these hero weapons and skills.

First, he started his lecture by saying that the animator team occupies a fairly unique position within Respawn Entertainment. It is common for the animator's role to begin once all planning stages are finalized, but he explained that Respawn Entertainment has active collaboration between departments, and feedback can be exchanged with any desired department at any time without a flow based on hierarchy.

Along with this, he introduced the laser edge, the hero weapon of the most recently worked on legend 'Fuse'. Collaboration with numerous departments is also involved in working on these hero weapons (animations based on them). Meetings with related departments are essential, as it is necessary to refer to various stories that only the legend has in the universe, from what kind of object best represents the legend's characteristics. What appeared through that process was a guitar-shaped hero weapon, and a guitar pick with the concept that Bloodhound gave it as a gift was included to show the bond with another legend, Bloodhound.

After the concept and weapon appearance are decided, it is time to create the animation. Haydn Cooper continued to explain the process of how the animation is completed, using the situation when he was producing the laser edge's weapon inspection animation as an example. It is also essential that the background and personality of the legend are well reflected.

The idea that came up was to flick the guitar pick that Bloodhound gave as a gift and catch it again to show the player that they can recognize it well. Before moving it to animation, he explained that he goes through the process of taking an actual video and using it as a reference video, and he directly showed how he takes reference videos himself. That is, filming with a cell phone 'in his mouth'.

Due to the nature of first-person animation, which requires the use of both hands, it is very difficult to hold the camera alone. However, it is burdensome to buy expensive equipment. Haydn Cooper made reference videos by attaching a grip tok to a cheap phone case and filming the video by putting it in his mouth. And the result was quite complete.

The next example is when 'Revenant', who had been abandoned by players with a low pick rate of 2%, was being reworked. As it was a complete rework, the appearance of the ultimate was also changed, and the motion of the new ultimate was inspired in many ways by the 'Hunter' from Left 4 Dead. Haydn Cooper wanted to apply the zombie's unique creaking joint animation to Revenant, and for this, he put his cell phone in his mouth again.

In the case of ultimates, various animations are required depending on the location of use, surrounding opponents, and additional actions. Even while Revenant is taking a pose with both hands, each animation is required when running, sliding, or sitting. According to Haydn Cooper, the process of creating animation requires countless repetitions, and only when all the details are completed can you enjoy the glory of being applied to the main server.

It takes a whole village to make one animation?

Last year, 2023, was a year in which a lot of effort was made to continue the story based on the universe within 'Apex Legends'. Within Respawn, 2023 was even named 'Year of Story'.

The largest story-related events were the 'Kill Code' series produced as short animations, the in-game cinematics based on them, and the player event centered on the legend 'Loba'. Minor Gaytan, Lead Animator, recalled last year, which was spent with such a rich story, and shared stories about the behind-the-scenes (BTS) of the Respawn animation team.

Respawn Entertainment, which avoids top-down decision-making, is giving many people the opportunity to have a voice in the animation production process. In particular, these characteristics appear in the motion capture process, which has been playing an important role in animation production recently.

Since motion capture involves a person wearing a suit with sensors attached and filming, actors in charge of the characters and directors who direct the overall scene are all needed on site. The Respawn animator team said that they maintain very close collaboration within this and go through the process of sharing each other's ideas.

It is taken for granted in traditional filming sets that the director instructs the actors on their roles, but within the Respawn animator team, anyone can be an actor or a director. He explained that this allows them to get a glimpse of the experience of the actor wearing the sensor suit, and also has the result of further improving the sense of ownership by directly directing the scenes they are in charge of.

In particular, collaboration with other departments plays a decisive role in animation production. That is, if there is something that cannot be completed within the animator. Minor Gaytan, animator, cited the help he received from a team colleague when producing the cinematic video featuring 'Loba' as the main character, saying, "Thanks to properly drawing my dirty doodles (?), I was able to obtain high-quality results without much difficulty in the communication process."

Webzine Inven김규만 기자
2024-03-19