Dragon Age: The Veilguard is an immersive single-player RPG where you become the leader others believe in. When a pair of corrupt ancient gods break free from centuries of darkness, the vibrant land of Thedas needs someone they can count on. Rise as Rook, Dragon Age's newest hero, and unite your team of unique and charming companions to face the gods.
I assisted on the game for 2 years and 9 months. My primary objective shifted multiple times over the past few years, starting with world animation, which meant animating ambient creatures and moments that were featured in gameplay rather than a cinematic. After a year, I moved to work on systemic conversations, utilizing some of the work my fellow world animators worked on. Then, as we closed out the project, I was assigned to helping out with custom cinematics.
- animated creatures both featured heavily, such as Assan, and those who fit into the background, such as cats and birds
- created an action station for Morrigan and assisted on many others
- created the animation for the emotion system that is present on all NPCs in game
- Leading and helped other contracted animators learn the pipeline
- integration of cine scenes from Maya to Frostbite
- playtesting and fixing bugs
- trying my best to be creative and spontaneous !
Systemics
Systemics are conversations that use many automated systems from the character animations to the emotion and camera systems. Throughout the process, we place the characters, place the cameras and tell them who to look at, and when they are activated. We do control specific things to each character, the timing and intensity of emotions, picking out specific gestures and lining them up for emphasis, and where to look, whether off to the side or down at someone's lips. We control how long a shot is and the space in between lines, both cut off and space to breathe. Complications come from having only one camera to look at Rook, when they could be any race, and any height, but it was fun to take them on. I really enjoyed pushing the medium and creating interesting shots and concepts in order to keep these lively.
Music: Rusu's Council by Theophany
Cinematics
I integrated full scenes, including animated characters, props, and cameras, and took them into Frostbite, while also fiddling in the engine to make sure the scene has all the proper requirements to look great. While I mostly looked into and fixed various bugs, I also headed the animation side of creating seamless transitions from cinematic to gameplay.
World Animation
When I initially started on the project, I focused more on my role as an animator on World Animation, aka ambient animation and that are typically featured in game and do not have a specific camera or are almost invisible to the player. I break it down into three categories, action stations (sets of animations to use on characters during conversations and in game moments), emotions (creating 10-25 base emotion loops to also call systemically), and ambient moments (such as an unique ghoul thief running away from the player).
