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Corinth said:Famitsu Xbox 360 Magazine has started to print another set of interviews with the FFXI team as part of their “Behind the Scenes of Vana’diel” series. The latest set is with the Effects Team. This is the first part in a 3 part series.
One of the things I really noticed in this interview was how cheerful and upbeat they all sound. The leader of the group, Yuuko Hatae, is very energetic when she speaks and uses a lot of emotion or describing her feelings at the time. It’s a little hard to translate but I enjoyed reading it.
Without further ado, here’s the first part of the interview!
The Job of the Effects Team (Part 1) The Effects Team makes every single effect in FFXI, from magic and job abilities to the cloud of dust behind a running chocobo. They are an indispensable team, needed to make the world of Vana’diel come alive. In this first part of the interview, we learn exactly what they are responsible for, the process they go through for making effects, and so on. The Effects team is made up of Yuuko Hatae, Kouji Tsutsui, and Yuuko Tashiro.
——————–[What the Effect Team Does]——————– –To start, please tell us in detail about what the Effects Team does.
Hatae: When you think of effects, you begin to picture showy special moves or beautiful magic, right? The Effects Team for FFXI is actually divided into two large teams. The Battle Effects Team handles things that happen in battle or during cut scenes. The BG (Background) Effects Team is responsible for things like backgrounds, the weather, etc. If you see animals or something moving as part of the background, that’s also something that was made by the Effects Team.
–By BG, you mean the background scenery?
Hatae: That’s right. Anything that goes with the background or the things that the user can always see. It’s in contrast with battle effects or cut scenes that disappear… or maybe it’s more like things that quickly appear on the screen and then disappear right away. Battle effects aren’t constantly visible. We’re also responsible for little details, like small props used in cut scenes.
–Can you give us an example?
Hatae: Well, recently, there was that thing (laughs) that Areuhat eats during the quest “Beast from the East”.
–The way it moved was really disgusting but really amazing!
Hatae: We can morph things easily using effects which lets us move things complement to each other. As another example, there is a mission for Wings of the Goddess that involves beastcoins or lynx meat, etc, which have been in the game as items but not as objects. We were asked to create those objects for the mission. The ferns Lilisette wears were also made by us.
–Ah, you are talking about the scene where you are trying to catch Cait Sith by hiding in the bushes.
Hatae: Yes. We were asked “Can you make something like this?” so I replied “Well… we can but…” and this is how it turned out. (laughs) We can make those sorts of things by using effects as well. The Effects Team is really the group that does a lot of odd jobs. (laughs) If it’s something that really needs to be made as an object, there is a process where the Model Team creates a basic model, the Texture Team draws in the additional textures and details, and that becomes the skeleton used to add motion effects and become registered in the game software as an object. For things that don’t really need all of that, the Effects Team can create something simple that gets the job done. If you see a piece of furniture or equipment that glows or something, that is also an effect.
–So like the moving propellers on the model Airship?
Hatae: Exactly. Anything that moves but doesn’t need a skeleton to manage movement can generally be handled by effects.
–Does the size of an object affect whether it needs a skeleton or not for movement?
Hatae: It’s not so much the size as it is the type of movement. For example, if it’s just something that rotates, it’s better to take care of it with effects. The gates for Assault and other things that can be treated like NPCs are also made by the Effects Team. By the way, furniture, NPCs, and other things that have parts that don’t move and are opaque are not made by the Effects Team. We ask the Model and Texture Teams and they make them based on our request. The Effects Team is asked to make things that move or shine, but in those cases, whoever is making the request, like for a background, checks things over very carefully. Sometimes when an object has effects added to it, the Model and Texture Teams also has to make changes to make sure it all matches well. The person in charge of backgrounds is very strict, checking for things like coloring and brightness, because those things are always on the screen.
Tsutsui: We also made the title logos and things like that.
Tashiro: Like for the Chocobo Races.
Tsutsui: We have to make them for 4 different languages: Japanese, English, German, and French.
Hatae: For anything that is displayed in the game in Japanese, we also have to make it in the 3 other languages. Requests for new status icons are also often made to the Effects Team for some reason. (laughs) Things relating to the User Interface and menus are handled by Producer Tanaka though. The status icons made by the Effects Team are the ones you see at the top of your screen.
–How can I put this… you really handle a variety of things.
Hatae: It’s all the odd jobs. (laughs)
Tsutsui: Kind of like “well, we don’t know what to do with this so…. let’s pass it to the Effects Team”. (laughs)
–How many people are on the Effects Team?
Hatae: Right now it’s the 3 of us.
–Can you tell us in detail what the 3 of you are each in charge of?
Hatae: The battle effects aren’t really handled by any one person. For backgrounds, we decide who will be in charge of each area and that person is responsible for all the effects needed there. We only use one effect designer per area so that the scenery has a uniform look to it.
Tsutsui: Lately, the three of us have been diving the work between us.
–For a game of this scale, I was expecting there would be more people.
Hatae: It’s been the three of us since around the latter part of production for WotG.
–Was the team larger before?
Hatae: No…. It’s always been around 3 to 4 members with people changing positions.
–How long has each of you been on the FFXI team?
Tashiro: I started when Treasures of Aht Urhgan was about halfway completed and just a bit after that, Tsutsui joined the team.
Tsutsui: Before I started working on FFXI, I was working on Kingdom Hearts 2 FINAL MIX.
Tashiro: As soon as I finished training after starting to work for Square Enix, I started to work on FFXI.
Hatae: I was on the team when FFXI first came online. From then, I continued to work on Rise of the Zilart until I was taken off the team to work on FFXII instead. After that was finished, I came back to FFXI. (laughs) So really I was only gone for the period surrounding Chains of Promathia.
–When you divvy up the work, do you decide who is in charge of each part by skill or something else?
Hatae: Sometimes we do that but other times it’s more like “Who’s up for a challenge?”. (laughs)
Tsutsui: There are sometimes though where Tashiro and I will talk together and try to push a project onto our leader (Hatae). (laughs)
——————–[How Do You Make Effects?]——————–
–What is the process you go through for making effects? Do you sketch out your ideas ahead of time?
Hatae: I usually piece it together in my head. If I do a rough sketch, it’s more like scribbles.
Tsutsui: They definitely aren’t the kinds of pictures you’d want to show anybody. (laughs)
Hatae: You have to think about the sequence of events for effects, so when you put one together, you have to think about how it will change.
Tsutsui: When we actually start to work on something on the computer, we use a lot of material that we already have available to us and start mixing things together. It’s like your ingredients when cooking. Maybe add a ring here, use some graduated lighting there, and when it’s finished, have some little particles fly out.
Tashiro: We use a lot of those little building blocks to make one effect. For even a hit you only see for a split second, there are actually many textures involved.
Hatae: As you build, you examine your work and if a part doesn’t quite fit, you trade it out for something else and keep working in that fashion. I think it’s like an orchestral score. You move different parts around from here to there, lining them up in sequence.
–It probably depends a bit on the type as well but on average, how long does it take to finish one effect?
Tsutsui: We have to get things checked, so it probably gets checked a total of 3 or 4 times and takes about 3 days all together. There are times where you can finish something in a day though.
Tashiro: If it’s really simple and you work hard, you can finish it in a day. I’m probably the slowest out of everyone. (laughs)
Tsutsui: For a big move, it can take 3 to 4 days.
–Are you pretty busy before a large version update?
Tashiro: It gets real busy all at once.
Hatae: If you put everything you need to get done on a list, you start thinking “Ahhh, I need to do this and that still….” (laughs)
Tashiro: The moves that NPCs use are really hard.
–Are you referring to the moves used by the commanding NPCs during campaign battles recently? There’s Uriel Blade and such. (laughs)
Tsutsui: That’s a move with a little story to it. (laughs) I put a little extra effort into making it so I was really glad when I got a positive response from people about it. Hatae gave me the green light to do it. (laughs)
Hatae: It just seemed that if he was going to be flying, then maybe he should sprout wings or something. (laughs)
–It was really surprising. When I saw it, I thought “I want that move!”
Tsutsui: It was first called “Holy Blade”. However, after looking at the finished product, it got renamed to Uriel Blade.
Hatae: There are many times where the name of a move is changed during that time between when the request is made to when the effect is completed. Items aren’t the only things that start off nameless when requests are made. Almost all moves end up with a different name from the original official name. For example, “Saber Dance” and “Fan Dance” were recently added for Dancer. When the request first came in, one of them was named “Shield Dance”, so I built an effect that used shields. However, right before our deadline, I was checking to make sure the effect was okay on our internal server and saw that the name had been changed to “Fan Dance”! I had to scramble to change the image into a fan because I knew I couldn’t keep it the way it was.
——————–[The Effects of Special Abilities Made By Predictions!?]——————–
–When you think of battle effects, magic and special abilities come straight to mind. Can you tell us what you aim for when making them?
Tsutsui: It’s like the incarnation of some phenomenon. (laughs) The effects are to show you in picture form what happens when you use an ability.
Hatae: That goes for magic, job abilities, weapon skills, or moves used by monster. Also, monsters fall into this category too, but we also work on the movement of NPCs who are on your side.
–I imagine the motions for special moves are made by another team. Do you look at those and then try to come up with an image for the effect?
Tsutsui: There are also times when we try to predict what the motion will be and make an effect.
Tashiro: We use both of those ways.
Hatae: Sometimes if the motion isn’t completed yet, we’ll work on an effect and then try later to match it to the movement. For special moves done by monsters, they each have their own special motion so when a request comes into the Effects Team, it will come with a brief description like “attacks X times with claws” or something. The request goes to the Motion Team and the Effects Team at the same time. The Motion Team starts to work on the motions and about at that same time we work on the effect. So when the effect is pretty much put together, we try to match it up with the finished motion but sometimes it’s completely different! (laughs)
Tashiro: That happens a lot, doesn’t it. (laughs)
Tsutsui: There are a lot of times where we have had to remake things.
Tashiro: Out of the things I’ve created… there is a Vampyr family of monsters with a special move where they flap their wings. I made a windy sort of effect to go with it but when the motion was completed, it was completely different from what I had imagined and the way the wings moved was totally different too. I had to redo all of the wind.
–You put all that hard work into it. That’s kind of sad considering there are few chances to face Vampire type monsters. Are there any effects you think would be better if they had been done differently? For example, maybe an effect you made before and now thinking back on it you wish you could have done something else…
Tashiro: I have lots of those! I look at them and think “ahh…. If I had made it with the skills I have now, it would ook a little bit cooler…”. (laughs) The Vampires were done when I first started, so actually, I don’t really want people to look at them very much. (laughs)
Tsutsui: The Vampyr were made when we first started working for the FFXI Team.
Hatae: I wish I could re-do all of those things I made a long time ago. I don’t even want to look at them. (laughs) Game creation is a fight against time, however, there are many times where I feel if I had more time, I would get completely absorbed into making an effect.
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