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It's been 1 1 year. Why did the ghost story of New Female Ghost last so long?

The following article is from Netease Lei Huo Art Center and written by Lei Huo Art Center.

Author | New Ghost Story Ghost Story Main Beauty

From Lei Huo Art Center.

It has been 1 1 year since the ghost story was born, which is really an amazing achievement. Don't say it's in the MMORPG field, even if you look at the whole market, it's hard to have such an evergreen game.

So, what is the secret of Thousand Girls' enduring for more than ten years? I think besides planning and marketing, students are constantly injecting new plots, new activities and new gameplay, and our efforts at the art level are also very important. After all, for an MMO like "Qiannv", if there is not enough expressive force, the player's sense of substitution will be greatly reduced.

Looking back on the exploration of art in the past ten years, I think the most effective method is actually the linkage and iteration of art. In this process, we have also stepped on many pits. Let me summarize it for you here, hoping to help you.

I. Cases of restoring contact

In the development of Ghost Story, there have been many IP linkages, which often bring a lot of new vitality to the game.

There are also some laws in each linkage: national style and innovation, content rejuvenation and product innovation. Especially in recent years, the national trend is very popular among young users. The reason why young people are so partial to national culture and innovation lies not only in the sense of belonging brought by China culture, but also in the fact that a large number of entertainment works in recent years are trying to show the charm of China culture in a brand-new way of expression. Familiar topics such as martial arts fantasy, historical allusions, myths and legends often have many new deconstructions and interpretations. In recent two years, domestic animated films, such as Nezha produced by Striped House film, Catching Light Animation produced by Warner Bros. and White Snake: The Origin, are good examples.

The linkage with 20 16 hit drama Love O2O is also a good example. Moreover, we don't simply implant linked IP elements or costume props in the game, but let the ghost story of the new ghost story become the virtual world architecture of love O2O. Not only will the plot promotion of TV series focus on the game, but we will also launch the expansion of the TV series "Laughing the Whole City" in the game, which will realize the double linkage of film and video and games, and provide an opportunity for "The Ghost Story of the New Ghost Woman" to reach contemporary pan-entertainment users. The hot search index soared, bringing many new players, and also successfully using the young and trendy version of the content to stimulate the vitality of the game.

However, in this case, the cooperation in art actually encountered some difficulties. For example, we lacked a lot of experience in docking with film and television crews from the beginning. In the past, art students' understanding of film art could only be said to be superficial, and they felt that painting an atmosphere was high-end. However, many problems often need to be considered when it is actually applied to film and television production. For example, the settings of some clothes and games are very different. If props and costumes are eventually made into real objects, the requirements for the original paintings are higher, especially the three views and details should be as detailed as possible. Some special materials and complicated details are often found to be ineffective in the process of making objects, which depends on the understanding of fabric materials, the rationality of cutting, the cost of props and other factors. Looking back now, there is still a lot of room for improvement in some settings and the physical effects of clothing at that time.

Female swordsman suit in the game

One of the shapes in the play-this set of shapes has good effect and consistent masculine temperament, but the cutting is slightly simple, lacking some patterns or embroidery embellishment.

The second style in the play-this set has been adjusted on the basis of reference setting, and some details have been removed. Relatively speaking, it is not the same as the previous set, some are bloated, and the pattern material processing is a bit stiff.

Through this cooperation with the crew, our art group has also accumulated valuable experience, and has more experience in the follow-up related aspects such as docking film and television needs and cos clothing production. In the original painting part, we made a new template, which meets the requirements of details and reasonable cutting planning, and the final physical effect will be better reflected.

Male doctor iterative modeling-Compared with the hand-painted era, more details are needed to improve the production standards and templates of the original painting, and if there are subsequent physical production requirements, it can also provide better guidance.

Male doctor iterative modeling (cos physical production)

Male Painting Soul Iterates Original Painting Modeling

Iterative modeling of male painting soul (cos physical production)

The second major problem we encounter in many linkage activities is the high cost of communication and feedback. TV plays often need a lot of in-game settings to restore the game content in the play. Then the material provided needs to be confirmed by the artist and director of the crew, and finally applied to the play. Some protagonists have to make props and costumes, and the feedback in the process should be summarized to the marketing students and then submitted to the project team. After adjustment, it should be returned to the unit according to this process ... The process of intermediate docking is complicated and there is often unclear understanding.

In this case, a better solution, in addition to maintaining timeliness and timeliness in daily communication, face-to-face communication with the crew will be more effective. Therefore, in the later cooperation, our marketing colleagues had an on-site exchange with the crew, learned about the general working methods of the crew, some of their working habits and artistic characteristics, and shared our game situation and some production experience with them, which made the subsequent online communication smoother.

In addition to smiling, 202 1, Qian Nv and White Snake Biography 2: Green Snake Robbery, marking the 10th anniversary of the linkage of national wind.

The popular character "Baoqing Zhu Fang" in the movie was implanted in the game, and the headdress, ornaments and furniture related to the character were put in. Both sides of this linkage are Guofeng IP, and the "Baoqing Workshop Owner" is really a nine-tailed fox, which also has a high degree of fit with the world view of our game. At the same time, the offline official organization "White Snake 2: Green Snake Robbery" was the world premiere "New Ghost Player Special Session" and also gained a lot of praise.

Restore the owner of Baoqing Workshop in the game.

In addition, it also includes to the sky kingdom, Catch the Demon 2, Tomb Raider Notes, Long song, etc. There are many popular IPS that are linked to ghost stories. Exploring the preferences of contemporary users, finding suitable linkage forms, stimulating players' activity and injecting long-term vitality into the game-this combination constantly gives birth to new vitality for products and attracts more new generation players to join, which is an important factor for the long-term operation of Ghost Story.

Second, artistic iterative thinking.

In previous years, the vertical painting resources were basically fine-tuned in the style of realistic thick paintings. The current drawing technique seems to be somewhat outdated, with a certain greasy effect, which is not far from the mainstream style on the market. Therefore, this iteration decided to try a new style of painting, incorporate some secondary feelings, and weaken some realistic structures and too many light and shadow depictions while retaining thick brushstrokes, so as to make the picture cleaner and fresher. In terms of recognition, for many old players who love our game, the previous version is still in the avatar part.

Comparison of vertical drawing effect between old and new versions

New paintings of female doctors

A group of protagonists

The previous version of facial portrayal (emphasizing realistic structure and light and shadow)

Facial characterization of the new vertical painting (weakening the structure and light and shadow while restoring the characteristics of the protagonist as much as possible)

Also considering the sense of substitution of old players, and considering the previous hand-painted map, we also made a new protagonist face. It should be noted that such a popular role as female doctors needs to be treated with caution when formulating and selecting plans.

Female doctors account for a very high proportion of the players in Miss Qian and play an important role in this iteration of the protagonist. If you just do an iteration, you may be spit out by old players with a high sense of substitution. Therefore, we organized four player surveys, and finally decided to restore it to the greatest extent on the basis of the previous hand-painted version, while improving the performance of details.

The suit part retains the rubbings popular in the hand-painted era, which improves the accuracy.

Comparison of in-game effects between the iterative version and the old version of Female Doctor

After the iteration plan is determined, all the protagonist suits should be remade.

New fashions made later.

In the new scene of Gankunbao, we continue to explore and improve the style of meticulous ink painting:

Xinmen Jinsha Jing

On the tenth anniversary of last year, we also held an online virtual celebration for the first time to keep the game fresh for a long time.

10th Anniversary Online Virtual Festival

The transformation scale of 466 characters and 66 scenes can be said to be equal to the workload of redoing a game. We are also very grateful to other departments for their help and guidance to the project art. At present, the iterative work of the next generation is still in progress, and many old fashions are gradually replaced by brand-new PBR materials. We are also exploring the kneading system and new model scanning technology.

Let's briefly summarize the experience of iteration:

Long-term projects such as "Thousand Girls" have accumulated many users who have feelings for the game before. The game has always been with them from school to entering the society and taking part in work, so they have deep feelings for the previous role image and the dribs and drabs of the game. In view of this feeling of the old players, we have had repeated discussions and concluded that it is obviously inappropriate to overturn the iteration across the board. Therefore, after many offline and online surveys and continuous optimization and adjustment according to suggestions, we take into account the feelings of old players in the innovation part and try to bring freshness to new players.

The art resources accumulated in more than ten years need to complete the renovation iteration of the next generation version in more than one year, which requires detailed optimization methods and priorities, focusing on making the protagonist suit, paid fashion, novice scenes and new copies, and iterating this part in the standard PBR process. For example, some large-scale main city and sect scenes that have been put into production for many years, try to make them with hand-painted to normal effects. The advantage is that you don't need to retake the model and divide the UV, you just need to redo the mapping part and add normal map and highlight map on the original basis, which saves a lot of time and ensures the smooth delivery of the version.

Old version of Hangzhou

The New Edition of Hangzhou Quyuan Fenghe

In addition to these, there is still a lot of work to be adjusted and optimized in the follow-up of art, for example, our skeletal system has not been reset due to historical reasons, and the family has not fully realized the high degree of freedom. These are our follow-up challenges. However, I firmly believe that "Thousand Girls" still has many decades waiting for us to keep our initial heart and love!