牧游社 牧有漢化翻譯

Stellaris Dev Diary #231 - Aquatics Portraits and Art

MrFreake_PDX, Colonel

Hi! My name is Fenni and I’m an Art Producer for Stellaris.

嗨！我叫Fenni，是Stellaris的一名藝術(shù)制作人。

Today, I will talk a bit about our art processes and give you a little behind-the-scenes look at how our amazing team of artists worked when creating the Aquatics species!

今天，我將談一談我們的美工制作流程，從幕后的角度給你們看看我們了不起的美工團(tuán)隊(duì)在創(chuàng)造水生生物物種時(shí)是如何工作的！。

Exploring the narrative

探索敘事

When creating a new species, we first start by exploring the theme, story and narrative of the species. When creating a character inspired by an existing animal, we also first explore why this animal looks the way it does and what specific characteristics we can identify. How did the animal evolve to look like this? How has the environment it lives in shaped it's appearance and behaviour? This helps us understand what elements and why something looks and feels the way it does, and we can use it as inspiration for creating an alien species.

當(dāng)創(chuàng)造一個(gè)新的物種時(shí)，我們首先從探索該物種的主題、故事和敘事開始。當(dāng)創(chuàng)造一個(gè)受現(xiàn)有動(dòng)物啟發(fā)的角色時(shí)，我們也會(huì)首先探索為什么這種動(dòng)物看起來是這樣的，以及我們可以識(shí)別哪些具體的特征。這個(gè)動(dòng)物是如何進(jìn)化成這個(gè)樣子的？它所處的環(huán)境如何塑造了它的外觀和行為？這有助于我們了解為什么某樣?xùn)|西或某種元素會(huì)有這樣的外觀和觀感，之后我們可以把它作為創(chuàng)造一個(gè)外星物種的靈感。

For example, we can start by exploring the deep sea as a source of inspiration. Our team of artists start by looking at what common identifiers can be found in deep sea creatures, and what emotions they convey. This helps us create a strong narrative. We always explore several different narratives and sources of inspiration, and we use these to create unique characters.

例如，我們可以探索深海來作為靈感的來源。我們的美工團(tuán)隊(duì)首先研究在深海生物中可以找到哪些共同的特征，以及它們所傳達(dá)的“情感”。這有助于我們創(chuàng)造一個(gè)強(qiáng)有力的敘事。我們總是探索幾種不同的敘事以及靈感來源，并利用它們來創(chuàng)造獨(dú)特的人物。

Below is an example of one of these narrative explorations, when our artists explored the deep sea:

下面是其中一個(gè)敘事性探索的例子，當(dāng)時(shí)我們的藝美工團(tuán)隊(duì)探索了深海：

Here our amazing artists defined some identifiers and shared visuals between deep sea creatures, and what emotions they convey. This helps us understand how we can create unique species that also clearly tells the story of a "deep sea dweller".
這里，我們了不起的美工們定義了深海生物之間的一些特征和共有的視覺特性，以及它們所傳達(dá)出的情感。這有助于我們了解如何創(chuàng)造出獨(dú)特的物種并清晰地講述一個(gè)“深海住民”的故事。

After identifying these kinds of themes, materials, and narratives, our team uses it to create individual characters.

在確定了這些主題、材料和敘事之后，我們的團(tuán)隊(duì)用它來創(chuàng)造一個(gè)個(gè)的角色。

Telling a story with visuals

用視覺講故事

While we always make sure to stay true to the overall theme of the species, we also focus on making sure each character is unique and tells their own story, conveying a range of different emotions using their visual language. Small changes in a character's design, shape, silhouette can help convey completely different emotions and characteristics. As an example of how we explore how positions, silhouettes and shapes convey different emotions, let's have a look at the exploration process for creating one of our new aliens!

雖然我們總是確保忠于物種的整體主題，我們也同時(shí)專注于保證每個(gè)角色都是講述他們自己故事的獨(dú)特個(gè)體，用他們的視覺語言傳達(dá)一系列不同的情感。一個(gè)角色的設(shè)計(jì)、形狀、輪廓的微小變化可能會(huì)協(xié)助傳達(dá)出完全不同的情感和特征。作為我們?nèi)绾翁剿魑恢?、輪廓和形狀如何傳達(dá)不同情緒的例子，讓我們來看看創(chuàng)造我們的一個(gè)新外星物種的探索過程！

This is an exploration of an alien which was based on crustaceans:

這是對(duì)一個(gè)以甲殼類動(dòng)物為基礎(chǔ)的外星物種的探索：

Made by art director Frida Eriksson and artist Emma Jonsson
由藝術(shù)總監(jiān)Frida Eriksson和美工Emma Jonsson制作

As you can see, the artists explored several different uses of poses and silhouettes to convey a range of emotions. This is important to explore at the beginning of the species creation process, to make sure we create a cohesive visual language that’s in line with the emotion and story we want the character to convey.

如你所見，美工團(tuán)隊(duì)探索了幾種不同的姿勢(shì)和輪廓剪影的使用以傳達(dá)一系列的情緒。這在物種創(chuàng)造過程的開始階段就非常重要，這樣可以確保我們能夠創(chuàng)造出一種統(tǒng)一的視覺語言，與我們希望角色所傳達(dá)的情感和故事相一致。

After our artists have settled on a narrative and direction for a species, they start sketching up some more defined concepts.

在我們的美工確定了一個(gè)物種的敘事和方向后，他們開始勾畫一些更精細(xì)的概念設(shè)計(jì)。

Concepting

概念設(shè)計(jì)

During the concepting phase, the artists explore a lot of different directions before settling on a design that conveys the right visuals and story. Let's look at another example!

在概念設(shè)計(jì)階段，美工團(tuán)隊(duì)在確定一個(gè)能傳達(dá)正確的視覺效果和故事的設(shè)計(jì)之前，會(huì)探索很多不同的方向。讓我們來看看另一個(gè)例子！

Below we have some detailed explorations of a squid-like species.

下面我們對(duì)一個(gè)類烏賊的物種進(jìn)行了一些詳細(xì)的探索。

Like mentioned before, we first decide what narrative and emotions we base our characters on. For our Squidbert here, our artists wanted the species to specifically convey three different emotions; Enigmatic, Friendly and Hyper-intelligent.

就像之前提到的，我們首先要決定我們的角色是基于什么樣的敘事和情感。對(duì)于我們這里的烏賊哥而言，我們的美工希望這個(gè)物種能夠具體地傳達(dá)三種不同的情緒：神秘的、友好的和超智能的。

Made by art director Frida Eriksson and artist Emma Jonsson
由藝術(shù)總監(jiān)Frida Eriksson和美工Emma Jonsson制作

Several different directions are explored before deciding on a final design.Our artists did a fantastic job with exploring how to convey that this species fits the narrative described before - enigmatic, friendly and hyper-intelligent.

在決定最終設(shè)計(jì)之前，我們探索了幾個(gè)不同的方向。我們的美工在探索如何傳達(dá)出“這個(gè)物種符合前描述的敘事”這方面做得非常好——神秘、友好和超智能。

Rendering

渲染

After creating the final design, our artists get to work with creating a render and adding some values and more details to the design. During this stage, the artist needs to work out the light and shadows. They also need to add more detailed materials.

在最終設(shè)計(jì)完成后，我們的美工開始進(jìn)行制作渲染的工作，并為設(shè)計(jì)添加一些具體數(shù)值和更多的細(xì)節(jié)。在這個(gè)階段，美工需要解決光線和陰影的問題。他們還需要添加更精確的材質(zhì)。

Let's take a look at our Aquatic Machine Portrait for an example of what a final concept design looks like, and what it looks like after the first step in the rendering process!

讓我們來看看我們的水生機(jī)械人畫像，看看最終的概念設(shè)計(jì)是什么樣子的，以及在渲染過程的第一步之后是什么樣子的！

Made by art director Frida Eriksson and artist Emma Jonsson
由藝術(shù)總監(jiān)Frida Eriksson和美工Emma Jonsson制作

To the left, you can see the final design and thumbnail. To the right, you can see the rendered version with added values - showing a lot more detail when it comes to lights, shadows and materials.

在左邊，你可以看到最終的設(shè)計(jì)和縮略圖。在右邊，你可以看到添加了數(shù)值的渲染版本——當(dāng)涉及到燈光、陰影和材料時(shí)，它可以顯示更多的細(xì)節(jié)。

Colorizing & Refining

著色與潤(rùn)色

After that is done, our artists need to refine the rendering and add some colour variations! Our artists take very careful considerations with what colors to use. It all needs to fit the overall theme and connect to the narrative! The species design needs a narrative red thread through all steps from start to finish, and color variations play an important role in that.

在渲染之后，我們的美工需要細(xì)化渲染，并添加一些顏色的變化！我們的美工會(huì)非常仔細(xì)地考慮使用什么顏色。這一切都需要符合整體的主題，并與敘事相聯(lián)系！物種設(shè)計(jì)需要一條貫穿從開始到結(jié)束所有步驟的敘事準(zhǔn)繩，而色彩變化在這其中起著重要作用。

Made by art director Frida Eriksson and artist Emma Jonsson
由藝術(shù)總監(jiān)Frida Eriksson和美工Emma Jonsson制作

Our incredibly talented artists spent a lot of time polishing the colours. They used colors and materials found in our oceans as a main source of inspiration, to make sure even the color variations were aligned with our overall theme.

我們才華橫溢的美工團(tuán)隊(duì)花了很多時(shí)間來打磨這些顏色。他們把在海洋中發(fā)現(xiàn)的顏色和材質(zhì)作為主要的靈感來源，以確保即使是顏色變化也與我們的整體主題相一致。

After this, our artists spend some additional time refining the render and making sure it looks good in-game.

在這之后，我們的美工會(huì)花一些額外的時(shí)間來完善渲染，確保它在游戲中看起來不錯(cuò)。

Here are some final in-game versions of the portraits I talked about in this diary!

這里有一些我在這篇日志中提到的人物肖像的最終游戲內(nèi)版本！

What's next?

接下來是什么？

After all that, we're not quite done yet! We still need to create some clothes for the characters, and most importantly - we need to bring them to life by animating them!

除了之前說過的那些，我們還沒有結(jié)束！我們依舊需要為人物創(chuàng)造一些衣服，以及最重要的——我們需要讓他們動(dòng)起來！

Continue reading and our amazing animator Hanna will walk you through that process..

接下來，我們超棒的動(dòng)畫制作者Hanna將帶你了解這一過程。

And portraits and characters aren't the only thing our artists have worked on for the Aquatic Species Pack - they've also done quite a bit of other illustrations as well! Nico, our fantastic 2D artist, will show you how he created a new illustration for an event chain in the game further down.

我們的美工不只為水生生物物種包創(chuàng)造了肖像和人物——他們同時(shí)也畫了許多其它的插圖！?Nico，我們神奇的2D美工，將告訴你們他是怎么為未來的游戲中的一個(gè)事件鏈創(chuàng)造新的插圖的。

I hope you had fun reading a bit about the process of how species are made! It has been an absolute pleasure to work with this team of incredible artists, and I’m so excited to get to share some of their work with you all.

我希望你們能開心地了解新的物種是如何被創(chuàng)建的！毫無疑問，能與一組極其優(yōu)秀的美工一起工作是一種榮幸，我也非常激動(dòng)能夠給你們分享一些他們的工作。

Portraits & Animation

肖像和動(dòng)畫

And now it's time for some portraits and specifically portrait animations. My name is Hanna Johansson and I did the animations for the aquatic species pack.

是時(shí)候介紹肖像和肖像動(dòng)畫了。我是Hanna Johansson，我為水生生物物種包制作了這些動(dòng)畫。

So when the portraits land in my lap this is kind of what they look like; a dissected version of the original concept. This is called a paper doll. For me to be able to animate the portrait the artists need to chop the portrait up into smaller pieces that I turn into individual meshes. Sounds brutal I know, but I promise you that they feel no pain and the other part of my job is to patch them up again. Next, I add some nice topology so that the character will deform in a good-looking way.

這是當(dāng)肖像們被傳到我手里的時(shí)候的樣子：一個(gè)原始概念的分解版。它被稱為紙娃娃。為了讓我能夠制作動(dòng)畫，美工們必須把肖像砍開成小碎片，我會(huì)把這些碎片轉(zhuǎn)換成獨(dú)立的網(wǎng)格結(jié)構(gòu)。我知道這聽起來很殘忍，但我保證你不會(huì)感到痛苦，因?yàn)槲业牧硪徊糠止ぷ骶褪前阉鼈冎匦缕礈愒谝黄?。接下來，我?huì)運(yùn)用一點(diǎn)美妙的拓?fù)鋵W(xué)，使人物的動(dòng)作看起來更好。

The next step is to place the meshes so that the character becomes whole again, now shark boy feels much better. Next, I add the skeleton. I place the joints where I want the character to bend or deform to make the character come alive as much as possible. One thing that I do before skinning is placing controls by all the joints. I personally don't like to animate directly on the joints because they don't have zero transformation values. By adding controls and constraining them to the joints I have a clean slate to put my keyframes on. Once I've added the controls, I skin the meshes to the joints and bada bing, bada boom, the rig is complete!

下一步是把網(wǎng)格結(jié)構(gòu)拼在一起，使人物重新組合成一個(gè)整體，現(xiàn)在鯊魚仔看起來更不錯(cuò)了。接下來，我添加骨架。我把拼接點(diǎn)放在那些我希望人物能夠彎曲或運(yùn)動(dòng)的地方，盡可能使它們更生動(dòng)。在組裝皮膚之前，我會(huì)先為所有拼接點(diǎn)添加控制模塊。我本人不喜歡通過直接控制拼接點(diǎn)來制作動(dòng)畫，因?yàn)樗鼈兊奈恢貌皇枪潭ǖ?。通過為拼接點(diǎn)添加控制模塊，我可以在更明確的模版上添加關(guān)鍵幀。當(dāng)我添加完控制模塊之后，我把這些網(wǎng)格結(jié)構(gòu)貼在拼接點(diǎn)上作為皮膚，然后噼里啪啦嘭，安裝完成！

Mesh placement, joint placement and adding controls

網(wǎng)格結(jié)構(gòu)放置，拼接點(diǎn)放置和控制模塊添加。

Now it's time for the fun stuff: Animation. When it came to animating the aquatic portraits I really wanted to capture the feeling of characters being underwater. I added a lot of slow and flowy movements and looked at some cool references, like videos of fabric moving underwater and of course, a lot of fish videos. For the portraits we create about 3-5 idles that the characters can switch between. This is so that the movements don't become too repetitive and it also gives an opportunity to create an idle that's more reactive or moves a lot more, but doesn't play as often, so it becomes distracting.

是時(shí)候講講有趣的東西了：讓畫動(dòng)起來。當(dāng)我動(dòng)畫化水生生物肖像的時(shí)候，我希望能捕捉到這些生物在水下時(shí)的那種感覺。我添加了大量慢及飄忽的動(dòng)作，并參考了許多很酷的東西，比如編織物在水下移動(dòng)的視頻，當(dāng)然還有一大堆關(guān)于魚的視頻。我們?yōu)檫@些肖像創(chuàng)造了大概3-5種晃悠的方式，肖像會(huì)在它們之間切換。這是為了不讓肖像的運(yùn)動(dòng)看起來過于重復(fù)。同時(shí)它也使（我們）可以去創(chuàng)造一種更有活性或晃動(dòng)更多的晃悠的方式，當(dāng)然這種方式不會(huì)經(jīng)常出現(xiàn)，否則會(huì)分散注意力。

To finish off, I'll show you my top 3 animations that I did for aquatics. These were the ones I found the most fun to animate and made me feel the most inspired when I saw the design of them.

作為結(jié)束，我會(huì)給你們展示我最喜歡的三個(gè)水生生物動(dòng)畫。這些是我覺得在動(dòng)畫化的時(shí)候最有趣的，而且在看到它們的設(shè)計(jì)的時(shí)候我覺得最有靈感。

https://vimeo.com/586654802/1e2cc81483

https://vimeo.com/563610785/c81a23ac28

https://vimeo.com/639153186/ec93df53cf

2D Art

2D 美工

Hi!

大家好！

My name is Nicolas Lennman and I am a UI/2D artist working on the Aquatic species pack. In this dev diary I will show you a rough process of how we approach the making of event images for Stellaris.

我是Nicolas Lennman，我是制作水生生物物種包的一名UI/2D美工。在這個(gè)日志里我會(huì)展示制作Stellaris事件插圖的大致的過程。

Starting off we (the artists that is) are handed a short brief of what kind of story the event image will try to convey. In this case, we have the new aquatic space dragon which is looming out in space.

我們會(huì)收到一個(gè)關(guān)于事件插圖需要去展示什么故事的簡(jiǎn)要概述。在這個(gè)例子里，是一條慢慢從陰森的太空中出現(xiàn)的新的水生生物太空巨龍。

The very first step to creating a more elaborate illustration like this is to create a bunch of simple composition sketches. Just to get a good idea of the basic layout of the illustration, where are the major shapes and values placed. Most of the time one would make a bunch of these quick iterations and pick out the best one.

在第一步制作一個(gè)像這個(gè)一樣的更詳細(xì)的插圖之前，我們需要先創(chuàng)造一些簡(jiǎn)單的組合草圖。這一步只是為了獲得一個(gè)更好的基礎(chǔ)構(gòu)圖，比如在哪放置主要物體和亮度數(shù)值。在絕大多數(shù)情況下，我們會(huì)快速地制作一些這樣的簡(jiǎn)單草圖并選擇最好的那一張。

The next step is to draw the illustration. For me personally, spending quite some time here really helps in the next few steps of the painting. Luckily for me in this case I had a lot of great references to work from provided by our great concept artists and 3D-artists

下一步是為這個(gè)插圖勾線。對(duì)我來說，在這一步花費(fèi)一定的時(shí)間可以幫助接下來幾步的繪畫。幸運(yùn)的是，對(duì)于當(dāng)前這個(gè)要求，我有一大堆由我們非常棒的概念美工和3D美工提供的非常棒的參考。

The third step is to make a black&white render. This is to flesh out the shapes and areas of light and shadow. Some artists refer to this workflow as an "occlusion pass".

第三步是制作一個(gè)黑白陰影圖。這是為了讓形狀和明暗變得更充實(shí)。一些美工稱之為“阻塞通道”。

In the next, fourth step, I apply the general colors on top of the previous occlusion pass. Here I spend some time making sure to find nice color compositions and colors that compliment each other. Like in this case how the blue/green of the dragon compliments the red/purple of the background.

接下來第四步，我為之前的阻塞通道（黑白陰影圖）大致上了一些顏色。在這一步我花了一些時(shí)間去確保尋找到合適的顏色組合以及顏色互補(bǔ)。就像這幅圖里一樣，龍的藍(lán)/綠色與背景的紅/紫色互補(bǔ)。

The final fifth step is by far the step that takes the most time. It's the refining stage where all the details, effects and major lights are added. It seems like quite the large leap from the previous stages, but these were crucial to have an easy transition into this stage. The last step is to adjust the values and colors and make sure the illustration really pops!

最后第五步，是目前為止要花最多時(shí)間的一步。這是添加細(xì)節(jié)，效果和主要打光的精修的一步?？雌饋黼y度與之前的階段相比有很大的提升，但那些之前的階段對(duì)于簡(jiǎn)單地進(jìn)入這一階段來說是非常重要的。最后一步是調(diào)整數(shù)值和顏色來保證這張插圖的沖擊力！

Thanks for reading! Wishlist the Aquatics Species Pack on Steam!

感謝閱讀！快在Steam上把水生生物物種包列入愿望單吧！

翻譯：Frost qqqqyyy

校對(duì)：一水戰(zhàn)阿部熊 三等文官猹中堂

歡迎關(guān)注UP主和主播小牧Phenix！

歡迎關(guān)注牧游社微信公眾號(hào)和知乎專欄！微信公眾號(hào)改版為信息流，歡迎【置頂訂閱】不迷路，即時(shí)獲得推送消息！

B站在關(guān)注分組中設(shè)置為【特別關(guān)注】，將會(huì)在私信內(nèi)及時(shí)收到視頻和專欄投稿的推送！

歡迎加入牧有漢化，致力于為玩家社群提供優(yōu)質(zhì)內(nèi)容！組員急切募集中！測(cè)試群組822400145!?