00:00Hi guys, as you know Popcogail brings food to the Blue Mountains,
00:03but he's not the only bearer of good things.
00:05I've also got something for you and it includes a big cup of hot Homecoming news!
00:09October is almost here and our 6 month deadline for Homecoming is slowly approaching.
00:13For those of you who missed the initial announcement and the Challenger No. 4 video with first details,
00:17Homecoming is a major overhaul to Gwent and we're super hyped to bring them to you soon.
00:22Firstly, let's talk launch dates.
00:23On PC, we'll be launching on GOG on October 23rd.
00:27On consoles, we need to work on the game for a short bit longer and then send the certification.
00:31So we'll be launching on the 4th of December.
00:33Sorry for this delay, but we want everything to be perfect.
00:36Plus, we'll make it up to you. Expect complimentary kegs.
00:40Okay, so now that you know the timings, let's unveil some new information about the game
00:44and have a first look on the leaders and their 3D models.
00:47Let's snap to Brad!
00:50Whoa, magic!
00:52Yep!
00:52Ready to talk Homecoming news?
00:54Yes, absolutely!
00:55So I know your favorite faction is Skoyazel.
00:58So is mine, of course.
00:59And we're here to showcase two leaders, Aethna and Filavandril, and also show the new board for Skoyazel.
01:07But before we do that, let's get into how you guys animate these things.
01:13So we know that leaders are now present on the board, they're not cards anymore.
01:18So everything starts off with the concept part, which is totally different.
01:23Is this when your team comes in and you?
01:26Yeah, we try to be involved very soon in the process.
01:29Same with VFX, same with 3D artists, because this is a very collaborative process.
01:33And the concept basically dictates how the character moves or what kind of props or abilities they might have.
01:39So it's nice.
01:41It's like we do start with a brief and then a concept.
01:44And sometimes the concepts change quite a bit from the characters that you know from the cards, which is cool.
01:50You'll see that with Aethna, actually.
01:51She's got a bow, she looks way more badass in this.
01:53She's more of like a warrior.
01:55Yeah.
01:55And that was really exciting for us because it allows us to do more things with animation.
02:00From the concept part, you move on to a 3D model.
02:04And the process then starts to, you know, snowballing and going.
02:09How does it look from your perspective, like based on getting the model?
02:12So the 3D model we get and we start with rigging.
02:16That's the animation department's next step.
02:18And that's basically putting a skeleton inside of this model so we can start moving it around.
02:24And at that point we should have a pretty good idea about what we are, what we want to do
02:28with the character.
02:29And actually most of the time we already have the animation done on like a temporary model.
02:33And we transfer it over to the final rigged 3D model.
02:38That's pretty cool.
02:39I know you guys are using a different software this time than you normally use for the 2D card animations.
02:47So how challenging is this process?
02:49How different it is for you and your team?
02:51It's very different.
02:52But it's a really interesting challenge because now we've gone from taking like this 2.5D kind of premium card.
02:59Where we're kind of limited by how much we can move because of the illustrations and things like this.
03:04To now we have like a full 3D character.
03:06We can move them around as much as we want.
03:08So we've actually started using a lot more motion capture.
03:11We didn't use motion capture at all on the premium cards because it's such a weird different thing.
03:17And it's been really, really fun for us.
03:19Like a few of us have been doing a lot more acting out of the characters and really getting into
03:23the characters to work on the animation.
03:26Yeah, so your animators, nothing has changed.
03:28They still kind of walk around, do the crazy poses.
03:31Yeah, yeah.
03:31I mean animation is animation at the end of the day.
03:33But it's, yeah, it's a nice new thing for the team.
03:36And you make it a lot more realistic when you have real people acting out of the things.
03:40Yeah.
03:41So talking about the change to leaders since they're 3D models now, what's your opinion?
03:45How do you feel about this change overall?
03:47Yeah, it's a really cool change.
03:49Like for us, it's kind of like taking what was the avatars before in the game and bringing them to
03:54life as like a full 3D character.
03:56And with some of the customization options, you're going to be able to have, you know, different skins, things like
04:00this.
04:00It's people are already going to be able to make the leaders their own.
04:04And I feel like it's kind of, it's like an extension of the avatars, which we had in the game
04:08in a really cool way.
04:09And some of the things we've actually added because our like philosophy for the leaders from the start was to
04:16make it feel like they are leading the battle.
04:18Like you are playing as the leader and you are sending your units onto the, onto the battlefield and all
04:23of this.
04:24So yeah, exactly.
04:26So we've, we obviously have animations for leader abilities for all of these different kinds of things.
04:31But one of the things I really liked that we added was spotted on the Reddit actually,
04:36that when you move the mouse around, the leader follows it.
04:40Yeah.
04:40And that's the same for the opponent too.
04:42Yeah, exactly.
04:43And it gives this feeling of like when your opponent is making decisions about where to place units or they
04:48want to check what card you just played.
04:50Cause they're like, what the hell was that?
04:51Then you see the leader turn to face it and it really makes the whole thing feel more, more alive.
04:55Yeah.
04:56And also pawns now when you taunt your opponent.
04:58The leader does something or when you're passing and you lost, the leader also has a different animation.
05:04So it adds a lot more flavor to the whole thing.
05:06You can pretty much see the new VFX.
05:08So this is something that is totally cool.
05:11Am I right?
05:12Yes.
05:13Very cool.
05:13And the Skirtel board too, which is beautiful.
05:16Yeah, it's beautiful.
05:17I agree.
05:23All right, that's it for the second update.
05:25Brad, thank you for stopping by the studio.
05:27Thanks for having me.
05:28And we'll be having more of these updates coming in the following weeks.
05:31Bye guys.
05:32Bye.
05:33Bye.
05:33Bye.
05:34Bye.
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