A few months ago we published a series of reports on conceptual graphics for Chernobylite. You liked the works very much. We can’t hide it, we also like them. 🙂 That’s why we decided that it would be worthwhile to continue this theme, and see new great works. However, this time YOU will be the authors of the new graphics.






What should you do?

Your task will be to create an image of your character that could appear in the game or a scenery from the game, similar to the ones we presented to you in earlier reports.

Is there a location that you think looks much better in your imaginations? Would it be better depicted in other colors? Or maybe this particular place is missing some elements that would be worth adding?
And what about your character? What outfit would fit best? We give you a free hand and count on your creative invention!




Rules:

• For images of locations you can use screenshots from the game, but also your own photos from Chernobyl, if you have any
  
• You can create an image by hand, on paper or canvas, or in a graphics program on your computer
  
• We accept only original works, made by yourself. Plagiarism and images made by AI will be automatically rejected
  
• Works must be submitted at this link by March 31, 2024
  
• Submitted artwork files must be signed (name or nickname), as well as the email address provided. Unsigned works will not be considered for judging
  
• Each participant can submit ONLY ONE artwork

Out of all the works, we will award the 10 best ones! The awarded participants will receive from us:

• official Chernobylite artbook
  
• a set of postcards
  
• map
  
• Chernobylite patch
  
• a Steam key to the Chernobylite Enhanced Edition

{LINK REMOVED}

We will reveal the list of winners and the awarded works on April 5, 2024.

We can't help but wish you good luck and break your brushes (including virtual ones)!

Take care, Stalkers!



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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1016800/Chernobylite/

Welcome to 2024! How about welcoming it with the first big sale?


The promotional price will include:

• Chernobylite: Enhanced Edition
  
• Autumn Dread DLC
  
• Blue Flames DLC
  
• Deadly Frost DLC
  
• Red Trees DLC
  
• White Rose DLC
  
• Zone Bard DLC
  
• Bundle Charity Pack
  
• Soundtrack
  
• The Art of Chernobylite

Welcome to the new year 2024! We hope you had a nice Christmas and New Year's Eve. We, on the other hand, have returned from Christmas trips and immediately threw ourselves into work. There is a lot of it, but no shortage of excitement. It's going to be a very interesting year. We can feel it in our bones!

Meanwhile, we stay for a while longer in 2023, which was almost entirely dominated by one topic - artificial intelligence. AI has been at the center of attention in the mainstream media, but also especially among fans of technological stuff and those working in the game industry. And all indications are that this locomotive is not going to stop - in the new year AI will be just as loud.

That's why today we're going to tell ourselves just about the artificial intelligence in Chernobylite. How it was created, how it works and what mistakes should not be made when creating an NPC "reason". We try to answer those questions below.



What's the first thought that comes to a programmer's mind when designing character AI? How to make it deliver cool gameplay to the player, of course. But in addition to that, he has to think about how to "fool" the player - make him think that he is not dealing with dummies who have been assigned certain commands, but with thinking beings. We know from experience that people interpret the intellect of AI very differently. Sometimes the fact that a character crookedly holds a gun in his hands while reloading can be interpreted by someone as stupid AI behavior, even though it has nothing to do with its behavioral algorithms.

Behavioral algorithms define the operation of the enemy's "brain" in Chernobylite. Here we mainly used the tools provided by the Unreal Engine. Specifically, with a structure called a behavioral tree, where we were able to define the "states" of the character's behavior, which in turn trigger commands in turn.



In practice, it looks more or less like this: state "search an enemy" -> "review your list of target" -> "what is the nearest target that triggered the command" -> "select a point around the target to get closer (by the way, check if, for example, the player is sitting in the bushes; if so, don't go into them, but stand on their edge to make it seem to that player how clever he is, even though the AI knows perfectly well where he is, just doesn't go there on purpose to raise the excitement)" etc.



Perception of the player by the AI on the level is most often done through three senses: sight, hearing and touch. As for sight, in Chernobylite we have defined 5 points on the player: both legs, both arms and the head, to which the AI "under the hood" shoots a laser at some frequency. If the laser stops on an object, which in this case is the player, it means that the player can be seen - the threat rate then increases. If the laser stops on another object (for example, on an invisible bush collision, which blocks only the laser and nothing else) then the player cannot be seen. The other senses work on a more or less similar basis: we define points on the player to be "noticed" by the AI (e.g. the concentration of sounds made when walking or shooting), and then the corresponding states are activated.



Previously, we wrote about how the game's character animations are created. Today, it is also worth knowing about the fact that character animations and AI are closely related. In the sense that AI logic must be readable. And this readability is most easily presented precisely in the form of animations.



Example: AI suspects that it has seen something. At this point, the logic system hidden under the hood of the game must send information to the animation system to trigger the appropriate animation. This also works the other way: when the AI performs some animation, such as an attack with its hands, the completion of this animation must send back to the logic system to return to normal operation according to the predetermined states.



The biggest issue is that often given gameplay actions have a very rigid technical framework based on the needs of gameplay, making it difficult to show them in animation form. Example: Chernohost's paw attack. We know that his attack has a meter range and that the player, walking with his back to Chernohost, is moving quite fast. The range is short and the target is fast. This means that you have to make the animation quite fast. But you can't overdo it with this, because the shorter the animation, the less readable, and the less readable something is, the more annoying it is for the player. In contrast, a long animation will simply make the fight boring. It's very hard to find that golden mean, and it's already at the mocap stage, that is, using real actors.



It is now worth addressing another issue that probably every gamer has had to deal with. Well, in many games we can encounter various strange AI behavior, such as characters going straight into a wall or shooting at the floor.



Then we usually just say that the AI doesn't work. But what exactly does that mean? Well, in our opinion, "AI not working" is mainly due to the fact that we can't anticipate all the problems involved in creating AI for a game. It is one thing to design AI on a flat test map under laboratory conditions, and another thing to later play on a final map that should, but does not always support the design of the AI we have created. Such an undertaking is very difficult on the communication side, and therefore needs to be planned early. And this cannot be done just by drawing on a piece of paper.

"Coolness" of AI can be achieved only by checking its performance live in the editor by trial and error. Such a method, on the other hand, can not be afforded in the case of the construction of sizable game maps - such things need to be played with in advance. The whole process is mega-complex in terms of planning, where you can't simply expand the length of production for yourself. Especially when you're a small studio with a 10-, 20-, 30-person team.



Both today and over the past weeks, we've given you a lot of technical knowledge. We hope it was an interesting and informative read. Now we're going to give you a respite to gather energy. You will need this one soon so that you can demonstrate your creative invention.

Take care, Stalkers!



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When talking about character animations, we usually think of images from Disney or Pixar movies, where computer-generated puppets are set in motion. In Chernobylite we also used computers to create character animations, but before that we used motion capture to help with the process.

When hearing the term "motion capture" someone could probably say that it makes working much easier and faster compared to doing everything manually on a computer. What if we told you that this is one of the most physically exhausting methods we have ever used?

Character animations can be divided into two types. The first one includes gameplay animations related to... well, gameplay. The second is interactive animations. This type includes small gestures, dialogue poses, NPC behavior, etc.




Let's assume for a moment that we want to prepare a moment when the player fights with a patrolling soldier, which involves shooting at him. From this point on, the initial documentation is being created describing what should happen at any given point, as well as a prototype without animation. If the initial tests are successful, you can start creating more in-depth documentation, which will describe, among others, what animations will be needed for this scene.




Ultimately, these are short recordings for individual animations: every turn, every transition from aiming the weapon to rest, every crouch, the start and end of running, etc. All of this must be planned and distributed in the animation system. This is where the reliable Excel comes in handy. The animation plan is written down in a table, i.e. what will be recorded, how and in what order during the mocap session. We tried to record shots for dynamic animations and slower ones alternately - all for the sake of the actor, for whom a series of recordings with dynamic movements can be downright murderous. But more on that in a moment.



Paper will accept everything, but tables in Excel - not so much. At this stage, everything must be carefully planned and written down, every single scene. All this to ensure that the people operating the equipment record everything as best as possible and that the files do not end up weighing 10 GB each. Additionally, the mocaps are recorded for an animation system that does not exist yet - only after the recordings will we be able to verify which shots are suitable for use in the game and which are not (but they will be saved for later if necessary). Contrary to appearances, this is the best way. If we worked the other way around: first we planned and created the animation system, and then recorded the mocaps, the whole work would take us four times as much work and would last the same amount of time.




After recording all the shots, they are passed on to the technical team, which cleans the mocaps of any noise and recreates the animations recorded on the character's skeleton. The work is then taken over by animators who receive guidelines regarding the technical framework within which they must fit, e.g. the character's forward movement must have a certain speed, be looped, take place on only one axis and must be perfectly straight. Any deviation from the norm would spoil the effect.




Once the animations are ready and assigned to a specific character in the game, they are then uploaded to the system, tested, provided with sound and appropriate visual effects are added (e.g. small dust when taking steps).

Recording shots for gameplay animations is tedious and physically demanding. This is because the actor has to do abstract things "for the game": he crouches, runs, sneaks, hits, throws himself on the floor. Like Jackie Chan in action movies.





Recording interactive animations, such as gestures, is much more natural because then the actor, most often coming from the theater, feels like a fish out of water. The actor only receives minor guidelines, e.g. the height of the table on which the keyboard is located - then the actor must bend slightly and make a typing gesture on the keyboard. You can even arrange small props to make the movements even more natural.






We'll be honest: creating character animations is the most technically difficult aspect of combining art and tech in video games. Nowhere else in the entire game production process does technology go hand in hand with art so much. Please note that we haven't talked about AI yet - we also had to program specific movements for them and provide them with appropriate sets of animations. Maybe we'll talk more about the artificial intelligence in our game next time.



Take care, Stalkers!



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The beginning of December means that we are slowly entering the turbulent period of Christmas and New Year cleaning, but also shopping. On this occasion, we have a special offer for you!


The promotional price will include:

• Chernobylite: Enhanced Edition
  
• Autumn Dread DLC
  
• Blue Flames DLC
  
• Deadly Frost DLC
  
• Red Trees DLC
  
• White Rose DLC
  
• Zone Bard DLC
  
• Bundle Charity Pack
  
• Soundtrack
  
• The Art of Chernobylite

Join us, have fun, and more important

Scanning solid objects is easy, since they tend not to move. Just place a doll in one place and it will sit there motionless as long as we want to (unless we change its position ourselves). The human model is not as stable - one sudden movement (even a very small one) of their hand ruins hours of work. On the other hand, collaborating with a human is much easier. You can ask the model to change its body position, instead of moving it from one place to another like some doll.

Jokes aside. The work of scanning people is exhausting, both for the scanners and the scanned. To make this clear to you, let us explain this whole process using the scanning of Tatyana as an example.

Let's start with the basics. Before we unfold the heaviest equipment, we need to take a lot of reference photos - those that will later help graphic designers in designing characters in the game, mainly in terms of external appearance. That's why Joanna, our model, had to pose on a white background in different dresses. Thanks to this many-hour session, we obtained plenty of photos for reference.







Sometimes we had the opportunity to fool around a bit :)



The next session took place on a green screen. This time, for the needs of the game, we wanted to record (in photos, but also on video) how Tatyana's hair would behave in the wind.



Another time we recorded Tatyana's individual movements. At the bottom you can see Joanna trying to play the violin before the shots on green screen. These materials will serve as a reference at a later stage for our game animators.



Ok, time for the main course. We couldn't afford half-measures when scanning a person. Everything had to be done relatively quickly and taking into account the optimization of the produced 3D models. That is why we invested in equipment that allowed for the most accurate reproduction of the human figure in a quick and accurate way.

For scanning characters, we designed our own structure composed of 114 (!) Canon SLR cameras with variable focal length lenses, along with flash lamps. We placed the cameras on a metal structure forming a regular polygon and in such a combination as to obtain a sufficiently large coverage of photos of the characters from every possible angle.




The entire structure is operated by 2 computers which, together with a system that synchronizes cameras and flashes, collect data in the form of photos after each shutter release. We usually collect photos in RAW form so as to be able to extract the best possible quality in the final result.

We place our model inside the structure. Then we frame the cameras to the previously determined position.








The next steps are to release the shutter and download the data to computers.



Next comes post-production, which involves processing photos and uploading them to a program that calculates a "cloud of points" on the model's body, on the basis of which a mesh of characters is created, on which a texture is then applied. The end result is a photographic representation of the model in the form of a 3D model, the mesh of which is taken over by graphic designers for further optimization.

And that's it. The character is ready to hit the road!




And there were more characters waiting in the queue to be scanned.







We hope you liked it. But this is not the end of the behind-the-scenes work on Chernobylite. In the next report we’ll show you some stunts!



Take care, Stalkers!



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The promotional price will include:

• Chernobylite: Enhanced Edition
  
• Autumn Dread DLC
  
• Blue Flames DLC
  
• Deadly Frost DLC
  
• Red Trees DLC
  
• White Rose DLC
  
• Zone Bard DLC
  
• Bundle Charity Pack
  
• Soundtrack
  
• The Art of Chernobylite

In the previous report, we demonstrated that operating a drone in an open space brings a unique outcome: the potential to recreate real-world buildings in a video game. It's also incredibly fun, as is usually the case with drones :)

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1016800/view/3704832514245430929

Working on the ground has its own set of advantages. But only a few people know how much effort it takes to achieve the desired results.

We have shared numerous instances of our exploration of Chernobyl, showing us going inside the buildings to capture a plethora of photos. And not only the walls and floors, but also items within: posters, books, toys, clothes, etc. All these items serve as reference materials. Thanks to this, we were able to carefully plan the room layouts, as well as what should be in them, along with some creative interpretations on our part.






Of course, not everything could be photographed using traditional methods. Some of the in-game objects you can find in the game are the work of a skilled 3D artist or advanced technology. In this report, we will focus on the latter...

We had certain items on-site in our office. Making them readily scannable with our portable equipment designed for this type of tasks.











Scanning the items we discovered in the Zone presented more challenges. For obvious reasons we couldn't take them with us. Consequently, we had to create conditions to perform scans on site. To create a makeshift scanning studio, we used two small tripods on which we mounted a small green screen and illuminated it with lights from LED battery lamps.




The second element was to build a small platform on which we placed... a rotating cheese board.




One person stood next to the camera mounted on a tripod, patiently pressing the shutter while the other person slowly rotated the board carrying the object. This way, we scanned a dozen or so toys from the kindergarten, with each toy requiring up to several hundred photos.



The effect of this is known: we moved from the Zone…



…straight to Chernobylite.



Naturally, they had to be slightly modified to ensure they didn’t appear in the game in a raw form, but the effect of realism was fully preserved.





This wraps up this report! Next we are going to focus on scanning. However, this time we will move from still life to living life.



Take care, Stalkers!



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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1016800/Chernobylite/

The promotional price will include:

• Chernobylite: Enhanced Edition
  
• Autumn Dread DLC
  
• Blue Flames DLC
  
• Deadly Frost DLC
  
• Red Trees DLC
  
• White Rose DLC
  
• Zone Bard DLC
  
• Bundle Charity Pack
  
• Soundtrack
  
• The Art of Chernobylite

Do you remember this photo?



This is a model of the building of the "Energetyk" Cultural Center that was based on scans of a building actually existing in the center of Pripyat. We used our drone to scan it from all sides and angles (yes, also from above).





You may notice that the project does not look finished in the photo above and indeed at this stage it was still in raw state. During the process of photogrammetric reconstruction of the building, "noise" appeared, which was caught by our device while scanning the object, and which is the result of, for example, inappropriate lighting. This is quite a normal thing. Therefore, a few more steps had to be taken, e.g. manually eliminating the major "noise" and other defects.



How long did the entire operation take?

It was a lengthy process. Transferring and processing materials collected in the field and then converting it into a game object takes a particularly long time. We're talking about terabytes of data here!



And remember that it was just one building. There were plenty of others next in line to be processed and transferred to Chernobylite.



So you can imagine how much time it all took, including any corrections. The computers were working at full power. Some even had too much, so we had to use specialized and modern alternative cooling methods.



In this manner, after multiple years of visiting Chernobyl, we succeeded in identifying and subsequently mapping the most captivating locations within the Chernobyl area.




When we examine the footage from those visits and the three-dimensional models generated from them, it becomes challenging to distinguish between the authentic and computer-generated elements.






Can you tell which is which?

We also used this method to scan small objects that we found in the Zone. But more about that next time.



Take care, Stalkers!



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