Archive notice: This article was originally published on May 1, 2015. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The team and workflow for a triple-A title like “Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag” are huge. Game designer Asraf Ismail told us how the almost three-year development process for the major game project was organised and managed at Ubisoft.
Whale hunting and underwater walks with a diving bell – the fourth instalment of the famous game series, “Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag”, offers extensive water game action. Some of the game’s action takes place in the present day, but most of it is set in the open world environment of 18th century Caribbean pirates. The main character of the game this time is Edward Kenway, but he is not fixed as the primary game character.
Anvil engine
The game was created on the basis of the AnvilNext engine, which was first used for “Assassin’s Creed 3”. It is the successor to the Anvil engine with improved weather and wind effects, and is also designed to display faces more realistically and integrate up to 2,000 non-player characters at once.
Performance Capturing
Performance capture was an important component for the animation of the characters and was mainly shot in Ubisoft’s own performance capture studio “Alice Studio de Perfomance” in Montreal, which is equipped with 100 Vicon cameras – a mixture of MX40 and T160 models. The Montreal lead studio received additional support from Ubisoft’s performance capture studio in Toronto (see DP issue 01/13). The filming of all the cinematics and the complete gameplay took a total of 10 months.
Game designer Ashraf Ismail revealed more details about the development process and the design of “Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag”. Ashraf Ismail began his career as a programmer and worked at Electronic Arts on games such as FIFA, but his true passion was always game design – so his employer at the time allowed him to switch to the game design department. He has been working as a game designer at Ubisoft for around five years, and his work on Part 4 was his first foray into the “Assassin’s Creed” series.
DP: How did Ubisoft organise the immense workflow?
Ashraf Ismail: The most important thing at the beginning of the process is that the team gets the same vision of the game. That was one of my tasks, and to this end I went to the studios with the art director and the producer, among others. There we presented the concept of the game and made sure that the team understood it. We then checked what each studio could do for the game and divided up the work. Once this was finalised, a team in Montreal took care of the internal communication so that each team unit was provided with the relevant information and materials. Of course, we also use video conferences, daily meetings and studio visits to keep the globally distributed team on the same page.
DP: How was the pipeline organised in this respect?
Ashraf Ismail: We have an internally developed tool pipeline that works together with our engine. Based on a daily process, all rendered cinematics, cut-scenes etc. are stored there in a folder structure so that all team members have access to the data and can view the latest version.
DP: What else were your tasks on “Assassin’s Creed 4”?
Ashraf Ismail: As Game Director, I took care of the design of the entire game system, specifically the mechanics. Concrete examples would be: How does shipping work, how does boarding work, how do the characters move or what happens when I press a special button on the game controller? I don’t work like a traditional engineer, but with a focus on how the user will feel while playing the game.
DP: In what form do you initially create the design?
Ashraf Ismail: First we create a prototype based on an idea in our head. It’s just a design document that can be in any form. We use all possible means and media to explain the concept to the people who are supposed to create it – this can either be done directly in the game, with a tool, on paper or in a PowerPoint presentation. An engineer then takes over my design work and codes it.
DP: How did the design process work for the functions of the ship model, for example?
Ashraf Ismail: It’s a difficult process with many iterations. The ship, for example, was very complicated: In order to make it look believable and realistic, we also have to take into account the camera in such a case, which the player can move and which shows him the game environment and the ship at the same time. A concrete example: In one scene, the characters are standing on the ship, then the camera moves and suddenly the player only sees ropes. So we had to move the ropes for the scene, which changed the entire structure of the ship model again. Our job is a time-consuming process, we need months to make the ship model look believable in the final game and we have taken all possible camera movements into account.
DP: How does the performance capture shoot work with features of an environment that is only completed in the final game?
Ashraf Ismail: As it takes us a long time to develop all the features, various processes have to take place simultaneously: The story is written, the actors are captured, and we build the ship at the same time. So instead of waiting for the capture data, we define safe areas at an early stage with static elements that never change in the game and specify matrix areas containing props that can be freely designed. We give these specifications to the animation team, who use them to create sets according to the specifications that are used during filming. During the development process, of course, we sometimes have to change safe areas, but we try to limit that
limit that.
DP: What was the biggest challenge for you personally on “Assassin’s Creed 4”?
Ashraf Ismail: I usually create big cities, so the hardest part of this project was designing the huge Caribbean world with the small integrated cities, islands and the underwater world
Cities, islands and the underwater world. The right proportions, including
the right proportions, including all the technical limitations in terms of frame rate and storage capacity, was an enormous challenge. The concept was risky and took a lot of time, but the result is an open world with a lot to discover. We spent a year on research alone, because there were so many questions to answer, such as: “What is the right size for an island? And how long does a player want to travel before they see something?” We had to find a design answer to all these questions.
The interview with Animation Director Kama Dunsmore on “Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag” can be found in DP 02 : 2014.
You will also be able to read a studio portrait of Digic Pictures in one of the next DP issues. We will probably be able to welcome the team from Budapest again at the animago AWARD 2015. If you would also like to be there, simply submit an entry by 20 June! All information: www.animago.com
