With the release of GreedFall on Xbox One and PS4 in 2019, Parisian games studio Spiders cemented their status as creators of truly immersive and tactical Action RPGs. Taking place in an Age of Discovery-inspired world with an emphasis on tactical combat and a deeply woven, character-driven story, GreedFall proved itself a worthy addition to the growing canon of similarly themed RPG series like Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls, and Dark Souls. The game recently returned to the spotlight last year after receiving a current-gen graphical update for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S last year, bringing an extra layer of polish to the titles myriad of characters, bosses, and lush settings.
With the release of the studio’s upcoming title SteelRising slated for June of this year, fans can look forward to yet another Spiders experience to dig their teeth into.
To get a better understanding on how games like this are actually built, it's important to hear from the individual artists that sculpt these worlds. We recently had the pleasure of speaking with former Spiders 3d animator (2009-2021) and freelance 3D artist Arthur Munoz to learn about his experience making this game's NPCs and bosses alike come to life. Through our conversation together, Arthur helped paint a clearer picture of the way his work helped sculpt GreedFall’s finer details and setpiece moments alike.
Thanks for speaking with us Arthur ! Could you introduce yourself to the AREA community?
Hello! I'm Arthur Munoz, a French game animator living in Paris, France. I worked for Spiders from 2009 to 2021 as a game animator/rigger, but also worked in freelance production for other studios like Amplitude Studio, Ubisoft, Lightbulb Crew, or Wolcen Studio. Currently I'm working as a freelancer for companies on a few unannounced AAA games as well as the upcoming 2D pixel art game, The Last Faith by KumiSouls Studio. I'm married to my beloved wife and am also a dad of two boys. I'm taking care of them when I'm not animating.
What was your role at Spider Games?
My main role at Spiders was bringing characters to life for their projects. Spiders had a small animation team so I had to cover different roles at the same time. I oversaw gameplay animations and worked on creating the best experience for the player to interact with the game's universe. From keyframe animation to motion capture animations, there was a lot to work on! I was also working with the Cinematic Artist to make making cinematic animations and finally I was in charge of the technical side of animation too. I was responsible for rigging characters and complex creatures/monsters before integrating them into the game engine.
What was the experience like working on GreedFall and The Technomancer?
I learned a lot working with everyone from the team, especially with the Game Design staff. I really love thinking about action design and how to craft the best game experience through animation. Thinking about the feeling, context, readability, fluidity, and elegance of game animation is always an exercise in deep reflection about how to make a game through animation.
Those years animating on GreedFall / Technomancer were a growing experience for me. Due to the several roles I covered on the project and the great creative freedom I was given, I was able to evolve easily through my different tasks. This freedom allowed me to challenge myself constantly and push my limits every day.
Challenges are the best way to learn and explore new ground. So with each task I have worked on, I spend time analyzing other references which allow me to expand my knowledge and think of the best approach for each animation.
Some of Arthur's references for GreedFall's bosses
The animations you’ve shared from GreedFall are very impressive. What was your favorite part of the creation process?
On the one hand I like the artistic side of the process, but I never forget the technical side, that I appreciate as well. My favorite part of the art creation process is building each character animation to be as cohesive as possible as well as finding the right match for the player to feel what I want them to feel. In particular, I go through several phases during my creative process:
But my favorite part of the technical aspect is to find the best way to animate my character. Like creating a complex rig to interact with the easiest way possible; for example: spending time on the core animations, instead of animating some cloth or shoulder pad that could be animated automatically.
I like to spend some time upstream looking on easy solutions that can save lots of time afterwards. Below are some things I've made to help with production workflows like AutoCloth, creating the main controller animation for a dragon for Leikir Studio, and making an Auto-Trail that follows your weapons in game:
What is the most difficult part of a new project?
For me, the most difficult part is time management and establishing a long-term vision for your project. You must focus on the big picture and then add detail. I'm used to work with many iterations. So to be sure that all my work is following the same direction, I work diligently on expressing my intentions with blocking animations that I can show the entire team. Finding the perfect rhythm and style is key to making player reach the best game feel, but it's also the hardest part. You need to prototype and explore as much as you can and share feedback with your team to find the right balance.
And then you have technical challenges of the project, where you have to deal with these big bullet points around the more casual production stuff. Sometimes you don't know if you'll succeed in achieving it, or if you will have enough time.
My main goal for the animation of GreedFall was to push the quality to the maximum, while respecting the time and budget of the project. The creative process is something I have spent a lot of time perfecting year after year, to be as iterative and efficient as possible from my perspective.
One of the biggest challenges was creating the final boss for Technomancer – a giant snake coiled around a bridge. It was a lot of fun to set up all the rigging and being able to make an epic boss like that.
Technomancer and GreedFall are also the two projects where I developed a new facial animation rigging system, which allowed facial animations to be shared between all characters in the game. It’s especially useful when you have more than a hundred characters to talk to! It was also compatible with facial motion capture, so it was very easy to create lots of facial animations. It's not as fancy as a giant creature, but it is super satisfying to find a way to produce a large amount of facial animations so quickly!
What’s in your essential software toolkit? What do you use, and how do you use it?
I have mainly been using 3ds Max for almost 15 years now, but I've also been using Maya for about 2 years now for some new projects. I'm using this tool called Springmagic to overlap tails or ears. It's nice not to have to spend too much time on this kind of dynamic motion that can be automated with a script.
I'm also a big fan of 3ds Max’s Biped. It was my first animation skeleton back at 3D school and we used it on every project at Spiders. It has every tool you need for production – mirror animation, you can save and load animations on different skeleton, it's easy to rig, great pose library, and the best IK/FK switch with link constraint included.
With Maya, I use Studio Library as a pose library, and Animbot. I use a lot Syncsketch, to review my animations with the team, or to gather some reference footages. I use FBX review to quickly test my rigs and animations and see if everything is "game ready". And finally Da Vinci Resolve to make some video montage when needed.
What are some of your inspirations?
I think I get my inspiration mainly from video games, and comics. I often inspire myself with the From Software games Dark Souls/Bloodborne/Sekiro/Elden Ring. Their work on combat design and their creatures influences me a lot.
I get inspiration from other games as well, like the God of War franchise, Shadow of the Colossus and more indie titles like Hollow Knight, Inside, or Hades.
Comics are also a big part of my life. Invincible, Hellboy, Spider-Man or Dragon Ball are all places I gather inspiration from when working on action design or making animations.
But I think most of my inspiration comes from my colleagues. These are the people with whom you spend your days creating, sharing, debating and laughing. Social interactions can bring forth inspiration every day, someone can share their mindset, point of view, knowledge, inspiration from a movie they watched or game they played.
What advice do you have for other 3D artists who may just be starting their careers?
- Always be inspired by other artists.
- Stay motivated and try to understand their workflow.
- Always try to develop news skills around your craft. For an animator, this could mean acting, martial arts, dance, anatomy, rigging, modeling, etc.
- Always find references before starting. Do some research. Look at what has been done before by other artists.
- Always work by iteration. From macro to micro, from the big picture down to the details.
- Always work with the team. Share, communicate, and learn from them.
- Always plan your work. Develop your workflow and embrace it.
- Always learn from your own failures.
- Keep a log while you work to remember what happened.
- Always try to have a healthy work/life balance and have fun ! :)
*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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