Revisiting New London #2: Animation and Visual Effects with Marta Czarnecka

Deepening Personal Connection to Citizens in Frostpunk 1886

Let's start with Marta's introduction:

"Hello everyone! My name is Marta, Senior 3D Animator, and I am thrilled to share some of my work with you today. I have always worked as an animator. I moved from film to games because I felt there was a whole new world to discover and a lot of life in the industry - and that proved to be true. Before joining Frostpunk 1886, I worked mainly on Frostpunk 2, so many aspects were already familiar to me. At the same time, there were new paths to explore!"

We think this is a perfect moment, Marta, to tease a brand new feature in Frostpunk 1886 - one that will allow players to experience the city from a closer perspective than ever before.

"Yes! Characters in Frostpunk 1886 will be seen from a closer view than in FP1, which is why we also decided to enrich the animation - both in terms of detail, expression, and authenticity. There are areas we want to focus on. One of them is social interaction: we want players to notice relationships between people, the connections they share, and the struggles they go through together. Especially in moments of crisis, people unite or search for support. Another area is occupations and physical and mental states. We want players to have a richer experience in this regard."

Steam post imageThere is no New London without New Londoners, right? The dev team knows how important it is for players to build personal connections with the people under their command.

"That's why citizens will no longer be tiny, barely visible dots. We're moving toward a more grounded, realistic experience. Motion capture lets us offer a more intimate view of human life in the frozen land. From my point of view, the majority of our emotions are connected to other beings - how we perceive them, interact with them, identify with them. You'll see individuals fighting to survive, each with their own worries and circumstances. Your actions directly affect people. Families may be separated. People may lose their loved ones. We want players to notice Citizens' relationships, feel their mood, see their losses - the full spectrum of life in struggle."

To achieve this, the team turned to motion capture. Here is a little more about the process:

"We start with visual references - a pose or movement to express. Then we record motion data from actors and apply it to in-game character skeletons. Animators clean the data and adjust it to match the required poses. Sometimes the recorded movement isn't sufficient, so we add hand-crafted animation on top, or mix different parts of the recorded data to create a montage. The scenes we show often consist of several short clips, which we test in the engine. The engine code defines character positioning, movement direction, and transitions. We also implement logic that determines which animations can be played by which characters and under what circumstances."

What about the children who also call New London home?

"Adult actors can imitate them, but there's nothing like capturing the genuine energy and spontaneity of a child's movement. That's why we hired children - and those were some of the best sessions. This is the message we want to convey: you are deciding the fate of children. It's about them and their future."

Surviving the Cold in Frostpunk 1886 Through Marta's Eyes

Marta is one of a very few "citizens" who has the opportunity to shape the new picture of the city. So how does it look from her side? How does she do it? What challenges does she face?

"I revisit Frostpunk daily, and I enjoy these playthroughs! I try different approaches to be able to see changes I haven't experienced before. It also gives me information and inspiration for future solutions."

What is the key to creating animation that feels immersive and real?

"Maaany factors! Depending on the camera distance - the closer it is to the character, the more important facial expressions and eye contact become. When the camera is further away, the focus shifts to the silhouette, body movements, and interactions with the environment and other characters. I would say that noticing little details and actions that aren't strictly necessary - but turn general actions into individual behavior - is very important."

But we could talk about this forever!

Sometimes the recorded movement is not sufficient or clear enough, so we add additional animation on top, created by hand and invented by the animators. We may also mix different parts of the recorded data to create a montage. When we enrich the animations, elements that we would like to keep may no longer work - they don't look coherent with the style and level of animation. Balance is the challenging part. Some areas of animation will be simplified to improve performance. We also keep some elements from FP1, finding a middle ground between enriching the experience and preserving what worked before - and that balance is still very much a place of ongoing research."

Why Frostpunk 1886 Will Be Special and Personal

We have all heard stories about animators who literally studied people's and animals' movements to apply them in games. What knowledge is required to recreate such specific behavior - like the physical toll of suffering in the cold?

"Animation is largely about observation. It is important to observe your own body language as well as the behavior of people around you. These observations can become valuable references. Animation is about training your eye and developing empathy in order to understand how emotions feel and how they manifest physically. Later, you can recreate these behaviors during motion capture sessions, or by recording yourself or others as reference. You can also study documentary footage frame by frame to better understand subtle movements and reactions. When it comes to capturing the subtleties of movement, it sometimes happens that I record a person - yes, without them noticing - whose walk is particularly expressive and fits a scene: an elderly woman, an angry man, a child walking. I use these recordings as references, watching them frame by frame to understand how movement changes. I may also recreate these movements during a mocap session. Observing things in this kind of controlled slow motion, frame by frame, is something I do regularly. I also immerse myself in worlds close to the one we are creating in Frostpunk 1886: watching documentaries - often heartbreaking - videos, photoreportages of people leaving their cities, living in harsh conditions, homeless, or in mourning. These are scenes that could easily take place in New London. By observing city life, you will be able to see individuals fighting to survive, each with their own worries and circumstances. Through their actions, players will shape these stories and scenes. For some, this may bring greater awareness of the consequences of their leadership; for others, it may feel more like being there - experiencing firsthand the story they are creating."

New Possibilities

Frostpunk 1886 is being created in Unreal Engine 5, giving us access to new features that are more accessible and easier to explore for us. As technology continues to evolve, we have more and more ways to both stylize animation and create realistic effects, enhancing immersion and the overall experience.

"With more detailed skeletons in Unreal Engine 5, it's easier to create more detailed animations and rigs that give us a higher degree of freedom than before. Animation computation can be moved to the graphics card thanks to the AnimToTexture plugin. We also make use of specific aspects of MetaHuman, which allows us to unify parts of the work - however, some parts of the job are meant to remain very unique and handcrafted."

Voices of the city

As in our every upcoming City is calling for your feedback! If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas about this update (or upcoming ones), share them in the comments or our Discord channel! Stay tuned, Citizens. And remember: The City Must….. ~ 11 bit studios Team