Star Citizen - Erin Roberts Interview

Erillion

An interview with Erin Roberts, the Foundry 42 UK Studio Director and CIG Global Head of Production.

21:51 – ATV Interview: Erin Roberts
37:53 – ATV Rewind: Erin Roberts Joins the Team

Transcript:

http://imperialnews.network/2016/03/around-the-verse-episode-2-24/

"ATV Interview: Erin Roberts

• Erin Roberts is the Foundry 42 Studio Director and Global Head of Production
• Worked on the Lego games (Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones) for the previous 10 years
• Worked with Chris before: Times of Lore (a little), the Wing Commander series, Privateer, Strike Commander, Privateer 2, Starlancer
• After GamesCon 2013, Chris spent the weekend with Erin but only asked him to join CIG moments before he left again for the USA
• He joined CIG because he felt he had one last big challenge in him and Star Citizen is certainly a challenge! Enjoying the stress of building up a new studio and the opportunity to work with Chris again were also factors.
• He and Chris used to fight, a lot, as kids but then they grew up. They still argue, passionate but maturely.
• Foundry 42 is the European, UK and German, development arm mainly responsible for producing Squadron 42
• He chose Wilmslow because he originally loved the location and it has a good transport hub.
• Originally, the core staff was from the Lego games, now there’s around 170 people from lots of different countries and companies.
• Work started in October out of Erin’s home office. They moved into the actual office as soon as they could, while it was still being worked on, at this point there was roughly 14 people.
• It’s often forgotten that the first year was spent building the company. It’s important to get the right people because the wrong people can set the project back.
• Foundry 42 UK have expanded on to 3 floors. They have pretty much the whole Audio group is there with audio suites.
• It sometimes get’s packed in the office as they expand then get more space.
• They moved in around December 2013 and they were going to run with Squadron 42 development.
• Squadron 42 was very barebones when they started. They spent a long time getting the engine ready, like the 64-bit conversion work. During this time they got the art assets started, story fleshed out, levels designed and broken up."

Personally i think that the Roberts brothers make an excellent team - better together than as individuals (and both are very good individually to start with IMHO).


Have fun

Erillion

Erin Roberts interview Part 2

17:35 – ATV Interview: Erin Roberts

Transcript

http://imperialnews.network/2016/03/around-the-verse-episode-2-25/

"ATV Interview: Erin Roberts Part 2

• 18 environment artists in the UK
• 18 ship artists in the UK
• Props pipeline out of the UK
• Environments, ships for PU pushed through UK
• Cinematics pipeline and FPS side of things from the German office
• Germany does a fair share of core tech
• Vertical slice: Taking one part of the game and making sure it hits all different areas of what you’re trying to achieve in game
• Eight weeks for performance capture shoot
• Footage processed->To Animation team-> Two sides of it body side and facial side
• Facial side is worked on using Cubic Motion and make sure facial stuff is working on characters, etc
• Body stuff goes back to team in Austin, UK and Germany
• Building out Stanton system. Seeding in all different locations and ability to do things like missions.

• With persistence going in soon you’ll have the ability to earn money, trade, buy things, mine.
• Shopping coming online soonish, no dates.
• Alpha UEC, temporary currency. Alpha UEC cycle will probably run for a very long time and with every new version, they’ll probably wipe it and start people again to use as a balance pass.  
• UEC earned in game won’t be the same as what you purchased with your own cash. Going to be used to go in test the system to buy items and build yourself up.
• It’s going to be used to figure out the entire economy.
• Have people on the forums every day sorting through issues and feedback and implementing it.
• Shopping, cargo, mining. Voxel asteroids, eventually.
• Procedural stuff just around the corner.
• Crusader moved closer to the space station in 2.3.
• Be able to fly down, not to Crusader, but areas and planets.
• Procedural allowed them to have things like asteroid bases in space, etc and build it out.
• German/UK guys don’t really like to be in front of the cameras, just want to make the game.
• Once SQ42 is done, they’ll move onto Episode 2 and more PU work.
• All Persistent Universe work is driven by with Squadron 42 assets/features, when those come online the PU guys can put them in game.
• As updates come, things will start working. They’ll use feedback on how people are using certain features to make changes to the game.
• Once Squadron 42 is out, it will have a couple years of feedback on what works and what doesn’t work.
• Vast majority of assets being worked on are Squadron 42 assets.
• Don’t think Idris will be ready for players to access before Squadron 42"

Have fun