Job opening. Old art, models and animations,

[Drobu]

Looks like the classic graphics, models and animations are confirmed.

https://careers.blizzard.com/de-de/openings/oYEO7fwh

Do you long to travel back to Azeroth before the Mists of Pandaria parted, and before Deathwing broke the world? When the fog obscured the view into the distance, and weather had just been added? Do you have fond memories of the original character animations, and spell effects? Can you help us restore that look to our modern engine? Then the World of Warcraft Classic Engineering team has an opportunity for you.

[Coffeh]

In Blizzard we trust.

Seriously, they're actually giving us an authentic Vanilla experience. I couldn't be happier.

[Hitei]

Do you know what restore means? They wouldn't need to pull in someone for graphics if they were leaving it as is.





These are the job responsibilities:
-Restore old models and animations
-Re-implement old shader behavior
-Transform database data
-Build classic UI elements
-Repackage binary distributions
-Work closely with artists to revive the classic game elements

If anything I'd argue this confirms a remastered toggle. You don't need to restore old models to have them work on the modern system (see: centaur, gnolls, most vanilla robots, wyrmkin, etc. Which all use Vanilla models in the modern game). You also don't need to work with artists (read: what you do to concept and make new models) if all you are doing is re-implementing existing models into the modern framework.

"build classic UI elements" suggests they are rebuilding the UI in higher quality, something unnecessary if you are keeping the same old graphics for everything else, because you don't want a brand new high res version of the Vanilla UI making it even more obvious that the stuff on the other side of the UI is out of date.

[Triden]

I mean...

[Hitei]

I mean...

We are talking about art elements though. There's no reason to pull in a person for the sole purpose of adding the old models back to the client, they have those models already, because we know they have working PreBC clients and servers that they were testing with, and we know that the old models work fine on the new system, because there are still a ton of them in the current live game.

"Restore old models" means retain high fidelity and bring the quality up to more modern standards. If it were the system restore kind, you'd expect "re-implement old models" and you'd expect no need to work with artists, because all you're doing is transferring existing things to the blended game version.

[Triden]

We are talking about art elements though. There's no reason to pull in a person for the sole purpose of adding the old models back to the client, they have those models already, because we know they have working PreBC clients and servers that they were testing with, and we know that the old models work fine on the new system, because there are still a ton of them in the current live game.

"Restore old models" means retain high fidelity and bring the quality up to more modern standards. If it were the system restore kind, you'd expect "re-implement old models" and you'd expect no need to work with artists, because all you're doing is transferring existing things to the blended game version.

Well, that's not entirely correct. As far as I understand it, they've literally replaced and reworked most of the animations. The old models exist, but simply re-skinning the skeletons they have now with modern animations won't get you what was actually around in Vanilla. That's sort of what I took this to mean:

When the fog obscured the view into the distance, and weather had just been added? Do you have fond memories of the original character animations, and spell effects? Can you help us restore that look to our modern engine?

There are things that have been removed from the game that they want to restore to it in Classic (i.e., weather effects, original animations and spell effects, etc.). What they're after is getting what things looked like originally to render as they were then in today's engine with today's systems, etc. At least, that's how I interpreted it.

[Laqweeta]

Think this is confirmation that higher res textures/newer models won't be in Vanilla, at all.

Private servers say "we're against model altering and will ban you" - Their copy of Warden is trash and can't detect them.

Blizzard's Warden CAN detect it, if anyone were to make a patch for it.

[Hitei]

Well, that's not entirely correct. As far as I understand it, they've literally replaced and reworked most of the animations. The old models exist, but simply re-skinning the skeletons they have now with modern animations won't get you what was actually around in Vanilla. That's sort of what I took this to mean:



There are things that have been removed from the game that they want to restore to it in Classic (i.e., weather effects, original animations and spell effects, etc.). What they're after is getting what things looked like originally to render as they were then in today's engine with today's systems, etc. At least, that's how I interpreted it.

All of those things and their original animations are in the old client they have access to. Afaik animations aren't being handled server side, but client side and they began work with a 1.12 client. Only a scattered few things have had their original animations replaced anyway, player races, Naga, etc. Spell effects are all isolated, they exist as spell effects not as a model using an animation, so you especially wouldn't need an artist or much work to just re-add them.

Afaik weather effects also haven't changed, they're set by zone, the snow in Dun morogh is still just the snow in Dun Morogh.

We'll see I guess, but the "work closely with artists" especially screams remaster to me, because that is the situation in which you need to work closely with an artist to implement something new based closely on something old--rather than re-implementation which, one would assume, is more about you restructuring the engine to accept existing art assets.

As does the UI, because it has remained static until very recently so I'm not sure why they'd need to "build classic UI elements" unless it means remaking it in higher quality, OR this solely refers to trying to add old API things to the existing API, which seems highly unlikely since one of the reasons they want the modern API and backend is because the older ones were highly exploitable.

[Triden]

All of those things and their original animations are in the old client they have access to. Afaik animations aren't being handled server side, but client side and they began work with a 1.12 client. Only a scattered few things have had their original animations replaced anyway, player races, Naga, etc. Spell effects are all isolated, they exist as spell effects not as a model using an animation, so you especially wouldn't need an artist or much work to just re-add them.

Afaik weather effects also haven't changed, they're set by zone, the snow in Dun morogh is still just the snow in Dun Morogh.

We'll see I guess, but the "work closely with artists" especially screams remaster to me, because that is the situation in which you need to work closely with an artist to implement something new based closely on something old--rather than re-implementation which, one would assume, is more about you restructuring the engine to accept existing art assets.

Fair enough, but having an old client is not the same as using an old client. If they used the old client, then sure -- all the old animations would be intact. No problem. However, from their latest post it sounds very much like they're just taking old database data from 1.12 and making it work with the current client. The current client has completely different character models and animations. Getting them both to play nice in the same client is probably more work than it sounds like and will likely require a fair bit of work.

Also, it turns out the quote above wasn't the whole job posting and I was definitely guilty of not clicking through. I think the full post gives more context:

...

Our team is working on bringing that world back to our players, and we need engineers to restore that classic appearance. Our work spans all aspects of the game, including client, server, tools and gameplay work, and we encourage teamwork and collaboration, so we hope you're interested in learning and growing, as well as sharing your knowledge with us.

...

Responsibilities

- Restore old models and animations
- Re-implement old shader behavior
- Transform database data
- Build classic UI elements
- Repackage binary distributions
- Work closely with artists to revive the classic game elements

I would interpret "work closely with artists" in that context to simply mean work with the existing artists to get the old look rendering properly in the modern engine. Either way, it'll be interesting to see what they ultimately end up doing. My take is they're going to try to make it as close to the original as possible (low-res textures and all).

[RickJamesLich]

So far I'm happy with how this is going, old school models is going to be great.

[Vynestra]

I was about to post, the WoW Classic community, the only community that doesn't endlessly complain about everything blizz does...Then someone had to ruin it.

Blizz is giving yall everything you wanted, yet some people still complain that they have to "restore" the old graphics.

jfc, some people are just never happy.

[Hitei]

Fair enough, but having an old client is not the same as using an old client. If they used the old client, then sure -- all the old animations would be intact. No problem. However, from their latest post it sounds very much like they're just taking old database data from 1.12 and making it work with the current client. The current client has completely different character models and animations. Getting them both to play nice in the same client is probably more work than it sounds like and will likely require a fair bit of work.

Also, it turns out the quote above wasn't the whole job posting and I was definitely guilty of not clicking through. I think the full post gives more context:



I would interpret "work closely with artists" in that context to simply mean work with the existing artists to get the old look rendering properly in the modern engine. Either way, it'll be interesting to see what they ultimately end up doing. My take is they're going to try to make it as close to the original as possible (low-res textures and all).

Have to wait and see, I suppose. Imo having "Restore old models and animations" is very different from say, "Restore the old models and animations" or "Restore old models and animations to the modern infrastructure". It's possible it just means put them back, but the wording seems like a strange choice. Especially since it uses "re-implement" immediately after to mean "put the old thing into the new system". Why not just have "Re-implement old models and animations", "Re-implement old shader bheavior"?

I was about to post, the WoW Classic community, the only community that doesn't endlessly complain about everything blizz does...Then someone had to ruin it.

Blizz is giving yall everything you wanted, yet some people still complain that they have to "restore" the old graphics.

jfc, some people are just never happy.

The only one in this thread complaining is you. I'm just pointing out that this could be read as updating old graphics, not just re-implementing them. I don't particularly mind either way.

[Jahaga]

Do you know what restore means? They wouldn't need to pull in someone for graphics if they were leaving it as is.





These are the job responsibilities:
-Restore old models and animations
-Re-implement old shader behavior
-Transform database data
-Build classic UI elements
-Repackage binary distributions
-Work closely with artists to revive the classic game elements

If anything I'd argue this confirms a remastered toggle. You don't need to restore old models to have them work on the modern system (see: centaur, gnolls, most vanilla robots, wyrmkin, etc. Which all use Vanilla models in the modern game). You also don't need to work with artists (read: what you do to concept and make new models) if all you are doing is re-implementing existing models into the modern framework.

"build classic UI elements" suggests they are rebuilding the UI in higher quality, something unnecessary if you are keeping the same old graphics for everything else, because you don't want a brand new high res version of the Vanilla UI making it even more obvious that the stuff on the other side of the UI is out of date.

I get what you're trying to say, but I think you have it reversed. It looks like you're implying the "before" picture represents Vanilla WoW and the "after" picture represents Vanilla WoW revamped. When actually the "after" picture represents Vanilla WoW and the "before" picture represents WoW Legion/BfA.

They're restoring the game to its original state just like those photo examples restored to their original state. The photos weren't fixed and improved, they were fixed and returned to what it was originally.

[FelPlague]

I mean if you look at BFA
ALOT of models have been getting updated that are old
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...VRqM8aFuU/edit
also a few new models not on here

[anon5123]

Do you know what restore means? They wouldn't need to pull in someone for graphics if they were leaving it as is.

Bro, they're not using the vanilla client like private servers do, they're using the retail client.

Hence, they have to take all the retail assets and modify them to look like vanilla again.

[Kathranis]

Do you know what restore means? They wouldn't need to pull in someone for graphics if they were leaving it as is.

They explained in the dev watercooler that they're essentially porting 1.12 into the modern game infrastructure by plugging the old data into the new systems, so that they can keep all of their modern battle.net integration, anti-cheat, bug fixes, efficiencies, etc.

From there, they're comparing it to authentic 1.12 and correcting any differences. Since many of their core systems have changed, this will mean porting old assets to the new system.

For example, they overhauled the way their shaders work, which means they can't just plug the old shaders in and expect them to work. They have to recreate the look of the old shaders in the new shading engine.

Likewise, the way the game handles animations, textures, and even basic file structures has changed, too.

[Hitei]

Bro, they're not using the vanilla client like private servers do, they're using the retail client.

Hence, they have to take all the retail assets and modify them to look like vanilla again.

They're using the retail infrastructure to process old patch data, they are already running those old assets, because that is what is in those patches, not the modern data. But the bigger point was that they already have all that old data.

They explained in the dev watercooler that they're essentially porting 1.12 into the modern game infrastructure by plugging the old data into the new systems, so that they can keep all of their modern battle.net integration, anti-cheat, bug fixes, efficiencies, etc.

From there, they're comparing it to authentic 1.12 and correcting any differences. Since many of their core systems have changed, this will mean porting old assets to the new system.

For example, they overhauled the way their shaders work, which means they can't just plug the old shaders in and expect them to work. They have to recreate the look of the old shaders in the new shading engine.

Likewise, the way the game handles animations, textures, and even basic file structures has changed, too.

For shaders, sure, and that's why it's its own bullet point. But the models and animations are handled the same way, hence all those vanilla models and animations sitting in Legion and BfA still working perfectly fine.

[Kathranis]

They're using the retail infrastructure to process old patch data, they are already running those old assets, because that is what is in those patches, not the modern data. But the bigger point was that they already have all that old data.

Judging from the dev watercooler and this job listing, that data likely doesn't include the old art assets. It seems that they're running an old version of the game using the modern rendering engine and assets.

https://twitter.com/warcraft/status/...988930?lang=en

This video is apparently a result of them running the 1.12 data in the modern retail infrastructure. Many people have pointed out that it's not a completely authentic recreation of 1.12, as some of the assets and the lightning are different.

[masterhorus8]

-snip-

The art restoration reminded me of this; a perfect example of what we don't want.

[Kathranis]

But the models and animations are handled the same way, hence all those vanilla models and animations sitting in Legion and BfA still working perfectly fine.

That may be true, but not all of the old assets still exist in WoW as they did in their 1.12 state, especially character models, which have had a new rigging and animation system ever since the revamps in WoD. AFAIK that's why they've gradually phased out the toggleable old models for various races.