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Girls' Frontline 2 Exilium Art Team: How We Understand 3D in Nijigen

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This is an interview between the art team from Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium and the famous gaming media in China, so-called Grape-kun. In this talk, GF2 art team passionately shared their understanding of art in Nijigen and how they came up with this wonderful game.

Disclaimer: It is an unofficial fan's English translation done by myself, with the help of translators. I found this article interesting and informative, unfamiliar among other Girl's frontline fans from other countries. Comments are welcome and if you find any mistakes, please let me know.

Just like the original meaning of "Nijigen games", in the past, the art of Nijigen games was usually dominated by 2D illustrations. Even if 3D was occasionally used, it was mainly to enhance expressiveness in certain scenes, serving as an embellishment.

However, with users' increasing demand for differentiated gameplay in Nijigen games, more and more manufacturers have started to explore the 3D transformation of these games, enabling this genre to accommodate a wider variety of gameplay types.

How can we use 3D to represent the authentic "Nijigen" feel?

This question, which has long baffled the animation industry, is now before the gaming industry.

The soon-to-be-released "Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium" (hereinafter referred to as "GF2") has attracted a lot of attention due to its potential hit quality since its announcement. One particular point of interest about this work is its art. As Sunborn's first full 3D Nijigen game, it adopts a "NPR+PBR" hybrid rendering technology. The game's art design and rendering style are different from other 3D Nijigen games on the market: while character roles possess a second-dimensional texture, we can also clearly see realism in many places such as clothing, equipment and scenes.

So how does GF2 think about 3D Nijigenal art? Recently, Grape-kun visited the GF2 art team and listened to them talk about GF2's art design process and their thoughts on Nijigenal art.

Girls' Frontline II: Exile

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01 The Art Design Approach of Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium

The art team told me that at the very beginning, their work was divided into two stages. The first stage was independently carried out by the art and planning teams, with the art team responsible for style exploration and determining preliminary rendering tones and visual impressions. At the end of this stage, both sides would each complete a demo to set their future direction. Only then would the two teams merge to start the subsequent production process.

During the style exploration phase, there are also subdivisions in the workflow of art design, such as character design which is crucial for Nijigen game products. In its earliest stage of character design, "Girls' Frontline 2" basically follows the approach of "Girls' Frontline" (hereinafter referred to as "GF1"), using "tactical" and "beautiful girls" as keywords, then setting standards according to R/SR/SSR to establish an overall character design framework for GF2.

Emphasizing a sense of "tactics" is a key point in differentiating GF series artwork. The art team stressed that their understanding of "tactical sense" differs from a "mechanical style", with tactical designs emphasizing the rationality of wearing “tactical gear”. For example, if a character needs to carry grenades or magazines on her thigh, tactical straps need to be designed there.

If we fully emphasize a “tactical sense”, then an ideal design would be a “soldier”. But as GF2's selling point is “beautiful girls”, they also need to make more aesthetic considerations in their designs.

Even with GF1's IP backing it up, GF2 still sets its own keywords and attempts made by the art team will present various styles. Therefore, in the second stage of character design, they will further refine their feelings about character design based on GF2's own work emotions.

"We can break down two systems from GF1's original designs: one is like 'GF: Cloud Atlas Project', pursuing a brighter and cuter Nijigen style; while another is like 'Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium', which emphasizes realism and rationality."

Based on this basic logic, they can more accurately define GF2's unique design style. And here rationality falls into two categories - one is basic cognitive rationality where for instance characters' clothing styles should not contradict the keyword “tactics”, or hinder combat actions.

On another note, it’s about narrative rationality. As GF2 heavily emphasizes story-telling elements, character settings tend to be stricter; each role’s characteristics are determined following world-view framework--story plot--key protagonist--related characters sequence. This way designers can get fairly complete information before starting sketching such as relationships between characters and morphological descriptions ensuring that designs align with characters’ settings.

Apart from these two aspects there are special cases like when characters from GF1 may reappear in GF2; then artists will analyze how experiences in GF1 might have influenced those characters and add details reflecting growth.

In fact bringing characters from GF1 into GF2 isn’t straightforward. Apart from considering how costume designs affect movements, artists pointed out that since GF1 was a Nijigen project when creating characters they only had to focus on aesthetics from one perspective aiming at making it as beautiful as possible using their drawing skills but 3D requires all-round consideration especially since players spend most time looking at characters’ backs during combat so designing visually striking back views has become crucial.

After this comes phase three where based on rarity system they unify visual density for all characters determining visual keywords for each single character along with player expectations. After these three phases character design style and methodology become relatively clear.

02 How to Shape the "Realistic Nijigen" Experience

After the basic concept design, in face of the technical characteristics of 3D, changes need to be made in scene and character design.

"Generally speaking, Nijigen art products are more emotional, emphasizing the combination with art; 3D art products are more rational, they are an industrial result."

The art team of "Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium" believes that since 3D art products are an industrial production, they require more unified standards, including standardized processes for design style and specific production.

However, standardization does not mean a lack of differentiation. With regards to the two keywords "tactical" and "beautiful girl", in terms of rendering style, "Girls' Frontline 2" sets its goal as "realistic Nijigen": "We want to give players a hardcore battlefield experience similar to COD (Call Of Duty), The Division and Battlefield's visual experience while also providing a familiar second-dimensional experience under existing cognition."

Based on these two seemingly incompatible demands, the art team combined NPR (Non-Photorealistic Rendering) and PBR (Physically Based Rendering) through technology selection, artistic construction, continuous attempts, iterations and polishing.

However, there will naturally be many difficulties in this process. Firstly, non-realistic rendering and realistic rendering are inherently separate. This is not to say that their combination is impossible but rather it's hard to balance both aspects which is also a pain point in the industry.

Once the artistic goal that "Girls' Frontline 2" wants to express was established, the art team further broke down the goal into: as realistic scenes as possible; second-dimension characters integrated with realistic scenes; realistic lighting. During implementation problems still arose such as: under conventional PBR production metal materials need to express metal texture through "oil shine". However this effect is totally unlike a second-dimensional painting style so it needs a “redefinition” of metal representation.

Therefore another major discussion took place within the art team. In conclusion they believed that what first needed creating was physical rationality on clothing material like softness for fabric clothes or hardness/weight for metal materials.

On another hand there’s adjustment of design density. Although body parts can increase structural hierarchy by adjusting clothing cut/equipment carried shaping visual experience of real rendering if facial features/hair want to maintain second-dimensional feel then they must lean towards NPR style which itself tends towards flat simplicity with single texture expression easily causing disconnection from high-quality body variations.

Therefore when designing character costumes they adopted a layered transition method for texture design simply put content designed on body closer it gets to head weaker texture becomes leaning towards non-textured material making overall style look relatively consistent.

Lastly they weakened brushstroke feel for hair/face unifying light/shadow in different places allowing NPR part blend naturally with PBR part thus finally reflecting game rendering’s “realistic Nijigen” style.

03 "The Nijigen Style Shouldn't Be Fixed"

When asked about product references, the art team of "Girls' Frontline 2" stated that they didn't have absolute references. If forced to choose, it might be "Code Vein". Honestly, "Code Vein" is a surprising answer. If we consider from an artistic style perspective, it seems too realistic and not "Nijigen enough". But from the audience's point of view, its player base is indeed predominantly Nijigen gamers.

"When we analyze a product, a key factor is user orientation—defining fields based on group preferences. Since this group plays this product, it becomes their product. Considering this point, 'Code Vein', as a game widely spread among Nijigen user groups, is indeed a Nijigen product."

Of course, the art team doesn't just look at the final result. They told me that if you delve deeper into it, "Code Vein", in terms of artistry, does share commonalities with Nijigen games.

"It first has standardized Nijigen facial features which are an obvious characteristic of character design. On the other hand, although 'Code Vein' has made some changes to its cel-shaded art style, outlines and hard shadow edges familiar to Nijigen users still exist. On top of this fundamental visual experience, its visual content also leans towards distinct Nijigen design tendencies.

Therefore it gives a Nijigen feeling even though it doesn't look like it at all."

In addition to "Code Vein", the art team pointed out that products like "Final Fantasy XIV", despite not having traditional characteristics of Nijigen games under conventional understanding, are also popular within the Nijigen community.

Therefore the art team believes that Nijigen should not be limited to one style. There's a consensus in their team: “NPR does not equal Nijigen”. In their eyes, Nijigen is a symbol of youthfulness—it represents cultural preferences and styles loved by younger generations; henceforth making Nijigen games synonymous with youthful games. And since young people's preferences are always changing; so should the style of Nijigen.

"If we look at the development of Nijigen art now you'll find significant changes from the '80s and '90s till now; likewise China will also have its own unique content in this regard so we see it as an identifier for youthfulness."

Therefore they believe that while 'the second dimension' resonates with young people who are constantly changing—always newer generations appearing—with each generation having vastly different aesthetic preferences; future integrations between various directions and 'the second dimension' could emerge.

This conclusion led them to believe that current discussions about so-called “artistic involution in two-dimensional games” aren’t entirely correct.

"What do young people like? Uniqueness—not just better rendering. If your rendering capability is only slightly better than others then you're just adding points on an existing track which can’t bring more fresh unique feelings to young people. If we're no longer limited by single technology or theme then there's great opportunity for differentiation avoiding involution."

"Why bother so much with rendering capabilities since you've already achieved uniqueness?" I asked the art team.

"To give players higher quality experiences—that’s our ideal shared by Mr.Yuzhong and our team. For this ideal making such efforts is completely worth it."