Ask a Dev
For those of you who may not be familiar with the "Ask a Dev" article series, here is how it works: periodically, we'll introduce a member of the City of Heroes Development Team and open a reply forum thread where fans can pose their questions for that developer. Then a few weeks later we'll close the question thread and go through and pick out the best and most appropriate questions and the developer will provide the answers!
As part of our ongoing "Ask a Dev" article series, we are proud to introduce to you our next developer: Senior Animator/VFX Artist Chris "Back Alley Brawler" Bruce!
City of Heroes "Ask a Dev" with Senior Animator/VFX Artist Chris "Back Alley Brawler" Bruce
Introduction:
Hello. My name is Christopher Bruce, but most players know me as Back Alley Brawler from the forums (where I spend entirely too much of my free time). Ive been given the opportunity to be the next victim of the Ask a Dev series and directly answer some questions from the community, but before we get to that, let me take a minute to tell you a bit about myself and what I do on City of Heroes/City of Villains.
Ive been working in The Game Industry for a little over 9 years now for many different studios on many different types of games. Ive done just about everything that there is to do on a game including modeling, texturing, lighting, animation, visual effects, etc which makes me a Jack of all trades, master of none (though often better than a master of one).
My favorite thing to do though is animation and visual effects, which actually have a lot in common. Ive played City of Heroes/City of Villains since launch, so when the opportunity came for me to be a part of the team working on my favorite game doing the two things I really enjoyed doing, I pounced with the ferocity of something thats very ferocious when it pounces on things.
Animations and Things:
I started working at Cryptic on City of Heroes/City of Villains shortly after Issue 7 went live. The very first task I was given was the teabag emote, which also lead to my introduction to the infamous Positron. He was extremely confused when some person hed never met before meekly poked their head into his office to ask, What exactly do you mean by a teabag emote? Now, Im apart of the same team on the same project working for NCSoft and excited to be a part of the huge plans for this game and franchise.
What Chris does on the City of Heroes Team:
Today, I am the Senior Animator/VFX Artist on City of Heroes/City of Villains as part of the Art Department. My main responsibilities are working with the Power Designers to create new NPC or player powers for the game. They will define new powers and then I will then set up the visuals for that power including the animations that play on certain events, such as Activation or Hit. Ill also make any visual effects (FX) that are associated with those events and create all of the scripts that ties those three things (powers, animation, and VFX) together.
Im also responsible for FX related player costume pieces, which include things like Auras, Custom Weapons, and soon Shields so I also work very closely with Jay Doherty (who you may know as SexyJay). Other than that, anything in game that is animated or related to visual FX generally passes through my hands.
So now that you know who I am and exactly what I do on to the questions!
Questions will be collected on October 21st from both the North American and European forums and not long after that, we'll post Chris' answers and introduce our next dev and ask for your questions for them.
Lighthouse
Community Relations Manager
If you have a specific in game, account, tech or billing problem please contact our Customer Support team via The Knowledge Base "Ask A Question" page.
Ask a Dev
For those of you who may not be familiar with the "Ask a Dev" article series, here is how it works: periodically, we'll introduce a member of the City of Heroes Development Team and open a reply forum thread where fans can pose their questions for that developer. Then a few weeks later we'll close the question thread and go through and pick out the best and most appropriate questions and the developer will provide the answers!
As part of our ongoing "Ask a Dev" article series, we are proud to introduce to you our next developer: Senior Animator/VFX Artist Chris "Back Alley Brawler" Bruce!
City of Heroes "Ask a Dev" with Senior Animator/VFX Artist Chris "Back Alley Brawler" Bruce
Introduction:
Hello. My name is Christopher Bruce, but most players know me as Back Alley Brawler from the forums (where I spend entirely too much of my free time). Ive been given the opportunity to be the next victim of the Ask a Dev series and directly answer some questions from the community, but before we get to that, let me take a minute to tell you a bit about myself and what I do on City of Heroes/City of Villains.
Ive been working in The Game Industry for a little over 9 years now for many different studios on many different types of games. Ive done just about everything that there is to do on a game including modeling, texturing, lighting, animation, visual effects, etc which makes me a Jack of all trades, master of none (though often better than a master of one).
My favorite thing to do though is animation and visual effects, which actually have a lot in common. Ive played City of Heroes/City of Villains since launch, so when the opportunity came for me to be a part of the team working on my favorite game doing the two things I really enjoyed doing, I pounced with the ferocity of something thats very ferocious when it pounces on things.
Animations and Things:
I started working at Cryptic on City of Heroes/City of Villains shortly after Issue 7 went live. The very first task I was given was the teabag emote, which also lead to my introduction to the infamous Positron. He was extremely confused when some person hed never met before meekly poked their head into his office to ask, What exactly do you mean by a teabag emote? Now, Im apart of the same team on the same project working for NCSoft and excited to be a part of the huge plans for this game and franchise.
What Chris does on the City of Heroes Team:
Today, I am the Senior Animator/VFX Artist on City of Heroes/City of Villains as part of the Art Department. My main responsibilities are working with the Power Designers to create new NPC or player powers for the game. They will define new powers and then I will then set up the visuals for that power including the animations that play on certain events, such as Activation or Hit. Ill also make any visual effects (FX) that are associated with those events and create all of the scripts that ties those three things (powers, animation, and VFX) together.
Im also responsible for FX related player costume pieces, which include things like Auras, Custom Weapons, and soon Shields so I also work very closely with Jay Doherty (who you may know as SexyJay). Other than that, anything in game that is animated or related to visual FX generally passes through my hands.
So now that you know who I am and exactly what I do on to the questions!
Click here to go to the thread where you can pose your question to Chris!
Questions will be collected on October 21st from both the North American and European forums and not long after that, we'll post Chris' answers and introduce our next dev and ask for your questions for them.
Lighthouse
Community Relations Manager
If you have a specific in game, account, tech or billing problem please contact our Customer Support team via The Knowledge Base "Ask A Question" page.