Yun Jin/Design

The World of Opera

The World of Opera: A Behind the Scenes Look at the Creation of Yun Jin

"How gently do the clouds and flowers sway, as dancing winds meander through the vales." As the current Director of the Yun-Han Opera Troupe, Yun Jin has not only inherited the mantle from her ancestors, but also added her own insight on hopes and dreams of ordinary people through her thousands of performances. Let's take a look at how the Genshin Impact team brought Yun Jin to life!

Character Design

Dou, Creative Concept and Writing Team: Yun Jin is one of the characters that we (the Creative Concept and Writing Team) started to conceptualize early on. She is known as an artiste in Liyue Harbor. At this phase, we chose the keyword "Chinese opera." We also hoped that this term would be a basic foundation of this character's core. In our vision, Liyue Harbor is a relatively prosperous port and commercial city where citizens lead a diverse and fruitful life which naturally also includes entertainment and the arts. So what do the people of Liyue do after a long hard day of work? At the time, of course, we thought of various references from life and thought about the element of traditional opera. We wanted to try to restore the teahouse and opera culture. Based on this idea, the representative of this culture, Yun Jin, was created.

After determining this foundation, our next step was to let her interact with some existing characters by framing interpersonal relationships and refining the cultural background of the region. This allows her characterization to be more vivid and clear. There are two social relationships we have constructed for Yun Jin. It is to create a connection with two already established characters: Xingqiu and Zhongli. These two characters are very knowledgeable and have traveled to many places, it's only natural that they can get to know Yun Jin. Another character is Xinyan, an artiste who loves rock 'n' roll and an opera performer — if there is a connection between these two characters — we think it's quite an interesting collision. This collision is not a matter of competition or debate but a relationship of mutual appreciation. Although Yun Jin is a traditional opera performer, that doesn't mean she only focuses on what's relevant to her work itself. She is still very open-minded and is a person that appreciates new things. In her mind, she believes that being exposed to more and newer things is a good thing as it helps to broaden one's horizons and absorb fresh knowledge and new cultures. Through this collision and learning process, her own performance and knowledge will be more complete. So from this perspective, Yun Jin is a character with both the spirit of heritage and innovation. This dichotomy is also reflected in all aspects of her character design.

Weiwei, Character Concept Artist: As early as when Liyue was being conceived, the original inspiration was to create a character with opera elements. This idea coincided with that of the Creative Concept and Writing Team. After a discussion, we started to design content related to Yun Jin. From the perspective of Genshin Impact characters, they are all people who live on the continent of Teyvat. Yun Jin is a resident of Liyue. Other than her occupation in opera, she also has her own personal life. With regard to her appearance design, there are a few important points: it has to reflect her occupation and contain certain key opera elements. But at the same time, there must be a sense of intimacy and everyday life to fit the character. Another very, very important point is it must bring a sense of novelty to the players, which is why Yun Jin's outfit design was a bit challenging. But we are used to being tormented by such challenges.

Firstly, Yun Jin is a girl with a lot of character. Although she was born in a traditional family and engaged in traditional opera, an occupation with a long history and culture, she appreciates rock 'n' roll that is deemed as trendy and new in Liyue. Starting with this trait in mind, we referred to many literary works in history — women who are both accomplished and have their own ideas such as Hua Mulan, Mu Guiying, Liang Hongyu, and others — and thought of designs with reference to their opera costumes. Many ideas came into fruition in this period. In terms of color scheme, We tried red and blue which were often seen in traditional opera costumes but with Yun Jin's personality in mind. In the end, we designed this costume for her that had elements of Chinese opera and a type of daily wear that is different from the traditional color schemes.

In terms of the design process, we took into account her age and personality while simultaneously meeting the standard for daily wear as well as combat to avoid model intersections. Thus we finally selected the design of this overskirt. In terms of design details, we incorporated many traditional elements into daily wear such as the pompoms, feather plumes, and cloud collar (Yunjian) on her opera headwear as well as ribbons on the skirt hem and so on. We also used cloud patterns and diamond grid-like patterns for the embellishments. We hope that through this type of design, which brings traditional elements into the everyday. This makes the characters more relatable. And by using different channels, we can expose everyone to Chinese opera culture and art. It would be great if this allows the audience to develop an interest in Chinese opera and experience its charm.

3D Design Production

TT, 3D Character Design: Yun Jin's 3D model was actually completed around 2018. But before the official release, we found that there was still a gap between the final quality and the current requirements, so we made some iterations and polished her up again. For example, in the early original design, some wide-angle distortions of the camera in the game were actually not considered. Yun Jin's headdress design is very characteristic but the presence of wide-angle distortion makes it an issue. Compared to the other characters, her head would seem very oversized. This uncontrollable and inconsistent situation for the final result made the original design and 3D modification very tedious.

Cloud, 3D Character Design: In order to improve the intuitive immediacy and accuracy of the model, we asked our tool development team to create a tool that enables real-time synchronization between MAYA and the engine. With the new tool, we are simultaneously able to modify the model and view the final visual effect in a game environment in real time. In this way, we didn't have to blindly negate the original design. We could better collaborate with the Concept Art team and speedily adjust to the desired effect accurately. We were able to greatly reduce the cost of communication and modification. This optimization also allows us to make our subsequent design and production processes more efficient and more precise.

Yun Jin's overall art design in terms of 3D production is relatively simple but animation for the hair and shawl was quite difficult to display. In order to avoid illogical and unsightly model intersection in the animation process as much as possible, we further adjusted the binding and skeletal animation of the skinning. Furthermore, Yun Jin's eye makeup is quite special and strong — this is something that has not been seen before in our characters. As for the blinking animation, the stretching effect would occur more strongly in order not to look out of place. We tried to adjust a few versions of the design along with the Concept Art team to make the final effects more perfect. To match the character design and show a richer cel shading effect, we developed a dynamic face shadow mapping to make the light and shadow transition effect of the face more natural and stable. While simultaneously, the character is also rendered in multiple shadow layers to express some of the art effects in the hand-drawn processing in the Concept Art. As for the texture of metallic parts, we do things differently from other games' PBR practices. We used a metallic feel that is more partial to the hand-drawn celluloid style. But the color block performance of pure celluloid will result in too little detail being displayed in the shadows, so we've added a more detailed light and shadow process to the mapping production. To find the appropriate amount of detail is a hard task to grasp. We tried for a long time with the Concept Art team to strive to grasp the best degree. Otherwise if it's too much the artwork effect will look like its applied too thickly and this is not what we wanted.

TT, 3D Character Design: We are also constantly iterating on character rendering, continuously adding its own dynamic AO to the character rendering — dynamic projection for scenes, light sources for scenes, fog effect — to allow the characters to better integrate into the scene, to make the colors, light, and shadow more coordinated. But due to performance limitations, some effects cannot be applied to the mobile application. This is a bit regrettable. In the future, we will continue to try to add more effects to enrich the details and texture, without changing the existing style. Our only worry would be our coworkers in the performance function division. They might come after me after work.

Animation Design

Xiaoxiong, In-Game Animation: Speaking of the character Yun Jin, when we first saw her appearance, we all really liked her. We immediately started getting into some heated discussions but everyone spoke for too long and we had to get to work eventually. So we set ourselves a themed task under the core setting of "Liyue Opera": how to use only one movement to convey Yun Jin's unique temperament. Speaking of "Liyue Opera," it's natural to think of the relevant content of opera culture. At the same time, a problem also popped up: our understanding of Chinese opera culture was not deep enough. But when creating the animation design, you must have a sense of reverence, so we spent quite a bit of time to research on the relevant content. In this learning process, we found that the action of "striking a pose on the stage" in Chinese opera is very valuable for reference. The reason is that this type of movement is short and powerful. And there is a pause — not only can that shape the character image, it can also form a distinct impression. It was very suitable to be integrated into our combat design.

Shaoyou, In-Game Animation: In the process of understanding Chinese opera culture, we noticed that when the actors are getting on and off stage, there will be an action of striking a pose. In order to show this characteristic during the actual production, we first had to determine the narrative process to make her entire combat sequence and imagine it as a complete performance, allowing the Normal Attack to begin and end as correspondence to actors getting on and off stage. To this end, the designs of "striking a pose with a blade" and "striking a pose with two blades" were added and modified some details and rhythm of her poses as appropriate to make this action more in line with her girlish temperament.

For the mechanics of Yun Jin's Elemental Skill, according to the developers' design description, is one that "accumulates power to strike a heavy blow." So we decided on the feature of "heavy blow" very early on. Another aspect is that Yun Jin's action style incorporates elements of Chinese opera and it is also very elegant, but how do we integrate elegance into this attack method well? This did create some obstacles to our design. Of course, if there is a problem, we will try our best to solve it. After we looked at a lot of references and materials, we chose the movement of "butterfly kick" as its basic form — simultaneously adding some features of classical dance and traditional martial arts, allowing the movement to remain elegant while also demonstrating strength. In the final effect displayed, we are able to see Yun Jin swing her arms. To drive her waist while she spins upward, she swings out her polearm. This makes her whole series of movements look smooth and flowing with agile grace. We actually had to do a lot of such modifications and refinements to finally create Yun Jin's unique action style.

Other than fighting, we also wanted to use her idle animation to tell Yun Jin's story, to make her seem more human, and the role of Yun Jin is a person who is very much in pursuit of her own artistic attainments. To better reflect this, we learned a lot about opera culture again in depth. Finally, her design revolves around a "spear flourish." However, while animation design respects cultural works, in addition to its own expression, we must also consider the constraints of objective conditions. For example, for one of the moves of kicking a spear, inspiration came from the action of "strike." It is actually centered around the "shangba" (attacker) who is also the main character, along with several "xiaba" (support characters) who cooperate with each other to respond to the strike. Yun Jin is unable to do it alone. So we carefully retained this concept, allowing the movement to be like kicking a shuttlecock — that is kicking it up yourself and picking it up yourself — and adapted it into a version that can be completed by one person.

Xiaoxiong, In-Game Animation: In Yun Jin's character design, we took reference to some traditional dances and Chinese operas. But since she is a Liyue character, we took the overall action style of Liyue and extracted some design points for her. If you want to summarize the keywords of the animation design for characters in Liyue, we felt that "simple perfection" would be the words to describe it. Xie Tiao, a poet from the Southern Qi Dynasty, has a line saying that "Good poems have the quality of simple perfection like that of a sphere." He is describing a type of fluency in the verse. In Yun Jin's design, this smoothness does not only refer to the polished flow of animation performance that exudes naturalness. In fact, what we hope more is that Yun Jin's moves are able to show her elegant and graceful side. Furthermore, the words "simple perfection" also represents our wish to bring a high-quality experience to players.

Audio Production

Dou, Creative Concept and Writing Team: Yun Jin is a very vivid performer. When she is on stage she doesn't just follow the process. When she needs to improvise, she will also improvise skillfully. For example, based on the original opera singing, she added her own unique interpretation. The scene for "The Divine Damsel of Devastation" in the main plot of Version 2.4 is a very concentrated expression of that. In Version 1.1, Liyue was in a critical period of handover. But in Version 2.4, after a long period of efforts coming together, we hope that we could appropriately portray the characteristics of the era of "human rule" in the story. With regard to the content about Chinese opera in our game and the text shown in the open world, many of the stories told are derived from the Archon War. Most of these stories in the game world are familiar to ordinary people of Liyue. But Yun Jin is a new generation artiste in Liyue. The flow of her artistic creation Is both from the outside in and from the inside out, hence naturally reflecting the spirit of the era which is the theme of "the age of man." So she is more inclined to create some stories about "people." This is also Yun Jin's artistic requirement for herself: her works and artistic attitude will be more in line with the current mentality of the young people in Liyue Harbor.

In our setting, Yun Jin sings "Liyue Opera" which is a long-standing opera form. Trying to create relevant opera content was a bolder attempt for us. For me, personally, I was the same as everyone else as a kid. I would also watch the Chinese opera channel and occasionally go to the theater with my family. After I grew up, I usually take the time to buy tickets to the Peking Opera Theater to listen. Our entire Creative Concept and Writing Team team feels that, the artistic charm of traditional opera is very strong. Only when people are able to watch opera live can you appreciate that charm and power better. So when we decided to make a character with a Chinese opera background we hoped to seize this opportunity to create a small intersection between the game and Chinese opera. If we can use this to let players feel the charm of Chinese opera just a little, that would be a great honor.

Seeyu, Audio Production: Regarding Yun Jin's audio production, the biggest difficulty at the time was that our development cycle was really short. We needed to complete the storyboard design within one month; lyrics, music composition, sample recordings, auditions, and the official recording. Actually, the timing was very tight. Yun Jin's dubbing involves Chinese opera singing. In order to achieve the best effect, we were hoping to find a suitable Chinese opera professional to perform it. But everyone knows most Chinese opera professionals are not really involved in game dubbing, so it was necessary to match the vocals in a short time, style someone with a suitable schedule. It was actually a very big challenge for us. So at that time we also decided to look for a voice actor with the ability to perform Chinese opera. Of course we got lucky. We went through two or three rounds of auditions and found an opera professional who was very suitable in all aspects, and so the current plan was confirmed. To allow our lines and opera singing be performed by the voice actor and the opera professional respectively — this was a first for Genshin Impact where two professionals dubbed different lines of the same character.

To see what we created and the effect it will have when performed by a professional — actually before the official recording, we only had a very vague concept. But when we heard the Peking Opera professional sing at the scene, we felt: wow, this is it. This is the feeling of awe that we were going for. This time around, we have had a lot of communication with the opera professional at all stages of the collaboration. We are very grateful for Ms. Yang's cooperation. This was also a very rare learning opportunity for our audio team.

Yang Yang, Performer, Shanghai Jingju Theatre Company: This collaboration was a very novel experience for me. To combine gaming with traditional opera — before this, I felt it was a difficult thing to imagine. But in the process of collaborating with the Genshin Impact Team and learning about the character Yun Jin, I could feel that the team put a lot of effort into this character how to subtly integrate the charm of Chinese opera into the virtual world into the image of a young girl. Everyone really did a lot of brainstorming and research. I am very happy to be involved in this project, using my voice and field of study to create this character, interpret the story in a fantasy world, to convey our traditional culture to players in this form. I hope everyone will like my performance and like the art of opera.

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Xiao Luohao, Creative Concept and Writing Team: Like Yun Jin who innovates and remakes old operas, the times are also constantly changing. The age of the audience as a whole is always changing. This wave keeps advancing and Yun Jin is someone who can perceive this cultural change, so she will revitalize some works that may be more distant for the younger generation of Liyue, making it easier for them to relate to. As workers in the gaming industry, it's a bit similar in this respect. Opera itself is constantly evolving with the changes of the times; it extends and expands into various fields. We also thought when the opera culture came to gaming, based on the premise of retaining the core spirit then combined with the lore of Genshin Impact, language style and art style, what kind of story will it present in this world? Yun Jin is our attempt. At first we also hesitated if we wanted to make Yun Jin a character heavily associated with Chinese opera. When we first thought of this, we weren't too sure. We also had to consider that there would be some risks. But as our work continued to advance, including discussions with colleagues from various departments, communication with the opera professional, we realized that the opera culture is really broad and profound with amazing depth and breadth. It covers many things that we Chinese can perceive. We really wanted to pay tribute to this ancient art in our own way.

As a Chinese gaming team, we do so with reverence and awe as we try our best to include some things that we feel are interesting, elements from different cultures into this all-encompassing fantasy world and let players with different cultural backgrounds in various regions access this cultural experience. Our game as a mass entertainment carrier is subject to many limitations. It is difficult to carry the profound accumulation of Chinese opera art over thousands of years. But if there is a way to use Genshin Impact, a form of entertainment that is easily accepted by others, to expose people to the artistic crystallization of Chinese traditional opera and even generate interest in the art itself, and then to get in touch with the essence of the real opera culture — we felt that if the game can serve as a simple introduction, then our efforts would already be very worthwhile.

Yun Jin is a character released during the Lantern Rite, just in time for our Chinese New Year. During the New Year with the warm atmosphere during Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, turn on the television, computer or phone and listen to operas. It's also a very Chinese thing to do. We hope everyone can feel the festive atmosphere inside and outside of the game and have a wonderful time accompanied by Genshin Impact.