Official Final Fantasy XV Blog: Staff interview! 2D artist Kawaguchi-san

By Erren Van Duine on March 2, 2016 at 12:18 PM

The latest set of Final Fantasy XV blog posts have gone live, following community manager Taji’s adventures with a new staff member: Kaoru Kawaguchi.

Forum member Rin has translated many of the important bits from the exchange – focusing on Kawaguchi’s role as the staff member in charge of unnamed NPCs (UNPCs).

10 people comprise of XV‘s art group. They create drawings (cities, residents, cars, miscellaneous items, etc.) that then get translated into CG.

Within the dev team, people separate NPCs into 2 categories: NNPCs (named NPCs) and UNPCs (unnamed). Kawaguchi’s in charge of the latter.

NNPCs are related to the story in some way. (Kawaguchi used an example and said something about a bar owner “Taji” being a NNPC).

XV‘s art is done and in good shape for the most part, but she still handles sudden requests from time to time. She wasn’t expecting an interview at all.

Everything is given thought, from the clothing, to the cities they live in, their lifestyles, etc. Down to the pockets and textures that go in their clothing design.

Kawaguchi went around asking people in suits to show her the pockets in their behind areas.

Kawaguchi’s pen tablet broke in the middle of the interview, apparently. She says it often happens, perhaps because she’s nervous.

Tell us about difficulties and interesting points you encounter in UNPC design.

Difficult points: the shape of clothing that can be rendered in circumstances of motion, etc. There’s a length limit in place, so the extent to which differences can be shown within that certain range had troubled Kawaguchi.

Also, in comparison to men (their clothing is much simpler), she had trouble accentuating differences in women’s silhouettes. She can’t give women pointy clothes all of a sudden.

Interesting point: witnessing the UNPCs come to life when the models have been created and are running in the game. Seeing them pouring tea or selling things at their shops make her happy.

By the way, the fighting couple at Chocobo Wiz Post also fall under the category of UNPC.

How many UNPC models and varieties are there?

Kawaguchi can’t give an answer about the number of models, but she talks briefly about varieties. In Altissia alone, there are more than 100 varieties of UNPCs (men and women, young and old), and when you add them all up, the scope of the houses, shops, etc. that line the streets in XV becomes something that surpasses all previous FFs.

Could you show us some pictures and materials?

Kawaguchi showed some clothing samples used for UNPCs. On the back of each sample is their type written down. On the left side of the image, samples include: denim, wool, silk, checkered gingham, etc. On the right side, you can see the UNPC design files. You can see the image of the old Lestallum man on the top left of that album.

And some final words from Kawaguchi (paraphrase): There’s a lot of art related to game promotion that can’t be shown, and the number of that type of art has increased, but the staff are working hard to finish the game, so please look forward to it, everyone!

The next update to the blog will not feature an interview. New details will be shared on March 4th.