Champion Reveal: Illaoi[]
Illaoi's bringing a freakin' god to the Rift. One of the new breed of juggernauts, she's a slow but impactful solo laner in any game, with 
tentacles that offer huge zone control once they worm their way into a game. And while she lacks traditional gap closers to start fights, she can pull the 
spirits from distant squishies and destroy them, rendering yet another 
Vessel for Illaoi's god, Nagakabouros.[2]
- Prophet of an Elder God
- Tentacle Smash
- Passive:
Tentacles that hit enemy champions heal Illaoi for a small portion of her missing health. - Active: Illaoi summons a tentacle that slams down in a target direction, damaging all enemies struck.
- Harsh Lesson
tentacles to swing at her target.
- Test of Spirit
slow as they become a Vessel, and start spawning tentacles around them that attack both their host and their allies. Test of Spirit allows tentacles to occasionally swing at spirits and vessels, dealing physical damage to all enemies hit.
- Leap of Faith
tentacle for every enemy champion hit. 
Harsh Lesson's cooldown is significantly reduced while Leap of Faith is active.
- Laning
Strong but relatively slow, Illaoi needs to be careful with her abilities, particularly during the early game. The tentacles she summons through Prophet of an Elder God pack a punch, but don't move with Illaoi, making her much stronger when she's able to hunker down in one spot. At the same time, her tentacles and abilities - particularly 
Tentacle Smash - deal massive area of effect damage and can push the minions towards enemy towers super easily. This is where Illaoi needs to be particularly vigilant: if she strays too far forward, she'll miss out on the extra damage her tentacles offer and render herself relatively defenseless against enemy ganks. Illaoi can definitely take a punch, but if she's caught out of position, she pretty much only has her health and resistances - along with the healing from tentacle strikes - to sustain her through the enemy onslaught.
When she's well-placed for a fight, she definitely knows how to inflict pain. Illaoi can whale rival melee enemies down with Harsh Lesson and Tentacle Smash, and only adds to the hurt when she positions her enemy within reach of her tentacles. Ranged enemies can be more of a challenge, harassing Illaoi from a distance while staying far enough away to avoid her melee retaliation. But try as they might, they can't avoid Illaoi's punishment if she manages to steal her lane opponent's spirit. Test of Spirit levels the playing field, giving Illaoi free access to her target's health bar even when their physical form is well away from danger. So, while junglers traditionally look for enemy kills or 
flashes during ganks, killing an enemy's spirit will often impact the lane just as meaningfully. Their spirits crushed, Illaoi's counterpart becomes a Vessel for Nagakabouros, who starts sending tentacles to further test their newest victim.
Suddenly Illaoi's opponent, melee or ranged, has a whole heap of things to pay attention to. Tentacles spawn beside walls, so escaping or chasing to wall brush becomes a lot less... well, survivable. What's more, Illaoi's a bunch stronger when she can reliably fight alongside the tentacles created by her spiritless enemy, and can fire off Tentacle Smash and Harsh Lesson to coordinate the ever-increasing number of aquatic appendages populating the Rift. And while Illaoi's opponent is distracted by the various limbs sprouting around the Rift, they're all the more likely to miss a return visit from the Kraken Priestess' jungler.
- Skirmishing
Once teams start gathering to contest neutral objectives, Illaoi takes up her rightful place at the forefront of her team's formation. She's a beast around stationary objectives, particularly when she has enough lead time to set up her tentacles. They don't just offer her team extra damage in taking down 
Dragon, but also add disruption should the enemy team move in to stake their claim. And while Illaoi will generally prefer to steal the spirits of squishy targets, landing Test of Spirit on a frontline enemy still offers Illaoi and her team options. The spirit will be tankier (its health and resistances reflect those of her target), but by focusing it down, Illaoi's allies will force their enemies to make a tough choice: contest the objective and fight through the ever-growing tentacled gauntlet, or give up the objective entirely.
- Teamfighting
As teams fully group, Illaoi works best securing her team's frontline and waiting for the perfect Test of Spirit cast. Once she's landed the ability and her team's destroyed the captured spirit, Illaoi's all set to force her way through to the enemy backline. Though she doesn't have a particularly reliable way of getting to the backline, she can still use Harsh Lesson to charge her way in. And once she's there, just like any other juggernaut, she's an absolute nightmare to deal with, with Tentacle Smash and Harsh Lesson offering Illaoi the means to lay the slap down on multiple enemies. Most importantly, her presence in the heart of the enemy team will often force them to spread and scatter in fear of the Kraken Priestess' monumental 
ultimate. While Leap of Faith is theoretically only as powerful as the number of enemies Illaoi lands it on, the ability itself has a huge psychological impact on the enemy team. Either they split up as Illaoi calls on her god, or they risk fighting under a cluster of enraged tentacles. Neither ends well for Illaoi's enemies.
- Synergy
| Works well with: | Struggles against: |
|---|---|
  Orianna covers Illaoi's weaknesses and accentuates her strengths. |
  Illaoi, just like |
  Whenever League's rustiest robot enters the Rift alongside Illaoi, the two quickly form into a deadly tag team. If the Kraken Priestess misses her target with |
 
|
  Lulu, like Orianna, gives Illaoi plenty of means to get in the midst of her enemies while shaking off their timid attacks. |
 
|
Champion Insights: Illaoi[]
By Conor 'fizzNchips' Sheehy[3]
We met up with some of the folks behind Illaoi's creation to find out how they turned some early ideas into the battle priestess preparing to test the Rift. Here's their story.
Design notes by Beat PunchBeef
Art notes by Hdot
Narrative notes by WAAARGHbobo
Before Illaoi was a thing, we had this cool idea of having a character in our game literally punch the spirit out of their target. We had to shelve it as we were still finishing up 
Rek'Sai, but once we cycled back around into new champion ideation, we were super happy to find out that our pod had been tasked with creating League's next brawler. Brawlers like punching, we could have ours punch spirits... things were starting out great.
We were a little way through ideation when the champion update guys spun up a new team tasked with identifying roles in the game and making sure all the champions in that role brought a unique playstyle to a game of League. They're the guys who most recently updated the marksmen, but before that, they tackled a whole new class: the juggernauts. These were League's lumbering, tanky, melee class. The champion update team rounded up all the champs who fit their juggernaut definition, and as they did, we realized that our new brawling champion would fit perfectly into that bunch. But they were all guys, even the 
dog-shaped ones, so we started thinking about a lady to mix things up a bit.
- The Battle Cleric Juggerdame
Before we started on this new lady brawler's look, we knew we wanted to do something different. This isn't a commonly known fact, but a huge chunk of League's female characters actually share an identical (or near identical) face and body, and are only differentiated by their hair and clothing. We wanted to try something different, and so set about creating someone significantly apart from the crowd for our brawler. She's a bunch bigger, obviously, but alongside her larger frame we gave her a larger personality, too. We wanted her to be confident and comfortable in her own skin, a woman who knows exactly who she is and what she wants. We started tooling her up to be someone who was genuinely beautiful in her own unique way. The sketching began in earnest.
Armor quickly became a pretty contentious point. Brawler was known as Battle Cleric at one point, a name which naturally led to us giving her buckets of armor. But straight away that didn't feel right. Armor implied tankiness which implied Brawler was someone you hit, rather than someone who hit you. We pulled off the armor to emphasize her muscles, which in turn accentuated her confidence and power. Taking her armor away brought her tattoos into play, too, which played up her strong religious aspect and gave her a more immediate connection to her god. At one point, her tattoos actually came to life and formed her tentacles, although that overlapped with 
Braum and even 
Udyr a little too hard for our liking. Eventually we settled on Brawler carrying a symbol of her god around as she traveled, an idol which she could wield to conjure aspects of her deity.
And what about those tentacles? They first squirmed their way in with Brawler's Q, which stayed pretty much constant throughout her development. But as we got further in, as we really started figuring out who Illaoi was - how central her god was to her - we started looking for ways we could make her tentacles more central to her kit. We tinkered around with a few ideas, the coolest of which involved Illaoi actually showing her ulted enemies the truth of the world around them. We had an overlay in place that changed the whole map, revealing tentacles snaking all over the walls and structures around them. It was awesome to look at, but ultimately the tentacles were just there - they didn't actually do anything. Then we got to thinking: what if they did?
- Day of the Tentacle
Adding independent tentacles to Illaoi's kit was really the last piece of the burgeoning champion's puzzle. By adding them in, we gave Illaoi a really unique space within the juggernauts: she'd be the set-up queen, a champion who grew in strength when she settled in an area and had enough time to grow a tentacle or two. The independent tentacles fit perfectly into her theme, too. By adding them in, Illaoi players would never feel alone in-game, while Illaoi's enemies would always feel outnumbered against her, even 1v1. Everything worked together, and after months of iteration, we had a kit-locked brawling champion with a compelling and consistent playstyle, look and character. Illaoi.
Player Choice: Battlecast Illaoi[]
Choose the Next Illaoi Skin[]
Thanks to everyone who voted! Voting is now closed, but we'll be announcing the winner on November 20, 2017!
Hi! I'm Riot DrPh8, a concept artist that helps to design skins, and I'm here to talk about ILLAOI. She's gone two years without some skin love (please don't quote that out of context), but the time has finally come.
We've been looking at skin options for her for a while now, and along the way realized there was a wide range of fun directions we could take. We narrowed the list down to the ones we're most excited about, but this time around we want to leave the final call in your hands. Vote on which skin you want to see us create, and after the winner is announced, we'll be updating you regularly on its development.
Every two weeks we'll post our progress to Nexus—and get your reactions and input.
You have until 23:59 PST on November 13th to vote!
Here are the concepts! These names aren't final. None of this is final.
- Battlecast Illaoi
Part machine, part human, Battlecast Illaoi fights for the survival of all organics against 
Creator Viktor's 'Evolution'.
- Adventurer Illaoi
She's beaten ancient curses, discovered hidden temples, explored the depths of the ocean, and survived it all unscathed.
- Deep Space Illaoi
The Next Illaoi Skin is...[]
By Will 'Nerp1186' Starck[5]
The people have spoken, and they have chosen:
- BATTLECAST ILLAOI!
We got over six million votes from around the globe, and the organics' last hope against Creator Viktor has prevailed.
Here's the breakdown:
- Battlecast 45%
- Adventurer 25%
- Deep Space 30%
But what about the Illaoi mains? Are they stuck with a skin selected by the un-washed, non-Nagakabouros-loving masses? We had to know:
The hardest of the hardcore tentacle followers who have played over 1,000 games on the Kraken Priestess overwhelmingly chose Battlecast, too.
Battlecast has undoubtedly bested her foes, who now must retreat into the concept folder.
- What's Next?
Okay, now that we've got the skin picked, it's time to make it! We're aiming for release in first half of next year and, if all goes well, it'll take about four months from when we start development to when it's live.
We're going to try something a little different with this one. We know a lot of you are interested in the making of skins and want to be a part of it, so we want to take you inside Riot as we bring Battlecast Illaoi to life. We want you to be able to follow along as we make the skin—from concepting, animation, sound design, naming, and all other aspects of what actually goes into making a League skin—so we'll post a development update every two weeks here on Nexus.
If you've ever been curious about something in the dev process, or if there's anything you especially want to see, let us know and we'll show you (if we can).Battlecast Illaoi: Concepting[]
By Will 'Nerp1186' Starck[6]
With the vote closed and the winner announced, it's time to start locking down the complete concept for the next Illaoi skin, Battlecast Illaoi (name TBD). But before we can finalize the concept, we first need to work out some details about the theme.
- What's the Battlecast Universe?
Battlecast uses a lot of metal and tech, but it's grimy and imperfect. Contrast this with something like PROJECT, which is sleek/shiny, or with Program, which is more digital/cyber. Battlecast is sci-fi, but the tech isn't as advanced or clean as some of those other universes, so it's got a retro, dirty sci-fi feel to it. Additionally, we have to nail down what makes Illaoi special in this world. She's not a machine—she's an organic rebelling against the machines. How does that change how we approach the skin?
- Illaoi's Backstory
As we start to concept a skin, we want to avoid just copypastaing a theme onto a champion and saying, “Looks cool, time to go home!” We really try to think hard about both the theme and the champion, and then find a place that makes sense for both of them within an alternate Runeterra. For Battlecast Illaoi, we came up with a brief backstory about who she is, why she's here, and why she's carrying a giant robot head:
Creator Viktor's machines destroy and hunt humans in this war-torn world. But his plan quickly runs into a problem.
Viktor attempts to assimilate Illaoi, but she proves too strong. Illaoi breaks free from her bonds and, armed with only her new robotic arm, she tears the head from the giant mechanized guard and carries it with her. She quickly learns that the components implanted in her allow her to interface with Viktor's machines and central computer system. Hacking into it, she is able to escape to relative safety, where she starts planning her resistance.
A key goal for any skin is that it communicates a clear theme and general story within the first three seconds of a player seeing it in-lane. Building stories like this before sketching out ideas helps inform our designs. Her clothing, machine oil warpaint, color scheme, and of course the giant robot head, were all chosen to scream out this story.*
Now it's up to us to use the model, visual effects, animations, and sound effects to make Illaoi the most badass resistance fighter the machines will ever face.
- It's worth noting that a lot of times, these napkin-written stories are used more for inspiration than they are as lore, and sometimes they change or are never overtly confirmed or spoken.
- The Tentacles
Illaoi's tentacles are her defining feature, so nailing these is vital to the success of the skin.
We had the mech-hand in our early concepts, but got some feedback from the gameplay team that the idea of a “hand-tentacle” was going to be an issue.
The hand concept was pretty popular when we put out the vote; making a change of this magnitude isn't something we take lightly. Unfortunately, it's part of the development process that a lot of interesting ideas get left on the cutting room floor—even stuff we love. Gameplay gave us some insight into their reasoning, though: During Illaoi's development, the champ team tried a few different tentacles for her and learned that solid or opaque tentacles made teamfighting a nightmare. Illaoi would ult and no one could see what was happening because of all the tentacles flopping around. It can already be difficult keeping track of everything during a teamfight, and transparent robo-hands kind of don't make sense, so we weighed our options and decided to keep exploring.
One idea was to have the tentacles be solid when idling, but more ethereal when attacking, that way we could give them the solid look we wanted without the included gameplay issues. But when we looked into that approach, we realized it would require completely reanimating the tentacles. We like the idea, but the animation concerns are enough to make us keep looking.
Finally, we get a little closer with these:
The glowing red look is a key element of Battlecast technology, and these new tentacles are capturing that well. We aren't as concerned with these cluttering the game because they will be mostly ethereal, while hopefully still feeling solid and appropriate for Battlecast. We think the base needs the most work from here (figuring out where Illaoi's tentacles come from is one big challenge in designing visuals for her).
- The Totem
Going back to our original concepting story: Once Illaoi has decapitated her robotic guard, she uses its dismembered head to fly to safety. Alright… but what EXACTLY does that look like?
We're looking at her totem as not only a weapon, but a remote control for the machines and her main mode of transport. A flaming skull probably doesn't fit this well.
Instead, we're opting for something a little in between:
- Putting the Pieces Together
Finally, we have just about everything we need to lock down the look of the skin:
This is the 90% final look for her. Through development, we will need to make tweaks and adjustments, but this is pretty close.
Now that we have the concepts close to finished, we'll be figuring out how to take Illaoi's kit into the Battlecast Universe."
Battlecast Illaoi: Modeling and Texturing[]
By Yekaterina 'SilverUnicorn' Bourykina[7]
In our last update on “Battlecast Illaoi” (final name still TBD), we were pretty close to locking in the final look for the skin. Now it’s time to start transferring that concept into the game. The first step in this process is to build a 3D model of the concept art, which we can then use to build-out her kit.
- 3D Modeling
Once the concept was nearly finalized, we took a look at it from a 3D perspective and made some adjustments for readability both in shapes and colors.
We got rid of the white paint markings both on her arm guard and the robot head because they were starting to read as highlights and were causing some confusion. We consolidated the materials, brightened up the head, hair, and goggles, and cooled off the greens that were fabrics (the leather greens are warmer).
For the moment, we removed the markings from her face because it looked too much like she had two sets of eyes. We’re considering adding them back in, but making them read correctly will be a finesse touch that’s usually saved until the end of development. We’ll continue exploring other possibilities as we move forward! :D
When we start the modeling process for the skin, we’re restricted to using the base rig, or the skeleton for the champion. We started off by taking the old Illaoi model and ripping out parts to build a base body for the new skin. We began this process before the concept was locked-in because it can take a long time. We couldn’t start working on everything for the skin though, so we started off by modeling the parts we were most likely to keep.
Creating a basic model allowed us to see how things like her hair and armor will read game. We also checked to make sure all the joints were aligned in the rig (especially her fingers). Then we cleaned up the geometry and started building out the shape of the model.
Creating even a basic model like this one takes a lot of time and goes through many progressions, but since it’ll determine how she moves and looks in game, it’s extremely important to have a solid base to build the skin on.
Once the model was done, we set up her smoothing groups, which will take her from a blocky model to something more refined for in game. Afterwards, we did what’s called an “ambient occlusion bake,” which is how we start building-out textures. Textures are 2D images that wrap around the model and bring it to life with vibrant colors and details—for example, you see this in fabrics, such as cloth, leather, and gold.
This is the work-in-progress texture map where we edit the materials and colors that’ll be placed on top of the character model.
Once the ambient occlusion bake was done and the concept art was finalized, it was time to start adding colors and details. The first step in this is to add some flat colors on a Hard Light layer, which is a base layer of color we can then add more details to. We like to use a Hard Light layer because it can really bring out the colors and make them richer.
Next, we added some quick lighting on an overlay with a big soft brush and added another overlay layer with a darker color.
Detailing the fire base layer, the Hard Light layer, and overlay layer with a gradient from top to bottom.
Then we started painting to match the concept! The first shot didn’t look quite like Illaoi, so we pivoted a little and tried to bring her skin tone and features closer to her base skin.
At this stage, we’re guessing how the painted skin will look in game because the models are idle (but in-game, champions are always moving). Once we got her in game and running around, we could really see what’s working and what isn’t.
Even though the model is in the texturing phase, we are still going to make adjustments as needed.
Below, her model is about 35-40% complete (time to do the tentacles next!).
- Ability Brainstorm
While we’ve been working on locking down the concept and modeling, we’ve also been thinking about what we’re going to do with Illaoi’s kit.
We do this in a “blue sky” meeting, which is where we can pitch anything. Nothing is off the table. You want Illaoi’s totem to be Velkoz’s head? Blue sky is where you get to pitch it.
Once we established that Illaoi’s E (Test of Spirit) is “Weird as f**k,” we were good to start. Here are some highlights from the blue sky meeting:
AUDIO/SFX
- Separate sound effects for hitting the clone created by her E
- Partial process VO on certain words, especially when mad
VFX
- E – Pulls out a hologram- or scanline-type thing that smokes and sparks when hit or has a chromatic shift
- E – Wires come out all snakey and form over each other and then grab
- R – Jetpack for the dunk
- R – Burst, electricity, smoke, or wires
- R – Crack on ground that’s a target or a symbol of the Resistance
- Rumbling pipes in the totem
- During activation, totem opens up
- When cursed, there’s a hacky screen overlay
- Electricity going through the wires in the totem
ANIMATION/RECALLS
- Recalls:
- Tweak totem to project the Resistance symbol
- Sneaks into underground bunker
- Slams Viktor’s bunker and beats him up
- Turns totem upside down and uses it as a salsa bowl
- Turns totem upside down and plays with the wiring
- Throws totem down, stands on it and pulls out a Resistance flag
- Dance: Puts totem on her head and dances the robot
- Death: Illaoi takes out a bomb and explodes
- Totem cries out in pain when hit
- Totem laughs at jokes
- Jetpack for homeguard
These are just a few of the ideas we had and, unfortunately, most will not make the cut. Some won’t work in the game, others are maybe too absurd, and some are out of scope for the skin.
By our next update, we should have a better idea of what her kit will look like and we’ll have started to build out her abilities.Battlecast Illaoi: Visuals and Sound Effects[]
By Will 'Nerp1186' Starck[8]
Now that the concept and basic modeling are close to complete, we enter a different phase of skin development. Instead of focusing on a single aspect of the skin, the team works on different parts at the same time. Today we’re looking at the progress we’ve made on Illaoi’s sound effects, visual effects, and recall animation.
- Voice-Over Processing
The initial idea for the audio effects on Illaoi’s spoken lines was to put processing on all of it, creating a parallel, angry voice layer that’d phase in and out on important keywords as she spoke.
However, we need to keep in mind that we localize everything we do, which can make effects like this difficult since both the translations and delivery of the voice lines can be different across languages.
Due to the enormous number of lines Illaoi has (one of the highest in the game), and the extreme margin of error once we account for all the languages, plus the fact that she has a very complex kit (looking at you tentacles!), the original plan to create an angry Battlecast layer that phases in and out is probably out of scope. Additionally, heavily-affected VO processing would feel pretty at odds with Battlecast Illaoi’s story and visuals.
So we’ve had to drop that idea. Instead, we’re looking at doing heavy processing on her E lines (there are over 60 of these), which are the trippy, delayed ones that sound like she’s in your head.
We haven’t started working on the sound effects for her abilities yet, but hopefully next time we’ll have these built out more and will be ready to share.
- Visual Effects
Generally when we make visual effects, we work on them over a number of iterations. While other disciplines can use concept art to quickly work out how something will look, VFX only exist in motion, so the usefulness of concept work can be limited. The first visual effects pass is a very rough blockout for what an effect will look like to help get a feeling for how something will look in motion.
This is an EXTREMELY EARLY test for what the passive effects on Illaoi’s robot head will look like. These effects need to capture the feeling of a “trailing element” that her base skin has while also amplifying the Battlecast aesthetic. As such, the intention for the robot head’s VFX is for it to look like there’s a spinal column trailing from it.
The second pass is where we start really refining the VFX, honing in on the elements that work and refining the colors. A final polish pass will be done later to clean up any minor visual bugs—such as the particles having a harsh edge where they intersect other geometry—or making sure things spawn and fade out smoothly.
From a VFX standpoint, Illaoi is one of the more complex champions in the game (a reoccuring theme!). A normal champion such as Nasus has around 35 individual particle files. However, between Illaoi’s tentacles, hit impacts, torn out spirits, countdown timer and dunk effects, Illaoi has over 100 individual files, all of which will need updating for her skin. Because of this, building out the skin’s VFX is going to take a little longer than usual.
- Recall Animation
We generated a bunch of ideas for the recall in our initial creative meeting for Illaoi. Some of them were pretty crazy, but we decided to keep this one fairly self-contained without a ton of visual props to interact with. The community seemed to like some of the jetpack ideas from the previous post, so we thought incorporating that into the recall could be cool.
We also really wanted her to interact with the robot head since it’s such a major part of the skin. This recall seemed to be a good mix of action and fun and hits the Battlecast tone. We blocked some poses and showed it to the team. Everyone seemed to like it, so we moved forward with animating.
We thought it’d be light-hearted and still fit the Battlecast theme if Illaoi started the head up like a lawnmower to get it going.
Before the skin ships, we’ll do another polish pass to clean up the animation, and we’ll probably also add a start cord and maybe even some shoulder straps. The process thus far was done over the course of four or five days—here’s a time-lapse video showing how we animated the flying-portion of the recall:
That’s all for this week. See you next time!
Catch up on the development:
- Part One: Concepting
- Part Two: Modeling and Texturing
Resistance Illaoi: Nearly Ready[]
By Will 'Nerp1186' Starck, Jared 'Carnival Knights' Rosen, & Julian 'Zimberfly' Samal[9]
It’s getting close to the end of production for the fan-voted Illaoi skin, which means there’s only one update left on the skin’s development. Catch up on the previous posts here.
The name Resistance Illaoi was based on a couple things. First, she isn’t a full Battlecast robot—she is part robot and destroys other robots. Like Blade, except instead of slinging hot vampire-themed one liners, she smashes stuff with glowing robot octopus tentacles. Basically the same thing.
Second, as part of the update to the skin collections, we’re starting to get a better feel for which skins belong in which alternate League fantasies and what factions live in each world. We know there’s a human-led resistance in the Battlecast universe and that Illaoi isn’t a robot, so it felt natural that a part-robot-robot-hunter would best fit in there.
That decision left another skin in a sort of “skin-limbo,” which I will call skimbo: Resistance Caitlyn. She has a cool beret and a couple of visual elements that gel with the idea of a guerilla fighting force, but she has no skin line attached to her or presence in the wider League universe. In the end it made sense to kill two birds with one stone—found the Resistance with Resistance Illaoi and officially give Resistance Caitlyn a home in the Battlecast universe.
- Splash!
Splash art can takes months to complete. Early in development, the illustrator often starts brainstorming poses, a general theme, and the look of the champion, but as you’ve seen, the skin goes through many iterations before we have a final concept locked.
The above GIF is a timelapse showing each iteration of the splash. The artist continuously made adjustments as developers honed in on the skin’s design, until the finished version was finally ready:
Unless there are major changes to the skin, this will be the final splash for Resistance Illaoi.
- Building Out the Sound Effects
When creating new audio for a skin, the sound designer has the unique responsibility of protecting the crucial gameplay elements from the base skin, even while redesigning a new fantasy. There are both challenges and opportunities when creating a skin’s audio, including:
- What important audio reads do you want to maintain from the base?
- Are there places in the skin where it’s okay to break those rules? If so, where?
- What does the frequency content of base skin communicate? Do the abilities sound dark and bassy or bright and sizzling?
- Does the reverb feel “wet,” as if coming to your ears through a long hallway, or “dry,” like it’s so close you feel like you could touch it.
The goal is to inject the awesome uniqueness of the skin’s aesthetic into the kit that will make people say, “That sounds totally different and awesome, but I still recognize it as Illaoi’s E.”
Check out these side-by-side audio examples of the original Illaoi that we all know and love and her Resistance counterpart:
Base Illaoi – Tentacle Smash Hit
Resistance Illaoi – Tentacle Smash Hit
Base Illaoi – Harsh Lesson Activate
Resistance Illaoi – Harsh Lesson Activate
Base Illaoi – Test of Spirit Soul Loop
Resistance Illaoi – Test of Spirit Soul Loop
Base Illaoi – Leap of Faith Cast and Hit
Resistance Illaoi – Leap of Faith Cast and Hit
- The Colors of Resistance
We had a lot of questions about Chromas, and we can finally confirm that yes, Resistance Illaoi is getting Chromas!
While these are still works in progress, these are the ones we know we’ll be shipping with the skin. We’re considering other colors, so if you have any thoughts, let us know.
What’s Next
The final update on Resistance Illaoi will cover polishing her VFX and playtesting the skin to get rid of all (okay most) of those pesky bugs. Then she’ll hit PBE and will hopefully be released sometime in patch 8.5!Resistance Illaoi: The Final Update[]
By Katey 'KateyKhaos' Anthony & Oliver 'Beardilocks' McDonald[10]
We’re pleased to announce that this will be the final update on Resistance Illaoi because she’s heading off to PBE and then to the live servers!
Let’s do this.
- Designing The Tentacle Smash
When creating visual effects (VFX), there are a number of considerations to take into account. The first of these is gameplay clarity—since the VFX for an ability basically ARE that spell, they need to clearly indicate the damage area of that ability, and they shouldn’t add too much noise that’d make it more difficult to see in a teamfight. Aesthetically, they need to deliver on the theme we’re trying to accomplish and they should be recognizable as that character’s ability the first time a player sees it.
With these considerations in mind, here’s how we developed Illaoi’s Q – Tentacle Smash.
We knew from Resistance Illaoi’s concept art and character design that she needed to have red as her VFX primary color, so the first step was to take the base Q’s VFX and recolor them red. The concept artist helped come up with some decals to act as area indicators for Illaoi’s Q, as we felt the base wiggly-tentacle pattern didn’t fit very well with the theme. Here’s the first pass we did for her Q:
Although this looks fine, it doesn’t feel very “Battlecast” (or Resistance). So next we went through all the other Battlecast VFX in the game and made a moodboard of what they looked like, and we referred to the brainstorm the team had made on what each ability could be. We even asked VFX artists who had previously worked on Battlecast skins what they felt made an effect feel “Battlecast.”
From this, we knew we wanted to get some smoky, fiery explosions into her kit somewhere, and possibly some low-tech red holograms. Then we made a second pass at her Q:
Now this feels more Battlecast!
But when this was submitted for an internal playtest, the feedback was that it was too noisy and felt too powerful for how much damage it did. There was also an issue of clarity. When Illaoi ulted, it became very difficult to see what was going on if she hit five targets, which spawns five tentacles that slam at once.
Additionally, we consulted an Illaoi main from a different team at Riot, and he gave some feedback on the Tentacle Slam indicator. He felt that, because the Q indicator was much more opaque than base, it made it easier for enemies to dodge, and the very fine lines ended up being jagged, as they were each one pixel or less.
The first step on refining this effect was to make the indicator less busy whilst still feeling like it belonged in the Battlecast universe:
Top – Base Illaoi Q Indicator; Middle – Resistance Illaoi Q Indicator Version 1, Bottom – Resistance Illaoi Q Indicator Version 2
We toned down some of the explosion effects and removed the oil spills for better gameplay clarity. With the help of the entire League of Legends VFX team, we polished the effect more to get to the final version of Tentacle Smash:
- Tentacle Chromas and VFX
Normally for Chromas we don’t change any of the VFX, but we’re making an exception for Illaoi. As we were looking at the Chromas, it became clear that it would be confusing if the tentacles that spawned from her passive were different than the ones in her Q and E, so we’re going to make them match. (Though the majority of her VFX will still remain red.)
- Accounting For Colorblindness
Whenever we’re designing anything, we need to account for colorblindness. The most common type of colorblindness is red and green, and since this skin uses red as the primary color for the VFX, this was a major concern.
Here you can see a first pass of Illaoi’s “Test of Spirit” tentacle. Unfortunately, when tested in colorblind mode, it becomes very difficult to distinguish the red from the green grass of Summoner’s Rift, which would make it difficult for a color blind player to see if it were flying towards them.
Additionally, human eyes are naturally drawn to the areas of an object that are brightest, or that have the highest contrast. As per the League of Legends VFX style guide, we try to ensure that the tip of a missile like Illaoi’s Test of Spirit is what draws the eye, as this is the area that an enemy needs to avoid.
You can see in the far right image that the brightness value is roughly even along the whole length of the tentacle, and in the far left image, the area in the middle of the projectile has the highest contrast because of the dark metal right next to the bright red.
Subtle changes were made to the tentacle, making it look like it has a hot, glowing yellow core, and the brightness and contrast were increased in the glows at the tip. This makes it more visible for color blind players and also draws more attention to the part of the projectile important to gameplay—the tip that’ll rip out your spirit.
Here’s a sneak peek of Illaoi’s E.
As a final note, we use several colorblind filters in Photoshop to simulate what any piece of a skin would look like for a player who is colorblind. In addition, we ask colorblind Rioters—you may have seen Nerp1186 jump into some Reddit threads about this—to look at the visuals and VFX for skins such as this one to raise any concerns.
- Quality Assurance (QA)
As all of the moving parts for Resistance Illaoi come together, it means it’s time for playtesting!
Several times a week, our team jumps into internal playtests where we see work in progress and give feedback, both from an artistic and gameplay perspective. We also invite resident mains of a champion to join us because they offer up great in-depth feedback as someone who knows the champion inside and out.
We round up at the end of a playtest to give feedback, and from there, the pod working on Resistance Illaoi discusses it and spins up action items.
Here’s an example of what playtest feedback looks like. As you can see, Illaoi had a few WIP names in development!
In conjunction with playtesting, we also have formal testing running parallel. QA works with devs to curate a design document, which details what’s changed with this skin, so we know what we’re looking for and what’s intended when we test it.
Unlike playtests, formal testing runs through an extensive list covering everything from, “Does Tentacle Smash use thematic VFX?” to “Does anything go wrong when Lulu Polymorphs Illaoi?” (With Lulu, the answer is almost always.)
As we wrap up this skin, we’ll tackle bugs that are logged during testing. We categorize bugs into several buckets ranging from Blocker (i.e. a game is crashing) to Trivial (there’s slight clipping on the model). These buckets then help us prioritize the order in which we fix them. We average around 30 bugs for a skin of this scope. For comparison, Elementalist Lux had about 500 bugs.
We’ve already got a handful of bugs logged and in the process of being fixed. A classic examples of bugs we see during development are VFX present during multiple animations:
Keep an eye out for her coming soon™ to a PBE near you! We’ll have a PBE Feedback thread pinned here. You’ve been great at sharing your thoughts through this skin’s development so far, don’t leave us hanging at the end.
And with that… we hope to see you out there. The Resistance needs you.
- In Case You Missed It
Catch up on the complete development of Resistance Illaoi:
Illaoi in Project L[]
By Illaoi Dev Team[11]
Hi all, I’m Shaun “UNCONKABLE!!!!” Rivera, associate game director and gameplay design lead for Project L, Riot’s upcoming 2D fighting game. You just got an update from Tom Cannon about our aspirations and current focuses as a development team, and I’m super excited for us to be able to provide a small update on Illaoi, an upcoming fighter (or champion, in our game). Before the team working on her shares some early insight into her development, I wanted to talk a little bit about the dev process in Project L overall.
We start off by deciding which champions we want to pursue. Our ultimate goal is to have a diverse and inclusive roster where everyone can find a champion that truly speaks to them. There are a ton of considerations such as, but not limited to, fight fantasy, theme, archetype, team synergy, race and ethnicity, personality, identity, size, etc. Once we have a champion in mind, we plan out when we’ll begin working on them, and then create a pod which consists of folks across disciplines such as design, narrative, art, engineering, tech art, QA, production, and audio.
At a high level, we have a few phases we move champions through in our champion pipeline, but today we’re going to focus on the first: DNA. If you’ve seen any of our character development stories from League of Legends or VALORANT, this term might look familiar. At this stage, our Designer, Narrative writer, and concept and animation Artists (get it? DNA) focus on exploring possibilities—inspiring each other with cool visuals, thematics, and kit ideas until something exciting emerges.
From there, using some extremely rough models and kits, we get the ideas into the game. Once we’ve locked down a direction, the team expands to include the rest of the disciplines that’ll be working on the champion. But that stage is something we’ll cover at a later date.
As to Illaoi in particular...
We have an overwhelming number of champions to pull from League of Legends. There are beefy juggernauts, agile assassins, and powerful mages, to name a few. Still, we try to be thoughtful when deciding who to bring to Project L.
We want to make sure we’ve identified champions who can both improve our gameplay and be enhanced by being in our game. In short, we want to elevate their fantasy. The juggernauts should be beefier, the assassins more agile, and the mages more powerful. But beyond that, they should still feel true to who they are. We still want players who know and love these characters to see what they expect, and to give them a little more.
Essentially, we want players to see a champion in Project L do something they’ve never seen before, and think “Holy shit, they did what? Of course they can do that...”
Our narrative director, Alison “Jaredan” Hawkes, was the one to pitch Illaoi as a member of our starting roster. When thinking about my experiences against her in League, especially after a well placed ult, listening to him talk about her story and theme, experiencing her amazing role in Ruined King: A League of Legends Story, and chatting with the team about a number of ways we could really elevate her champion fantasy in Project L, I was beyond stoked to include her. It felt like we could really create something special while paying homage to all of the Illaoi fans out there. And I hope you all feel that way once you get done reading.
- Narrative
Our goal with each champion is to not just deliver what players expect. Instead it’s to reach higher and deliver what they deserve, and Illaoi is no different.
Our work on Narrative began during ideation by defining Illaoi’s core truths: Who she’s been, who she is now, and who she could be in Project L. Our goal was to answer one question, “Why is she a champion that we absolutely need to make?”
Illaoi was released in League of Legends nearly seven years ago where she’s been a staple (or nightmare) of top laners ever since. We’ve also seen her overwhelm her enemies in Legends of Runeterra and save the world from Ruination in Ruined King.
With support from our central IP Strategy team, I wrote a champion brief that sums up what makes Illaoi special, and what it is that players across the world love about her.
Illaoi is the Truth Bearer of Nagakabouros, the deity of life, ocean storms, and motion, who is often depicted as a colossal kraken. Illaoi and her people come from the Serpent Isles, an island archipelago that includes Bilgewater and her home island of Buhru.
In League of Legends, Illaoi's gameplay focuses on testing the worthiness of individuals using the golden artifact known as the Eye of God. Wielding the massive idol, she rips souls from their host bodies, and summons spectral tentacles to repeatedly slam into them.
In our story world, those who survive Nagakabouros’ test are deemed to be on the correct path and can move forward to pursue their true purpose in life. While those who fall are left in no uncertain terms that they are failing in their duty to move their own lives forward, and are hindering the flow of the universe. An experience that not all survive.
Using all of this information, we defined Illaoi’s core truth as: “A powerful and charismatic spiritual leader who inspires others to be their own unstoppable force.” She turns heads and dominates a room with her physical presence and confident, purposeful swagger.
Then, using the brief, I worked with the other discipline leads—like design and art—to create a north star for her development. This way we ensure that Illaoi is instantly identifiable, even in a genre we’ve never seen her in. And, even more important, we used it to look for opportunities to grow her legend. Because a fighting game is the perfect place for Illaoi to shine.
With a clear picture of her in our minds, we can make sure that anyone who already knows Illaoi beyond the surface level also finds the character they love, while still empowering the development team to delight even her most devoted followers with a version that will blow the doors off. Or, in her case, rip the doors off their hinges with magical tentacles and beat you senseless with them.
On a personal note, I’ve loved who Illaoi is and who she could be since we developed her for League back in 2015. And although she’s not one of the more popular champions in League, I think it’s easy to see how Illaoi’s combination of bruised knuckles, devout heart, and joyous swagger (combined with all the new experiences we can put in players’ hands) can make her a superstar in Project L.
- Art
Mike “zatransis” Henry, Creative Director:
Once Narrative has given us a good understanding of who a champion is, we move into their visual direction. You can infuse so much more into a champion when you know who they are, especially when we compare all of their visual representations—which Illaoi certainly wasn’t lacking.
Some of our champions lend themselves well to being altered quite a bit, whereas for others it wouldn’t make sense for them to drastically change their appearance. When we started on Illaoi, it became clear she would be the latter.
She has a really iconic look: Tall, muscular, and imposing. But more than that, she’s joyous, spirited, and believes in challenging others to live their lives to the fullest. And all of these things needed to be reflected in her appearance.
Illaoi’s physical build is pretty unique in the roster of League of Legends champions, and we referenced a lot of athletes with a focus on weightlifters and shot putters. Mainly women who spend a lot of time lifting things as easily as Illaoi lifts her massive weapon.
Her clothing is very purposeful—she’s not exactly the type to keep up with the latest Runeterran fashion trends. So we decided to keep her outfit and color palette similar to what most players have come to associate with her, while altering the blocking a little to make it fresh and capitalize on Project L’s perspective and overall art style.
From her weapon to her bracers to her earrings, we put a ton of thought into the small changes we made to her design to make sure she still felt true to her base form in League and her people.
We also needed to think about how Illaoi would move. To do this, we use something called movement studies. Fighting games are really dynamic, and in order to explore movement really fast in the earlier stages of development, our concept artists drew Illaoi in various poses for the animators.
Illaoi has an extremely unique fighting style (a heavy golden idol and spirit tentacles combined), so these motion studies helped sort out some unknowns even more than if she were to use a sword or axe. We want to nail how her tentacles work and move, how her power is felt by her player, and how absolutely devastating it is to be hit by her.
Senior animator Guk Yun “Yunscoming” Kwon bought a kettlebell to explore Illaoi’s posing
Once the movement study was complete, the animators worked with an early version of Illaoi to see how her size and proportions felt in game. Using the movement studies, they were able to take the poses in game so we could see how Illaoi’s proportions looked in the context of a fighting game.
Once that’s locked, it’s on to game design to figure out her kit and how it’s implemented in-game!
- Game Design
Caroline “Riot Shyvana” Montano, Game Designer:
I mained Illaoi top lane in League, so I know her gameplay very well and was super excited for her to be in Project L. I feel honored to be able to work on her design in our game!
When we started the DNA phase for Illaoi, we did a deep dive into her lore and existing moments to find her core champion fantasy. We drew inspiration from all of her iterations, and even from watching players play Illaoi. We really wanted to grasp what makes her feel powerful.
One of the main things we identified early was that she was going to be a big body: A huge hurtbox, massive hits, and slower movement, with a simple-to-learn, hard-to-master kit.
Illaoi is a strong and muscular woman who attacks with a giant totem, so it makes sense she would hit with her own physical strength, as opposed to hiding behind the power of her god or magical abilities.
We also needed tentacles. Illaoi’s god, Nagakabouros, is a tentacled sea monster, and there needed to be some aspect of that in her kit. But beyond empowering her attacks, Nagakabouros also gives Illaoi the strength to steal her opponent’s soul.
When figuring out which part was the “dominant” power, we decided that Illaoi would be the source of power and that Nagakabouros would have her back—especially when you take into account how effortlessly she wields the giant totem.
Using all of this research, we developed Illaoi’s goals and guardrails, which help us determine what direction to go with her kit and what is venturing too far away from her core truth.
Illaoi’s Goals:
- Illaoi fights alongside her god. Nagakabouros is a constant looming threat that Illaoi feels supported by and opponents fear.
- Slow, but always in motion. Illaoi is always moving, and she punishes those who are motionless. This is one of the key beliefs of her god, and we wanted to represent this through her gameplay.
- Overwhelming pressure. Once Illaoi puts the opponent in a position where they get hit or need to block, she is relentless, forcing her opponent to make a move on her terms.
Illaoi’s Guardrails:
- Illaoi is the powerhouse, Nagakabouros has her back. Illaoi’s physical strength is her main source of power and the tentacles from her god are there to assist, not replace. Nagakabouros is not the star of the show.
- Simple and straightforward. Illaoi’s power fantasy comes from heavy semi-short hits, heavy long hits, and simultaneous/staggered hits from tentacles. But not from the complexity of managing the state of many entities.
- Not a puppet master. Illaoi shouldn’t feel like she is ordering around her god. She can control the tentacles from her totem, however any independently spawned tentacles should feel like gifts, not privileges. Illaoi doesn’t get to spam these without earning them.
- Not a zoner. Illaoi doesn’t want to keep away the opponent with tentacle hits, she wants to create openings to allow her to leap in and deal damage herself.
When it comes to what archetype I’d use to describe Illaoi, it would probably be a “Big Body Juggernaut.” An overwhelming battering ram who has the power of a god behind her. Illaoi’s a heavy-hitter who dominates when it’s her turn in the mid-range and destroys her enemies with immense pressure.
When we felt confident about the goals and guardrails, we started to design and implement early prototype specials and normals. The first version focused around Illaoi’s ability to spawn a tentacle at different ranges: A close tentacle with fast startup, a mid-range tentacle with medium speed startup, and a long range tentacle with long startup.
While it was fun to play, this type of design made Illaoi feel more like a puppet master or zoner, things that went against her goals and guardrails. It felt like the damage was focused on Nagakabouros using tentacles from the ground when what we really wanted to highlight was Illaoi bonking people with a totem.
We’re still super early and still in development and exploring our options, but the direction we’re headed is to have the tentacle spawn a fixed distance away from Illaoi. And tentacles come out only when she successfully hits her opponent (on hit or on block).
This small change has already made a huge difference in her gameplay in our playtests. Instead of summoning tentacles from far away and controlling them at will like a zoner, Illaoi now gets in her opponent’s face, and when she does, there’s ALSO a tentacle slapping you around.
One really strong image I had throughout developing her kit was that Illaoi should be able to hit an opponent into a tentacle, have them bounce back into her and she should be able to clothesline them like she’s a pro wrestler and the tentacles of Nagakabouros are like the wrestling ropes.
- What’s Next
Project L is in active development, and Illaoi’s still pretty early on, so we’ve got more work to do! But we’ll check back in later on in her process with devs from areas like animation, visual effects, and audio to see how everyone’s favorite big bodied, spirit tentacle-using juggernaut is shaping up. As for how we’re doing overall, look out for another update from Tom before the end of the year.
And until then, let us know what you think.Media[]
| Illaoi's Theme |
- Related Music
- Related Videos
- Main article: Summoner icon
Trivia[]
- Illaoi is voiced by Rolonda Watts in League of Legends.
- Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo voices her in Ruined King and Legends of Runeterra.[12][13]
- Illaoi's Japanese voice actor is Urara Takano.[14]
- Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo voices her in
- Illaoi was the last champion released in 2015.
- Her name is pronounced [ɪ'laʊʷi:] ('ill-OW-ee') & is based mainly on naming conventions in Ancient Polynesian & Ancient Australian.[15]
- Her development name was "Spirit Striker".
- In development, Illaoi used to have a bug where Vessels spawned Tentacles at an extremely rapid rate.[16] A video showcasing this can be viewed here.
- Illaoi's religion is inspired by pre-Christian faiths and Hinduism.[17]
- Nagakabouros was originally a temporary name but the way Illaoi's voice actress said it made it permanent.[18]
- The concept of an 'Elder God' who spawns tentacles references the Cthulhu Mythos.
- The concept of an 'Elder God' who spawns
References[]
- ↑ Illaoi's Designer
- ↑ Champion Reveal: Illaoi, the Kraken Priestess
- ↑ Champion Insights: Illaoi
- ↑ Choose the Next Illaoi Skin
- ↑ The Next Illaoi Skin is...
- ↑ Battlecast Illaoi: Concepting
- ↑ Battlecast Illaoi: Modeling and Texturing
- ↑ Battlecast Illaoi: Visuals and Sound Effects
- ↑ Resistance Illaoi: Nearly Ready
- ↑ Resistance Illaoi: The Final Update
- ↑ /dev: Illaoi in Project L
- ↑ Illaoi RK VA
- ↑ Illaoi LoR VA
- ↑ Almost all Japanese League of Legends voice actors
- ↑ https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2017/12/naming-new-champions/
- ↑ Behavior, bugs, and more in Ask Riot
- ↑ Inspiration for Illaoi's religion
- ↑ Illaoi Q&A