Yun Jin
Yun Jin is a character from Genshin Impact, a 2020 action role-playing gacha game developed by miHoYo. The character was officially released in version 2.4 of the game on January 5, 2022. In the game, Yun Jin is a famous figure in the opera scene in the fictional country of Liyue. She is the director of the Yun-Han Opera Troupe and is also a playwright. The character's English voice actor is Judy Alice Lee, the Chinese voice actor is He Wenxiao, the Japanese voice actor is Kotori Koiwai, and the Korean voice actor is Sa Moon-young. Yun Jin's dialogue and singing segments in Liyue opera are performed by Yang Yang.
Yun Jin's character prototype is based on a Peking opera performer, with the development team aiming to promote traditional Chinese opera through her character and to generate interest in opera among players. To achieve this, miHoYo decided to retain the voice acting and singing segments performed by Yang Yang in languages other than Chinese. In the game's 2.4 update, a video showcasing Yun Jin performing the Peking opera piece The Divine Damsel of Devastation attracted players from various regions to take interest in Chinese opera. It also inspired a group of first-class performers related to opera and musical instruments to undertake secondary creative works based on The Divine Damsel of Devastation. Chinese media positively reviewed the character, acknowledging her role in promoting traditional Chinese art.
Creation and design
In the "Moonchase Festival" event introduced in version 2.1 of Genshin Impact, Yun Jin already appeared as a cameo character in the event introduction animation. Fans had anticipated her debut in the next 2.2 version of the game. On November 22, 2021, miHoYo revealed her character illustration. It was disclosed that Yun Jin would be the second Geo element character in Genshin Impact to use a polearm as a weapon, with her character based on a Peking opera performer. In December, Yun Jin also appeared in the ending of the video for Genshin Impact nominated for The Game Awards, with the character's official introduction in a preview live stream for the game's 2.4 version. On January 5, 2022, the 2.4 version of Genshin Impact titled Fleeting Colors in Flight was officially launched, and in the new version's animated cutscene, Yun Jin performed a segment of The Divine Damsel of Devastation with Peking opera singing, integrating elements of opera into the game, which attracted widespread attention. Later, on January 14, miHoYo released a dedicated interview program specifically introducing Yun Jin's character design.When Dou, one of the main creators of Genshin Impact, talked about the original concept behind Yun Jin, he explained that while building Liyue Harbor, the team wanted to create an "artist" character — someone who symbolizes the city's rich everyday cultural life. Inspired by the real world, they looked to traditional Chinese opera and, from that, came up with Yun Jin. To fit Liyue's worldbuilding, the developers blended elements of Chinese opera into an original, fictional form called "Liyue Opera," with Yun Jin positioned as one of its performers. The team did a deep dive into traditional opera to draw inspiration, hoping that reinterpreting these traditions in a fresh way would spark people's interest in the culture. Yun Jin's entire design revolves around opera elements, and the team even sought out a real opera instructor to perform her vocal pieces. As for her personality, Dou described her as someone who carries both a sense of heritage and a drive for innovation. Although she is a traditional opera worker, Yun Jin is also eager to accept new things to broaden her horizons and even has a keen interest in rock music. In the animated cutscene The Divine Damsel of Devastation, after Yun Jin finishes singing the original version based on the regional characteristics of Liyue's "human governance", she sings an additional section inspired by Liyue's "human governance" philosophy, as well as her experiences with the protagonist Traveler and Shenhe during their battle against a sea monster, reflecting Yun Jin's innovative spirit.
Character design
Yun Jin wears a headdress adorned with seven stars, draped in cloud-like shoulders and a battle skirt, incorporating elements of theatrical stage design. Because Yun Jin's attire is her everyday outfit rather than a theatrical costume, the original illustrator, Weiwei, mentioned that when designing Yun Jin, they did not rigidly adhere to the traditional image of a "theater performer". Instead, they drew inspiration from the appearances of Hua Mulan, Mu Guiying, and Liang Hongyu in traditional Chinese opera. Considering Yun Jin's youthful setting and personality, they designed attire that includes theatrical elements but differs in style from the traditional ones. Her attire meanwhile was designed as a half skirt to avoid issues with her 3D character model when animating it.The 3D model of Yun Jin was completed in 2018, but the final product did not meet expectations. As a result, the original illustrator and modeling team went through a period of iteration and polishing. During this time, the modeling team encountered several technical challenges, which they gradually overcame. They mentioned that the original design did not initially consider the virtual camera within the game, especially regarding Yun Jin's elaborate headwear design, which could lead to distortion. To address this, the modeling team submitted a request to the tooling team, hoping to develop a tool that could synchronize Maya and the game engine in real-time, allowing them to see the final visual effects of the model in the actual game environment instantly. The successful development of this tool greatly facilitated communication between the original illustrator and the modeling team and accelerated development work.
Yun Jin's character design differs from other characters in Genshin Impact in many ways. The accessories she wears posed several challenges in terms of animation design. Her heavy eye shadow required special attention even for blinking animations. To achieve a richer cartoon rendering effect, the modeling team developed a dynamic facial shadow texture system, making the transition of facial lighting effects appear more natural and stable. Yun Jin's character rendering underwent multiple iterations, including the addition of dynamic self-shadowing, scene dynamic projection, scene lighting sources, and the effect of mist, allowing the character to better blend into the scene. Performance limitations caused some effects not to be shown on mobile devices.
Yun Jin's performance animations and skills also reference theatrical culture, such as incorporating acrobatic movements from traditional Chinese opera and martial arts into her spear-dancing performance, derived from her skill "Opening Flourish", which is inspired by Beijing Opera costumes. Li Xiaoxiong and Shao You, the animation producers of the game, mentioned that to showcase Yun Jin's unique temperament, the animation team extensively studied theatrical culture. They ultimately decided to shape Yun Jin's character using the signature movement "appearance" from traditional Chinese opera. "Appearance" is the movement actors make when entering or leaving the stage. The animation team designed each of Yun Jin's combat animations as a "dramatic performance", incorporating elements like the "Solo Sword Appearance" and "Dual Sword Appearance" into her regular attack animations. They also made detailed adjustments to the Appearance movements and rhythm to suit Yun Jin's girlish temperament. For Yun Jin's elemental skill design, the animation team referenced the "spin" movement commonly seen in opera and martial arts. Through Yun Jin's idle animation design, the animation team aimed to showcase her character's personality. They drew inspiration from the acrobatic skill "striking out" in theatrical martial arts, originally requiring multiple people to perform, but modified it to be executed by Yun Jin alone.
Voice acting
The audio production for Yun Jin and the creation of The Divine Damsel of Devastation took only one month. Due to Yun Jin's voice acting involving operatic content, the production team made the first attempt to have voice actors He Wenxiao and opera performer Yang Yang respectively perform the character's lines and singing segments in Chinese, aiming to retain the characteristics of opera. Before Yun Jin's appearance, character voice acting in various language versions of Genshin Impact had undergone localization. However, due to the difficulty of adapting Yun Jin's singing segments, which represent Chinese opera, miHoYo decided to retain Yang Yang's singing segments in the original Chinese instead of dubbing them.Yang Yang considers voicing Yun Jin to be a very fresh and interesting experience and hopes that the integration of drama and the virtual world can expose more people to and deepen their understanding of opera. During the production of The Divine Damsel of Devastation, the production team found that Yang Yang was not familiar with traditional music notation, so they adapted the music notation to a simplified version to accommodate her. The Divine Damsel of Devastation has more elements of rock and electric guitar in the demo, and adjustments were made during actual recording. The production team also listened to Yang Yang's feedback to make the final product's opera style more prominent. For the spoken parts of The Divine Damsel of Devastation, originally intended for Yang Yang to imitate He Wenxiao's voice, the team ultimately decided to use Jingbai from Peking opera, which is not uncommon in traditional opera, for dialogue with the audience. This setting is also present in traditional opera and does not seem out of place. In the Japanese version, the voice acting is done by Kotori Koiwai, who expressed joy at being able to voice Yun Jin due to her passion for acting, music, and creation.