Volume 4

Volume 4 is the fourth season of "RWBY ". It premiered on October 22nd, 2016 on the Rooster Teeth website. It featured 12 episodes. It was preceded by Volume 3. It was followed by Volume 5.

Volume 4 followed a similar release schedule to Volume 3, being released on Saturday for Rooster Teeth FIRST members followed by the release for registered users on Sunday, 24 hours later. It was then released to the public and uploaded to YouTube the week following the FIRST members' release.

The Volume 4 premiere was preceded by the first season of "RWBY CHibi" and the " Volume 4 Character Short". The character short featured an original story and animation which were not cut from upcoming volume, making it the first non-editorial trailer since the four character trailers for Volume 1.

Volume 3 was released on DVD and Blu-ray on May 3rd, 2016. This release featured a "Complete" movie version of the volume.

Development
Volume 4 was announced by Gray G. Haddock on April 1st, 2016, the 13th anniversary of Rooster Teeth's founding. At RTX 2016, the release date was announced as October 22nd, 2016. The shot list and initial storyboarding for the first episode were underway by May 2016. Voice acting recording sessions for key characters also began by May to June 2016.

Volume 4 was animated in Autodesk Maya, unlike previous volumes of RWBY, which were animated in Smith Micro's Poser. Kerry Shawcross cites scalability as one of the advantages of the switch, expanding the number of people capable of working on the team. The new software also made real-time lighting, shadows and other effects feasible.

In addition to the improvements in animation, the visual style of the show was also overhauled, with all character models remade and many of the Grimm redesigned by Erin Winn and remodeled. Concept artist Eileen Chang, who worked on the original concepts for the 4 main characters, was also brought back to create their new time skip outfits and designs.