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Short animation exercise I did during my probation period at Gusto Games, about a year ago. Using 3ds Max and MAX rig by Peter Starostin which can be found at http://www.3dluvr.com/clisk3d/
Props (glove, hat, ball) and quickie environment modeled and textured by myself. Was a good exercise to get to learn the software and get into sports animation. Roughly 2-3 weeks work.
So finally here it is, a first sample from the Ultimate I Spy game. The game, made by Gusto Games, is published by Elastic (the games-involvement name for well-known american publishers Scholastic) and includes 10 levels of object finding riddles and minigames. Although primarily aimed at children I feel that it visually makes full advantage of the Wii graphics capacity and can be addictive and enjoyed by anyone. It was definitely great fun to work on.
This clip is a rendered version of the final payoff animation of the front end machine when all levels are completed - sorry to ruin the surprise finale..! It was particularly requested to be made longer and faster - hence the repetition and somewhat awkward music tempo - I’m not really fond of the music track but this is what we had to work with. Looking back at it now I can see a lot of room for improvement, but still it was great to animate the only rigged and complicated character of the game.
My involvement in the particular sequence was animating the robot and camera. Modelling and texturing of the environment done by Lucy Axworthy, modelling, lighting and rigging the robot done by James Roadley-Battin. This rendered version of the sequence is slightly different from what it look in game, with the robots eyes flashing and the lighting done programmatically.
More clips from my involvement in the game coming soon!
Finally I can show and tell about the game I’ve been working on since January. Unfortunately only american audiences get to play it - for the moment - but you can have a peek here:
http://www.ispyvideogames.com/
(another trailer under About tab and image stills under Features)
I will be puting together clips and images of work I was involved in and posting it online as soon as I get it OKayed
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My animation showreel, featuring scenes from mainly three short films (Squeaky Clean - MA Final Major, Petrified - BA Final Major, Dreamcatching - MA Group Project). For concept and character design you will have to watch it to the end. Music - Akilah by Turiya Mareya Latin Jazz Ensemble.
Ladies, gentlemen and animation ppl (a species of our own), I present you my MA final major project, CG animated short, ‘Squeaky Clean’. Enjoy!
Three days before hand in, I thought I’ll post a few stills of the rendered shots, which I must say I’m quite proud of how they are looking. Still need to rerender a few passes and colour-match all the shots together but if someone told me last September that I’d know my way round XSI and achieving these results I would have had my dooubts. I even replaced some of the 2D effects I was planning to have with CG elements, and funnily enough it took me less time to achieve a good result that blends in with the rest of the style.
Well, enough blabbing here are the stills. I will be saving the animation till next week when it is all put together and looking Clean! Click to enlarge.
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Spend most of this week carrying out some extreme UVing. Used Roadkill for the initial unwrapping and then tidy up diferent objects togehter on the same maps - something like puting together puzzle pieces. Same as for the boy, I did ambient occludion render maps for each objects and used them in photoshop to produce some sketchy shading. I had to keep myself from adding too much detail or making the textures too realistic since I want to keep the film’s look more simple and stylised.
The results so far:
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I decided to keep the walls and floor in the same colour to keep it less distracting. Perhaps a slight bump map to give the feeling of tiles. Well, now that I got the look sorted I can go back to animating!
Pausing on the animation a bit I thought I’d go back and work on the textures. Being a big fan of the Abient Occlusion goddess but not of the loooong rendering times I did Amb Oc render maps for the boy’s body and head which I can use in a texture.
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| freaky amboc boy |
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| body uv map |
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| body texture |
Roadkill was extremely helpful when unwrapping the UVs - last time i tried to do it manually it took me several more days. It does require some thought out seam selection but other than for the hair I didn’t have to deal with much point moving.
I did attempt to paint the textures in Painter first, but they just looked dirty and rough. So I made several copies of the amb oc render map layer in photoshop and tried various filters which i multiplied with a block colour layer, The one used here is a chalk and charcoal filter with coloured pencil (inverted) for the darker parts. It seems to work well for the clothes, hair and face. For the hands I used the underpainting filter.
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This is the final result, after adding a few touches of colour for the cheeks, lips, ears and eyebrows. A few problems are the eyelids which look horrible when shut, and also the low res that the render maps were produced. Seems that 512×512 were not enough and they come out pixellated though you cant really see in the render region. Perhaps I will do another one for closeups of the face. There are a few details that need tweaking on the painted textures, seams especially, but overall I’m very happy with the result, the textures make the model look so much better!
How exciting, i have finally blocked out all the rough animation for my film! Plus I came up with a new title, since ‘Bath Day’ is not really that exciting.. I didnt upload the original block test since there have been a lot of changes so it doesnt really reflect how the story will be presented. You can see the development of the visual sequence of events comparing with the original storyboards.
Please feel free to submit any comments and feedback since it is essential at this stage - while alterations are still feasible! I would love some new perspective on the whole thing. Enjoy! and keep in mind that the finished polished piece will look so much better!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3Nyi9mRq4k
My latest character walk for the boy, quite pleased with this one after scrapping a few quite amusing but inappropriate ones. The principle of layers works better as in 2D animation, starting by geting the feet keys right, then adding the hips, upper body, arm swings and finally the head. Trying to give the boy personality it ended up looking all a bit too much so I kept it simple, and added a ball - which perhaps can bounce later..!