Blast from the past: Go on, have a giggle

Today I managed to find a copy of my old university group project! Its not the worst student work in the world and it certainly makes me appreciate how far we have all come. I was of course responsible for the rigging and animation.. sadly though it came down to only a week of animation time.. which was clearly reflected in the render. Oh well its nice to look back to it. Enjoy.

It's ALIIIIVE!!

Nothing special, just a one step Walk test for the first functioning iteration of the Ork rig.

Enjoy!

- Paul out.

Rigging Progress!

As promised, here is a more detailed update about my current working life as a Character TD. I've settled into a decent work flow now, having finally familiarized myself with where everything is in 3DSMax. The biggest worry I had when starting out in this new role was the idea of not being able to bring my skills over from XSI. But after customising all the toolbars to have everything quickly available to me and learning the lingo its been a breeze! Sadly XSI is being phased out as best I can tell, so moving over to a new package sooner rather than later was a good move. Its a bonus to be paid to do so as well! Like learning to animate in a different package you mostly just need to know where the graph buttons are along with the keyframe,Translate and rotate buttons are. When it comes to rigging however its more about the technical terms for the processes, Parenting (XSI)  = Linking (Max) etc. It did get frustrating at first trying to find everything, but I got there! Moreover I have replaced most of the long winded processes like parameter wiring for slider controls with some simple Scripts. I still can't get used to the idea of me writing my own scripts... its insane! and really cool.

Anyhoo, the picture in the top left is on a Rig Kit I made, some parts of it are mainly just for reference. But for the most part it can be directly applied to any given humanoid and comes with some basic parameters wired in to allow a quick deformation test if needed. Each rig I make gets a bit cleaner and usually more complex so sadly despite this effort, my rig kit may well be outdated within a few days.. oh well its all progress.

                       
To the right we have the first character rigged with my first rig kit! (Model courtesy of Marcus Mills)  I've posed it in a walk cycle key just to show its actually working. This is also the first model I have rigged that has successfully been manipulated within a game engine! That might not mean much to most people, especially gamers. But for me it was extremely exciting and a career first. SO much to learn and improve on but I couldn't be happier with how its going!



More soon.

- Paul out.

"Where on Earth have you been?" - New Job, New beginning, Neeeeeeew!

It hasn't escaped my notice that I haven't posted in what must have been over 5 weeks. Finally, however it is for an ultimately good reason! "Drum Role please" ...I have a job! Yes it finally happened, I have landed myself that all important first industry job. I am now officially Character Technical Director and Lead Animator for "Bearded Pixel" a brand new indie games developer in Warwickshire!
I have been here a little over a month now, the time has flown and I'm loving it. Mostly I have been developing biped rigs to be fitted to any and all future characters as well as a few animals too. There's been a lot of learning and still loads more to be done! The animation is having to take a back seat for now whilst the character rigging needs seeing to and then it will be down to me to get it all moving.
I am picking up a lot of nice new tricks, never thought I would enter the realms of code and scripting, but I have to say the little I have done so far has made my life a lot easier. All those long winded processes in rigging I can narrow down to a few mouse clicks... awesome!

Anyway, here's a bit of what I have been up to. Using a donor model I pulled from a free model site I have been practising my bird rigging capabilities. Its not quite 100% clean but the wings flow naturally and I've managed a few automated wing fold controls which will save time when it comes to animate it finally.

I'll be updating again soon, so stay tuned!


-Paul out.