Feb 11, 2008

Turok: Creature Reel



Above is a YouTube of some of the work I did for the 360/PS3 release of TUROK here at Propaganda. All the animations are in-game events, but I set them up in sets and rendered them out in a cinematic way to make them more presentable.

Turok was an interesting challenge because I came from working entirley in a `cartoony` style on various projects, to the much more realistic approach that this game required. I had always wanted to animate stuff like this, so I was totally up for it. I am still surprised with ultimately how similar the two approaches are, particularly with how exaggerated you can go with the movement of the creatures. The realistic human animation I found the most difficult, and used video reference frequently to solve a lot of the problems I encountered.

You`ll notice that the characters are all segmented. I wanted to show the animation on the original proxies as I feel it best represents my original vision. I kept everything grey because I simply don't have the time to get all the textures and shaders etc up and running.

I was responsible for all direction, animation, lighting and rendering. All rigging by my esteemed colleague Javier Solsona. Modeling by the Worlds team. The audio mix I did myself using sound samples from the game, and a sequence of in-game music.

I will post up a few things soon about my planning and workflow for those that are interested.

42 comments:

Anonymous said...

would love to see your planning sketches....awesome work.

Ratul Sarna said...

AWESOME STUFF!!
And sure we would like to read about your planning and workflow....
plz post soon :)

Ratul

Splinebender said...

Wow, absolutely fantastic! Your sense of weight and force is great – very realistic.
Thanks for sharing your work.

SH

Unknown said...

Great work man. It's nice seeing the original motion. Played the demo and it had some really nice animation but I definitely know that once things get in a game engine, all the subtleties don't always translate.

Looking forward to seeing more in the future:)

Cameron Fielding said...

- thanks Josh...

Yes you're absolutley right about things getting lost once they end up in game... animation compression is usually the culprit, in fact for the 360 release the animation compression removed every other frame once it appeared in the level!! ( which actually wasnt as bad as you might think - but hey )

I much prefer showing the original maya stuff than any game rendered movies.

marcelino newquist said...

Your stuff is amazing man. I cant believe that all those human character animations are hand key framed. Great work!!!! We were just playing a demo of this game last night and we all commented on the great dino and human animations. Would love to see some more samples and maybe a discription of your animation process. Thanks!!!

-Marcelino

g1toons said...

whoa really amazing animation, i really felt it when the raptor (i think) was attacking the guy on the floor

Nathan Lindsay said...

dang man. very, very cool animations.

Kevin Williams said...

Great stuff! I saw some of it on Goosh's creature TD reel...glad there a high res version available.

Pascal Immerzeel said...

I can't wait to see the breakdown/workflow.
Just been through the hi-res version frame-by-frame, I cannot see the pose-to-pose.. It flows like water.

In other words, Amazing work!
(post more often! :-P )

Anonymous said...

Fabulous, so fluid I feel sorry for the dinos. Your T-Rex eating has fantastic weight in the tail. Super!

Alonso said...

oh yeah, definitly another vote for any process stuff you have. Amazing work! Setting the bar pretty damn high.

-Alonso

Alonso said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bill Robinson said...

Amazing work! Would love to see process stuff. Thanks for sharing and great presentation.

TJ Phan said...

AWESOME animation, Cameron! And thanks for all the tutorials!

Unknown said...

How do you do that. Does one of your friends act like dinosaur for you to stab for video ref?

Font said...

Whoa!!! Seriously awesome work man. Been following your blog for a little while now... Love the tips and tricks you have posted in the past. CAN NOT WAIT to see your planning/workflow/process for these sequences. Great work man!!

Font

Anonymous said...

Niceeeeee!

TJ Phan said...

Man, I had to post a second time after watching this again. The stuff on this reel is absolutely incredible!

Stephen Gregory said...

awesome

Jean-Denis Haas said...

Absolutely awesome! Thanks for posting, it's super inspiring!

Cameron Fielding said...

what can I say guys... im blown away by the response... you know how when you see something SO MANY TIMES and it starts to get dull... just gald to hear that people are finding it entertaining...

please offer any feedback on areas of improvement.. would love to hear stuff like that.

Anonymous said...

Absolutely awesome work man. I have been playing through this at home, and really digging it. Probably the best creature animation I have seen in a game. Really inspiring dude. Keep it up!

Would love to see some in game cycles you guys worked on as well, if you have any. Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Ok, I have watched this about 10 times now, because its just so rad, but I may have found one small thing that is bothering me; and it is with the Lurker's jump from the ground to the tree. Mostly just with the take off. It feels like he maybe starts to come off the ground a bit too quick? Maybe hold on a down pose a frame or two more to get a little more energy and push off? I don't know, its a super minor thing, but I think its something I noticed while playing the game as well. Anyone else notice this?

That is super minor though dude. Seriously, some of my favorite creature animation I have seen in a loooonggggg time. Awesome stuff.

Skellybobbly said...

Fantastic work..really inspirational stuff. Thanks for sharing it Cameron.

jeff said...

holy crap! nice work!

Anonymous said...

Love the dino getting kicked in the face. the human/Dino tussles feel like a street brawl rather than something planned and carefully choreographed. great stuff!

Anonymous said...

My GOD!
this is frickin' awesome!!
Even better than MoCap performance!

Nice work, love it!

bjarkirafn said...

Truly amazing animation!!!
Unbelievable sense of weight you got going on!!

Congrats!

Apa said...

pfff...it`s really amazing!

``I will post up a few things soon about my planning and workflow for those that are interested.``

Please hurry, I can`t wait...

Onymations said...

Very nice animation! Very savage and dangerous, the dinos look powerful and full of life. Looks like an environment I would certainly not want to be in.

Matt

David Bernal said...

Awesome!!!! and dinosaurs, man!!!love it! :)

Luke Burnet said...

wow my GOD, awesome !!!! I want to be like you !!! :)

regards
luq

Gil Megidish said...

Very impressive! From planning through implementation, it's done perfectly! Really like your work. Kudos!

Daniel M.C. Alvite said...

awsome work, I'm dowloading the mov here, I want watch everyframe,,
great inspiration

Anonymous said...

hey the video isn't working
did you take it down?

Cameron Fielding said...

yeah Sorry guys... I was asked by work to take this down. There is a new process for putting stuff online that I will have to go through before I can link it here again..

sorry.

Anonymous said...

Wow, I've been waiting to see this reel for a long time. And as i thought i'm really blown away by it. It's so dynamic and the weights are sooo well done. Nice wokr!

Dave said...

This is some REALLY nice stuff Cameron! You really captured the weight of those creatures very well...that's some inspiring stuff!

Definitely would love to see your planning process with this.

Keep up the great work!

Cameron Fielding said...

Hi Dave,

Thanks man! you can check my planning and workflow on these animation if you go to "turok animation workflow" under the Flipped side bar on the right.

Nawaz said...

Hands down!!! Great to have it back. I had seen it b4 and wanted to show it to ppl.
Would love to see the workflow - and Congrats on the new baby. He's beautiful!

Anonymous said...

Good job, this is good, you are good! awesome awesome awesome