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.

Four Legs are Your Legs!

I am one of these lucky guys who gets to work with a really great Technical Animation Director - Javier Solsona, or "Goosh" as you may know of him. This guy has been connecting, constraining, multiply dividing and parenting for years! and can teach us all a thing or two about how to make a decent rig. In fact, he kicked off the whole "free rig" thing with the release of "PackageMan" a few years back. When Goosh pulls out his nurbs controllers, you know he's a man not to be reckoned with!

Well.. after a lot of headaches and hard work, Goosh has released an new quadruped rig that is freely available for download from Highend3D.com ... if you're going to Siggraph this year, make sure you check out his three part masterclass, that will give you a priceless insight into how it was created.

I worked closely with Goosh during the development of this rig ( despite the fact he did all the work of course ) and I can guarantee you he pushes "animator friendly" and "functionality" to the limit. He is constantly looking to give the animator all the control he needs - whilst seamlessly removing the brain ache factor for you in the background.

Go download it and have a play around. The link below gives a little more detail on what you're getting ( there are a few minor restrictions )... but check it out and be sure to post comments about what you think!

Advanced Quadruped Rig



( yeah I know I used this animation before on this Blog - but come on.. this one's rendered ! )