mrHarryGG's blog

Super Bowl XLVI - Polar Bears

2012-02-06T13:57:00.000-08:00

February 5th 2012 marked the 46th NFL Super Bowl which saw the New York Giants defeat the New England Patriots. Companies use the Super Bowl to promote there products as it is a very widely viewed sporting event hitting 114 million viewers this year. I along with the Blitz R&D team created a realtime application that simulated the famous coca cola bears watching the game themselves. Game engine rigs allowed users to puppet the on-screen bears in real-time through Xbox 360 controllers. As well as reacting to the game itself for the full four hours they could interact with viewers through tweets and facebook messages.

For the project I created rigs for the Bears themselves as well as the Baby Bear/Penguin/Coke Bottles and Scarves. I also created tools to ease the export process from Maya to the Blitztech engine the application was created in. It was a great project to have the chance to work on and think the results were very good. It was a nice feeling to know that so many people tuned in to see the bears live and think it will be remembered for a long time to come.

Adjustable Rigging - Leg

2012-02-01T14:45:00.000-08:00

Final post for now around adjustable rigging solutions. Heres an example of a fully adjustable reverse foot setup and IK/FK leg I created. As well as being able to adjust the proportions of the leg and foot it also allows for complete control over the pivot points of the reverse foot setup. Again as with the spine and arm solutions it leaves control objects all zeroed out and oriented correctly. For now this concludes my investigation into adjustable rig setups. The idea is not to have bloated advanced rigs but to have a very solid rig that can be adjusted on the fly to speed up creation of bipedal characters for prototyping/production.

Adjustable Rigging - Arm

2012-01-26T14:43:00.000-08:00

As mentioned i've recently been tasked with creating an adjustable rig solution for fast turnaround of bipedal characters. Heres an example of an adjustable IK/FK arm I created. It allows full repositioning and orientation of the clavicles, shoulder, elbow, wrist and fingers. As with the spine it allows for adjustment while maintaining 0 values on control objects. The arm solution also supports stretchy IK and IK/FK matching.

Adjustable Rigging - Spine

2012-01-23T10:20:00.000-08:00

So recently i've been tasked with creating an adjustable rig solution for fast turnaround of bipedal characters. Everyone's seen and used auto riggers before and they are great but I wanted to see if it was possible to come up with a clean/light solution for rigs to be adjusted on the fly without effecting functionality/animation. This sort of rigging would allow character meshes to change throughout production without the need for re rigging/skinning/animating. Below is an example of an adjustable IK/FK spine setup I created. Some nice touches are the FK controls orient based on the translation of the adjust joints and that all controls maintain 0 values once adjusted.

I'm still here!

2012-01-16T16:03:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

Apologies for the complete lack of posting recently, far too busy enjoying christmas and being snowed under with work/personal projects. However over the next week or two I should have some posts on some research i've been doing into adjustable rigging, some new tools which utilise PyQt user interfaces, an update to the dino rig to commemorate 10,000 downloads and a few bits and pieces i've been working on in R&D.

Stay Tuned... :)

A little hobby of mine...

2012-01-14T14:17:00.000-08:00

So when im not rigging/scripting/working etc I unwind by fiddling with cars. I got the bug from my father who was an army mechanic. I'm currently in the process of restoring a 1983 MK1 Golf GTi and took this cool panorama when i was inside it the other day, thought you guys might like it :)

DinoRig v3.0

2011-11-10T00:52:00.000-08:00

So after a very long time (18 months...) I am returning to my dinoRig to finally address all the feedback ive been given since it went live for free on creative crash and my portfolio website. I'm hoping to get this done before the rig hits 10,000 downloads (currently about 900 to go) and really want to make it solid. I have a bunch of feedback already but if anyone else has any drop me a mail or comment on here thanks!

WIP - Walk Animation

2011-10-02T06:40:00.000-07:00

So after getting my proxy rig sorted I thought i'd put it through its paces and have a go animating a walk cycle. I figure understanding the animation workflow will help me in my rigging and tool creation. I haven't attempted animation for 2 years so was a nice challenge, hopefully get this polished soon and get a few others posted as I go!

Proxy in place

2011-09-28T15:39:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the lack of posts but i have been super busy at work recently. However managed to get some time to create a joint layout and proxy mesh of my wrestler dude. Already feels nice seeing him in a pose, cant wait to get this rigged up!

First pass character

2011-08-11T14:12:00.000-07:00

First pass of my new reel character is complete, seeking some advice from the artists at work on how to improve it. For now the form is just layed out, UV'ing/Texturing etc to follow. Looking forward to getting this guy nicely polished and then rigged up!

A better look at Kitsu

2011-08-08T14:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.blitzgamesstudios.com/hd_movie/kitsu/
A better look at the Kitsu demo we have been woking on at Blitz in R&D, there is a voiceover by Jolyon Webb (R&D Art Manager) explaining how the system works. Its very cool fasly developing technology which will keep improving. Im very proud and happy to see it online! Link to the HD video explaining the demo.

Improved topology

2011-08-06T17:55:00.000-07:00

So I was starting to like the shape of my character but felt that the topology in the chest region wouldn't be good enough for deformation. So I started making some cuts to get a nice smooth flow over the shoulders and to try and define some muscle regions. Really getting into this character now, more to follow...

I've been away...

2011-08-01T17:46:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the lack of posting, been very busy with deadlines and spent the last week in Ibiza. I'm straight back to work trying to get my character improved before heading off to Kenya in 2 weeks time.

Workflow management

2011-07-10T21:11:00.000-07:00

An amazingly awesome tool has been made available online to help with planning tasks. If like me you spend a lot of time writing to do lists and breaking stuff down then this online tool is for you. It lets you create headings, then bullets, then bullets below bullets. Can cross things out on completion, export lists, email lists etc etc. You really have to try it out to understand the full benefits but I reckon it's awesome. The only issue I have with it so far is that there is no integration with calendars/mail clients but i'm sure this may come in the near future. As for now its a great tool that works on any pc/mac/phone as long as you have wifi/3g available.

www.workflowy.com

Ask for autographs...

2011-06-24T14:38:00.000-07:00

Im only kidding, the studio was interviewed on BBC Midlands today for a story on lack of quality IT training in the UK and how companies are having to look outside the UK for workers. In a few shots of the studio they took it appears they have got me while I was working hehe

A few more tweaks

2011-06-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

So ive managed to get a couple of hours in over the last few days and made some progress. Messed with the proportions on the legs a bit and rounded the shoulders. Also roughly blocked in some arms/hands, followed a cool tutorial that used boxes then a chamfered edge to give the blocky feel which im liking at the moment. Hopefully rough out a head shape and then get in there and polish the details.

Say hello to Kitsu...

2011-06-17T06:51:00.000-07:00

A project we've been working on for a while in R&D has finally been outed at E3. Our procedurally generated interactive emotional display demo. I have been working on the rigging of her for a while now along with some other guys on the team. Extract from the article -

"A young, anime-style girl called Kitsu reacts to player actions in a realistic fashion. Emotion sliders – a four-way emotional graph that works underneath the system - enables users to apply four distinct emotional states: happy, sad, frightened and angry.These are displayed not through canned animations, but procedurally-generated combinations of facial animation, full-body key-framed postural animation, state-specific surface textures (such as dimples, flushed cheeks, red eyes and tears) and other independent procedural systems such as eye movement and blink rate, all blended for variation. Kitsu smiles, cries and adjusts posture depending on her emotional state. She learns, too, and becomes familiar with friendly faces. A butterfly, for example, causes her to smile. A bat, however, makes her shiver with fear and wave her arms. The time of is also a factor – she is less afraid when the sun is out, more afraid at night..."

Really nice ongoing demo, check out the full article at the link below -

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-06-17-kitsu-emotional-avatar-tech-unveiled

Bit of progress

2011-06-16T16:53:00.000-07:00

Decided I wasnt liking the skinny appearance of my character so given him some meat (means i can have fun with deformation). Still very much WIP hopefully make some improvements over the weekend -

Copy Driven Keys!

2011-06-13T13:56:00.000-07:00

What i thought would be a simple task taking a driven key setup from one character and pasting it onto the other turned out to be a tricky one. Again pymel to the rescue I wrote a little tool that makes this task a doddle, what would of taken a day to recreate took under 5 minutes to copy over, video of my test file below -

(*Video looks super low quality but once you press play its actually high res)

Page from 3D World

2011-06-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

With the new edition now out i'd imagine its ok for me to post this. Basically I was asked by 3D world how I got into the games industry and my responses are shown on the following scan

Download link:

http://harry-gg.co.uk//3dworld.bmp

Skippinggg

2011-05-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

Another flipbook piece, this time a simple skip with a jump rope, quite enjoyed doing this one. More to follow...

More pymel fun

2011-05-11T15:53:00.000-07:00

Finally have time to investigate a completely none hard coded animation/pose mirroring tool. Something ive wanted to do for a while. Have learned a ton of python uses (dictionaries, reusing definitions etc) and utilized some awesome features of pymel, as well as improving my UI creation. Glimpse below...

Bit of R&D lifeee

2011-05-09T16:01:00.000-07:00

A while back we featured in a story on CG Society and this image of a part of R&D was included (me in the purple tee behind the skeleton). As you can see a ton of reference/inspiration lines the walls. Skeleton for anatomical reference. Everyone rocking the dual monitors with concentration faces in full effect! R&D has changed quite a bit since this pic but nice to see a glimpse inside a working game dev team!

Everybodies gotta start somewhere...

2011-05-08T15:19:00.000-07:00

Since half way through my second year at university i literally had no time to do animation with my focus on rigging. Below is my first ever attempt at 2d animation which is pretty crummy due to my lack of wacom skill. The idea was to learn ease in and ease out as well as some straight ahead secondary animation on the pigtails. If you have any crit good or bad feel free to email me on any of the animation excersises that will be showing up over the coming weeks... Thanks

I'm inside... 3D World 143

2011-05-05T05:36:00.000-07:00

In this months edition of 3D World (143) I answered some questions on what it takes to get into the games industry, get to the shops and buy it! (its out tomorrow), some cool articles inside sneak peak below...

Been Hiding...

2011-04-29T12:54:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the lack of posts, my dad went into hospital after having a heart attack at the start of easter break so ive been busy with family things as you'd expect. Il be back to blogging asap...

Maya 2012

2011-04-09T10:13:00.000-07:00

So Maya 2012 has been released into the big wide world and with it some rather nice features have been added. Interactive animation curves is one which allows you to manipulate animation curves in the scene which should come in very handy. Also there is a wonderfully done new export/import skin weighting tool that appears to outdo comet save weights (shock horror i know). Il do some testing with it and post if I find any other cool additions.

Rigging tool

2011-04-08T17:22:00.000-07:00

So I create alot of IK/FK setups in my work and thought id have a try at using some of the handy pymel functions for object manipulation. So far the script takes the bound joint chain and creates an FK/StretchyIK setup rig which is grouped cleanly and parented to the bound rig all of which takes less than a second...

Generic batch exporter

2011-04-07T11:10:00.000-07:00

After delving into Maya python and doing an initial batching script I decided to make a script that could update rigs in animation files to the latest rig and then batch export all the animations for use in the game engine. It has a few other functions like writing out a batch text file containing what reference was changed and what animations were batched as well as saving a _batched version of the Maya files updated to latest rigs. For this i decided to look into Pymel which im finding is a very clean way to use maya python.

Birthdayyy

2011-04-05T16:47:00.000-07:00

So today was my birthday, ive now reached the ripe old age of 22. Work was pretty laid back today and was presented with this nice card from my team. After work managed to spend some time with my family and little sisters too so life is good...

And of course there was plenty of cake hehe

Batch Exporter

2011-03-31T16:35:00.000-07:00

Created a python batch exporter script at work that needed to run through a bunch of files in a specified folder and perform a list of actions within the files. Export game engine ready versions, modified maya files with a "_batched" extension and do a print out to a text file of the meshes that were exported. Fun little half day task which I later wrote my own utilities module for and then did a pymel port (currently runs .01 of a second slower than maya python)

Python GO!

2011-03-19T09:08:00.000-07:00

Started looking into a few different features that python offers classes/constructors/dictionaries/modules which all of which are pretty awesome and fairly easy to pick up. Managed to do some stuff with environment variables and calling scripts from them within Maya. Few basic bits and bobs for now a UI thats being generated by a python file stored on my C: drive using a custom class I created containing its own dictionary. Looking forward to seeing what I can produce with python over the coming months the more I get into it!

Interview with 3D World

2011-03-18T10:07:00.000-07:00

At work today I was chosen to answer some questions on how I got into the games industry for 3D World magazine. My photo was taken as well as some stills from my showreel so hopefully they make it into next months magazine... if so il be incredibly happy!

Website refresh

2011-03-12T17:14:00.000-08:00

So 9 months after finishing University I thought it was about time to redo my portfolio website as it was looking a little dated in preparation for a new showreel this summer. If you fancy checking it out head over to www.harry-gg.co.uk heres a screenshot of the new minimal design...

Hello world...

2011-03-12T09:36:00.000-08:00

I thought it's about time I started a blog. Been in the games industry for 9 months now working as a Technical Animator for Blitz Games Studios. Starting work on personal rigging projects and animation tests outside of work and thought a blog would be a good place to throw it all for anyone who's interested...