Mimic Suitcase
Learn Blender and Rigging
My experience with Maya made learning Blender fairly straightforward. Ironically, it was difficult to learn the underlying intricacies of rigging when every solution pointed towards the use of Blender's helpful add-ons. So, I chose an abnormal object that could utilize a variety of rigging techniques, focusing my research on specific aspects of the process while keeping track of my progress through weekly devlogs.
The resulting Mimic Suitcase features a telescopic handle with push locks that slide into place automatically, a front lid to open and reveal a stretchy tongue, teeth that protrude and conceal with scale for exaggerated animation, and wheels that can be controlled independantly, universally, and with the option to spin appropriately while moving the object.
Tongue has been weight painted to squash and stretch appropriately, with control bones to manipulate its shape, adjust the easing in and out of it's curvature, and easily fold into / unfold out of the case. The model and rig scale appropriately with adjustable constraints to limit its capabilities and avoid accidental breaks.
For this assignment, students are asked to choose any aspect of art fundamentals they wished to study - and rigging was an area I was the least enthused or comfortable with. In spite of this, I chose now of all times to take advantage of my curriculum to study unfamiliar territory. Drivers, constraints, weight painting, custom shapes, and bones themselves; I approached this task with near-zero understanding of either of these aspects, and have left with a great enjoyment of the process. (In all seriousness, when I got those tiny handle locks to pop in automatically, the feeling was unreasonably euphoric.)
As my first Blender project, I'm very pleased with these results, and have a newfound appreciation for rigging that I hope to pursue further.
Blender, PureRef, Google Drive, OBS
Character Design, Documentation, Modelling, Drivers, Weight Painting, Rigging
From The Sky
Create a playable scene from an unlit setting as a specified genre
Using a portion of the main floor from "What Remans of Edith Finch" made accessible by the developers, I was assigned the genre of Survival Horror.
The scene's narrative pays homage to Warner Brother's "The Iron Giant", with visuals, audio, and the hero prop focused on aspects of the Giant from the film. Growing up with this film, I took inspiration from the glimpse of horror presented in its finale, and wanted to challenge myself by placing that sensation within a survival horror atmosphere.
6 different camera angles move throughout the active scene which contains numerous visual and audio cues, timed to take place appropriately within every camera shot left untouched. However, players have the ability to navigate between cameras, play, pause, stop, reset, full screen and window the scene with the on-screen UI. Each environmental cue opperates independant from the cameras, allowing players to witness the scene unfold from different angles.
Each camera angle faces the direction of an important aspect of the scene. Most of the shots face in the direction of the "false moon", the only exceptions being camera 2, which focuses on a microwave suspiciously turned on before blowing out, and camera 3, which faces th front door as loud footsteps can be heard from outside. Neither of these angles ever truck in forward; they either stay or move towards a wall behind them or the ground below them, making the player feel cornered and small in comparison to the sights and sounds around them.
Each section of the environment is pronounced through lighting using varying colour schemes and techniques. The living room is cold blue with a single, bright light from the television as the main focus. The kitchen is an unappetizing green with an uneven blend of candle and oven lighting. Upstairs is warm yet dim from a knocked over lamp as the would-be focus. The hallway, as a bridge between each room, is lit in a way that mixes the three, while the dining hall, unaffiliated with the hallway or any camera angle, remains in near complete darkness.
Unreal Engine 5
Direction, Production, UI, Programming, Lighting, Cinematography, Sound Design
Dropoff
Create and animate a crane, vehicle, and container
Started by creating a mood board to find a consistent tone and aesthetic, then plotted out orthographic views of each object using Adobe Illustrator. Modelled, UV mapped and rigged in Maya to be texured using Substance Painter. Ported into Unity for storyboarding/animatics before fully animating.
Model and rig created from scratch, animation was keyframed without defined physics, default textures in substance painter were heavily edited and modified.
I chose an aesthetic that could suggest a narrative by contrasting futuristic models with textures of varying scuff, grime, and an implied foreign technology that comes to life in the animation. I wanted to exaggerate the movements of the vehicle in order to give it character alongside the crane, providing more opportunities to animate the containers along with it.
Adobe Illustrator, Maya, Substance Painter, Unity
Concept Design, Modelling, Rigging, Texturing, Animating
