Archive for the ‘Animation’ Category

New job: New software

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

People have been asking me how my first week has been. By it’s nature, the first week at a new place of work is rarely as exciting as you imagine it will be. Alas, it’s true!

You tend to get bogged down in paperwork, reading documentation and the new tools and procedures you need to learn, when all you really want to do is crack on with work. Of course, in this instance having been a Maya user almost exclusively since I started university, it will be a little while before my work performance in MotionBuilder will be able to keep up with my enthusiasm. When you throw in trying to remember everyone’s name and how to get in and out the building without getting lost, it’s a wonder new-starters get anything done in their first week!

I’d never really thought about it before (and I don’t suppose you will have either unless you’ve changed 3D software), but one of the worst things about using new software is learning the camera controls. If you feel like you can’t navigate a scene properly, it massively compounds the sensation that you have no flipping idea what you’re doing and that learning the new software is going to be a near-impossible task. If only you could remember what button combination controls pan and which activates tumble, you’d be able to concentrate on learning the important stuff… the new stuff!

People are telling me not to worry about it and that I’ve got plenty of time to settle in, which is really nice but it does highlight the sense of frustration; that the software and workflow are hindering my ability to just get on with it and if only I can get that stuff out of the way, the fun stuff can really begin.

I had a little breakthrough on Thursday when I got a good bit of pace going, turning out three or four animation cycles. On Friday a totally new thing landed at on my desk and I felt completely lost again! 8)

Despite all that and with a great deal of help from Andy and the other guys on the team, I already feel like I’m starting to get used to MotionBuilder, it’s camera controls and it’s slightly obscure “thought process”. It’s only been a week; I suppose I ought not to worry too much!

My first week at Rockstar was absolutely brilliant; the people, the project, the office are all completely awesome, but it was  intermingled with a heck of a lot of frustration! I should also say that (since I wrote most of this post last week) I feel like I’ve made tons of progress in MotionBuilder today and yesterday – things are definitely starting to click!

I think I’ll have to do a post about the bonkers way MotionBuilder works/thinks sometime soon!

Response to “Brink: No Girls Allowed”

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

It’s rare that I get riled up enough to do specific blog posts about things I’ve read, but this blog post by Brad Gallaway, regarding Splash Damage’s decision to not include female avatars in their upcoming game Brink, really annoyed me quite a lot.

Sometimes I wish people that wrote about games would consider the practical implications of what they’re talking about. Brad has already responded to some earlier commentators saying that you needn’t try and school him on the technicalities of games development whilst at the same time dismissing the excuse of production out of hand anyway.

Of course, the technical requirements that he knows all about seem to be limited purely to creating a new model for females. Yep, that’s it! That’s all you need to do to create a female avatar. Err… no. Far from it.

Adding an additional gender affects the entire game’s development pipeline at a fundamental level. Just thinking about it for a few minutes immediately raises a number of issues, and it becomes clear very quickly that it’s not just the customisation and clothing as Brad has suggested. What about the animation? What about the additional programming and design work? What about the new skeletons, rigs and skinning for the new avatars? The modelling of new characters and outfit pieces is actually the least impactful part of the entire pipeline!

Let’s talk about animation for a minute. The game is promoting itself as a game where free-running/free-flowing movement is a priority. The animation has to look great otherwise the illusion of this incredibly physical universe will be broken. If you add another sex into the equation that essentially doubles the amount of animation work needed (otherwise someone would no doubt be complaining that the female avatars are ‘too manly’ and ‘not representative’ enough).

“At whatever point in the development process the decision had to be made, Splash Damage decided that having female models was less important than having the other features that were included. There is no denying this — the developers have said it themselves.”

I don’t doubt that at some point the question of female avatars was raised and knocked back and I don’t doubt that other features were considered to be more important, but that is the business of game development. Not every feature that you’d love to include in your new game is equal in the land of deadlines, budgets and manpow– people-power! Adding a female avatar would have fundamentally hindered the overall vision and scope of the project or seen it released incredibly over-schedule and/or over-budget.

A number of commentators on Brad’s blog have suggested that games developers should “make the effort and [...] spend the time and [...] treat everyone with respect.” Perhaps this particular commentator thinks money, time and highly experienced staff can be grown on trees?

It’s not about sexism, it’s not about inequality, it is not about lazy developers. It would be awesome if we could have female avatars in Brink, but I bet there’s a whole bunch of other great features that exist (and a whole load of polish work that goes towards making a AAA-title) because they made the call not to include them. I’m not saying it’s an easy call but games development is a careful balancing act, and at some point you need to rein in your project otherwise you’ll go bust.

Sorry Brad, there is nothing “disturbing” about deciding to go for a male-only cast, it doesn’t say anything about the studio’s attitude towards women… It just makes sense. Common, business sense. And at the end of the day, you have to consider the business implications otherwise there’d be no games developers and you wouldn’t get to play games like Brink. Ever.

NEW JOB GET!

Friday, April 9th, 2010

Good news everyone! The plan was to try and get a new job sorted out before I finish my current term of Animation Mentor which finishes in June. As it turns out, I actually had one sorted out the week after I finished at SCEE Cambridge.

And where is it that I will be going? Well…

Rockstar North

Heck yes!

That’s right folks, in July I’ll be heading up to Edinburgh to go and work as an animator at none other than Rockstar North, the studio that brought you GTAIV, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, to name just their recent hits! I don’t even know what I’m going to be working on at this point, but I do know that it’s going to be awesome.

This really is like a dream come true. It certainly makes me feel like all the hard work I’ve put in (particularly the past 16 months of Animation Mentor – which have nearly killed me) have been totally worth it. Talk about a confidence boost, eh?

It’s all happened rather fast but I’m really excited about starting. Fortunately I’ll be allowed to finish my current term at AM before I start (it was after all, the main reason I decided to leave Cambridge). In fact, I will be working alongside former SCEE colleague and AM chum Andy Davis, who is a fantastic animator!

As you might be able to tell, I’m quite excited. Many thanks to Jim Jagger for offering me an interview and to Facebook for putting links to my reel and CV on his News Feed ;)

I’ve added my CV!

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Despite being on holiday, I actually sat down and did my CV all in one sitting yesterday. I think that must be a new record!

You can find it here.

Edit: The PDF version is now available for download.