Matt's Animation Stuff

Persians Launched

2011-10-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

We just launched / are launching the new civilization for Age of Empire Online the Persians;

So within the next few weeks I will be posting up a video showing off all the animations I have done for the persians. Just need to double check that im allowed to but I wouldn't see why not. Either way I will provide a list of things I have done for the persians for those who are interested.

Also I believe its time I update my resume since the one on here is out of date.....

Job for me hurray

2011-07-28T01:13:00.000-07:00

Well got the job at Gas Powered Games and cant be more excited bout it. Since posting anything I do does require some permission from Microsoft even though the two new civs (Persians and Celts) were announced the the Age of Empire Online game I will post up trailers for now.

So far I have done a lot of secondary animations and building destruction using Reactor in 3D max. The game ships with two civs, the Egyptians and Greeks and I haven't done any work for either of them since I joined while they were in the middle of the Celts.

For the time being, here is our most recent trailer.

Graduation

2011-05-25T02:43:00.000-07:00

I have been inactive a bit lately if you can tell. I have graduated from Digipen now and I have an internship at Gas Powered Games as an animation intern.

Beyond that nothing new to really show since I started my internship right after graduation and it takes up most of my time so I haven't done anything new at all. But all I can say is I am doing animation for the new Age Of Empire Online game at Gas Powered Games currently. I hope this internship turns into a full time job, but only time will tell as my internship is over early July.

New and Old

2011-04-27T23:07:00.000-07:00

Last day of class at Digipen! Graduation in 4 days, feels great.

Here is my final for my Ani 400 class all rendered out.

Still want to do another pass at the matte painting to clean it up and make it look less rushed.

And I found this old after effects I did that I really enjoyed doing, So I think I will post it up.

The Emedding is wonky so it requires you to jump onto youtube sorry.

End is near

2011-04-26T14:03:00.000-07:00

I haven't post in the past month because of my last month of school and focusing on it so much. Our senior project is done I will post the full video up here very soon but for now im going to up up a short snippet of what animations I did, later I will include the full renders of each scene.

I was surprised to find out how much Motion Blur add to a final animation, I feel like it makes it all look so much better.

As well I have nearly finished my animation for my other class.

Still figuring how to do the cuts but im happy where I am with it

Almost there

2011-03-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

More cleaning up

Rawr

2011-03-16T15:10:00.000-07:00

Progressing on fire blast shot. Obviously the FX isn't in yet, our tech artists is working on the separately. Still need to rework Alex's pose before he falls back and some clean up on the dragons curves.

Alex Hair WIP

2011-03-08T12:43:00.000-08:00

Since other team members are busy with their respective parts of the project I have taken up on completing our main characters hair.

Now the hair texture that was given to me to use is just a base rough texture that can be used on the planes to be layed out. Still work in progress as I wait to get feedback from art director so I can get this finished by the end of the week.

Demo Reel 2011 / GDC

2011-03-05T01:34:00.000-08:00

Current Demo Reel of my best things. I compiled this together for GDC to get feedback and was extremely happy of the feedback and crits I got back. Big things I got back are:

-link different actions together, walks into runs into jumps, etc. Makes it more interesting
-Less walks in some cases
-Tailor reel for companies more. (This reel was compiled of both game and cinematic to cover both but when linking/sending to company have 2 different reels for it)
-Attack animations swords and guns
-Explore more with dog/quadruped
-Start learning about Mo cap

So with these ideas I got some good ideas on what to work on this summer after graduation. The main feedback I got was that I had strong foundation so far but each company wanted to see more of specific things. I am so happy to hear this because it means I dont suck! So atleast im going in a good direction and I know what they want, which was my main goal of GDC was to get exact feedback of what companies are looking for.

Like I mentioned MoCap this was the BIG thing everyone mentioned (Some primarily more then others) so I NEED to look into it. Up to this point I havent been sure how to feel about Mocap but the fact is that it is here and no matter if I like the idea of it or not its being used and I need to get some experience with it if i want to be hire able in many cases.

So got a good amount of work ahead of me to focus on, exciting stuff!

The Trade Pre Viz

2011-02-24T03:25:00.000-08:00

My only other class this last semester is Ani 400 which allows us to spend the entire semester developing our own project that we can do "anything" in as long as it has animation. Obviously I am an animator so I decided to go for a scene between 2 characters.

Two hunter friends, one (left) a sorta gun nut while the other (right) is his more sensible serious friend. Background will consist of just a matte painting as this point I might add in some rock geometry later on if I feel like it needs it but it depends on how much time I have left.

I had some fun in my vid ref splicing my acting into one shot while my friend Derek coached my acting. Still need to "play it up more" to push the performance but right now I am going to be working off this for main poses and might re do some vid ref / re thumb for parts I dont like, as well as just push the actions even more in the animation.

Dragon time

2011-02-24T03:17:00.000-08:00

Our Dragon finally has an animatable rig. The rig isn't final and neither is the skinning but its far enough along for us to use. He is going to be blowing fire so that effect is not in obviously, and his jaw is not rigged because they are double checking the exact "hing" location so it moves right I believe.

Got feedback about giving him more attitude and I have the check his pose compared to the previous shot since I noticed some skipping between the two shots.

Now with textures

2011-02-16T22:21:00.000-08:00

Finalized animation, now with textures! Textures done by Heather Gross from my team.

Cleaning things up

2011-02-09T14:21:00.000-08:00

This scene has been difficult, lot of work with timing primarily. Trying to not have things tween or go to slow or to fast, its a delicate balance to get it looking right. Right now I like how it is, I just need to play up the "Reaction". And obviously clean up curves and do a pass on fingers and fine tune facial.

Moar animations

2011-02-05T14:48:00.000-08:00

Oh hey look more animations!

This one is "done". Right now its missing our final facial rig but that is being added as I speak......or well type.

Revisiting this now that it is on my schedule to be worked. So far I took where i left off and splined it and cleaned up some timing and keys, im surprised how well it translated over from stepped keys to splined. I need to work out the first sword grab when he goes for it on his shoulder and quickly realizes it aint there and reaches over to grab it on the ground. Action isnt reading too well, its too fast so I have to work that out. I might have keep it simple and make it only one action for the amount of time I have.

2nd week done

2011-01-23T18:52:00.000-08:00

Finished up 2nd week and nailed out more animations.

This is the final animation so far. Still need to get feedback from teachers and others. Animations are never done.

This scene has changed a bit from last week, since a previous shot of him falling through a cave was removed I had to reblock the shot. I have one more week of this to take it to final.

New block ins

2011-01-18T16:39:00.000-08:00

Some new Block ins for Little Knight

Walking out of Cave into Lava Field

Falling back, reaching for sword and quickly realizes it isn't on his back and then turns to grab it on the ground.

And grabs his sword

My animation sequence from Little Knight

2011-01-02T15:58:00.000-08:00

Blocked in animation sequence I have done from Senior Project "The Little Knight"

Light change painting

2010-12-06T13:07:00.000-08:00

Assignment for my art 401 class to do two paints of the same environment with mood change and animate them. Painting is not my strong point by any means and this class has helped me on the actual process a bit but it something i will still need to keep practicing over time to get to a point I feel ok with.

Revisiting Run

2010-12-03T10:56:00.000-08:00

Looking back at some old game team animations form the failed game Run.

I feel much better about this backflip vs my original, which is good of course. Not much more to say about it but that hitting poses for it were easy but the timing for flips is the hardest parts, and I still will tweak this in the coming week for class.

First Little Knight Blockins

2010-11-30T21:49:00.000-08:00

I can finally start animating, after months and months of work its finally time!

I spent the day drawing up thumbs (plan to upload later) from vid ref of my team mate Derek and then blocking into 3D max.

Spent most of my time on the first reaction shot and got feed back in class and team mates. Then the rest of the day I nailed out the other two shots.The environment I also blocked out last week seems to be working well, I have all the camera's laid out and it Xrefed over perfectly with layers intact. Micha's rig seems to be working fine, some bugs need to be worked out but for blocking in it works great.

(I masked in the 2D dragon for this preview since he isn't rigged yet)

Fight Stage

2010-11-29T13:57:00.000-08:00

After a full week off of classes due to snow and thanksgiving I was able to sit down and push out the final fight "stage" scene block in.

Got crits on Saturday and going to make adjustments to scenes (not shown for that reason) to match them to the drawings more.

Cave Enviroment Initial Block in

2010-11-18T18:22:00.000-08:00

Last week put together a Blocked in environment for The Little Knight of the cave scene. This is just a basic block in with camera's so we can start animating while our ZBrush artists can start topogunning and zbrushing away.

Dog walk

2010-11-08T14:47:00.000-08:00

Next assignment for class is quadruped walk, so I grabbed the old Torchlight rig I used once before.
Block in "Plus" (Almost there)

Feeling a lot better about this weeks work, made him walk faster, and did a lot of cleaning up and tweaking per crits. And I finally get to do all the fun little secondary animations with the ears, tail, and mouth. Still have to animate the bags on his back though.

Block In:

Dog walks, hard. Learned that again when I was looking over reference and just trying to digest how they move. Figured out that dogs (or most 4 legged animals) have 3 types of "walks" and they blend between them depending on their mood, speed, terrain, etc.

But more about my first animation here; I'm feeling ok about it, but something particular feels "off" or weird so going to get crit in class and go from there. Looking forward to animate the tail and bags once I get the walk working nicely.

Knight's Sword

2010-11-08T14:29:00.000-08:00

Blocked in Sword for our Little Knight Project. Concept by my team mates.

Had to work off that one drawing, so the details about the swirl around the guard was mostly just a concept and idea. I'm really happy (and my team was too) how well it turned out.

The Little Knight Animatic

2010-11-04T18:51:00.000-07:00

Midterm animatic for our senior project; The Little Knight. We have spent the last 2 weeks re making our original for this presentation.

I and other team mates put a lot of work into aftereffects fixing up timing, and getting effects to work.

Taekwando

2010-10-14T11:00:00.000-07:00

A series of 3 Taekwando kicks. Big thanks to my teammate/classmate Micah for reference.

Blockin:

Final:

Final Animation, didn't turn out so great. Mostly due to timing, but a great learning experience to make myself focus on blocking a lot more. Totally want to revisit this later.

Limp walk

2010-10-14T10:45:00.000-07:00

Assignment was to create a specific 2 loop walk cycle. I chose the limp because I had some of my own personal experience with having to limp around for a few days less than a month ago.

Initial Block in:

Final (3 week total)

Feminine Walk Test

2010-08-05T23:45:00.000-07:00

Like the title says, just trying to do a female walk using a rig from the game Torchlight. Going to revisit and fix things wrong with it, but for now my wip.

Scene 3 (final)

2010-04-15T20:27:00.000-07:00

Final animation for my Ani class.

Blocking in for my final animation for my Ani class, Audio from Firefly.

Scene 2

2010-03-04T21:14:00.001-08:00

Setting up my scene for my next assignment in Ani

Blocking

Final (No blocking plus uploaded because I re did a lot of it when I went into final)

Demo Reel 2010

2010-03-04T21:07:00.000-08:00

Newest demo reel, showcasing my 3D animations skills

Blocking

2010-02-12T12:54:00.000-08:00

Final Animation

Blocking plus, fixing up crits and animation

First blocking for Ani class.

Poses

2010-02-09T02:32:00.000-08:00

Poses from Animation Class, assignment was to draw thumbnails from observation of life (cafe drawings), emotion, and balance. Final pose is for next assignment, animating to a piece of duologue.

Animation/Looping fixes

2010-02-01T00:51:00.000-08:00

(Stupid me not actually looping the animations, will update with loops)

Fixed a looping issue with the walk, so it is now smooth with no stuttering.

Fixed looping issues as well and adjusted animation.

Was looking at the original run for my old game team and had to fix it since it was horrible. And now I am very happy with it as well as a nice clean loop.

And adjusted the dog walk a bit, with a better quality render.

PItching

2009-12-22T12:36:00.000-08:00

Pitching animation, just trying it out.

Doggy animation

2009-11-23T12:58:00.000-08:00

First attempt at doing a quadruped animation, model/rig from Torchlight whom was nice enough to release some of their models and rigs along with animations.

Demo reel

2009-09-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

My demo reel as of now, I used it for trying to get a job for ProjectFUN at Digipen. I need to make an entire new one mainly with loops and animations from the Run game.

Oh nuts

2009-09-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

My Junior Project final

Created completely by me start to finish over the span of about 8 months (2 semesters).

Animation compliation

2009-09-15T00:39:00.001-07:00

Nearly all the animations I did for the unfinished Junior game team Run.

I have some issues with them not looping correctly so I plan on fixing them up for when I put some of them in a new demo reel.

Crazy Run Game

2009-01-11T02:50:00.000-08:00

This is the main character for a Junior RTIS project game I am working on through the school. The character was designed by team mate David La and I modeled and rigged it (with the help of Josh Jones) in 3Ds max.

For the game project I am the Lead Animator and also was the character modeler, but since there is only going to be one modeled character it is not much of a task.

3D animations

2009-01-11T02:35:00.000-08:00

First animation was done my sophomore year and was an intro to rigging basically, while the rest have been done my junior year in my acting class. The pillow was rigged by a TA for the class, but the squirrel and Owl are done by me for my 30 second Junior Project and this was an animation test for one part of it.

Flash animations

2009-01-11T02:20:00.000-08:00

All done in flash, ball bounce is of a character from the Gundam anime series known as "Haro" and the Chocobo is from the Final Fantasy series, this specific one is modeled after the Chocobo's in Final Fantasy XI.

Traditional Animations

2008-12-29T13:58:00.000-08:00

Inbetween test's key frames are taken from Tony White's animated short since he was our teacher. While the cartoon horse animation was a test to try 2 different walks on one character.

Starting blog

2008-12-01T14:25:00.000-08:00

Just starting this blog for posting my 3D related artwork and assets.