Rigging Study.
polycounter lvl 5
[vv]21539134[/vv]
If you can't see the video like me http://vimeo.com/21539134 is the link.
This is the reel that got Riham Tolan into Crytek to work on Ryse. Could you help me study the reel to understand what is exceptional about this reel? I am a noob teaching myself so understanding this would help.
This is her reel currently.
Thanks in advance!
EDIT: Got it to work!
If you can't see the video like me http://vimeo.com/21539134 is the link.
This is the reel that got Riham Tolan into Crytek to work on Ryse. Could you help me study the reel to understand what is exceptional about this reel? I am a noob teaching myself so understanding this would help.
This is her reel currently.
Thanks in advance!
EDIT: Got it to work!
Replies
aren't those thing standard and the minimum required for a rig nowadays?
Squash and stretch animation hasn't been widely used in games for a few reasons.
1) It tech heavy
On older hardware adding a 3rd or 4th parameters (position and scale) to bones creates too much data to track along side rotation. Resources better spent on something else, adding more characters, larger environments, a more immerse particle systems ect... You have to remember the 360 and PS3 where ancient pieces of hardware that really choked off innovation and stalled it out for 5-6 years.
2) The rigging that makes those things possible has a lot of moving parts.
Animators may be manipulating only a few controllers but there is a lot of back end stuff like duplicate bone systems, constraints, expressions, deformers, driven keys ect... Those things don't transfer into a lot of engines or have so many parts its not worth it. Most have to be recreated with limited tools. Some engines are getting a lot better but for a REALLY long time what engines accept, has been very limited.
3) Games that focus on realism and reality tend to not care about squash and stretch style animation.
EVEN if it could actually help improve realism, they tend to stick to the logic that "human bones don't stretch, why should our game models?" Never mind that the bones also control squishy things like backpacks, clothing and muscles. Things that squash and stretch on a regular basis. Also if you can over extend an arm or a leg, you can really sell a punch or a kick. If you can compact the character when they hit the ground it actually creates a more realistic impact.
Now that console hardware which is the major driving force in the industry (and often the lowest common denominator) has taken a step up we will see more rigs with some more complex rigging but again it really depends on the goals of the studio and what they view as a priority, they have a lot of things to balance out and animation systems can be very expensive not just on tech resources but on people power too.
So isn't there anything too special about this rig compared to other cg rigging portfolios?
Most of the stuff in the original post doesn't apply to most games, but it's pretty standard for film and TV. Unless they are planning on doing something new and drastically different, which is entirely possible. Or they hired someone who is overqualified, they'll get bored and move on, heh.
Learning the techniques uses in the reel is getting easier and easier so the reel is probably strong enough to land them an interview but some Q/A would have to be done to make sure it wasn't just tutorial regurgitation.
Creativity plays a big roll in rigging, especially when working with real-time limitations. There are many times that riggers have to do something that hasn't been done before. If they hire someone who hits a brick wall because they've run out of tutorials to follow, then they probably hired the wrong person. They want to make sure they hire someone who can improvise, create and plan effectively around the limitations, whatever those are.
It shows clarity, efficiency and creativity. I personally would love to animate with those rigs, but for games a lot of that rigging probably won't work unless they do a lot of in-house modification to whatever engine they are using.
So basically they are looking for someone who can write custom scripts for any problem and being able to program between softwares would be a plus?
This. Like I already said, animations in games have been left out in favor of realism...
should've mentionned in cartoony game, this kind of rig is the basics for me nowadays.
animator loves the stretching spine, it allows them to quickly pose the spine the way they want... sure you can get a cartoon feeling with that type of control but a good animator will be able to use it to make realistic animation and its not that heavy. As long as your engine doesn't use rotation only you're fine.
IK FK matching isnt always required as some rig will be ik or fk only but you gotta know how to do it
UI: same thing as the ik FK matching thingy
so overall there's nothing new in this reel but everything was perfectly done ( which is the most important thing)