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Mark Bremerkamp

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About Mark Bremerkamp

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    Lead Animator, Project Eternity
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  1. Hey guys, Thanks for the warm welcome. I've tried to get to most of the questions. Hormalakh Are you building your own models? are you using maya? -Character artists create the model, a technical animator rigs the model with a skeleton in Maya, we then animate the character. Do most game animators work on movies as well or do they usually stick with games? - -Some bounce back and forth. Most game animators seem to want to work in movies and I know a few movie animators that would like to work in games. So it really goes both ways. Are there any significant differences between animating movies and games? -There is a big difference. Usually in games the camera can be in any position so the character can be seen from every possible angle. That means every part of the character has to look good from any and every possible angle. When we work on movies or cinematics the camera is locked to one specific angle. With a locked camera the animator only needs to animate the parts of the character that are in frame. Animation response time is another thing a game animator has to always keep in mind. The game mechanics will dictate how fast or slow an animation should be. When the player presses the button they expect their character to react. As animators when we shoot realistic reference of a punch we need to be cognizant of this. If we animated exactly to that reference the hit frame on the attack more often than not feels slow. A lot of times we have to animate with less anticipation before the strike so that the attack is responsive for gameplay. What do you wish more animators would do? -Get up out of their chair and act out the action so they can "feel" the motion. While they're at it they should be recording video reference of themselves. Any advice for beginner animators interested in getting into the field? -Read The Illusion of Life. Get Richard Williams Master Class Book. Study animations that you are inspired by, comb over the animation frame by frame...count the frames between the actions. Really try to deconstruct the animations this will help you get a better understanding of the timing of the actions. Most importantly...Practice, practice, practice. You really do need to put in the time to get good at animating. Any word on whether or not we're going to get first-perspective close-up animations when talking to important NPCs a la Fallout/Fallout 2? -Probably not Do you only do in-game animations or cinematic animations as well? Is P:E going to have cinematic animations (at all)? -Mostly in-game currently. We serve double duty here at Obsidian. I also loved Chuck Jones and grew up with his work. Which of his works do you like best? -There are too many to list. Here's a good sample... Oh and most important of all: Mac or PC? -PC McNoguff How is working with Unity, as compared to your previous tools? Do you use Mecanim for anything(actually animating, retargeting, or something else) or do you prefer to use a traditional animation tool like 3DSMax and just move it over? Do you interact with the game engine in any integral way or do you hand over your assets to designers who implement them in-game for you? So far working with Unity has been great . I'm loving the new animation system Mecanim. It will allow retargeting of animations between multiple bipedal characters which will help with the amount of assets we'll need to author. As for our workflow we will be animating in Maya and retargeting characters in Mecanim. Lastly, do you feel like the reduced cost of mocap is in danger of diminishing a traditional animators role? -Not at all mocap is only a tool. It usually is best used for realistic human animations. I think traditional animation will always be around in some form or another. Falkon Swiftblade Have you tested cloth physics yet, and any chance you can collaborate with programmers and texture artists to include animations reflecting state changes so the more beat up you get your weapons and armor get damaged, and maybe your hero appears exhausted and hunkered over? Similarly, you mentioned you like Batman, what will it take for the players gear to look like as they progress in the game with ripped capes, or rusty swords that don't swing as smooth as a fine weapon? - Only preliminary testing with cloth at this point. As for damaged states I'll defer to designers on that one. I suggested to your programmer a long time ago to collaborate with the animators, so our stats influence your movements. So maybe someone with low dexterity may stumble a bit in their walk, while someone with high dexterity would have very smooth animations. Your mage with normal intel might cast magic normal, but a very wise mage might have much more followthrough or elegance in the way he casts spells, and the animations could adjust overtime in addition to new skills. Would you consider a system like that? - I would love to do this. Unfortunately I believe that a feature like this would blow our animation budget out of the water for PE. Please I ask really nice to animate the baddies and good guys with some personality in them, so when it comes later time to add text or dialog the body language show emotion. Some of those old games you read for 15 min and its kinda lame to see the npc just standing idle or making silly gestures out of context. -We probably will try do this on a limited basis. The final call as always comes down to prioritizing all the necessary animations for what's really needed to make this game. I have one final request, can we please have animated portraits instead of just the standard image, unless we choose to upload our own? I think by 2014 its not unrealistic to expect semi mocaped facial expressions since the software does most of the work for you now. -I believe the current plan is portraits only. Gyges Will combat animations in P:E be realistic or more fantastic? A balance between the two would be most welcome. Mixture between the two. Realistic when it warrants (Humans) it and more over the top when it makes sense.(Creatures) Greensleeve & D'rez - Thanks for the beer recommendations I'll have to give them a try. Archmage Silver Do you usually watch the NHL Entry Draft? Any ideas on whom you'd like the Red Wings to pick in the first round? -I don't usually get to see the NHL draft...Besides the Red wings rarely have a 1st round pick. Tamerlane Alright Mark, you've already revealed the existence of both 1- and 2-handed spears. So the only important question remaining is: Javelins? Pollaxes? -I don't think so. Or I should say I haven't seen them on any lists so far. Tuckey Will we be able to see character's faces as sprites? -There will be character portraits Do you do anything beside animate characters? Do you animate things like trees and so on also? -We've animated all kinds of stuff over the years. We're definitely not limited to only characters Cheers -Mark
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