Gopher Broke 3D

some really funny character animation in this short

kinnect xbox Unreal games engine

I've been looking at the xbox and its potential as a motion capture device many people have been using the cheap hardware already with its Kinect camera to produce full body animation and facial animation.

I bought an xbox 360 yesterday like a big child! along with the impressive gears of war 2 couldn't find the 1st one and didn't want the 3rd in case i actually enjoy playing it and want to be surprised by the story!
Playing the game has me reminiscing of my misspent youth in front of the PlayStation with Rresident Evil.

Gears of war 1-3 was built using a game engine called Unreal 3 it looks like it might be pretty easy to use (compared with other code heavy software like the cry engine used for Crysis 1-2) and free. Although apparently it is coming to the end of its shelf life at the ripe old age of 6 there would be no harm in attempting to use it.

Imagine if you will instead of a short animation as my masters project (that nobody but my teachers and extended family will feel obliged to watch) creating an interactive 3D game perhaps for the Iphone.
Maybe a zombie game set in Belfast City Centre in the style of the more Urban Res Evil 2.

Just think you could help the Ardoyne rioters throw bricks and petrol bombs at zombie orange men trying to eat their way through the Tour of the North. or go on a bloody pyjamma clad zombie killing rampage in Tesco on the Crumlin road.

Shoot zombie cops with plastic bullets from a meat wagon!

Rescue your heavily self prescribed Auntie Jean from her tower-block flat in the Newlodge. Fight off packs of wild pit bull terriers as you bundle her into a hijacked black taxi to bring her to safety at the Belfast Zoo, only to watch in horror as she is eaten alive and semi-conscious by Zombie Prairie Dogs (why not).

Nationalists and Loyalists must unite to defend the city from the zombie hordes... and loot JJB Sports.

Accidentally blow the heads of staggering beggars in Castle Street!

Fill your undead Base Londons!

Reminds me of the Belfast zombie book I bought at the QFT
by Wayne Simmons  'Flu', its cool, a must for those who like their zombies  with 25 years of baggage!

mocap maya

FOT and Angus: Episode 6

 

Love these little short animations Fot and Angus

Big Bouncer

 

Here is the result of my work over the Christmas break building a polygonal human head with time spent getting proper topology. I built the head from a single box in Maya starting from the nose and working out. 

Once the generic base mesh was built with clean edge flow I exported the model as an .OBJ file into ZBrush where I was then able to sculpt the head into something a bit more individual.

Once I had the plump face modeled to my liking I used the UV Master plugin to create a UV map that I could work with without having to do too much work.

I am more familiar with the Mudbox painting interface so after exporting the model from ZBrush i was able to paint directly onto the model giving the surface the appearance of flesh.

Moving the model back into ZBrush I was able to use the sculpting tools to sculpt the different shapes and expressions from the face and one by one build a library of movements that I created switches for in Maya. These switches are referred to as blendshapes.

Why?

Bouncer moving mouth