Presentation

Showreel

Networking

          Gaining contacts in any industry you wish to work in is important, but even more so if you plan on working within the games industry because of how close it seems to be. I've spoken to a few animators and if you mention someone's work they always seem to know who you're on about, by either having worked with them or they know someone who has. It's therefore important to keep in good standing with the people you make contacts with, as further down the line they might vouch for you when you're applying for a job. I don't mean putting on a fake friendly face or anything, I just mean when you work or talk with somewhat in the industry make sure you work hard and show off your capabilities, as then you might be remembered when there is a job going and work could be sent your way.

          I have only a limited number of animation contacts at the moment, Sam Malone, Roshin Hunt and Kyle Moody. Contacting them from time-to-time to get some friendly feedback could be a good way of staying in contact with them. In order to gain new contacts though I have to market myself after university.

Animation is somewhat lacking in terms of forums, though there are places such as the 11secondclub.com where I can take part in competitions to win a personal tutoring session from an industry professional. Not only would the tutoring be great, but the possibility to network with them as well as those on the website forums is even better.

I am also hoping to interact and gain contacts with others in the game industry through the release of the Xbox One game I will be working on in Deco Digital after university. Alongside this I hope to increase my connections through LinkedIn, and gain written recommendations on there from industry professionals, as I think being able to say that an industry professional vouches for your work is an excellent position to be in if an employer is weary of hiring somewhat not yet known in the industry.

         This industry seems very close-knit and a lot of hiring happens because of recommendations. It's one of the reasons I chose to acquire (once ArtStation offers the paid option)  the domain name 'aniknight.com', because although it may sound silly I think AniKnight is memorable, if for nothing else than replacing ani-mate with knight, and so if in passing conversation I tell someone my site address the chances are they are going to remember it.

ArtStation

          There has recently been a new website created that tailors for professional artists and promoting their work called ArtStation. It is currently in beta and thankfully I have managed to secure a beta position, with it releasing fully sometime this summer.

I've decided to build and host my website with them, and here's why:

The site has been built for and by creative professionals, of whom have had previous great success with creating websites for such companies such as Autodesk and Nvidia, and communities such as CGSociety. I understand and accept that the site could fall flat on its face, but considering the creators' earlier successes, and that large amount of attention it is gaining now, I think that it is a good place to set up my work.

When you sign up to ArtStation your are given your own website (here's mine: nathanknight.artstation.com) as well as a community page (www.artstation.com/artist/NathanKnight). Both are customisable, though the community page follows a common theme. The community page is where other artists can find you, it similar to a social network news feed, only you see just the artwork. The personal website you are given starts with the address containing '{name}.artstation.com' however they are currently working on producing a paid feature so what you can gain your own domain name and host your website with them, so eventually your website will have the address you want, and in my case 'aniknight.com' (if that name hasn't been taken by then).

If we look back to my first PPD module I wrote about wanting to start a blog or video blog for animation. ArtStation allows my blog to be tethered to my ArtStation website and community profile which means it will be easier to find and link in with one another for a chance at gaining a greater audience / more attention for possible head hunters to find me.

Most importantly about this new medium is that it doesn't just cater to concept artists and digital stills. They have built it to make sure that video is just as easily accessible with embedding for YouTube and Vimeo, and that when a person visits my site and community page the first thing they see if I wish it is my video showreel.

This video is 13 minutes long, but it explains ArtStation and the features it has for why I think it is the best place for me to have my website, instead of having a website that may be independent of a blog that is hosted somewhere else like blogger, which is independent to the other industry specific forums where I'd post my work to again attention:


ArtStation Beta 1 from Ballistiq on Vimeo.

Deco Digital and Future Plans

          I have now accepted work at Deco Digital (DD) and signed a contract for approximately 6 months work. I'll be animating for the game and helping out where I can with modelling. This changes my future plans a little as now instead of immediately looking for work after university and contacting studios to discover if there are any job openings, I will be working on the game DD is developing.

The purpose of the first game release is to allow the producer to gain more funding in order to make DD into a fully fledged studio. I've been offered a chance to stay with them after my contract is up when I can hopefully be offered a monthly wage. I think this is a great opportunity to get some real first hand experience in developing a game and shipping it, and to understand what it is like working closely with other artists and programmers in an office. It's something that will look good on for my portfolio/resume and I'll learn just what goes into the process of releasing a game. The game being released will be under the Microsoft Xbox One indie market, and they have already sent us Xbox One developer kits to work with.

Whilst working there I will still be doing animations after work and on the weekends to further my skills as well as to build up more material that I can update my showreel with.

Video Hosting

          Video hosting is an important part for showreels. It is important because you want to know that regardless of how many people are viewing your video at once, it needs to play every time without buffering or taking too long to begin it's initial playing.

          The two most obvious choices are of course YouTube and Vimeo. YouTube has the best infrastructure nowadays with Google always updating it and increasing hardware dedication. This means that of the two YouTube will be least likely to buffer or take too long for it to initially play. Possible employers will only wait a few seconds at best before they count you out because their time is valuable, and it isn't their problem if your video isn't working on their device, which is why YouTube is good as it is supported on all platforms. It's also free, including HD uploads, and can be embedded into your own site if you want to make sure no ads are getting in the way of what you're wanting to show.

Vimeo is also very good, it is supported on most platforms and rarely has issues with buffering and initial playback. However, if you want to upload in 1080p high definition then you have to pay $199 a year for VimeoPro. It then also promises to support all devices and offers support within an hour which is great if you're about to release an important video, but for just hosting your showreel it doesn't seem worth the cost as all you need is a single upload to be available and possibly be in high definition, which you can't do unless you pay. This is why I will be using YouTube to host my showreel.

I did also take a look at a site called Fillim (http://fillim.com/). This site seems tailored for independent films, or short films and animations. This type of thing could be very useful in the future if I were to release a short animated film, as it looks as if it would get more attention from the type of people who are interested in that type of thing, as well as being able to charge viewers for it if you wanted income from that, but for now I have no reason to use it as I am unfamiliar with it and unsure of how reliable it is for what I need. As far as I can tell you can't embed the videos either for sharing.

Fillim 'about':

http://fillim.com/film/welcome-to-fillim-by-dan-solo1

VimeoPro:

Indie Developer Offer

         A few weeks ago now I was approached by and offered a 6 month animation position at an indie developer called Deco Digital (http://www.decodigital.co.uk/AboutUs). If I take the job I'll be the sole animator. It's an exciting prospect and so I'll think carefully on it, as it won't pay me for the work until the game they are making is released. The company's artists consist of people on my course, and so I know them well enough to know I'll fit in.

Professional's Feedback

          I gained some valuable feedback from Roshin Hunt on my Ladder Course animation; Roshin said that it was quite impressive, but had a few critiques on parts of the animation. The part of the character jumping to the lower level should have his back in more of a concave as to have the silhouette/shape of him at that point be more of an appealing pose. I took this into consideration and re-rendered the animation after making adjustments to it.

Roshin also noted that it might be worth me giving the character more time to turn and look back whilst he is on the ladder part. She said what I have at the moment is fine and doesn't take away from the animation, but if I wanted to go a step further then giving the character more time to carry out that part of the animation would be an improvement. I've decided, through lack of time, that I am going to keep the animation on the ladder as it is for the moment, as render times are somewhat long for this particular animation and rendering again for something that isn't breaking the animation isn't worth it right now. Having said that I will remember that advice for when I have time to edit the animation and re-render it, and for future animations too.

Old Mage Animations

          I have rendered out the animations for the Old Mage animations that I did, which help to show my ability to create looping animations ready for games. Though the ARK game shows this too, I think the renders of the Old Mage animations help to show the principles of animation a little more that what I did with the ARK character.

Though I have more animations for the Old Mage I am only including the idle and attack animation, as I think these are probably the best of them, and of course you only want to show your best work in your showreel. I have however also rendered out a 3rd animation for the Old Mage, the 'Struck' animation. I'm not sure whether to include this or not, and again will probably be decided whilst I am compositing in After Effects. The quality is near the same of that of the other 2 animations, but I didn't want the showreel to go over 2 minutes, so if this fits in without pushing the time limit then I may just keep it in.

Here are a few still examples of the renders, again done with alpha'd backgrounds and done so we can see the front and two side perspectives of the animation:

Software Flexibility

          For my showreel I wanted to show that although my work is predominantly keyframed animations in Maya, I can also be flexible and use whatever tools or software I have available, so that I am not seen as a 'one trick pony'. It is important for people working in the games industry to be flexible now days and technology is quickly advancing and we have to show that we are capable of picking up new techniques and learning new practices. With that said I wanted to show the work I did on motion capture with the Xbox Kinect. I've therefore set time aside in my showreel to display the recording of the mocap, the targeting process and the final product after cleaning up the animation within Maya, and maybe even in-game if I have the time.

Kinect MoCap capturing

MoCap Re-targeting 

MoCap Cleaned up

The above image shows just a shot of the final animation, however for the actual final render I will be using a 3-point lighting set up (like I have with most of my renders) and having it without a floor. This is because I plan to have a different background once in After Effects, and so having the renders with alpha'd backgrounds means I can place the animation sequence in front of what ever background I choose. It just gives me a little more flexibility when editing. I did consider doing a render pass just for the shadows so that I could still keep them, but I decided they were not important to what I'm showing and so didn't do the shadow pass.

Alpha'd Background

Example of the 3-point lighting I'm using

Ark Gameplay and Animation Spotlight

          As part of the showreel I wanted to have the game I worked on for part of the course shown in the background whilst the animations I did for it were spotlighted in the foreground. This is something I am going to have to play around with later when compositing the video in After Effects (A.E.), but for now I have recorded some game play and have rendered out the different animations found in the game.

Ark Gameplay

With doing it in this fashion I can later choose whether to have a few seconds dedicated to actually showing the gameplay on it's own, but for now I think having it in the background whilst the animations are showing in the foreground to be the best choice. I may even have the animations shown in the bottom left whilst the gameplay is shown. I'll also need to crop the video slightly to remove the window border, but that is easily done in A.E.

Here are examples / W.I.P's. of the spotlighting of the animations, with variations of placements:

W.I.P.-2 Background gameplay, foreground animations

W.I.P.-1 Background gameplay, animations to the side to allow in-game animation to be seen.

I have the animations and gameplay as separate renders, so I think testing the different placements in A.E. will be where I come to a final decision on how to place them.

Rendering and Camera shots on the Ladder Course Animation

          I have rendered out the ladder course animation I made, ready for use in After Effects when putting the showreel together. I decided that because the animation doesn't make use of colours or textures in any meaningful way that I would render it as an ambient occlusion scene.

The A.O. values were eventually kept at the default for both samples, spread, maximum distance and falloff because I had used trial and error to see what settings worked best whilst keeping in mind the render times. I did however change settings inside of Mental Ray so that quality of the sampling was set to 1.25, with a Gauss filter of 1.0 to 3.0 as this seemed to give smoother edges, acting like a sort of anti aliasing tool. I did also think of using a small amount of motion blur, however I chose not to include it as I wanted the animation to be seen for exactly what it is so that it isn't taken as 'he could be covering up mistakes with motion blur', because motion blur can easily hide the small clipping errors or poor silhouettes in animation, or at least make it difficult to tell.

Below are two different renders of the same frame. One was set at 64 samples for the A.O. and one at 16.

A.O. Sample Value: 16

A.O. Sample Value: 64

As you can see it is obvious that 64 is of higher quality, and of course it would be. That being said, I calculated the render time for 64 sample, having 611 frames to render, and it would take around 3 to 4 hours, something I thought was too excessive and time wasting considering the quality difference between 64 and 16 sample isn't enough to justify the time. I therefore stuck with the 16 sample and rendered out the animation. I will take a second look at this once the showreel is complete, and if I find the quality out of place with the rest of the reel then I will re-render at 64 sample, as at that point I will also have the time to spare as well.

Camera shots

For the camera angles and shots I made sure to stick with the 180 degree rule. I wanted to make sure those who are viewing don't get lost in the camera shots because they need to be able to follow it without confusion as the whole animation is split into two parts throughout my showreel, which I need to make sure is understood.

Line of action rule (180 degree rule)

The first part of the animation has 2 camera shots. One shot is of the start where the character is climbing the ladder and the second shot is from slightly higher up. My reasoning for this was to get a good and interesting angle so that the principles of animation can be observed (most importantly time, spacing and arcing) on the first shot, and the second shot I found to be the best angle to allow a person to understand the continuation of the animation, whilst abiding by the rule of thirds.

2nd camera shot

          The second part to the animation, which will be at the end of the showreel, is shot with only one camera. My choice to use only one camera shot was made because this part of the animation has the character traversing the scene in quick succession, and I wanted to capture it all in one shot without the camera moving so the timing and speed of the character can be accurately judged.

Part 2 of the animation with single shot camera

Website Creation & Hosting

          As I currently have no knowledge in website creation using coding language I will need to rely on websites that allow website building through the use of 'drag and drop'. The easiest to use that still allow me to have custom designs that I can create in Photoshop are Wix, Weebly, Squarespace and Dunked.

The first 3 in that list are well known for website creation and I think to be honest can be looked down upon by industry professionals as the sites aren't tailored for the people trying to get into the games industry, that being said with a lot of customisation the sites produced by them can look professional.

Dunked is probably the better of those choices. It seems to cater to the creative type of person who isn't looking to show off their business or start online shops. It seems to focus on portfolio showcasing.

"79,188 creative people including designers, 3D modelers, illustrators, artists, models, architects and more use Dunked to showcase their talent" - Dunked.com

Here are two good examples of that:

http://angeloferretti.dunked.com/

http://marcomazzoni.dunked.com/

These examples are of course not videos, which is what I will need to be showcasing, however I've looked at their site builder and it is very easy to have a video showing as the first thing you see.

The monthly cost to host the website so that you gain your own domain name and personalised email, among other benefits, should be considered, as well as the freedom for customisation when building so that I can implement the 'do's-and-don'ts' that I covered in PPD1. From those sites that I looked into the costs are as such:

Dunked:

• $6/Month for 'Freelancer' package as paid for with a year subscription ($72/Year) which equates to approximately £42 a year.

SquareSpace:

• $8/Month for 'Personal' package as paid for with a year subscription ($96/Year) which equates to approximately £57 a year.

Weebly:

• $4.08/Month for 'Starter' package as paid for with a year subscription ($48.96/Year) which equates to approximately £29 a year.

Wix:

• £5.16/Month for 'Combo' package as paid for with a year subscription that equates to £61.92 a year.

All of the listed packages have similar features included, such as storage and bandwidth. If I were to choose on at the moment I would choose Dunked because they are tailored more to people such as myself as well as being in the middle ground in terms of cost per year.

Choosing who to build and host your website with can be integral for allowing a possible employer to see your work without hindrance, something I think Dunked caters for the best so far.

Showreel Revision

          For my showreel I had the initial plan for the contents to show in this order:

1. Intro 
2. A3DG module animations
3. Ladder course animation (1st part)
4. Attack animation
5. Lip sync animation
6. Recover animation
7. Ark game intro
8. Ark gameplay
9. Showcase of animations in ARK
10. MoCap recording and apply this to a character
11. Idle Animation
12. Ladder course animation (2nd part)
13. Outro

I now have an altered version which I changed due to revising a realistic time scale in which to produce, render and composit. I've also made these changes as I think this new version helps to represent my strength for the type of job I am aiming for, character animator for games.

Latest showreel content order:

1. Intro
2. Ladder course animation (1st part)
3. A3DG module animations
4. Idle - Norman animation 
5. ARK game logo moving into gameplay
6. ARK animation spotlight of both humanoid and vehicle character (gameplay still going on in background)
7. MoCap recording and application to character (In game too?)
8. Struck - Norman Animation (may be replaced with 'Struck' animation)
9. Ladder course (2nd part)
10. Outro

I have swapped the 1st part of the ladder course animation with the A3DG (advanced 3D graphics module) animation as I believe the ladder animation is my strongest at the moment, though with the completetion of A3DG I will re-evaluate this decision. The lip syncing animation has been removed as I think I haven't been realistic with time constraints and therefore will not have enough time to produce a lip sync animation.  The ARK gameplay will be shown briefly, but soon moved to a background whilst the animations I did in the game are at the front. If I have enough time I will put the motion capture animations in game to show the full pipeline of myself start with low-end mocap and taking it through clean-up to in engine use. I am also tempted to show the running animation, however I don't want to have too many animations of the same character and look as if I am flooding my showreel for the sake of it.

The 'Norman' animations are here, in just a view port recording. More work will be done on the rendering process so that they transition in my showreel nicely.

Idle:

Attack:



Run:




Struck:

Introduction

          This purpose of this blog is to record the progress I make leading up to the completion of my final showreel and exit plan from university, detailing and explaining the decisions I make and processes I take.

Reflection on PPD1 short term plan:

          For the final entry in my PPD1 blog I wrote a short term exit plan. One point in the plan was to continue work on the ARK game that I was apart of and to use it within my showreel if I thought the work was good enough. Looking at the animations I believe I will indeed keep them in the showreel, as well as the motion capture animations I did for my dissertation. Both of them present what I am targeting my showreel for (game animation) as well as my ability to be flexible and use different techniques and software to produce the results needed.

Currently I have no animation for the lip syncing that I wanted to do as part of the 11 Second Club's monthly contest. Time is short currently and I have made the decision to remove this segment from my showreel unless I find time towards the end of the semester before university ends, and if not then I plan on doing the animation once I have exited university.

I underestimated the time I needed to dedicate for my dissertation, and so the plan to produce a few animations catering to first person shooter games never developed. Though again this is something I am aiming to do if I have enough time, and if not then certainly after university.

I did get chance to enquire at Crytek Nottingham about presenting my showreel to them, if for nothing else than critique from their animation department. The person I spoke with said to contact him again once I had the showreel completed, and so I intend to at the end of the semester.

My final short term point was to start work on my website design in the sense of finding the right hosting service and tools to build the site. This is something that I will post a separate entry to later on in this blog as it goes in depth.