The Seven Wonders – my part in its downfall!!!

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So here are some highlights from my work on the Seven Wonders project.  My first time working in a game engine, and I must say despite a few small hurdles towards the beginning, I soon felt privileged to be using Cryengine 3, an amzing realtime rendering engine, with some fantastic cinematic features.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the shots I was responsible for.

  1. Nano suit macro close up.  Elements created in Maya and Z-Brush, animated in Maya, lit rendered using Cryengine.   A lot of mel scripting went in to these few seconds of animation, I’m aiming to do a little breakdown of the process soon, and will link it here as soon it’s up.
  2. Helicopters, New York intro.  All assets and FX created, animated and lit in engine
  3. Typhoon Gun chamber and bullet time(err…bullets!).  Again created in Engine.  Additional bullet effects created using engine based particles systems.
  4. Launch Trailer Text sequences.  Created Text models and textures using Maya and Photoshop.  All set dressing and lighting and FX again created using the engine’s magic.
  5. Brain fly-through.  Neuron assets created in Maya. Camera and FX animation all done using….Maya!  Just kidding, it was the Cryengine again.

 

myFirstPythonScript…copyAttributes

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I’ve won’t hail myself as the ultimate scripting wizard…I think I’m pretty average to be fair, but its always nice to make certain tasks a bit quicker.   Here’s a basic python script you can use to copy attributes between 2 selected objects.

 

”’import maya.cmds as mc”’

 

#COPY ATTRIBUTES

 

#get attributesfromfirst selected

cntrls = mc.ls (sl=1, tr=1)

print cntrls

cnt = len(cntrls)

print cnt

 

#check if two items are selected

if cnt != 2 :

mc.warning (“SELECT TWO OBJECT ONLY”)

 

if cnt == 2:

#get attributes from master item

attrList = mc.listAttr (cntrls[0], v=1, k=1)

print attrList

#add attributes to next selected item

for attr in attrList :

mc.addAttr (cntrls[1], k=True, at=”float”, ln=attr)

 

 

 

Febdate and life post-Frankfurt

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So I’m back in London now after 6 months in Frankfurt and already missing the loverly people I met.  The seven wonders are over and I’m now getting used to life away from real time rendering.

My main targets are for the near future are too learn some new skills while I have some downtime(…being unemployed).  Currently on the learning list, python, and some facial rigging all geared towards becoming a better all-round CGTD.  I’ve just taken on some CG society courses, one on facial rigging and one on learning python, its seems a nice way to get feedback on work rather than learning in isolation.  I hope to offer up some updates as and when I can…

For the time being here’s some eyecandy….it’s the last project I worked on at Crytek.  The text shots are mostly my work, lighting, texturing and set dressing….its soo easy when you have cryengine….(well, when it works that is!).  There were many days spent I spent screaming at screens when things never went as planned, but it was all worth it in the end.

   

  

Projects from 2012

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Its been a busy year for me,

I’ve spent the first half of 2012 learning lots of cool things about character rigging while working as a TD on a small animated short called Pet Hate.  A great project to be involved in, working alongside some wonderful people and  directed by a friend and colleague I worked with while working on Lockout in Dublin.  Here’s the trailer below.  

After this, I spent the last 6 months working in Frankfurt, as a Cinematic artist on a series of promotional trailers for upcoming release of Crysis 3 .  It a great introduction to game world, and a great chance to explore some very impressive software that is the Cryengine, a real time rendering software that goes a long way to making things look cool, very quickly.  The opening helicopter sequence here on episode 1 was my baby.