Kotaku Talk Radio – PODCAST – Greg Zeschuk

http://chataboutit.com/kotaku-talk-radio-podcast-greg-zeschuk-episode-2/

Great clip, of Mass Effect.

The Making of Avatar

• James Cameron wanted to work on a film in 1995, but the visual effects want ready to make what he had in mind.
• I really enjoyed this movie and here is the making of this film. The character development was really thought out.
• And every arching point in the story was visually epic.
• The whole environment was created with a freedom to explore a new planet "Pandora"
• Their goal was to make a planet so creative they, made a planet visually from scratch.
• They spent a long time looking for the right acting talent.
• All the actors were motion capture to their characters. Thier Motion capture studio was "Giant Studio"
• I have gone to this studio to mocap Swtor, in 2006-2007 and the time I was there, they were filming this movie in another studio.
• They used motion capture to capture the face, so that they will have life like quality.
• Wow they have a really cool tool where they have a virtual camera where it films on stage and track the space environment in the Pandora world. This makes it easier to have great camera work.
• When they film a shot, they will take a moment and take a look of what the camera captured in the Pandora world, actors will get into a pod and watch their selves acting in the Pandora world, This was mind blowing for all the actors.
• There is so much new technology that went into developing this film.
• The editing for this film took place, during pre production. This has never been done before but, it gave so much time for the editors to make the movie great. They used a lot of the camera reference that they filmed on set.
• After all the acting ws done, they went to Wetta to get the 3D visuals to come into place.
• They also talk about sound, and how they use sound from today and manipulate it to a unique sound effect.
• This was a revolutionary experience in Hollywood.

I work for EA

 I got the opportunity to put my name out there, through the EA website. They interviewed me and posted my picture on their website.

https://jobs.ea.com/success_stories/usa/Francisco/

What is your educational background?

When I was a kid, my favorite hobbies were drawing cartoons, playing Video Games, and coming up with great adventures with my G.I.Joe toys. It wasn’t until High school I realized I wanted to make a career out of my 3 hobbies. Thanks to my parents, they made it possible for me to attend Art Institute of Houston, where I graduated with an Associates of Applied Science in 3D Animation.

What do you do at EA? And what are your main responsibilities?

I am a Senior Animator working on Bioware’s Star Wars the Old Republic. Mainly I focus on creating highly innovative combat animations for our player characters. I also play a major role in researching new game play ideas for our MMO.

What do you love about your job?

My Job brings a lot of excitement to my life. I am always looking forward to being creative and to work with talented people in the gaming industry. Best of all, it’s very rewarding to see something you did come to life.

Why did you choose to work in gaming?

At first, I wanted to work on 3D animated movies. But after graduating college, I took great interest in working on next gen games. I realized the gaming industry is on set path of reaching CGI movie standards, and I want to be part of that growing evolution.

Why did you Join EA?

EA Bioware has a reputation for delivering excellent story telling in their RPG games. They are consistently setting the bar for game play and cinematics. I wanted to work for a company that takes great pride in what they do to please their fans.

Describe life at EA?

EA has definitely opened new doors and gave me the opportunity to work on great games. I am constantly learning new things and accomplishing challenging tasks. I do have my good days and bad days, but over all it’s been satisfying to develop on what first starts as an idea into a game that I enjoy playing.

What are your future career ambitions?

My career ambitions would be to shine in the company, with hard work and having a great personality. I want to have a perfect balance between my work life and personal life. So if your reading this, my nick name is Kiko, I am a game developer during the day and a ninja by night.

What are your favorite games and entertainment?

I can’t stop playing Team Fortress 2. I enjoy Holding a Wrench, Hitting Baseballs, Juggling Grenades, Eating Sandwiches, Speaking Scottish, Ninja Vanishing, playing Ax Band, being Uber Cool, and of course Boom Headshots

Animating in Curves

Shows you why Andrew Gordon and other animators harp on the importance of working in the graph editor...

Pose Design with Andrew Gordon

Purpose of Pose - How to get a pose to look good

• Focus on how a character is standing
• Feel the weight and anatomy of your character and build the pose from that point
  
• You want your single pose to tell a story, Like a man looking at a shoe, NOT a man kicking something off the ground.
• A Golden Pose should tell the story of the scene
  
• Stay away from stiff poses, and symmetrical standing poses

Staging and Poses - What goes into good design?

• Pixar designs a shot by using color scripts
• Focus on using shapes to design all your poses
• Silhouette with nice Curves are used for calm and happy
• Silhouette poses with angles represents evil mad or surprises
• A calm girl sitting on the floor should be rounded
• An angry man should show off angles

Posing issues in Rattattoui

• In this movie they first designed all the mice to stand like humans. After approving the pose they found out that mice acting like humans was not appealing to the eye.
• So the went back to the beginning an change the pose for the mouse to stand like and mouse and to hold objects like a mouse
• This pose caused a chain reaction to their production where the animators had to fix all their animations based of the new pose.

Audience's Eyes

• Polar express is a bad example of eye poses and animation, watching the movie you can tell that the eye has no life.
• Eyes can be a guide to the viewer on where to look. If a the character’s eyes are going to look left, then the viewers eyes will be guided to the left of the screen. Which means in the next scene the object that the character was looking at should be on the left screen, this will only help the viewer pin point that target.
  
• How to control the viewers’ yes in an action scene. Example: Monster Inc. Sullivan ran into the locker room and his body moved to the right of the screen, in the next shot, the locker that he was running to appeared on the right of the screen.
• Elevator Scene – Building contrast with motion, 7 people standing in an elevator 2 people talking to each other. We want the audience to focus on the 2 people talking and use the background characters to give the scene some life. One guy listen to music, a lady that doesn't care, 2 people listening to the conversation, and one looking down minding his own business.
• Great staging leads into good acting.
  

12 Principles of animation with Andrew Gordon

Squash and Stretch

• Used for adding additional shapes
• Hit a pose, but have a small bounce
• It should be felt not seen
• Don’t over do it
• Reference – Don Bluth Movies

Arcs

• Dancing patters have nice arcs and movement
• Pole Vaulting, the body moves in arcs and the Limbs move in a pattern
• Head Turns have arcs, if you attach a ball to the end of the nose or limb you can see the arc pattern

Anticipation

• Used for localization, Ex: Stand/Squat/Jump or BuildUp/Run
• Used for acting, in a video clip I saw 7 anticipations in the acting shot. The character scratched/picked/walk/stop
• Anticipations in acting will prepare the audience on what’s going to happen next.
• Large vs. Small Characters, Large creatures have slower anticipation, while smaller creatures are faster
• Best to have an intro to an action, when getting ready to show the primary action.

Drag and Follow Through

• Used for anything flexible like a ball with a tassel
• Gravity and the weight of an element describe how heavy or light something could be.
• When moving the arm in walk cycle, the wrist will drag
• Breaking the joint, Is used for more extreme arm movement "Flicking a Rock" You want to break the joint of a wrist and arm in-between poses to get illusion of speed and drag
• What Not To do - Some movies added to much follow through like chicken little, or to little follow through which creates a stiff object. This will become noticeable in a bad way, you want to have a nice balance in your drag and follow-throughs, so people don't see it they feel it.

Timing and Spacing

• Timing is everything
• Video Ref - Character pointing in a direction and saying, “He’s over there, he’s over there”. He made 9 different poses that were timed differently from each other. 1-2--3----4-------5---------6-----7---8-9
• Fast-Fast-Slow-Med-Fast-Fast, For every pose, Andrew animated using the spline curves for all the in between.
• Its all in the spline curves
• You want to have a nice rhythm, hang on to the beats and have a nice texture to your shot.

Slow in and Slow out

• Used to improve natural movement, and ease in when getting into a pose
• Slow in and out is very important on so many levels
• Heavy vs. Light Animal, Rhino takes time to accelerate, but can also have the same speed as a lighter object. When a Rhino move it’s feet, the amount of drag may be 1 frame drag-time on the ground. Rhino walking, the heavy foot spends more time on the ground. Lighter creature walks spend more time in the air

Secondary Animation

• Used more for acting proposes.
• Video Ref - A man talking and making primary actions and gestures to deliver his line. Secondary action, he brushes himself off, this help make this character seem more believable to the audience

Staging

• Used for presentation for the idea
• We want the viewer to understand what the scene is all about and where to look
• Having lights set up correctly on the targeted character will help guide the eye there
• Video Ref - Full metal Jacket Bathroom scene says it all.

Appeal

• Used for psychological ways of gesturing the face or fingers
• It's the understanding on how to control the audience by using simple shapes
• Exaggerate by pushing the idea
• Video Ref - Monster’s Inc. Dumpster scene, the way Sully reacted to the death of the little girl Boo

Pose to Pose

• You want to get good poses to help design the idea
• Blocking Pose to Pose Method, Start out with strong poses, and fix all your timing. Make sure the root of the animation is well thought out, this will only help down the road.
• Layering Method, Set up all your poses, by posing only the root and spine, Then animate the limbs one by one. Flesh out the details.