This time for real…

I’m going to leave that original post up because I find it funny, because obviously I didn’t keep posting between then and now.

However, from now on, at least once a week, I’m going to post something about either research, experiments, or creations I want to showcase in the field of 3D character creation.

After spending 15+ years working creating characters for feature animation, I feel like now is a great time to make that change professionally into creating characters for video games instead. I’ve always loved and had a passion for video games, heck I even tried to create my own indie game studio… but the truth is, right now, my focus is on characters. It’s where my heart is and what I know the best. I’d like to translate my feature animation knowledge to games, or re-learn how games do what we do in feature animation. Either way, it’s exciting and I can’t wait to get started.

With that said, I’m going to jump right into Unreal 5.3 and begin this journey starting today. First things first, the most important aspect of solving any problem is clearly defining what it is. For me the problem is:

I know how to rig feature animation characters in Autodesk Maya and proprietary rigging tools at Dreamworks Animation . . . I need to know how to rig characters for games in Unreal as well.

That problem is too broad and will need to be broken down into many many smaller problems until we’ve arrived at a final solution, but as a main goal it will do nicely to make sure we’re always working in service of that goal. We’re here to learn to rig characters in Unreal specifically for 3D video games. Let’s not get side-tracked by all the millions of other “shiny objects” that 3D animation and video game development have to distract us with and stay focused on that goal!

With that said, I’m going to dive into the Unreal docs and Learning Resources and start figuring out what my next steps are. See you tomorrow with a report on what I find!