Character Artist

You don't have to be experienced in the games industry to submit work to us. We are very happy to see work from graduates or from anyone that has a creative flare and strong passion for creating and/or animating realistic 3d characters. Obviously, we are looking for specific qualities in you to fulfill the role of character modeller and/or character rigger and/or character animator. Therefore, if possible, we'd like your CVs to include certain assets:

For Character Modellers....

• A selection of your 3d and 2d artwork. This could include any games you have previously worked on, any college work and/or any work you have done in your spare time. Low and high polygon modeling. (With 3d artwork, it would be very useful to us to show your work in wire frame too, so we can see your modeling skills. With texturing, it would be useful if you could supply a small example of the crop sheets/textures used within your work).
• Also, if available, any work you have created using 3d sculpting packages like Zbrush.
• We also like to see traditional sculpting work if you have any
• Experience in Maya and/or Zbrush would be a bonus but is not essential.
• Your CV should show your creative interest and passion for making realistic looking characters.
• We like to see good quality screenshots or renders

For Character Riggers*....

* For those that don't know, a character rigger is an artist that connects/weights the skin of a character to the skeleton which deforms that skin.

• Animated Sequences (in a file format usable within Window's Media Player) displaying your ability to weight a character to a skeleton. Full body and/or facial animation. The animation is not important, it is how the model is deformed by that animation that is. These sequences should show an understanding of basic human anatomy and how the underlying structures of the body and face can be shown to affect the skin. Again, it would be very useful if you could show us your work in wire frame too, so we can see the bone/joint structure under the skin.
• Examples of any of your 2d, this could include sketches and any examples of life drawing you may have.
• Experience in Maya would be a bonus but is not essential.
• Your CV should show your creative interest and passion for making realistic deforming character skins.

Okay, a bit of advice for those wanting to get into creating games; be passionate about games! When you play a game, try to see how the its visual assets are made up. Look at its textures, its lighting, its animation, the way it builds its vegetation, its cars, its cities, and its people. Develop an opinion on whether you like it or not, whether it works within the game or not. This will help you create graphics that work within your game. Secondly, be creative with your ideas and enjoy them. I hope to hear from you soon and good luck!

Please make sure you have provided a suitable amount of work that is pertinent to the job that you are applying for!

Character Animator

You don't have to be experienced in the games industry to submit work to us. We are very happy to see work from graduates or from anyone that has a creative flare and strong passion for creating and/or animating realistic 3d characters. Obviously, we are looking for specific qualities in you to fulfill the role of character modeller and/or character rigger and/or character animator. Therefore, if possible, we'd like your CVs to include certain assets:

• Animated sequences (in a file format usable within Window's Media Player) displaying your ability to create character animation, demonstrating a sense of posing characters and timing.
• Animated sequences displaying your knowledge in facial animation and lip synching.
• Examples of any of your 2d and 3d artwork. This could include any sketches or story boards you have done.
• Any experience you have in Motion Builder and/or working with motion capture data would be a bonus but is not essential.
• Your CV should show your creative interest in the motion of humanoid characters.
• Check out our Animation Task (below) to practice on a small project.

Learning animation

If you want to get into animation, try some of the following:

1. Be dedicated to your craft, watch animation and observe people and animals. Make notes, sketch and experiment.
2. Experiment with any media you can, it is even easier in the digital era to create animations yourself in 2D or 3D. Many animators start with just a video camera, an old cine camera, flick book or xeotrope.
3. Stand on the shoulders of giants, read the animation bibles. Great animators such as Preston Blair and Richard Williams have produce easy to follow illustrated books about the principals of animation. Also examine the ground breaking photography work of Edward (Eadweard) Muybridge. *
4. Do a degree course in animation. It is a fun yet complex discipline, unless very dedicated to your craft a course not dedicated to animation is unlikely to tech you enough. But even on a dedicated course it is more a question of self discipline and discovering for yourself.

What to put on your show reel:

1. 10 seconds of quality over 10 minutes of rubbish. It is tough that most degree courses require a finished film from its students which is time consuming especially in animation. Be sensible; think about what you can achieve in the allotted time. Time is money and the reality is most studios won't be interested in sitting through a 10 minute short film unless it has good animation and film language in it from start to finish after all, they will be looking for an animator not a director. Your show reel should be more than that anyway, it should be examples of great line tests and animations you have created in you experimental journey. If you're studying correctly you should have hundreds of these that you have to sieve through to find your best.
2. Don't just limit it to 3D. If you have mainly been working in or have great examples in 2D or 3D puppet then put that on your show reel, we want to see your animation ability over software knowledge. You can teach a good animator a piece of software. It is harder to teach an experienced software user how to animate. But an understanding of 3D packages will help. This also goes for other art fields; include a portfolio of your art work if you feel it shows your artistic ability. Life drawing especially. Most of the big animation studios require a good life drawing portfolio as it is a universal way of judging someone's observational skills.
3. 3. Supply good examples of basic actions such as:
   • walk cycles,
   • run cycles,
   • jumps,
   • throws,
   • picking up,
   • climbing
   • communicating without talking

What we are looking for:

1. Good examples of anticipation, weight and character and good lines of motion. (In all fairness, if you don't know what these are then you need to find out by following steps 1, 2, 3 & 4 of the advice in "Learning animation" above.)
2. Clean cycles, no limping, snapping, jerking or sliding feet, all these are basic common errors that an animator shouldn't pass as an acceptable standard of work.

*RECOMMENDED READING

• The Animator's Workbook
• Cartoon Animation (Collectors S.)
• Film Cartoons (How to Draw & Paint S.)
• The Animator's Survival Kit: A Working Manual of Methods, Principles and Formulas for Computer, Stop-motion, Games and Classical Animators
• The Male and Female Figure in Motion: 60 Classic Photographic Sequences
• The Human Figure in Motion
• Animals in Motion
• Horses and Animals in Motion
• Muybridge's Complete Human and Animal Locomotion (volume 3)

Animation Task

Using the IK/FK RiG scene provided below and ONLY the geometric objects in scene:

• Create an animation of each of the following:
1. (Yel2Red) The YELLOW BOX being picked up by the character and put onto the RED BOX
2. (Red2Yel) The RED BOX being picked up by the character and put onto the YELLOW BOX
• RULES:
1. The boxes must begin the animation in their current positions
2. In one animation the box being picked up must be heavy; in the other animation the box being picked up must be light.
• (Boxes) Create an animation of your own choosing where the character at some point in the animation interacts with both boxes.
• RULES:
1. The boxes can be any weight and be used in any way you see fit.
2. Each box must be used at least once.
3. Interaction with the boxes can be at the same time, at different times and as many times as you want.

What to submit

A brief breakdown of how long the task/ each animation took you in working hours.

From Maya:

1. AT LEAST Movie player Play blasts of each from a perspective camera of your choice.
2. IDEALLY Movie player Play blasts of each from a perspective camera of your choice, and one from each direction. Front, Back, Left, Right.
3. ALTERNATIVELY Movie player Play blasts of each from a perspective camera of your choice and the Maya files you created as well.

From Motion Builder:

1. AT LEAST Movie player renders of each from a perspective camera of your choice.
2. IDEALLY Movie player renders of each from a perspective camera of your choice, and one from each direction. Front, Back, Left, Right.
3. ALTERNATIVELY Movie player renders of each from a perspective camera of your choice and the Motion Builder files you created as well.

Max users please use the above image as a reference and create a similar scene using the biped and two similar sized boxes. Xsi users please use the image above as a reference and create a similar scene. In the event that you cannot access the files or have a setup/rig of your own that you wish to use, please use example image above as a reference of how the scene should look and the relative sizes of the boxes.

• ALL MOVIES MUST BE AT LEAST 640x480 but no bigger than 1280x1024 but can be as long or as short as you see fit.
• Movies should ideally be in QuickTime MOV files, but 'avi' format will be accepted if absolutely necessary.
• Please don't compress the movies but indicate if it has been compressed by a codec and which one you used.
• Your Movies naming convention should be "YourName_BizAnimTest_AnimationName_Camera.mov" e.g. JohnSmith_BizAnimTest_Yel2Red_Persp.mov

File Information

• animation_test_boxes_char.fbx - Created in Motion Builder7, Motion Builder6 compatible
• animation_test_ik_boxes.mb - Created in Maya 7
• biz_anim_test.jpg - Reference image

Maya setup is in FBIK. Remember to press 'ctrl+f' not 's' to set a key on the FBIK rig IK handles. Otherwise go to 'Animate>Set Full Body IK Keys' Option box.

Good luck and above all have fun!

Character Rigger

Goal:

To create a realistic deforming rigged model.

Task:

1. Create a low poly quaded version of the supplied model.
2. It must have good topology for deformation.
3. Create a skeleton for it.
4. Bind and weight it.

Rules:

1. Model must be in Quads, (but triangle angle considered)
2. Cannot have more than 2500 quads.
3. Each vertex can only have a maximum of 4 influences

What to supply:

1. Final Maya file
2. A breakdown of time usage
3. A rough explanation of any control factors beyond FK control.
4. A simple animation showing movement of the rig in avi or mov format.

Happy Rigging!