CHARACTER ANIMATION | BUILD CHARACTER ANIMATIONS FOR INDIES
The Foundry’s Modo tool in has been used in the likes of Sly Cooper (pictured)
that the need to convey strong and emotional performances in many games is a driving force behind the character and facial animation sector, with demand increasing for such tech as developers continually raise the bar to create more film-like experiences. “The demand for more engaging and
emotive performances is driving the need for more realistic facial animation,” he says. “We are also seeing much more use of ‘digital doubles’, with casting for likeness, than ever before. The use of head-mounted cameras to capture facial performance simultaneously with traditional body mo-cap is also increasing – and there is huge demand to improve the fidelity of capture from such devices.” Unity software engineer Pierre Paul Giroux
says this increased use of performance capture to gather body motion, face motion and audio at the same time is one of the most important recent trends in animation. He says such a process has been incredibly expensive in the past and only affordable to large studios, and it wasn’t until recently that more affordable solutions have begun to emerge. “Performance capture greatly enhances
character integration into virtual worlds. Actors can adjust performances based on direct visualisation into the game. There’s no more loop time, between capture, or cleaning and integrating animations into the game engine,” he explains.
SPIRALLING COSTS But is this drive for complete performance capture and life-like character animation significantly driving up the costs of development? Achieving realism isn’t cheap, and with modern triple-A budgets in excess of tens of millions of pounds, there is a danger
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that costs will spiral out of control in the next generation with its powerful new hardware. NaturalMotion lead technical animator Simon Mack says there is an ongoing drive to increase character fidelity, and the quality of characters and their animations needs to once again keep pace with the new systems.
With storytelling more important, it is crucial for devs
to deliver quality character animations.
Stefano Corazza, Mixamo
He believes interactions between characters and dynamic environments will become increasingly important. Mack warns however that with such an
increase in power and the new capabilities available to developers, keeping control of the budget and managing time is one of the key challenges that lies ahead. “It may not sound terribly exciting, but one of the biggest issues is managing development time and cost, particularly as studios re-work their engines for next-gen. There’s just an awful lot to do. Naturally, we see middleware as a key solution. Used properly, it allows teams to focus on building the things that makes their game unique rather than reinventing the wheel.” Urquhart agrees that costs for animation
are continuing to rise, but notes that as costs in areas such as facial animation rise,
THE NEXT GENERATION of consoles may now be upon us, but the increase in hardware specs doesn’t mean the platforms are solely the domain of triple-A studios on the cutting edge of technology. In fact, Sony, Microsoft and Nntendo have all been pushing indie developer support. A number of middleware
firms, including Epic, Mixamo, Unity and The Foundry have also been targeting indies in the character animation space to bring realistic character movements and animations to developers of all sizes. “The tools for character animation have been cheap enough for a while,” says The Foundry’s president of the Americas Brad Peebler. “The real gating factor is productivity. Most character animation systems require a pipeline or artists. Modo provides a streamlined environment where a single artist can go from concept to final creation. Projects like Matt Burniston’s short film ’The Mega Plush’, which was produced entirely in Modo, are great examples of this.” And despite Unreal Engine 4 perhaps being touted as the top-end scale of triple-A game development on next-gen consoles, Epic lead technical animator Jeremy Ernst says the firm also provides licensees with Maya animation and
rigging tools, such as those used in the developer’s own upcoming title Fortnite. This, combined with other built-in animation tools in UE4, means all parts of character animation can be done by the animator, from character creation and rigging to animation and implementation, without the need for a modeller to provide time to test an idea or a programmer to implement it. Mixamo is also working to
provide easier-to-use character animation tools for developers, as well as offering a tiered subscription service to its array of ready-made animations, and company CEO Stefano Corazza says it is looking to provide an efficient way for indies to create character art on a tight budget through its own suite of tools and services, such as its free 3D character creator Fuse. “Our mission is precisely about making high quality 3D character art within reach of independent developers,” he says. “Creative and innovative concepts are not reserved to the largest studios with the biggest budgets. “There is a world of
developers with amazing ideas out there, and we want to enable them to make them happen in an affordable and efficient way, without requiring armies of animators, modellers and riggers.”
NOVEMBER 2013 | 39
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