Killer Instinct: Season 3
For Season 3 of this fantastic fighting game I was involved right from the beginning, and had more responsibilities than in the previous season. I had the chance to build the rigs for Rash, Tusk, Gargos, one of his Minions, General RAAM and Mira, as well as provide rigging support for the rest of the cast (the Arbiter, Kim Wu and Eyedol). I was in charge of implementing all the Retro characters just like in Season 2, and implemented a lot of the accessories for the cast, though I had more help this time around.
I also worked on cloth simulations, a few environment rigs, helping out with the character lighting for the new lighting system, material and texture polish, modelling support, and writing a couple of tools for color variation setup and animation. I even had the opportunity to model one of Eyedol's accessory sets from scratch! I did not get a chance to do much for the new Shadow Lords mode, but I did help out with some of the Mimic skins and modeled some loot chests.
Check out the rest of this page for more details on all of these things!
I also worked on cloth simulations, a few environment rigs, helping out with the character lighting for the new lighting system, material and texture polish, modelling support, and writing a couple of tools for color variation setup and animation. I even had the opportunity to model one of Eyedol's accessory sets from scratch! I did not get a chance to do much for the new Shadow Lords mode, but I did help out with some of the Mimic skins and modeled some loot chests.
Check out the rest of this page for more details on all of these things!
Kilgore, Shin Hisako and Eagle
For these three characters that came out after the end of Season 3:
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Shadow Lords mode
Finally an awesome story mode for the game! And yet, I am unable to beat it. Being a developer in a fighting game doesn't mean you are necessarily any good at it, I guess haha
This mode took a lot of time and effort from the team to become a reality, and I helped with creating the majority of the Mimic Skins, rigging and skinning some of the Guardians, and modeling, texturing and rigging the different loot chests you can get when you win a match.
This mode took a lot of time and effort from the team to become a reality, and I helped with creating the majority of the Mimic Skins, rigging and skinning some of the Guardians, and modeling, texturing and rigging the different loot chests you can get when you win a match.
Eyedol
It felt really good putting the last of the characters from the original Killer Instinct in the game. And what a character! I was looking forward to rigging this (for all intents and purposes) two-headed beast, but even though I did not get to build the initial rig, I did have to modify it a bunch of times, specially when making sure it could work with the Retro costume. I skinned all meshes and accessories, for both regular and Retro, implemented the character in engine and set up its cloth simulations.
Nonetheless, the most exciting part of his development for me was building the Scavenger Armor: for the first time in two years of working on the project I got to actually take an accessory set from concept to reality. I modeled, sculpted, textured, riggged/skinned, implemented and created all color variations for the set. I do have to thank the Character Lead at the studio, Randy Forsyth, for his patience and awesome feedback to get the pieces looking like they do.
Nonetheless, the most exciting part of his development for me was building the Scavenger Armor: for the first time in two years of working on the project I got to actually take an accessory set from concept to reality. I modeled, sculpted, textured, riggged/skinned, implemented and created all color variations for the set. I do have to thank the Character Lead at the studio, Randy Forsyth, for his patience and awesome feedback to get the pieces looking like they do.
General RAAM (from Gears of War)I loved every guest character we had, it's just really cool being able to work on more than one franchise at once. I was responsible for rigging, skinning and implementing RAAM, as well as his Retro Costume and all of his accessories. I also spent a good amount of time polishing both the model, textures and materials for Retro RAAM.
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Gargos
Since Season 2 I had been waiting for Gargos, and he did not disappoint! I was lucky to be the one rigging him, so I made a few improvements over the rig I had built for Omen's wings and adjusted it to the Gargos model. I also rigged and skinned one of his Minions (Dretch, the shorter one), rigged and implemented all of his accessories, as well as Retro Gargos and all of his accessories. I remember the wings on the Celestial set were particularly hard to skin, trying to keep the shape of the feathers consistent as he stretched and folded his wings.
MiraKiller Instinct's cast has a lot of monsters but it was missing a vampire until Mira made her debut! I rigged, skinned and implemented her, as well as her Retro version and the Retro accessories. One of the most challenging parts of her was adding simulation to her long skirt and cape and keeping those in budget. I was also responsible for modelling the Scythe she uses on her attacks.
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Season 3 Launch, Arbiter, Kim Wu and Tusk
The Season officially kicked off with 3 new characters (Kim Wu, Tusk and the Arbiter), 3 stages for each of those characters, the full release of Rash, and upgraded visuals, which involved a rework of the lighting on all stages of the game. This is how I was involved in each of those features:
- Kim Wu: skinned and implemented the base character, all her accessories, her Retro costume and those accessories as well. I set up all cloth simulations on her, with the ponytail actually requiring the most attention because animators wanted a fair amount of control without losing the in game responsiveness of the simulation.
- Tusk: I handled the rig, skinning and implementation of his base character, the Retro and the Retro accessories, and his cloth simulations. I also scripted a tool to mirror animations from other characters to transfer onto Tusk, the first and only backfacing fighter in the cast. This was specially useful when transferring reaction animations.
- Arbiter: working on such a high profile character from the Halo universe was fantastic! I did not get to rig him, but I did skin him and implemented all of his accessories. I also adjusted the model we used for his retro version, which had a different anatomy to the Halo 5 design that is his base character in KI. Trying to get him to feel like part of the KI world was a challenge for the whole team, but I think we did a good job. We had a lot of fun working on him!
- Environments: I worked on the environment rigs for Tusk's stage, spending most of my time on the ship's sails (to avoid having to spend simulation resources on them), the polar bear and the seal it chases around the stage.
- Upgraded Visuals: I helped establish the guidelines and workflow for handling the re-lighting of all characters in all stages to match the new lighting quality on them. I created some base "neutral" lighting for each character and retro character for the rest of the team to use as starting points and tweak as necessary in every stage. I also did my share of stages, but it was truly a team effort between character and environment artists to be able to meet the deadline. Here's the official article about the changes.
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Rash
I don't know if Rash is my favorite KI character but he has a special place in my heart! As our first guest character and the first character in Season 3 we really had to get him right, and I couldn't be prouder of the result. He is fun and easy to play, and he has an undeniable visual charm! Also, his trailer with the old school game in the beginning was genius!
I was personally responsible for rigging Rash, and it was an interesting challenge adding some cartoony elements for the animators to have fun with to the Killer Instinct base rig. His rig included scaling, stretchy limbs, a bunch of props that he attacks with and a rather complex tongue for his grappling attacks. I even had the chance to model and texture the spiked mace and giant axe he uses during his kicks. Finally, as with most characters, I handled all of his skinning, and the implementation of most of his accessories, Retro model and retro accessories, as well as the cloth simulations on them. I can also take credit for Rainbow Rash!
I was personally responsible for rigging Rash, and it was an interesting challenge adding some cartoony elements for the animators to have fun with to the Killer Instinct base rig. His rig included scaling, stretchy limbs, a bunch of props that he attacks with and a rather complex tongue for his grappling attacks. I even had the chance to model and texture the spiked mace and giant axe he uses during his kicks. Finally, as with most characters, I handled all of his skinning, and the implementation of most of his accessories, Retro model and retro accessories, as well as the cloth simulations on them. I can also take credit for Rainbow Rash!