Sarah York

I am just finishing up my last uni project before being released into the wild! I'm quite excited to be leaving and finding a job but also sad because uni was so awesome :( Here are a few screenshots from my last project:

So to keep you updated, I have been developing a remake of Superfrog which was published and developed in 1993 by Team 17.  It is part of a university module and so is nothing official but Team 17 have been giving us feedback throughout the module which has been really helpful and awesome :D  We even got to pitch it to the producers which was a very valuable experience.

They are currently working on the actual remake so we're all excited to play that!  We have started play testing our version recently and are making it available to play via web browser so we will be sending the link around soon.

My role in the project has been mainly asset creation and also contributing general ideas for the game.  I also manage a lot of the files and upload meeting notes etc... The game is being developed in Unity which I hadn't used before so it was good to learn the engine for future projects.

We have been put through for the Game Republic student show case which takes place at the end of the month at Leeds University.  We have also been asked to have a stall at Festival of Urbanism too so look out for us if you are going and feel free to ask me anything about the game :)

Here are a few screenshots :

Hmmm.. so I haven't been posting about my project as much as I should have been! But here are a few snapshots of the final product:

I have been busy solving some issues and started creating modular stair pieces.  And now I am texturing my wall and floor pieces and attempting to do magical things in the material editor..

I wouldn't have been able to do it without this guy
http://www.chrisalbeluhn.com/UDK_Advanced_Vertex_Painting.html

and also this guy http://www.andrewklein.net/ai/d3denv01.html

and also @Mike_Isaakidis (UDK Master)

The Material Editor

.. I have learnt about some different nodes in the material editor and had to write a few things about a Lerp Node as I just wasn't really getting it and this is what I have learnt.  This is some information I wrote collected from andrew klein's website in very basic form order to get my head around it:

I have my marks back for my Individual Project Presentation and I got a first! Yaaaaay :D I wasn't expecting it but reaaaaly happy with the result. 

Final year has begun and my god there is a lot to do..

Video Games Society is going really well, we have managed to set up quite a few games testing experiences for students as well as a number of kickass game tournaments including Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and Fifa 13.  We're hoping to have a Guitar Hero, Halo 4 or Call of Duty competition soon!  We also have our Minecraft Server up and running which means I really need to buy Minecraft..

Hi,

So I got some very good results for my 2nd year although I could have done better in the VFX module so will need to push myself for improvement there!

Since the holidays started I have been working on the student project and have also been helping start up a video game society at uni.  I am the secretary and vice-president which is pretty cool! The best thing about the soc is that not only do you get to play games but we also set up work placements for the students! I've listed some contact details for the society if anyone wants to keep updated!

So my second year of uni is over and so far I have received one result for my facial animation module (Robin animation) and I got a 72 :D but this isnt the final mark it still has to be passed on to external examiners.

I am now waiting for my other results to come in but in the mean time I have set up a project to do over the summer with the help of 7 other people who have agreed to take part. The team have a mixed variety of skills and include motion capture students, modellers, animators, riggers and programmers so we have pretty much everyone we need.  We have had 3 meetings so far and it seems to be going really well!

The project is to create a game or a part of a game as a demo based on a section of the Dark Tower Series by Stephen King. 

After getting some feedback from my tutor I finished my animation which I have placed below. Please ignore the dodgy news logo in the corner I decided to rush it just before handing it in which I now regret!!!

Ive started animating my Robin character this week.  When I started, I realised I needed some more controls that I missed out, some of them really obvious like one for the head!! So I have added this in along with controls for his belly and torso areas.  I could have done with adding some clavicle controls for that little bit of extra control.

Also, I realised there isnt enough topology around the eyes in order to control the eyebrows more and so i will have to add some more blend shapes in order to have better expression in these areas. I fixed the problem I had with the set driven keys too! After asking around I realised my animation settings were set to stepped curves instead of smooth..doh.

I have set up the lighting and render settings and here is a high quality render of what I have so far

This week I have been skinning and rigging my character. For the skinning I have been using the paint weights tool and the component editor. The component editor is very useful for having better control over the influences of individual vertices and has made my work flow easier and faster.

Ive pretty much finished the modelling process now, after much contemplation I have decided not to model the environment but to use an image plane attached to a camera.

I have taken a model of a chair from turbosquid and will need to model some other objects such as pizza boxes and beer cans to give a view of Robin's current lifestyle.

This week I have been further refining my Robin model

I have now refined the topology further around the eyes nose and mouth and almost finished modelling an ear.  The mouth was quite hard to do and I tried to add a sort of pinch at the corner of the mouth for good deformations when the character talks. Its not refined fully yet and looks a bit wrong but will be sorting it out later.

Hi, so I havent posted in a while, just started semester 2 at uni and have some new and exciting modules.  I have taken facial animation as an option and CGFX, lighting, rendering & look development as compulsory modules. 

For facial animation we have to develop a short animation on the theme of super heroes and have them lip sync to a famous film quote.  After much consideration I am going to attempt a overweight middle-aged and depressed Robin to the Goodfellas quote "3200 bucks, thats what he gave me, 3200 bucks for a lifetime. Wasnt even enough to pay for the coffin.."

I have drawn up some concept character designs and some reference images with guideline topology for use in Maya.

I dont know a lot about lighting in Maya so took some time out to learn the basics and some effects as Ive been wanting to do this for a while but always start doing something else instead! Firstly, following  up on my current project I am in the middle of modeling a snake that will be in my final scene:

So Ive been working on the character that will be in my scene a some more today and this is the progress I have made so far:

Some shots of the characters hands which I created out of a cube.

Ive been carrying on with the 3D illustration tutorial and made some environment props for the scene which you can see below:

Well I have finished all of my work and exams so can get on with my personal projects and training videos until the start of semester 2 which is in a couple of weeks.  Here is a screenshot from the finished animation I was developing.

So I have finally finished the rigging process and started skinning my character yaaay.  I thought Id try see my character in a bit of a pose because its exciting to see your character finally coming to life! So this is a rough pose of my nervous looking character:

Ok so I have ONE WEEK! left to complete my animation assignment.  The last couple of days I have just been working on it non-stop as I didnt realise it would take me this long just to get through to the skinning stage.

For the rigging I followed some tutorials from Gnomeon workshop. It has been a lot more succesfulmy than the last characters rigging system.  I have a full FK/IK switch system and finger controls as in the animation the character will be using his hands a lot.  I have also created some blend shapes for the characters expressions. 

Next I need to rig the legs and head, skin the character and then I can start animating. Screen shot of the character so far:

I havent posted in a while as I have been bogged down with coursework! Ive recently completed my first matchmove assignment which was fun.. once you get the hang of it.

 The mistake I was making (that alot of people seemed to be making) was when importing the solved camera, I wasnt snapping my proxy objects to the locators! Seems really obvious now but I didnt realise at the time, anyway here is the final result:

So Im a little behind schedule on my final animation project but getting there! This is my character which I am in the middle of rigging at the moment.  My last character Agnes had problems with her spine.. and I couldnt solve it and it seemed neither could any of the third year students or my lecturers so hopefully I will do better on this character!

The rest of the festival was very informative and exciting, I got the chance to meet some really great people and got a chance to talk with Nick Adams from Blitz Games which was cool :]