Mocap Internship

This past winter I had a 4 month internship for a mocap company called Vitruvian Entertainment in Burbank which lasted October 2016 to February 2017, & one of the projects I worked on was an NBA commercial called "NBA Chinese New Year Envelope 2017". During the Chinese New Year it is customary to give red envelopes full of surprises to another person much like our X-mas tradition.  The commercial stars NBA players James Harden, Jeremy Lin, and Stephen Curry, all rendered as paper cutouts of themselves playing basketball before they morph into their real selves at the end of the shoot.

The shoot took 1 day, and it lasted from 7 am till 6 pm at Sirheel Chestnut Studios in Burbank, and my supervisors were Irfan Merchant and Jose Navarro.  During the shoot I assisted in the computer setup including camera equipment, battery chargers, & proximity markers.  I also took measurements of the basketball players and entered it in the mocap application which made the mocap data more accurate.  I also assisted during the fitting of the suits for the clients which meant securing any loose wires & making sure all the wireless components faced outward for the suit to be accurately read by the computers.  I also constantly kept checking, replacing, & charging the batteries for the suit in order for the mocap data to be fully read.  My side job was also to operate a digital camera for every take, so we could use it as reference during the mocap clean up.

The shoot had its share of problems.  First the location for the shoot switched from an indoor high school gym in LA to a local studio in Burbank the day before the shoot.  The location had to be examined for size requirements & wireless technology interference. Secondly, blue tooth devices from the staff corrupted the mocap readings but were quickly remedied. Third, some battery packs failed to charge, but luckily there were back up batteries on hand.  Other problems were minor ones such as wireless components getting flipped due to the movement of the basketball players themselves.  Despite all these setbacks, my supervisors acknowledged that this shoot was one of the most successful & least troublesome compared to previous ones.

NBA Chinese New Year Envelope 2017 commercial

Sirheel Studio stage

mocap workstation

digital camera

end of shoot

call sheet

N-Cloth Diver

Finally, finally finally, I found the solution to animating the pearl diver's hair, & it's called  N-Cloth.  Surprisingly, N-Cloth has hidden features as well, and that is the ability to animate rigid objects such as glass.

The whole process of animating the hair starts in Daz Studio. I used mocap (motion capture) data to animate the diver then chose a hair prop that was long enough so it touched her shoulders.

Now the magic begins.  I imported the file in Maya then applied the N-Cloth to the hair prop.  I slowed down the animation a bit using the trax editor, so the N-Cloth could be calculated better.  I also chose an N-Cloth preset, (denim), which had the best result in the simulation.  N-Cloth is surprisingly flexible because it can also animate cloth tears & rigid objects like a glass shatter.  To better showcase the scene , I applied a turntable animation using the method taught by Alex Alvarez.  Later I added water fx & a volume light to the scene.

Now it's time for Afterfx to put the pieces together. I created a jelly fx to simulate a bubble dancing around to further push the theme of the pearl diver.  Later I used an expression to loop the animation then masked out unnecessary areas, and voila, it's done.

3D model

concept

Kobayashi Maru

Here is my Kinetic Dialog final project for my motion graphics class.  It’s the Kobayashi Maru test scene from Star Trek 2: the Wrath of Khan.  Text onscreen has to be synced to the dialog from the film, so the story, in theory, can be understood even without the use of sound.  The challenge was to distinguish the text from each speaker (9 speakers) and limit the use of color.

The project contains basic solids, masks, & shapes as well as several items listed below:

• Star Trek font  
• 3d camera  
• animated stroke
• expressions  
• audio wave form fx 
• number fx
• radiowave fx  
• track matte  
• bad tv fx
• keylight fx  
• auto trace  
• channel mixer fx
• time remap  
• gradient ramp  
• radial wipe fx
• graph editor  
• noise

Here's some FYI.  All the vector images were created in Afterfx using the pen tool.  The Millennium Falcon was a youtube movie of a 3D rendered ship on a green screen.  Rolling text for Kobayashi Maru is actually a Kohler order form for a toilet.  The same goes for the Klingon ship but with the insertion of the Playboy magazine logo.

Final Movie

Thumbs

Reference Images

Kuler

Script

Diver & Logo

I can't believe I'm doing this at 2:30 in the morning.

Here's my final project for Analytical Figure drawing with the Pearl Diver  I added the giant clams, swim fins, goggles, & broken harpoon.  I also added underwater caustics on the sea bed & gobo lighting on the temple wall.  The image also has a gradient & a color saturation.

I came up with a concept for the logo using Wes Wilson's psychedelic design.  This time I focused on the negative space to create an outline of the letters.  The pattern is more about coral design & less about being psychedelic.  It actually resembles a turtle shell in some aspects.

There are 3 versions of the Diver.  The 1st one is a black & white copy.  The second is a straight color version.  The 3rd one is slightly grainy with noise applied to it.

The grayscale version is very tricky.  Instead of switching the mode to grayscale, I applied a black & white adjustment layer then adjusted the levels, so I wouldn't lose the detail on the image.

Color

With Noise

Black & White

Red Riding Lil' Hood

Here is my 1st full motion graphics story.  It’s Little Red Riding Hood with a twist.  

Here’s the process.  I got the reference images from Collective Creation.  I traced the images in Afterfx, then animated them.  I applied a Wiggle expression to Red’s movement.  Later I animated her path using a Stroke effect.  It’s the same effect for the title as well.  The blood splatter came from a photo, & I removed the white background by using a Linear Key effect.  The rest was done using basic masks, shapes, solids, & text.

Original Collective Creation Design

Storyboards

Blood Splatter from Google

Car Image from Google

Check Out

This is my 1st computer game called Check Out made with a visual novel engine called Renpy.  The game is finished but is unfortunately lackluster.  The game is milestone for me as a game developer, but I never asked the question "who" would use my app & find it interesting.

Intro

Check Out is a digital board game about a clerk working in a health food store trying to make money & all the interesting characters who enter the store. The tone of the game is lighthearted & silly. The game does NOT have many backgrounds like a VN (visual novel). In fact, it only has one, (the game board). In the board are spaces for the tokens, cards, & a score sheet. There is still text at the bottom of the screen though like a regular VN.

Check Out is also a simulation game. It depicts events that actually happen in the world of retail. Most of the characters in the game are based on real customers in a real health food store in Santa Clarita, CA.

Goal

Goal of the game is to make as much money as you can with the time you have left. Story-wise, the clerk only has an 8 hour shift, but actual game time is done in rounds & turns like an RPG.

Gameplay is boiled down into 3 steps. It's not hard.

1. Meet a customer in any of the 3 departments in the store.
2. Negotiate or flirt with the customer to convert them into a buyer.
3. Check them out at the register to make a cash conversion.

It's not easy either. There are characters & events in the game that will prevent you from getting your goal. The most dangerous one is the health inspector.

Ending

The game ends when you finish your shift, & your cash is still above zero. The health inspector can also shut down the store & end the game if he gives you too many citations. In the end you get a final report, like an income statement. (Again, this game can actually be a simulator for a store.)

Animated Rats Love iPads Too

This was my 1st 2D animation on an iPad using an inexpensive software called Animation Desk.  I colored the rat & text later in Photoshop.