0:17 I like that Buck rolls here rather than eating the impact with his knees. Goes to show he still has ODST habits despite being augmented to withstand that kind of strain
@Mark Patino Halo was M for Mature up until Reach I believe. So pretty violent. I mean, flood bursting out of bodies, mutiliation, lots of blood be it human or alien. I certainly wouldnt say it was never violent. It just got toned the fuck down to reach that Teen rating just to sell more copies.
Halo 5 may of been meh overall, but these animations were some of the highlights. You sir did an incredible job. Also props to you for animating my favorite assination. Suplex ftw!
Thanks so much!! I'm glad you enjoyed that assassination. I remember when the gameplay animators got together and I showed the "blocking" for what was eventually called "Lawn Dart," the lead animator said "most of these animations look like the killer is being efficient. This one looks like he's thinking "F___ YOU!!!" Hahaha!
Absolutely fantastic stuff! The teleporter scene with team Osiris had to be one of my favorites. Shame to see some of the Spartan emotes were trashed by 343i.
I did record reference for the assassinations. For most of them, I just choreographed what I wanted and pitched it to one of the other animators, then we'd go into an empty conference room and act it out. Usually, we'd come up with some cool new ideas for it by collaborating this way. For Lawn Dart specifically (the body slam at the end), I took a blue gym mat into the conference room and threw it around a bit. As for the forerunners - VERY tedious, particularly the soldier, since he comes apart like that. Look up Kyle Dahl's reel -- he did some AMAZING work with the soldiers that still makes me scratch my head!
Hi @jannodess! Thank you for the kind words! We did use Maya, yep! In fact, I've worked in the industry since 2006, and only 2 years of that in another program, for which I had tools to make it perform like Maya :D There was no physics used in this reel, nor addons. All hand keyed. One thing I've found true about anims such as deaths, when you're doing the settle, just take like 20-30 extra frames to let the curves come to a more gradual stop. I notice in a lot of "death" animations that the motion hits a wall because the animator just allows the curve to end without easing it out. So using a leg as an example, when the character falls to the ground on their back, add a few slight bounces on the heel of the foot, with offset rotation pivoting on the heel. Allow the rotation to pivot a few more times after the bounce has stopped, and follow like 4 frames behind that rotation with the knee PV. This will create a natural "jiggle" in the leg that will sell the "weight" coming to a stop.
@@animatortrav Thanks for the answer, I see the death animation as very natural or physically correct, I find that it is a difficult part since you have to give weight to that overlap and have everything react to the moment of the fall, thanks again
Glad you recognized it!! Mike Shinoda is one of my favorite artists - Razors Out is one of his best beats, in my opinion, and with his library, that’s saying a lot!!!
It’s funny you should say that! When I first showed the blocking (rough animation) for “Lawn Dart,” the lead animator said that exact thing. “Most of these look like he’s trying to efficiently kill the enemy. This one looks like he’s literally saying “F*** YOU!” Hahaha! Thanks for the kind words!
+Shiba Inu Mochi Im waiting for master chief to be a robot again. I FUCKING HATE A PROTAGONIST WITH EMOTIONS! ttahts why i have friendly fire on multiplayer.
Thanks :) The simple answer is, gameplay melee is a lot trickier. You have to make the attack work for both standing still AND moving around, which means it can only use the upper body, not the hips or legs. This results in gameplay melee feeling very stiff by comparison to AI, which is allowed more freedom/ full body motion. The solution would be to create separate animations for movement and standing, but with the same overall movement (ie, a left hook, but in the standing one it lunges more than in the moving one), then have a montage (animation sequencer) that plays both and can blend between them if the player starts or stops mid-attack.
Actually like a lot of the character in the default Armoured spartan IV's animations. Don't know how it would've fit into multiplayer but it looks really smooth and expressive for just someone in a hunk of Armor.
I forgot end game taunts were a thing! A shame they ended up removing them, but those alongside your assassination animations are spectacular. I love how much energy and personality you imbued into this.
I didn’t know character models where animated by hand, i thought motion capture took care of that job? I’m sorry if i seem ignorant, but i haven’t got much insight into how this works
The gameplay team worked in keyframe. (I can't remember if any gameplay animators used mocap for any animations, but I don't think so). Mocap was used primarily for cinematics, which was a different team -- everything on my reel marked with the red dot was mocap from my time helping the cinematics team. Hope this answers your question :)
Thank you! I don't post often on RU-vid, so if you're interested in animation, my Vimeo page has a lot more work :) You might also follow Kyle Dahl -- he posts a lot of really cool work very frequently.
I’m so happy to hear that!! Having several games that helped define my own childhood (basically everything Mario from NES to N64), I’m honored to have contributed to a game that helped define yours!
No offense taken :) This was all made in Maya. The software was bestowed upon me by an old gypsy woman when I was camping as a teenager. Ever since then, I've been able to animate competently, but at night I have very violent dreams, and on full moons, I strangely find my pajamas shredded the next morning.
but... but. the muscle density and virtually unbreakable bones... and, and.. yeah, I guess it is a broken neck.... could also be just a disconnection to the mjolnir that makes them go armor lock.
