Archive for October, 2006

Making a new record for minimalist movement, this 2 keyframe beauty, (admittedly with 3 on the feet), is notable only for it’s sheer lack of animation. Perhaps the animator was in a hurry to make it to his latest speed-dating meet up - clearly a man with little patience for learning anything about depth or character.

An important update today in the form of sharing news that Puppetshop, the 3D Studio Max plugin created during the course of the alsoran’s current project to supplement Autodesk’s own animation tools, is now available for download from the alsoran’s former colleague’s site.

Perhaps the most important aspect of this plugin is that it has already had 2 years shakedown in a real production environment, catering for not just rigging and animation, but also incredibly fast and versatile manipulation of motion-capture via layers. Files are set up with multiple timelines, allowing for a number of animations to be grouped in a logical manner as well as reference each other for easier maintenance.

This sounds like an advert, and perhaps it is, but how often do you have access to professional game-development tools created by game-developers, for game-developers, for free - (the educational demo at least).

The irregular placement of the penis on the face of this alien race must in part cause the painful hitching on every right step, but more importantly those well sculpted buttocks are kept in shape by incredibly strong thigh and calf movement, giving the otherworldly impression of ankles that can resist taking the full weight of this creature in every stride.

While unfortunately highlighting that gaming habits are tracked in the same manner as supermarket awards cards, the alsoran recently registered to 360voice, the automatic blog kept by the XBOX360.

While repetition has already reared it’s head in the generated posts after only a week or so, and an unused XBOX seems to default to a manner akin to a whiny girlfriend, what is interesting is the frank honesty of the last post. Often the alsoran has advised over-eager gamers on discovering his profession to play less and get out more, especially the kids.

Of note , the blog does not track marketplace downloads, as the alsoran has been spending most of the post-X06 week watching some amazing videos, DVDs, and playing Lego Star Wars II (bad) and yet another Raw vs Smackdown (worse).

Some months ago, the UK edition of Microsoft’s PR Rag, The Official XBOX Magazine, visited the alsoran’s studio for a tour of the current project’s work in progress. Due to always having the most interesting, moving work to show, the press stopped off at the animation team area where they were given a demonstration of some of the unnanounced non-mocap creatures that will populate the game.

As is always the case, the alsoran and colleagues have a running competition to see who can get the most imaginative quotes into the press blurb, with additional points for coining new industry phrases that turn up beyond the confines of the article or interview.

Besides alluding to masturbation in a widely syndicated family magazine, there will in fact be no minigames in the current project. The alsoran believes he won the competition - fans should never believe anything they read in magazines.