First of all, this May marks the 5th anniversary of maintaining this blog. When I first started I wrote under a pseudonym as the internet then was a place where only undesirables went. I wished my person and place of work to remain anonymous, but now the world has caught up with social media and even your grandmother has a facebook account. The new design should better fit in this age of apps and community, and I expect to have more time to share as updates have been light on the ground for the last while due to my being otherwise engaged…

Secondly, for the last month or so I’ve taken on the fulltime role of “Internation Man of Leisure”, awaiting a work visa after leaving BioWare for a second time, being fortunate enough to have been recruited to join the early stages of one of Ubisoft Montreal’s flagship series’ next major outings. All this so instead of my talk of a new form of cinematic narrative being purely theoretical I now have the opportunity to put it into practice, and I look forward to sharing more on the project in the coming years – after just one week I know it’s going to be big.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is the reel I made in January/February 2007 to land a job in Montreal so is a little dated. Featuring the second of three Commander Shepard models, (with crossed eyes no less ;-), it also contains the player navigation actions before the final level of polish, but enough excuses.

Continue reading for the full shot breakdown:

2006 | Mass Effect | E3 Bar Conversation
Mocap direction
Cinematography
Facial/gesture system co-design
Artistic vision for dialogue scenes

2006 | Mass Effect | Mass Effect Animation Systems
Mocap direction
Mocap cleanup
Animation system design

2006 | Mass Effect | Mocap Pre/Post-Cleanup
Mocap direction
Mocap cleanup

2004 | Jade Empire | Mocap/Keyframe Cutscene
Mocap cleanup
Keyframe Animation
Cinematography

2004 | Jade Empire | Keyframe Cutscene
Keyframe Animation
Cinematography

2003 | NARC | Keyframe Ingame Animation
Keyframe Animation
Rigging
Modelling

In other news, I’ve begun to really move forward with my Canadian Residency application. This does fall short of full citizenship, (the main difference being I’ll still be unable to vote), but I should finally be able to pick up one of these fine accommodations that still seem to be very affordable in Montreal once my “Johnny Foreigner” status has been removed.

New Look

The first and most obvious change is visual. This was inspired by the upcoming Apple iPhone, and the entire site has been formatted to work with the dimensions of the screen based on the initial movies and specs found on this site. Whether the thing takes off or not, I’m sure you’ll agree that everything is much more legible and easier to naviagte now.

New Database

The entire site has been migrated over to a wordpress-powered blog, with the main reason of the database functionality allowing for much easier cataloging. Previously, gameanim.com was created by hand in Dreamweaver, with all links and media updated by hand – which began to be such a pain in the ass that updates were difficult when I was busy elsewhere.

Coming Out

The second major change, (and one from which there is no turning back, based on the consistent hits from whois.com every month), is as you may have just noticed, I’m no longer writing in the third-person. This was always an admittedly cowardly approach to writing by hiding behind a pseudonym, which was mostly serving to provide a critical commentary on industry and animation free from any attachment to employers’ public image, (though the footer below still stands). The reason for this change of heart is twofold. Firstly, to change the emphasis of this site away from humorously poking fun at amateurs via “Bad Walkcycles”, and secondly: see below…

Change of Scenery

I’ve had several overhauls in my life recently, moving away from my previous job as Lead Animator on BioWare’s Mass Effect in Edmonton, Alberta, and moved to the opposite side of Canada to live with my girlfriend, Marie-Jo, in Montreal. We had been doing the long-distance relationship thing for almost a year while awaiting the finishing of the Mass Effect project, and as soon as the animation was in a state fit to leave, I did.

Aside from freeing me up to write about more personal thoughts and events in my life from here-on in, I’m hoping that sharing what work I actually have done should give the game animation-related opinions expressed on these pages a little more weight. Please check the About section for the full rundown on who I am and what I do.