Things You Were Too Afraid To Ask: Boris 'Zobbo' Lowinger

(badman) #1

A new story entry has been added:
[drupal=538]Things You Were Too Afraid To Ask: Boris ‘Zobbo’ Lowinger[/drupal]

The latest person of interest in our relentlessly inquisitive series of staff interviews is Boris ‘Zobbo’ Lowinger. As one of our animators, Boris makes all manner of things move around in SMART ways und occasionally dance. Before coming to Splash Damage, Boris worked on games like MotoGP, Republic: The Revolution, the popular quiz franchise Buzz!, as well as the short film “This Way Up”, which was nominated for an Academy Award.
To find out more about Boris, his daily duties, how he ended up in the industry, and the mystery behind his nickname, vault/slide/sprint over to the full interview in his profile.

(CleaverDancer) #2

Ahhh Buzz that had some really cool animations, I’m looking forward to seeing how Brink moves :stuck_out_tongue:

(shagileo) #3

in-game third and first-person animations for Brink - it’s a good mix of hand-animated stuff and motion capture.

Does the SD HQ have such a studio for motion capture?
Must be cool to do, though.

What do you like most: hand crafted motions or MC?
I can imagine the hand crafted motions are far more work, but maybe gives more room for creativity?

We didn’t have ragdoll so I hand animated all the crashes!

Handmade all the crashes? You must’ve seen a lot of motor crashes then :slight_smile:

(DarkangelUK) #4

I believe all the mocap stuff for ETQW was done in the US, from what I remember New Splash Towers doesn’t have a mocap, but they may travel to somewhere in england to get that stuff done… or outsource it again.

(Exedore) #5

Not too hard to find a mocap studio in London. :slight_smile:

(shagileo) #6

Who does the movement then?
You guys hire some actors or…?

(Exedore) #7

Yes, professional ninjas. They’ll be somewhere in the credits! :stroggbanana:

(shagileo) #8

Better watch out, I feel

‘Breaking News: Brink will feature ninja characters and awesome power Movement! Read full article here.’

coming right up ^^

(-SSF-Sage) #9

Cool! Made me want to animate sumdingding. I have done few random animations in blender. So I have a lot to learn first. I could do some kind of a quick animated 3d scene in blender. Possibly even a quick “”“game”"" in it. Any ideas guys?

I think I’ve made some funny facial expressions to a monkey face prefab in blender. Then I’ve done some usual ball-bouncing-make-zigzag-mutate-into-car-turn-around-god-jump-die-stuff. And I also had my run with one of Pegazus’ tank models, but it was left half finished. That’s my huge experience in animation.

(kamikazee) #10

[QUOTE=Exedore;199952]Yes, professional ninjas. They’ll be somewhere in the credits! :stroggbanana:[/QUOTE]Wouldn’t professional ninjas stay out of the credits?

(Exedore) #11

You may have noticed me covering myself a little there. The whole phrase is a bit redundant anyway… :rolleyes:

(rjeez) #12

hi, is 3ds max used to model and animate brink
:smiley:

(Shiv) #13

Pretty sure they moved from 3ds max to maya.
the pretty sure means no one will believe me and you will all ask for sources :x

(MoP) #14

rjeez: I’m not entirely sure why you asked in this thread, but no, we use Maya for all modelling and animation on Brink. Some highpoly work is done in ZBrush.

(brbrbr) #15

Maya{all editions]are awesome, but bit costly for gamedev start up company :wink:
but because 3Ds and Maya now part of one company, technology morphing between 3Ds and Maya - eventual[including UI polishing and extending plug-ins] and matter of time.