Thank you for visiting, and welcome to the Technical Artist Portfolio of Scott Xiong. This website hasn’t been updated since about 2012, so please refer to my LinkedIn page here for all updated professional background information.



NEW! Gen Gen Adventures – a WIP iOS Interactive Novel / Storybook / Game.
Click here for the project page, or here for all the latest progress.



Notable projects contributed to, task breakdowns, and challenges:


reorc

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (360/PS3) – Slant Six Games, Capcom
Role: Character Rigger, Technical Animator.
– Built, weighted, and maintained unique skeletons & rigs for over 24 characters & monsters.
– Accountable for finalizing all face & body weights.
– Modified/Updated character geometry/UV’s as necessary.
– Optimized art assets, reducing scene files from as large as 100mb, to around 5mb.
– Developed & maintained expression scripts to improve geometry deformation of animation data.
– Synced & finalized all voice animation data.
– Improved processes & production by providing better solutions & tool suggestions.

Challenges: No rigging pipeline process founded, development team had little understanding of the production pipeline placement of rigging, back & forth executive decisions that required a re-haul of character rigging assets in several stages of production.
These challenges were overcome by management entrusting & empowering the rigging team to make & execute decisions of their own accord as to how they work & solve character production issues, having a positive attitude & accountability, and communication with programmers & leads.


Fight Night Round 4 (360/PS3) – Electronic Arts
Role: Technical Artist, Character Rigger.
– Maintained boxer character rigs, weights, deformation expression scripts, and dynamic simulations.
– Built, weighted, and maintained secondary character & prop rigs.
– Solved character production bugs related to hair, cloth, and secondary characters.

Challenges: Short production cycle, large team, lots of new tech, internal pipeline transitions, lots of cuts & change requests, builds crashing like no tomorrow.
These challenges were overcome by keeping a positive attitude, learning as much & as fast as possible, having accountability, communication with team members, having high standards, and persistence.




NBA Live 09 (360/PS3) & NCAA Basketball 09 (360/PS3) – Electronic Arts
Role: Associate Technical Artist, Character Rigger.
– Weighted/Maintained body muscle deformations, and player shorts & jerseys.
– Fine tuned parameters & attributes of cloth weights & dynamics of players using in-house tools.
– Built & maintained character rigs for secondary characters (mascots, crowd, referee, coaches).
– Developed, and maintained weighting tutorials & documentation for EA’s international development studios.
– Managed, reviewed, and optimized character weights from EA’s international development studios.
– Scripted expressions, and fine tuned muscle deformation parameters & attributes.
– Solved character production bugs for the modeling, animation, and programming teams.

Challenges: Constant reviewing, providing feedback, and adjusting of outsourced assets, creating effective weights for mascots with default skeleton, model assets & weights not positioned correctly in-game, dynamic cloth adjustments.
These challenges were overcome by providing & updating the tutorial materials used for outsourced studios, creative improvising of weight distribution, verifying correctly called skeletons, and documenting & saving progress.


EA Sports Active (Wii) – Electronic Arts
Role: Lead Character Rigger, Technical Artist.
– Planned, and developed strategies & solutions for animation through rigging.
– Built & maintained all character rigs for male & female characters for Motion Builder, as well as Maya.
– Weighted bodies, faces, and props for all male & female characters in preparation for animation.
– Scripted expressions, and fine tuned muscle deformation parameters & attributes.

Challenges: Small team & limited resources, team not in close proximity (or building), unique tools, expressive animation ranges, limited quantization of weights, lots of model changes.
These challenges were overcome by early strategic planning & strict deadlines, improved distance communication habits, studying tool scripts, improvising weight allocation, effective communication with lead modeler.


FaceBreaker (360/PS3) – Electronic Arts
Role: Associate Technical Artist, Character Rigger.
– Weighted hair, and maintained body weights for characters.
– Reviewed in-house production tools & processes.
– Solved character production bugs related to hair & hair collisions.

Challenges: First project, late entry, large team, not familiar with studio, lots of dependencies.
These challenges were overcome by being proactive, extra hours studying tools, getting hands dirty & feet wet, making mistakes & correcting them, showing humility & asking for help when necessary, and not waiting for anything.


Grand Slam Tennis (Wii) – Electronic Arts
Role: Technical Artist, Character Rigger.
– Weighted hair & props for players.
– Maintained player head, props, clothing weights.
– Solved character production bugs related to head, hair, and secondary props.

Challenges: Weighting card hair to sway, low quantization for weights, geo & positioning changes, visible separate geo seams in-game.
These challenges were overcome by learning & utilizing in-house weighting tools, effective weight allocation, animation testing, and proficient troubleshooting methods.


Piddly’s Chance (UT2004 MOD) – Chunky Heads Entertainment Inc.
Role: Animator, Character Rigger.
– Built & maintained all character rigs.
– Developed player character and secondary animations, and managed art asset integration into UT2004.
– Created production art, box cover art, and disc cover art.
– Managed & solved art production bugs.

Challenges: Very ambitious project, late entry, limited development time, little rigging & animation experience, required several rigs & multiple animation libraries & sequences, game engine transition.
These challenges were overcome by maximizing team work, communication, and free lab times, assistance from instructors, and studying & sharing knowledge with other teams.

For more cool stuff on being a Technical Artist and Character Rigger, check out these sites here and here.