Technical Artist

Check out the Gallery page for new videos on the joint-skeleton expression rigs used for Vector and Beltway in Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City.

More to come!

Here`s the launch trailer, get your copy and experience a side of the Raccoon City arc never told before!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7pLuFZ6IXY

I just updated a portfolio reel with some of my Maya videos of my personal projects over the years (the ones I ended up video capturing), it’ll be on the main page by default, and as I continue to add more videos, it’ll be updated as well.

Got some more videos and scripts up:

The raw character skeleton with Expression powered joint deformations:

In depth character control rig demonstration.

Character posed using control rig, and further rig demonstration:

The Python script/tool made to zero out the controls:

This character mesh is weighted with only Expression based joint deformers, and to a max of 4 joints per vertex. The animations can be then exported to game engines of all types, like Unreal, Unity, etc. If your engine doesn’t support dynamic joint deformations, you can always just key/bake them out.

Check out the newly organized Python and MEL pages here and here respectively for more info and to see the scripts.

Mostly organization, grouping the MEL/Expression stuff together, and added some new videos on a hand auto-rig created using Python. I’ll be adding more to the Python section soon!

More to come soon, like getting a new image viewer setup going…

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UPDATE: Image viewer is now working properly! That was long overdue…

Umbrella Corp. has just updated their website.

Be sure to browse their career section for new opportunities!

The new trailer is out!

Earlier this morning, Capcom officially announced Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, as seen in Europe-Capcom’s blog, and being developed by Slant Six Games. Shortly after, our studio was given the thumbs up to publicly confirm it.

Of course, there was a magazine leak last week, and the rumour about Slant Six working on a Resident Evil title has been around for several months, so I it may not be that big of a surprise. The basic plot and outline were never really detailed until today, and the short of it is… well, I am not able to say much more, so go get your fix, and pick up a copy of your favourite gaming, PC, XBOX, or Playstation magazine when it hits the stands in April! (at least I think it’s April)

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UPDATE: RE: Operation Raccoon City First Teaser Trailer!
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UPDATE: Resident Evil 15th Anniversary Trailer! With my main man making a special “dis-appearance?” at the end.
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Here’s a neat, informative clip for all aspiring video game professionals:

I forgot to mention the massive loads of school debt that you will receive. I’ll just throw that in, so good luck!

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UPDATE:
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A nice little article on How Much Money Game Developers Make in 2010, courtesy of Kotaku.

Happy New Year everybody!

So I have a new gig now, I’m doing some character rigging for Slant Six Games, mostly known for their work on SOCOM: Confrontation for the PS3 and SOCOM: Fire Team Bravo for the PSP, you can check them out on their website here.

Anyways, the project we’re working on is very big, and I’d say is the most exciting project in Vancouver. Although I won’t say what it is yet until it has been officially become public knowledge, and that may possibly be around spring time.

All I know is that I’ll be busy for quite a while… I have a lot of work to do.

Cheers!

It was brought to my recent attention that our friends over at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have a site dedicated to offering free lecture notes, exams, and videos – yes, free – without any registration. You can check it out here.

Pythons is one of the more popular programming languages, with a huge support base. A very effective tool for technical artists looking to maximize what they can get out of Maya (now supported), rather than just using MEL, and also be able to transition to other areas of expertise. Python is a relatively easy program to learn, especially for those with a scripting/programming background (for me on the other hand, just a little while longer).

I’ve currently taken a liking to their Introduction to Computer Science and Programming course, which uses Python as the programming medium. This is great because I can develop a better methodology for figuring out how to utilize better programming practices when creating Python tools/scripts in Maya, troubleshoot them for effectiveness/efficiency, and at the same time, improve my skill and knowledge in Python.

Win win.

Just recently, I found my report on the Hero’s Journey that I did for my final project in my Media Studies class back when I was at the Art Institute of Vancouver back in 2004. I still find it very informative, and a good refresher of identifying character development in stories for games, film and other media.

There’s also a neat little story that goes with it.

My instructor at the time was literally stunned to find that one of his students actually spent quality time and effort to properly write up a decent report. He had high hopes for the majority of the class, only to be greatly disappointed. As for me, after the semester was over, he confided in me that he had originally thought of me as a slacker, always sleeping in his class – which is only partly true; I had intended to sleep in his class. The reason is because the class was a four hour, 8:30am morning class on a Saturday, and after I had pulled an all-nighter doing lab work the night before… repeating this almost every single night of every single week of course.

Truth is, I could never sleep through his class. I tried. Even with my eyes closed, sitting in the back of a large dark auditorium, having been awake for maybe 60 of 72 of the previous hours, groggy, nutrition-deprived, sore, and with bags under my eyes, I wasn’t able to do it.

What happened was that my brain would end up focusing on the sound and dialogue of the film, and out of curiousity, I’d end up sneaking peaks at the events on screen, thus creating a memory capture of events of the film. This method is probably also compounded by the fact that I am a strongly auditory, and visual learner.

We never had any assignments, only discussions about the Hero’s Journey and how the different films we watched portrayed it. So at the end of the course, it was a surprise when the instructor announced a final project that was a report to explain the Hero’s Journey, and use examples from the movies we watched to define seven of the 15 phases.

You’d think that it wouldn’t be that difficult, and it shouldn’t be, however, that wasn’t the case for the majority of the students. As for me, it was just another task on top of doing full-time classes, labs and homework, creating a grad portfolio, and working on a UT 2004 Game Mod to be entered into the NVIDIA Make Something UNREAL contest.

Anyways, I’ve posted it below for public viewing. Enjoy!

Download (PDF, 38KB)

Or for those that just want to view it in .jpg form:

I’ve recently started some new 3D work for use with the Unreal Development Kit (UDK) to keep my skills in check, and express some creative juices.

Here are some screen grabs of a character I modeled in Maya with some minor Zbrush enhancement, I’m calling it an orc for now.

I’m going to develop more efficient, effective, and advanced rigging features after insuring that it imports into Unreal OK.

Update: Couldn’t get UDK to install correctly, I spent more than my fair share of hours over a few days, multiple downloads, error checking, and testing to finally be satisfied. The latest May Beta still errors out & auto shuts down on startup of the Editor, however, the March and April packages work well enough. By the way, asset integration is a success, yay!

Also, I will be working on a tutorial that will show some of the do’s and don’ts about skeleton asset integration, among other videos of my progress, so stay tuned!

The game and film industry in China isn’t so little anymore. Here, the business of digital content for games and films moves like the big red machine that it is, and they’ve got the green light… or is it ‘leaf’?

Last month, I got in touch with my good friend Ken Liu, a school/work colleague and former 3D character modeler at EA, who is currently living in Beijing, and exploring the surging opportunities in the game and film industries. He brought to my attention one particular studio that he expected for massive growth in many areas of digital production: Green Leaf Film Studios, which is based in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, of the Peoples Republic of China.

Curious, I decided to look into them, and I would soon become a believer as well.

Green Leaf Film Studios had just recently finished their Exceptional Exhibition – Weta Workshop Introduces the World of Dr Grordbort’s (event website). The museum premiere was spearheaded by renowned five time Academy Award winner Richard Taylor, who donated all profits to relief efforts for the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province.

According to their website, Green Leaf Film Studios is a multi-focused 3D animation and CG film studio established in 2009, they also make references to 3D games. Their mascot is a CG Panda. Pandas are unique to Sichuan province, which is also famous for its’ silk (I know at least that much because my family currently hosts an international student from Chengdu, I got my silk and panda swag to prove it).

Green Leaf’s website (click here) clearly shows a strong relationship with New Zealand’s world renowned WETA Workshop and Digital FX studios. They are the guys and girls behind AVATAR, the Lord of the Rings, i-ROBOT, X-MEN: The Last Stand, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and King Kong to name several, click here to check them out.

The question is, how does this happen? There must be some troubles and challenges to overcome in order to reach this level of achievement, especially in – the not so little anymore – China, right? I don’t see Jack Burton anywhere, who gets the job done?

Enter Gavin Crombie, Studio Head of Green Leaf Film Studios, CEO of IDFGlobal (their site), and a fellow ‘Kiwi’ to his Weta Digital counterparts.

Fortunately for me, my strong curiosity as to how he is able to lead such a large and ambitious studio in China with such confidence garnered me with an opportunity to ask him a few questions (I was almost half expecting a C&D, or perhaps a restraining order… never mind that).

What motivated you to choose the path that you are currently on, and what are your ambitions, goals, and dreams?

Hi Scott, I got onto the path I am on after working in China as a business consultant for 5 years, and coming across the opportunity to get into visualization – not being able to draw a straight line on a piece of paper, obviously I don’t do the work – I understand how to make a business work and how to get good people on board.

Eventually I have a desire to spend the latter years of my life utilizing the resources we have accumulated to do some things in helping other people – particularly children in the world’s worst areas.

How have you changed? Have your goals changed?

The goals have never changed, I have lost far too much hair for my liking – and got a lot fatter – but the vision is the same and the goals are the same.

What were some of the early challenges that you faced, and how did you overcome them?

Early challenges were technical: learning the industry, not having people take us seriously, solving he communication channels between China and the west, and having to live unbelievably frugally as all cash was poured into the business to get it going.

How did you make the most of your strengths, and how did you manage your weaknesses?

My main strength is tenacity and perseverance. I believe, so I simply never gave up. No matter what. For my weaknesses I should have checked myself into the Betty Ford clinic, but here I am, still drinking red wine (chuckles).

What systems did you use to improve efficiency/effectiveness, manage time/space, and to achieve milestones?

We created our own on-line management system. The first one we did in house, cost us $400K USD, 3 years of development, and was a total disaster – I had believed the people who were responsible knew what they were doing – alas that was not true.

The second one took 18 months and cost us $150K USD, and I managed the process myself. It was a roaring success, and it basically runs our extremely complex business. By creating a system that simplifies and collates every single business function across 30 offices and multiple currencies and languages, we are able to grow faster than normal – without the system we couldn’t manage more than 5 offices I believe.

How have your systems changed?

With time comes depth of knowledge and experience – so you just learn the areas to avoid for the future when you make mistakes. Mistakes are your best friends by the way. Without mistakes you have no way of emotionally knowing what not to do, and more importantly, WHY!

How do you define failure and success?

Failure is simply letting circumstances beat you, no matter what happens the guy who gets up off the floor the most wins the fight. Failure is simply giving up in the face of opposition. Success is charting a course and sticking to it until you achieve it, “The world is not interested in the storms you encountered. Did you bring in the ship?”

Time and growth provide new challenges, what are some of the challenges that you look forward to today?

Getting the movie studio off the ground and becoming a world force in movies – this field is so exciting and gets me jumping out of bed like a rhinoceros every day.

What is/are the most important thing(s) you have learned during your experience?

Life is mostly froth and bubble. Two things stand like stone. Kindness in another’s trouble. Courage in your own.

What are the most important things do you think a young entrepreneur should focus on?

Identify what you want to do. Learn everything you can about that area – but don’t just think, act – jump in as soon as you can and learn as you go. Don’t be afraid of anything, there is nothing that the world can do to you. Once set on your course stay the distance. You don’t know if the race is 1500 metres or a marathon, and you won’t know until you reach the finish line, so never, ever give up.

Who, and what do you attribute your achievements to? Why?

A number of things. When I was 17, I said I would read 2 books a week for the rest of my life – I still do to this day – so I have a lot of knowledge to draw on in there. Secondly I love looking at the lives of famous people and emulating them – (Winston) Churchill stands out among them – get his biography and read it several times and you will see how important it is to keep going.

There is only one journey in life – you are on it – if you don’t enjoy it, then your life is worthless. You get given one gift in this world and one gift only – and that’s the gift of life – no matter what circumstances you start off in life, you have this precious thing in your hands that you are allowed to do whatever you want with.

Gavin Crombie is the author of the best-selling business book “The Way of the Dragon: A Guide for Australians Doing Business in China“, which is currently used in more than 15 MBA programs around the world as course material.

Click here to learn more about Gavin Crombie.

Hey hey,

The website layout has been updated. I noticed that some links were broken, or old, and a good portion of my portfolio was not accessible, click here to check it out. That should be fixed now.

Enjoy!

Hey hey all,

I really wanted to get some drawing in the other day, so I ended up doing a quick random drawing of what I call “Adventure Girl”. I typically name my drawings based on the description.

Nothing to it really, just wanted to draw, and figured I’d draw a woman, and then the next thing I knew, I had a gesture, and I just filled it out.

Like the majority of my drawings, I don’t really focus on the face, and I usually get slowed down, or get stuck deciding what clothing should be on my characters.

Some more fashion research and a better sense for fashion could probably improve that (not that I’m sad about it). Guess it’s time to pick up a few fashion magz.

Enjoy!

Howdy everyone,

My portfolio has been added since updating the site from sxlife.ca to scottxiong.com. Click here to access it. Best viewed with Firefox.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year everybody! See you in 2010!

Scott Xiong

Hi Everyone,

I just finished transferring my domain to my new registrar and hosting account, and as you may have noticed, SXLife.ca is now ScottXiong.com. What does this mean? Well, instead of having 2 separate sites for people to jump around, I decided it would be easier, and better for people to find everything on one site.

WordPress is such a godsend, I mean, it makes updating my website so much easier than it used to be, and it has so many cool features and tools… *sniff, I’m so happy…

Anyways, what this also means is that I need to incorporate my portfolio works into this site now, so please bare with me as I make those changes.

You can click here to view my portfolio works.

Take it ease!

Hey hey,

I’ve uploaded my Maya MEL/Expression scripts used in my YouTube videos, so check them out here!

Enjoy!

OK, I woke up this morning and was inspired do some digital painting with OpenCanvas on my computer, and of course, using a tablet. My tablet is an older Intuos2, works like a charm, and I don’t have any intention of getting a new one unless this one breaks. Together, it feels like painting on an open canvas… sorta.

I purchased the program several years ago, it’s inexpensive, incredibly small (under 10 mb), easy to follow user interface, and has some great features, like ‘Automatic Event Recording’ which records your actions as you go so that you can play and view the entire progress of your work of art, like a movie. Unfortunately, the parent company ‘PortalGraphics’ no longer supports English for the program, or on their website, you can click here to see for yourself, more information about OpenCanvas can be found on their Wikipedia page, click here. The last English version I believe is some form of OpenCanvas 4.5, I have version 4.509E Plus. It will be impossible to get a legitimate english version OpenCanvas serial, so you may have to download OpenCanvas, and settle for a crack or patch (it is known that patched versions have problems of some sort, don’t know, since mine’s legit). I’m pretty sure you can find an Open Canvas download quite easily though.

Anyways, I had originally planned to do some fan art of either anime or video game characters, however, I found myself browsing through my old sketches instead. I found a bunch of old incomplete sketches and decided to finish some up. After going through most of them, I realized that many would never be completed, and that’s OK with me. I did however, find an old sketch of my ‘Nemean’ monster, whom I eventually made into a fully rigged low poly 3D model (by today’s standards of low poly), click here to go to my website and check it out. I liked the pose, so I decided to just touch it up and finish it.

I am happy to know that one of my favourite websites, click here to check it out, is running smoothly. DocumentaryWire.com has been up for several months now, however, for a good deal of time, starting late last year, it was down. With the amount of information that the site hosted, I wouldn’t be surprised if certain parties had taken an interest to insure that it be removed. Of course, I can only see this happening if there was some kind of important event that might have been happening during that time, and that the site might possibly affect a certain outcome. I just have no idea.

The site hosts a number documentaries. So when I want to watch a documentary, that’s where I go.

For starters who might not know what to look for, I highly recommend checking out the documentary that is usually featured when you enter the site, it’s always worth a view, and a great place to start.

The production of such a film always intrigues me, because there seems to be a lot evidence gathering, and it’s interesting to see where the filmmaker, or filmmakers get their sources. It may be an independent film, a decent sized film production, or a full blown out video production like BBC’s Planet Earth series, which requires a bigger production company. Sometimes, you may find the odd film made for television production that you may have just glanced at while watching TV, and possibly could not catch the rest of it in time, you never know. Give it a try!