Ricardo Gutierrez

UI - 3D ANIMATION - 3D MODELING - PARTICLES

Ricardo Gutiérrez Llenas

ARTIST

Project Overview

During this project I’ve had to work on very diverse parts of the art development team since we were only 3.
I started off as the main UI artist and did the first iteration of the inventory, passive tree and HUD, which Victor Masó later picked up.
On the 3d scene I’ve also worked on some animations for Alita and all related aspects to Dr. Ido. Also, since we needed to add a lot of variations to the map in order not to make them as repetitive as possible I worked with all other artists and even some designers on making map props.
Finally, I’ve been in charge of the art of 99% of the particles in the game.

During the vertical slice I also made the basic animations to test the gameplay (run, punch, area attack ability and idle).
Since the Alita model was still being created, I used the Azri rig by Jonathan Cooper to start off.

Props

In order to little by little fill the 1st level and avoid repetition, from Vertical Slice 2 to Alpha 2 I assisted on doing some of the props.
Whenever possible I tried to make objects reusable like in the trash, that can be opened / closed.

Dr. Ido

I was in charge of all the art related to Dr. Ido, needed for the narrative to take place. Since Ido's appearance is short in the player's game time, the level of detail for many of the processes was limited in order to save time, for example retargeting the animation from an already animated model.

Problems

01.

Retarget

Somehow this task that was supposed to take little to no time ended up taking around the same time it would take to make the animation normally.
The reason for this was that the Maya Human IK is better prepared for T-pose models, and since I'd done it in A-pose it caused a little bit of trouble.
This also collided with the fact that because the skeleton was rushed with Auto Rig tool and it had some rotation conflicts which created a bit of a mess.

02.

Importing to engine

Although this was expected, it still was a big problem that required more than 20 different tests of exportations and the help of the art lead David Lozano to get the desired result.
This couldn't have been solved with previous planning, but it would have been a wise idea to test the different stages of the model, skeleton, ... step by step on the engine. This way, I wouldn't have had to repeat multiple times rigs and skinnings.

Finally, I have worked on almost all of the particles seen in the game (all particles except trails). This has proved to be a hard task over time due to the fact that we had many limitations and, while some particles worked perfectly with our particle system, others would not.
This has also helped me to sharpen my sense to detect what's needed to do a particle and how to do it, and if not possible with our technology, how to fake it.

Anyway, there has been a huge improvement in this system thanks to the cooperation and hard work of Aleix and Oscar that always tried to work together with me to see how to approach certain particle effects and add the necessary technology.

Project Overview

In the course of the early stages of the game I was in charge of UI. I did the first iteration, which decided the main style and feel of it. Later, it was followed up by Victor Masó.

During the vertical slice I also made the basic animations to test the gameplay (run, punch, area attack ability and idle).Since the Alita model was still being created, I used the Azri rig by Jonathan Cooper to start off.