Intro to Money's Rigs:

Ice Crab:

This over sized "ice-tacian" is one of the more frequently seen big bad guys from Lost Planet 3. This multiped creature had detachable claws and a physics driven jiggle set up for its back (once the ice was destroyed).

Clown Zombie:

The nightmare inspiring miniboss from Ninja Gaiden Z. Basic dismember-able biped who's arms can be harvested as lethal bladed nunchaku.

Animation Tracker:

Quite possibly the most commonly coded tool I write for game production is the Animation Tracker. First made solely with images and Mel scrip, it now incorporates python and xml for being able to use one tool across a multi-project studio that will load rigs into the scene for animation, export animation to the game engine and information for animation databasing to which ever project the user has set. Animation time ranges can be edited on each selected animation track in order to prevent any overlaps. Animation track information, such as time range, type, and name, can be copied accross multiple loaded rigs and even saved out and loaded into other animation files.

Nazi and Parachute:

The nazi's were the antagonists of this alternate history first person shooter, Turning Point: Fall of Liberty. Basic bipeds with FaceFx for generic gameplay facial expressions and exclamations.

The parachute itself was rigged separately, it was a simple flat hierarchy of 5 joints to give some billowing effect to the model.

Dongo (oversize roley-poley bugs):

These oversized pill bugs from Lost Planet 3 were a fun multiped creature to rig. The well known function of the creatures was recreated but their armor plates neeeded to be rigidly bound in this prequel to give them a de-evolved look. The legs, and body were set to rotate appropiately on one axis to get them to curl up in the wheel of death form so animators could just select all the controls and rotate on one axis, giving the animators more time to put into offsetting the animation to make it come alive than having to input different rotate values on different axis' between the legs and the body.

VS's (biped Mechs):

These clunky giants were Lost Planet 3's vital suits. Bipedal mechs with multi-function arms and tons of armor plating that could be sawed off, broken off, torn off by each other, or the larger Akrid on the frozen planet, E.D.N. III.

R.D.U (redo, hahaha get it? Robotic Defense Unit):

This quadruped mech rig is from Ninja Gaiden Z. The design, function, purpose, and story behind this character was redone so many times the artists decided to put a joke into its name. Each of its legs are the extended ankle complexed leg rig, with an added slide feature for the back legs which will be explained in my Mech Rig demo reel.

Mech Rigs Demo Reel:

VS (biped mech):

This is the Vital Suit the player controls for Lost Planet 3. Its basic foundation was used for 2 unique rigs in the game. All joint driven, basic IK/FK setup for limbs with driven keys, direct connections, utility nodes and expressions for its hardware, with extra joints that were driven by the movement of other joints for the little parts and the cables were in game physics drivento add a bit of secondary motion and give this thing some believability. The game itself used UE3, and was released on PC, 360, and PS3.

R.D.U (Robotic Defense Unit, quadruped mech):

This quadruped mech rig is from Ninja Gaiden Z. Each of its limbs employed the extended ankle legs similar to the rear legs of a horse, the back legs had an extra feature that allowed the upper part of the leg to slide up and down on the railing of the lower part of the leg. This was achieved by using a technique taught to me by John Root where 1 of the 3 leg joints are driven by a chain of a 2 joint IK system with varrying lengths. The lengths are controls via slider attribtute and will change the orentation of the 1 joint, and the other 2 are driven by their own IK. The game itself used UE3, and was released on PC, 360, and PS3.

Plankton-bot:

This tank tread driven robot was the final boss to fight in Spongebob: Truth or Square. The tank treads were driven by one joint per tread following along a curve aimed at a coresponding locator that followed along a scaled up version of the same curve. The position on the curve was determined by the position and orientation robot's center of gravity control, the math behind it would alter polarities of input from each axis' value based on 90 degree intervals of the c.o.g.'s control's orientation. The animator could also set how much sliding would happen for each wheel depending upon the terrain (if the bot rolled over deep slippery mud, the treads would spin more than the bot would move, if the bot was on ice, it would slide more than the treads woudl spin) as well as spin each tread independently. The game itself used a proprietary game engine, and was released on the xbox 360, and the Wii.

Animation and Fleshy Rig Demo Reel:

Burrower Akrid:

A tentacle monster from the cutting floor of Lost Planet 3. Spirals and twists were the point of this creature, and the rig too has leves upon levels of being able to twist into a spiral. The limbs were rigged with a custom system I made whichs allows for more control than the ribbon IK system yeilds. I applied the same system to its entire body when in drill form. The controls that govern the spiraling form of the creature also control the distance from the center for its governing section of limbs and follow the curve of the body which is defined by a single chain of joints. The FK limbs also have a lower level of control which governs the twist of each portion of each limb to allow the limbs to keep the same higher level of orientation while twisting.

This creature could drill through the ice by wrapping its tentacle jaws and tentacle limbs around each other to make a spiral drill form and move through the ice like a dolphin swims and jumps through the wake of a boat. As a quadruped, it walks in a creepy spinning fashion as well. All animated by me for this demo reel.

Tech Girl:

This sultry seductive yet salty sarcastic sharp and witty lass was the source of exposition in Ninja Gaiden Z. Though most appearances and this costume change were cut from the game itself, her rig consisted of a basic biped with a rudimentary facial rig. The fingers could be controled individually or with sliders on a static control. Her breasts were layered with controls for animation and set up with physics in game to add 2 levels of jiggle, the top level would jiggle the entire breast, the lower level would add extra jiggle just to the top where the flesh is exposed. Her skirt and coat were originally set up to follow the legs at the top and be physics driven at the bottom, but for purposes of this demo reel I rigged the bottom to behave in a standard FK fashion. Pretty much this is what I put into most biped rigs.