Planet Zoo was a great game to work on. Rigging and prototyping some of my favourite animals, such as the pangolin and elephant was good fun. Such an wholesome game.
Details
Position: Senior Tech Artist and Rigging lead
Studio: Frontier Developments
Period: 2017 – 2020
Contributions
Rigging major animals & prototyping
We used a procedural rigging system (spearheaded by the talented Luke Maskell) to be able to realise the sheer variety of animals this game sports. Me and the Head of Rigging used this system to tackle the most challenging animal rigs and worked together with the animation coders and designers to prototype the in-game systems.
Department lead
During Planet Zoo I was made Senior Technical Artist. This meant that I was made lead to a team of junior and mids and responsible for the upcoming challenges and planning.
Tooling
The rigging system was compromised of different components so we easily rebuild, tweak and reuse them as development progressed. I worked on various components; tails, legs, ears, you name it.
Shading setup
Getting the fur and animal hides looking just right was a fun challenge. Due to my experience with the game engine and Substance I helped the shading department with setting up their pipeline and ran tests for the fur
For more about Planet Zoo