Penalty Kick - Action Animation

Purpose: Personal animation pratice
Time Taken: 11 hours
Character Rig by: C.J.Cow lizardj.blogspot.com

Foreign Satelite - Lipsync Animation

Purpose: Personal animation pratice
Time Taken: 12 hours
Character Rig by: C.J.Cow lizardj.blogspot.com

Attitude - Lipsync Animation

Purpose: Personal animation pratice
Time Taken: 8 hours
Character Rig by: C.J.Cow lizardj.blogspot.com

Parkour - Action Animation

Purpose: Personal animation test
Time Taken: 25 hours
Character Rig by: Splash Damage

A Milestone in Career

Overlord: Dark Legend - Developed by Climax Studios for Nintendo Wii and published by CodeMasters.

I was very lucky to be able to work on this title. Although it's a Wii game and uncomparable to Next-Gen games like PS3 and Xbox360 due to the big difference in memory usage, I can assure you this is going to be the one of the best Wii games you can find up to date in terms of graphic and animation. The developer was pushing everything to the console's limit and it's a really interesting game to play as well.

Working in Climax was my first step into the game industry and I was really excited as the UK have a well established game industry and are ranked 4th in the world after the US, Japan and Canada.

I worked as a junior animator and was involved in hand-keyed in-game animation and some of the in-game cutscenes (IGC). I was very happy working there as everything was well organized and systematic. I learnt a lot since working on this project as the requirement was really high and my lead had given me plenty of guidance which was very valuable as he is a veteran animator with more than 15 years of experience in the animated features and game industry.

There is difference in animating game animation compared to other type of animation as the camera works differently and many other factors such as gameplay input and world collision need to be taken into consideration as well.

Working in this field is really fun as you can always see your animated characters on screen and do whatever you commanded.

1st Year in the UK

This is a highlights of my Self-Elected Project in the University. I spent about 4 months on this 2 minutes animation from pre-production to finalizing.

Working in Fly Studios was a very hard work but a fruitful outcome. Unfortunately due to certain reasons I had to leave the company and further my studies in the UK.

Studying in the UK academy was a little culture shock to me as here is all about research, studies and reporting. Even I was majoring in BA(Hons) Animation, I still had to write 7k-10k words of dissertation besides doing a 3D group project and a Self-Elected project in this 8 months course. Everything I needed to do was research, writing, writing and writing. From project pitching, pre-production, production, post-production and presenting the final animation; I was required to prepare report folders for each stage.

That was very different from what I learnt in The One Academy and friends studying in the United States as they emphasis more on pratical.

The Real Beginning

SoyJoy TV commercial, this was the first project I worked on in Fly Studios(Malaysia), May 2007. Upon joining this production house then only I realized this was my first taste of what the real CG industry is.

This was the 2nd studios I worked in after graduated from The One Academy in 2005. The expectation and requirement were a lot higher than what I had experienced before. As a TVC production studios, the deadline for each project was very tight but should be enough for completion. Unfortunately, because it involved a lot of people from different studios and agencies, each with different idea and vision, it could lead to drastic delayed, loads of re-do, and major changes.

Long working hours and working during weekends and public holidays was necessary but not always unless the deadline is very tight. And of course, usually holiday replacement would be given after the completion of project. It was a bitter sweet experience to me and I got used to it after a month.

I would strongly suggest all new comers in the CG industry to work in the TVC production house for once especially during the early stage of thier career as this would be a really good experience to train yourself and push your limit to another level.