A year of projects in 2018

I don't post often, I just cannot find a system to get it done regularly. It's been a great year though, and I wanted to be grateful for it. I started a new journey, became part of a wonderful family and institution; this allowed me to contribute to dozens of bright, kindling dreams building up into the game industry's next big thing! You can stay up to date on all the awesomeness I see each day via this other page: Digipen Singapore

My personal projects are pretty important to me, they keep my head above water and I wanted to share some of them here.

Animation was a big part of my work this year, though I've never been an animator. With the help of my colleagues as well as students, I dug deep and provided a workflow for game designers using an affordable, mobile motion capture suit from Rokoko. The solution, of course, involves software workflow involving 3dsMax, Maya, Motionbuilder, Unity, Unreal, etc.

The motion capture work didn't end there, as I worked with iPhone X and Leap Motion to provide facial animation and finger/hand animation solutions. These were trickier as it required the hardware to pick up on smaller, subtler movements. Building the arm and helmet rigs to hold the equipment during the performance was super fun though. My homebrew invention spree also included a rig designed by Allegorithmic for Physically Based Rendering texture photography. I'm eager to get my students to try this out sometime!

The other big thing for me this year was the Nintendo Switch! I haven't been so excited about a game console since the PS2, and it was worth it. I got my hands busy with every Nintendo Labo kit, as well as a couple of 3rd party products. It was super fun (and challenging) running a class about Nintendo Switch development and working with the developer kit. I also worked on my cardboard arcade stick (circa 2017) and turned it into a mobile arcade station with a Raspberry Pi Retropie kit (circa 2015), a 12V battery and a 10" screen.

Worked on Photogrammetry using Agisoft, which was more challenging than my previous 3d scanning projects but strangely more satisfying. A few other smaller fun projects included a colour correction passport, building a wine rack at XPC, my very own quiver of safe, sponge-head arrows for my god daughter and ran around being target practice for said munchkin.

Here's to another great year ahead.