Ultima IX: Ascension
– Avatar Imprisoned
– 1998
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genre:
length:
format:
status:
logline:
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fantasy PC
game
0:22
3D animation – 640x320 @ 15fps
produced for Origin Systems
"Brittania's hero is
wrongly accused and cast into prison to rot. But learning the
identity of his tormentor sends him on a path towards vindication."
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write: |
As originally written,
this moment was supposed to be seen twice; once as our hero, the Avatar,
is wrongly imprisoned by Lord Blackthorn, and; again, as the Avatar's
liege lord dreams a twisted version of the truth. As the game's
overarching fiction was rewritten yet again, this scene was finally
condensed to convey a more concise moment.
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direct: |
The scene is
simple enough – the Avatar being thrust into a cell and left to rot.
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animate: |
I designed,
lit, and animated the scene with 3DStudio R4 using Bones Pro
for body and facial deformation. I wrote a script that could read
and write an Excel–based dope sheet, present a editable dope sheet
within 3DStudio and automate the animation of facial bones for layered
expressions and phonemes. This was
my first–pass animation and I was never granted the time to return to it
for refinement.
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edit: |
I rendered
the Avatar's fall from seven camera positions to have the most
flexibility in the edit.
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tools: |
animation – 3DStudio R4/bones
pro
facial anim – custom R4 scripts
edit – Premiere/Perception VR |
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read the script – prison
– (pdf)
read the
script – dream – (pdf)
watch the short
2.3MB
(quicktime)
credit
roll
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