Game Animation

In my 1 Year study with 3dsense media school, I’ve delved deeper into the realm of 3D animation. The whole process is a blend of meticulous planning, trial and testing and humility to move forward and reach higher to achieve satisfying results. Throughout all my projects, I’ve managed to acquire skills that helped me strive forward and enhance my quality. Here, I proudly present my demoreel, showcasing all the works I’ve done through this 1 year course. Further down, you’ll get more detailed insight on the breakdowns on a few selected projects.

3D Game Animation Demoreel - Joey Tay

Boss Introduction (Dragon)

Animation Breakdown

In this sequence, I wanted to strive for something more “protective” and “majestic”, somewhat like a dragon protecting the castle. As this was supposed to be a boss intro, I tried playing with the idea of how when a character enters a new map in a game, this will be the boss they have to face eventually after exploring through the entire new location.

This animated shot has taught me a lot of valuable lessons and skills. As this is my first time trying to animate a quadruped creature. This project has challenged and taught me the importance of meticulous planning, reference searching, storyboarding and layout planning. I had quite a bit of struggles with getting the movements, weight, and wings movement believable and also there was a big worry on how my creature would move in space and how it would interact with the environment layout. Nonetheless, here’s a breakdown of how this shot made it from reference stage to its rendered stage.

Parkour Breakdown

Animation Breakdown

In this parkour shot, I took a shot in trying to aim for more expression of emotions and storytelling in movements and actions without having to animate the face. Hence, the shot is more focused on acting.

I was trying to capture the sense of “urgency” and “fear” in the character, trying to escape from her creator in the laboratory who’s producing clones and clones of her as lab rats. This project has not only challenged me on the animation aspect of things, but it has also taught me a lot on the importance of proper set dressing to better sell the storytelling. I learned and experimented with multiple set dressings and lighting setups to settle on this current scene you get to see today. On top of that, I have also managed to touch base with a bit of acting through this shot too. I took a lot of inspiration from Spiderverse’s shots where Miles was trying to escape from the villain. The way he frantically and sneakily moves around the shots were what I was trying to aim for. That said, this shot has also challenged me to convert a 12 fps stop-motion film’s feeling and timing into a smooth 30 fps animated shot, it was quite the challenge and struggle but I’ve managed to sync that feeling through more real-life reference taking that I took of myself trying to act the motions out.

Along with all these, I’ve also drafted out a rough floor-plan as placeholders to direct where my camera shot would go too. Hope you enjoy it!

Character Introduction

Animation Breakdown

In this Character Introduction shot, I wanted to stay true to my character’s personality and storyline that I’ve crafted out for her that determined her entire moveset all the way to the character introduction.

Her backstory mainly highlights on how she and her family was raided by a yakuza gang and was badly injured, hence, she vowed to herself to pick up any means possible to protect her family from such tragedy again, adding on to that - to protect families facing similar situations. You can call her the “silent hero”, as she went on the journey of training to be a ninja assassin, as she aims to eliminate threats as cleanly and as quietly as possible.

I wanted to experiment with something acrobatic, quick and stealthy, yet intimidating and still portraying her as a strong character. In my entire character layout and moveset, I wanted to try adding in acrobatic movements to show her nimbleness and stealth aspect of her personality. Hence, this idea was birthed after getting some inspiration from League of Legends’ trailer shots. This shot has given me the freedom and possibility to experiment with multiple poses to achieve strong poses or believable poses to show her entire movement. Hence, on top of my video reference that I took inspiration from LoL, I also went onto pinterest to look for photos of poses in which I can experiment with to build upon my reference searching to achieve certain poses that better enhance the shot itself. Hence, you can also see PNG references on top of the referenced video to show my experimented poses, and the execution of all of it up till the rendered stage. Hope you enjoy it!

3-Hit Attack Combo

Animation Breakdown

In this Attack Combo Breakdown, It was a chance to experiment with acrobatic movements to portray my character’s personality. Hence, I tried to incorporate some sort of storytelling or relevance to its story through the way she chooses to move/attack dynamically.

1st Attack (2 slashes) - Wanted something quick, like a “sparring” action where she clashes her sword/fights the enemy.

2nd Attack (Air kick) - A acrobatic mid-air kick to stun the enemy

3rd Attack (Twirling slash) - This particular movement was inspired by the anime, “Demon Slayer”. Specifically, on how the attack developed in the story as well. In the anime, this attack was birthed out of Tanjiro’s desire to protect Nezuko from harm as she was held hostage, hence, this attack (the strongest move at that point) was birthed out of that desire of wanting to protect, to slice his enemy in one shot, eliminating all threats. Thus, I wanted to try incorporating this into my attack since my character is built on the idea of “protection” and “revenge”.

This attack combo shot was by far one of my hardest works so far, I struggled a lot with getting the kick right, and needless to say, the slashes and character twirls. It has also challenged me greatly to convert a 2D Animated anime shot into a 3D animation where I have to make the movements believable. This project has pushed me to understand body mechanics more and also to constantly find references that I can build upon from my base reference to eventually get the movements. There are still a lot of things I would want to build and improve on like sword slashes, body mechanics, etc. But here is the stepping stone. Hope you enjoy it! 

Thank you for your attention!

Overall, I’m still proud of the progress made thus far given how I stepped into this craft fresh and new - this is my first step into this craft and industry as a whole and I am proud of all that’s being produced. To end it off, I went into this craft fresh and new, walked out of my 1 year course inspired, purpose-filled and purpose-fuelled. Looking forward to more that’s ahead! Cheers.