Stephen Warwick

Hi LinkedIn, Following the recent update, the Ballerina was made originally in-place, meaning she moved forward with the root controller. Please try to ignore obvious problems with polishing. Unlike many of my animations this one intended to be perfect on the camera which wasn't and isn't perfect!). The goal is to share what I've done/learned while working on my showreel. You can easily make any animation in-place using layers. The in-place itself isn't perfect too! Needs some tweaks, but I thought it would take time and wouldn't give much! Cheers! recorder from the screen. sorry for the frame drop ;) I am using VAYO Tech Studio CoG node for the demonstration. Original Post: https://lnkd.in/d8hFFTuA #ballerina #COG #biomechanics #dance #animation #characteranimation

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I enjoy trying to push myself in terms of creating art or shots quickly and efficiently like a one-man VFX house, but as I worked on this I actually got a bit depressed. Considering what's going on in the world, blowing stuff up feels gross. I need to find some more wholesome use of pyro sims, animation and compositing #blender3d #vfx #cgi

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When speaking recently with a student of mine, he mentioned the difficulty he has to finish animation shots and the friction between knowledge, work and perfection. In this week's video I talk about overcoming the Animation Hump, in the hopes that it helps all of those going through a similar situation. https://lnkd.in/e8HDyJNr

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What’s the one thing that only you can do? Some thought it was strange when we setup a voice casting & recording location in London. Why? Because we already had studios in the UK. Glasgow to be precise. Do you really need multiple locations in one country the size of the UK? No. You do not. And we worked with a hybrid model for years. A mix of recording in our own rooms and partner studios in London. But the time comes when it makes sense to invest in what you believe. And we believe in helping clients improve the: - Diversity - Authenticity - Variety Of their voice casting efforts. It's simple really. By catering for voice talent from the north of the country to the south - and everywhere in between - we can: - Hear / see more actors That's it. More actors = more diversity More actors = more authentic performances More actors = more new talent coming through More actors = more personal experiences and stories More actors = more opportunities for those who are often overlooked. That's what we believe anyway. #VoiceCasting #VoiceProduction #MultiLocationVoiceCasting

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Hey everyone, this is an announcement of incoming video I am currently working on. I already covered the 'blackest BLACK' research with my previous one, but to narrow the albedo range for PBR materials and make this research complete I still need to cover the 'whitest' part. This research wouldn’t make much sense without actual samples, and some of these can be really tricky and expensive to access, therefore I would like to thank to: - Pro-Lite Technology UK ❤️, which is the UK and Ireland distributor of Labsphere Spectralon, for providing the sample of actual Spectralon OMG!!!! - Nix Sensor ❤️ folks for providing sample of Gore DRP - OMG again !!! - Also would like to thank to Amelia Evershed ❤️ - an amazing Materials Artist at Ubisoft for providing me a few actual White Cliffs of Dover rocks.️ This is the list of all samples I plan to measure and compare: - Spectralon is one of the 'whitest' non-fluorescent (non emissive) physical substances on Earth - Gore DRP Light Diffuser - another one of the brightest substances available on Earth - Black2.0 from Culture Hustle - purchased with next day delivery option about a week ago and still waiting for arrival. Their Black4.0 paint appeared to be just some marketing bs, so don’t have much hope for this one, but I have heard that their white is actually better, so definitely worth to compare. - Standard white spray - Plasti-kote 3100 - it’s the same brand and type of paint I used in search for Blackest Black, just white. Don’t expect much from it except being waterproof and just white-ish. - Standard acrylic white paint - RATEL - also don’t expect anything special from it, but who knows. The paint apparently can't be purchased anymore, but since I already have it, why not test it. - Rock sample taken from a famous White Cliffs of Dover. I guess this is probably the whitest type of natural rock/mineral so definitely worth to try. Its really bright to be honest. - OBA enhanced and non-OBA paper - I am still searching for best samples - with these I plan to cover optical brightening agents in more detail as its incredibly interesting subject - White Correction Fluid - Tipp-Ex. I just found it in a store during shopping for 4£ and decided to add it to this comparison. - probably some of every day substances like sugar or salt or maybe even a toilet paper - even just to use them as a white reference. Since I am still at sample collection and preparation phase, feel free to drop ideas of some must haves I missed for such comparison - I mean things which don’t cost fortune and won't do any harm to me :) Measurements are going to be taken with Nix Spectro2 color spectrometer. Its going to take me a while to make this video as I really want to dive deep inside color this time, but I hope its going to be worth to wait. Cheers and luckily, see you when it gets released! G. #whitestwhite #research #nixsensor #spectralon #goreDRP #pbrmaterials #announcement #spectro2 #colorresearch #white

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The Sumo Group closures really have broken me a bit, and I need to rant about the state of things. I'm sorry if it seems I'm glossing over all the closures before this one, but so many ex-students went there, so many ex-colleagues passed through there, and so my timeline is just filled with people looking for work. We keep talking and talking about the economic factors involved, Brexit and Covid and this and that ... the thing I can't stop thinking of is that in my life I've watched the world slowly pitch into a place of despondent capitalism. Art has become more about making stars and fame than helping people escape and reflect. A drive for "truth" and objectivity has resulted, paradoxically, in people putting more stock in spreadsheets and numbers than people. I can't help but feel that if you're bleating about finance and trade deals and business decisions, you're ignoring the fact that general support for artistic and creative endeavours has declined sharply and is still declining, even in the so-called "art world". Games are ultimately always going to be the first to fall in a culture war against creativity, because games are ultimately and profoundly pointless things. That's the whole majesty of the medium: they make us feel profound feelings, they help us explore our existence by being separate from reality, but to do so they MUST bring us nothing tangible in return. The truth is that our industry will probably bounce back to some degree, but it's not any financial structures or cost systems that will save game development as a medium and an art form - it's a cultural shift to recognise the importance of expressive and explorative subjective art in the world today, and the need to support creative endeavours without the pressure of financial recompense.

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Horrible news to hear about KeokeN Interactive having laid off their entire team today. In a statement published on X, CEO Koen Deetman and managing director Paul Deetman said the Netherlands-based studio was forced into the decision after exhausting all possible options for completing planned projects or taking on other work. To those affected, please find a comprehensive list of resources, below: 🥇First, Discipline Games Jobs Resources: Over the past weeks I have created 9 (at time of writing) Games Jobs Resources to find jobs in a wide range of disciplines: 🎨 Art, Animation, VFX and UI: This resource contains around 1,000 jobs worldwide across all links. Link: https://lnkd.in/eKAHK7VF ⚙ Engineering and Programming This resource lists just over 1,800 jobs worldwide across all links. It also talks about interview tips and questions to practice. Link: https://lnkd.in/eYdxANFM 🕹 Quality Assurance: This resource lists over 450 QA jobs worldwide. This post also talks about the craft of QA and contains tips and interview practice. Link: https://lnkd.in/dwwVjZuc 📑 Game Production: This resource lists around 400 jobs worldwide. It also contains info about game production as a whole and GDC talks. Link: https://lnkd.in/gxDvFM-Z 📢 Marketing & Community: This resource lists around 400 jobs worldwide. It also gives an intro into game marketing and community management. Link: https://lnkd.in/e5MuViug 🎶 Audio and Sound Design: This resource lists around 190 jobs worldwide. Link: https://lnkd.in/eSkPSsWf 📠 Studio Support, HR, Recruitment and BizDev: This resource lists around 290 jobs worldwide. Link: https://lnkd.in/ePG57_7v ⚙ IT, Helpdesk and DevOps: This resource lists around 140 jobs worldwide. Link: https://lnkd.in/e8ZsuiZh 🎮 Game Design: This resource lists around 440 jobs worldwide. https://lnkd.in/dCv_hQXv 🥈 Second, the Ultimate list of Video Games Career Resources: This should be your one-stop shop for all information. My dear friend Amir Satvat maintains these documents, he is a legend for doing this - please check them out: https://amirsatvat.com/ 🥉 Third, do not give up. Ever. No matter how dark things may look right now, I KNOW you will get through this, you have got this! 👊 Remember you are not alone. If you need help, advice, or even an ear to listen, we're here for you. Always! ➡ A request to my community, please can I ask you to repost this post to your colleagues and friends, so that we can get as many into jobs as possible! And please comment if you or your studio are currently hiring - let's help each other! Much love ❤️ #layoffs #gamesindustry #jobsingames #keokeninteractive (source: https://lnkd.in/eWK2PgvX)

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🚀 These are 3 Principles for Height Control in Substance Designer: 🥇 0-1 Height info Grayscale information is just a Ramp that goes from 0 to 1. When your image in the 2D editor shows black it means there is no information at all, meaning the value is 0. But when the editor shows a pure white then you have a 1, or the information is full.  Between 0 and 1 there are tons of values! (Like for example 0,0005) 🥈 Gradients We can choose any value between 0-1, but we can also get several values between these two numbers. This is what we call a Gradient, a blend between two initial values that shades from one value to the other. 🥉 Shape Building Making shapes with our grayscale in formation is about controlling these values in a way that we create a set of values per pixel that later translates into a shape in the 3D Viewport. 🎁As I know this is hard to understand and many people enjoyed our last Bootcamp and learned a lot. I will be hosting a new Free 2-hour Substance Designer Expert Bootcamp for Artists! Last week we had Emiel Sleegers join us briefly to give us his insights on our last project! Click on the link below and fill out the form to join our next Free Bootcamp! 🚀 2-hour Substance Designer Expert Bootcamp, save your seat here: https://lnkd.in/ddu872Ya 🌐 If you want to be part of the biggest Discord Material Art Community go here: https://lnkd.in/d9bKMM-f #gameart #art #d #game #digitalart #gamedev #gaming #games #gamer #videogames #gamedesign #illustration #conceptart #indiegame #unity #fanart #ps #dart #indiedev #gamedevelopment #drawing #indiegamedev #videogame #characterdesign #artwork #blender #artist #playstation #pixelart #indiegames

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🔸 I'm starting to use FUGAZI as a verb these days. As a band they seemed to have a solid and honest starting point to build TRUST and LOYALTY with their audience. I think it's something we could all learn from. https://lnkd.in/gF9xA_Rt Check it, YO! #fugazi #businesspractices #DIY

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We have been doing more works with AR and VR models of late. There is so much trial and error to get it working! Does anyone have some success stories or real hardships? You can check out some of our works here - https://lnkd.in/e6DSqwDe New Youtube tutorial for model prep coming SOON! #AR #VR #3D #Tutorials #experimenting #trialanderror

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Back from seeing a lot of great people at Develop Brighton, which was busy enough to distract me from doing the usual daily recaps. Let's continue, shall we? Today on GamesIndustry.biz... (Thursday, July 11th 2024) 1. Your must read is Chris' opinion piece on yesterday's Xbox Game Pass price hike announcement, exploring how the move reflects the need for profitability, the strength of Xbox's first-party line-up, and how determined Microsoft is to make Game Pass work https://lnkd.in/e5-rqs5R 2. In the news, Shift Up - the South Korean developer behind Stellar Blade - raised $320m with its IPO, which was the largest for a games company from that nation since 2021 https://lnkd.in/eUQzGTNf 3. Splash Damage is the latest studio to face layoffs, with the studio telling us a "small number of roles" will potentially be made redundant following a review of the business. These are said to be mostly operational roles, with development largely unaffected https://lnkd.in/ejA-f6Ri 4. GAME has reportedly dropped yet another part of its offering. After ditching pre-owned, its loyalty scheme, and Xbox All Access, the retailer will now apparently stop taking in-store pre-orders from August 1. The reason? According to staff, it's because the tills have to cope with too much so parent company Frasers Group is making it so GAME stores (or rather concessions) can only sell and refund products https://lnkd.in/ehMY4sg3 5. Tencent is shutting down free-to-play shooter Synced after just one year of it being available to play https://lnkd.in/e4r3C-kP 6. And Embracer has secured a new €600m ($652m) revolving credit facility with a two-year tenor, replacing the existing €420m ($456m) one, due in May 2025 https://lnkd.in/eGNwZC3g There's more news over at www.gamesindustry.biz and make sure you're signed up to the GI Daily to get it all delivered to your inbox: https://lnkd.in/eAkx_zen

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Physics can be expensive to render in game and yes we have powerful engines that can handle much more than they used to, but we should still try to create performant assets where possible, things like jiggles on a character, props in the world baked down or things that shouldn't be simulating where possible. #gamedevelopment #humanik #motioncapture #performance #physics #secondarymovement

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A render that went unused for Top Drives. We created some images for the new Home Screen design and this one didn’t end up getting picked so thought I’d post it. I really love the simplicity of this render, 2 incredible cars drifting on a sunny evening! Rendered in UE5 using path tracer. Porsche AG #Porsche #3DModel #3D #Art #CGI #Unreal #UE5 #UnrealEngine #Automotive #GameArt

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Want to learn how we took our card and set design process from months to hours? You should check out this webinar with Jessie Hughes from Leonardo Ai!

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Inside Nikki's Mansion. Really had a blast working on this one! The original inspiration for this was the hot tub scene in Scarface. Eventually it took on a life of it's own, scaling up to accommodate a full sized narwhal, as well as a somewhat more marine evil-lighting situation with the glow of the hot tub. It's always rewarding to see how a reference evolves with the unique needs of a story/ situation. #thelma #thelmatheunicorn #netflix #netflixanimation #featureanimation #animation #conceptart #visualdevelopment

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Why is it important to understand games? Because they explain how a party turns 35% of the vote in an election into over 400 seats in Parliament. Labour’s win in the UK general election is many things. A sign that voters could not do anything other than boot out a tired and incompetent Conservative Party; a relatively unenthusiastic trade off of steady competence over wider vision; a least worst option that has opened the doors to smaller parties. It’s also a victory for ruthless campaigning. It’s an operational masterclass in which financial and personal resource was directed with strategic precision to get as many Labour MPs over the top as possible. And it is derived from a fundamental truth: elections are games with clear rules. Labour’s strategy - and, to be fair, The Liberal Democrat’s approach - rejected the idealism of “the best vision wins out” to say “how do we win this game within the set rules” to avoid another 2019 style disappointment. It’s an approach that is central to great campaigning. It is also, as Kelly Clancy posits indirectly in her great book Playing With Reality, a perfect example of minmaxing a game: controlling and risking as little as possible from your side while maximising opportunities within the rules (and errors from your opponents). Clancy argues that our failure to understand play and to take it seriously within society means we can’t understand fully the social, cultural and biological drivers that lead us to create the rules based systems that we play within. Elections are therefore one of those rare times where the dynamic of play is surfaced in a way that we can truly see, that we can understand explicitly and that we can talk about easily - demonstrating its immense value in a way little else can. P.S. If you like reading about the surprising ways games reshape society, think about subscribing to my newsletter Video Games Industry Memo. There will be plenty more where this has come from in the year ahead.

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Your game prototype doesn't need to be fancy to be effective. We all love brainstorming features and details at the concept stage. But remember: • All these features need to be developed. • Then implemented. • Polished. • And tested. So focus on the essentials first. The initial versions of your game should concentrate on a narrow set of core mechanics. Make those mechanics as good as possible. And only then add new features.

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🎨 Simple Trick - Better Workflow in Substance Painter 🚀 https://lnkd.in/dMdF9iPm I’m thrilled to share a new tutorial where I reveal an easy trick to enhance your texturing workflow in Substance Painter. Using an exploded version of your model, you can tackle complex projects faster and more precisely. This approach has significantly improved my efficiency, and I’m confident it can do the same for you! As a bonus, I’ve created a custom smart material that you can download for free https://lnkd.in/d2uBij5t or you can use this link: https://lnkd.in/deBQjz5K Note: You need Substance Painter 10 or above to use this smart material #SubstancePainter #3DTexturing #DigitalArt #SmartMaterials #CGTutorials #LearningAndDevelopment#Madewithsubstance

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