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Saturday, March 16, 2013

Megacon 2013

I got to experience my first convention today.  I wasn't sure what to expect coming in, and I really enjoyed myself.  I went as Malzahar, from League of Legends.

I got stopped by a rather sizeable number of people for pictures, which was pretty flattering, as I didn't expect such a response.  A lot of people who stopped mentioned how they played the character, or that their friend main-ed him.  It made me proud to be a game developer, in that so many people were excited about a character from a video game, and automatically felt some kinship with a random stranger in Florida.

Probably my highlight of the convention was meeting up with all of the other League of Legends characters, since we all sort of had an affinity with each other.  I came a little late for the group shot, since we had trouble finding them outside, so I did miss a few.  All in all, though, it was a great experience.

Enjoy these pictures, with a rather handsome Malzahar and Ezreal, and also a Miss Fortune, Graves, and Caitlyn below.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Grapple Locomotion Animation Pre-Vis

This is a locomotion test for the grappling hook in the game, Grapple.  Right now, the game is getting a bit of a rehaul, and part of that is the player locomotion.  We are shifting to a flowing movement using the grappling hook, and given a number of situations provided by the designers, I've been asked to depict how it should feel from a player's perspective.

It is all animated on twos and fours at 30 fps.  Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't have the compression for accurate playback speed, but it is only an 'animated sketch' after all.

I drew out this simple environment, based on current concept art, and drew a path for the character to traverse.  I tried to include as many situations as possible; standing grapples, air grapples, swinging, enemy interaction, and most importantly, flowing movement.  I imagine it as parkour mixed with a grappling hook.