Diorama
Almost a couple of years ago, I was fortunate enough to work as a Technical Artist on this project at Framestore!
Kippy’s Escape is an open-source HoloLens 2 sample app built to show off the features of the new Mixed Reality UX Toolkit plugin for Unreal Engine.
It was an amazing experience, exciting and fun. I had the chance to build and experiment with various gameplay mechanics and FXs, as well as play around with procedural animations for the character and build shaders to express its emotions.
- Find out more about Framestore’s involvement
- Check out Microsoft’s website for more info on the project and the toolkit
- Or clone the repository
Most of the animations were done procedurally, controlling the bones in an animation Blueprint.
The project was done in Unreal Engine 4.25, before Control Rig features were implemented.
Walking: blending between poses using a Blend Space asset.
Idle: Transform Bone nodes in the Animation Blueprint
Celebration: custom animation baked in Maya
– ABP anims
– eyes, stickers and chest screen materials
– glow fx between body parts
The shapes are done with Sign Distance Fields and are animated using sign waves.
This allows a smooth transition animation from one expression to the other.
(the resolution is not the best but it’s readable)
Floating slates idle animation done in engine.
Animation direction and intensity caused by the explosion are based on the location and proximity of the bomb.
Interactivity FXs, the outline of the interactive meshes when looked at and scaling/outline animation when the hands are in the right position for the interaction