Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Demo Reel

My 2017 game animation demo reel, featuring interactive cinematic sequences [SPOILERS] from Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and Uncharted 4. Responsibilities for TLL were the entire last level, (minus boss melee fight), and extended to the preceding chopper fight and crash. This included interactive cinematics as well as systemic actions such as NPCs jumping to and from, (and climbing around), the moving train. Essentially everything not already present in Uncharted 4.

In general, I pre-visualise scenes before making them work in-game, with a designer scripting all the unique animated elements. Once assembled I direct all relevant mocap and implement them before handing off to our team of talented contract animators, or take them to a final polish stage myself if they are particularly complex.

Overall I had around 50 scenes for this project, (with 120 for the longer Uncharted 4), but they were more complex and were taken further before handing them off so as to minimise technical issues relating to implementation.

Despite the shorter 1-year turnaround, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy was an incredibly fun project to be a part of and I am especially proud of the story we were able to tell while pushing the limits of art and animation in games.

Music: Dreams by Beck

----------------Breakdown----------------

00:00 Chopper Fight/Crash

Mocap-directed and assembled full chopper fight and crash scenes. Ran and edited destruction simulation. Body pass on all mocap. Final polish pass on internal fight by Joseph Garrahan (chopper details, facial, fixed intersections). Took crash to final polish state and merged with following cutscene. Scripting by David Shaver.

00:18 Train Side Peel

Keyframed all destruction elements. Mocap-directed two variants of swing action depending on character position. Assembled scene and took to final polish. Scripting by Vinit Agarwal/Kurt Margenau/Michael Barclay.

00:22 Train Derailing

Ran and edited physical simulation of train-cars derailing. Mocap-directed characters and assembled scene. Took to final polish state - which can occur at any point on the track. Scripting by Nicholas Lance.

00:27 Madagascar Jeep Winch

Keyframed destruction elements. Prevised, mocap-directed, edited and assembled scene - taking to final polish this complex scene involving vehicle and rope physics. Scripting by Nicholas Lance.

00:36 Jump To Train

Prevised, mocap-directed, edited and assembled scene - taking to final polish. Scene had to work at any point along a set length of track. Scripting by Nicholas Lance.

00:44 Escape The Train

Usually systemic train was keyframed in its entirety. Ran and edited physical simulation once train goes over. Captured and edited NPC to match player movement, where entire scene scales to match player movement. Scripting by Asher Einhorn/Nicholas Lance.

00:52 Land On Train

Prevised, mocap-directed, edited and assembled scene. Final polish pass, with earlier mocap pass by Raina Kaur. Scripting by Asher Einhorn/Nicholas Lance.

01:01 City Bike Chase

Prevised entire city chase sequence, of which this was the finale. Ran and edited non-realtime destruction simulations. Assembled entire scene, and took truck, destruction props and player character to final polish. Bike and rider taken to final polish by Tal Peleg. Scripting by Anthony Newman.

01:17 Train Finale

Pre-vised and mocap-directed characters with scenes playing differently depending on who jumps first. Keyframed and simulated train explosion. (Did not animate gameplay running between scenes). Explosion and water effects by Fábio Silva. Scripting by Asher Einhorn.

01:34 Tower Yoga Poses

Assembled mocap and took this nice little easter-egg to final polish the last day before ship. Scripting by Mark Burroughs.