Popped or Alive Rigs
Popped or Alive follows the mischievous balloon-cowboy Balloot, who is wanted in Kimball city for his crime of vandalism; When a new threat backs him into a corner, he’ll have to work with old enemies to find a way out!
Popped or Alive was my student capstone film, one I worked on with 9 other incredibly talented students. As the main rigging artist for the team, I was in charge of building and maintaining the three main character rigs, as well as developing and implementing a bespoke 2D facial rig system.
You can find more information about the film on the website or Instagram.
See my lighting reel from the film here.
3D rigs with 2D faces
As soon as I saw the concept art for Balloot, I knew that the success of the rigs would hinge on their expressiveness. In order to create 2D facial rigs that could conform around 3D cheeks, knew and innovative solutions were necessary.
Facial Rigs
Facial Export Script (for Unreal):
‘Popped or Alive’ was lit and rendered in Unreal Engine 5. In order to transfer the facial animations from Maya to Unreal, I created a script that would export every characters face as a series of images. These images were then post-processed to create textures that could be brought into unreal.
This is an example export of Balloot’s face, which is used to generate the final SSS, Roughness and Base Color Textures.
Main Trio
In addition to designing all the 2D facial rigs, I also rigged the main trio of ‘Popped or Alive’. These rigs were designed to give the animators as much control and freedom possible, with bind ribbons, FK/IK/IK stretch toggles, and more.
Features
