Rhode: the Mountain Flower - SFAS 2021 Entry

My name is Iva and this is my SFAS 2021 Game Animation entry. I am graduating MA 3D Computer Animation at the University of the Arts London. I decided to try my hand at this challenge while I can! As a student, who has mainly focused on a film animation pipeline, but with a background in Games Design and Development (BScHons), this has been a great and fun learning experience for me. 

Introduction
Meet Rhode! A faun from a secluded druidic clan, who is now discovering the world and venturing into uncharted territories! While her sisters took to the druidic secrets of the clan, Rhode was trained in their ancient martial traditions. Don’t be scared of her hostile demeanor, she will warm up to you once she realises you are friend and not foe.

This project aims to explore conveying personality and behaviour through posture and detail, as well an “attack” combo type of animation that mixes both weapon and unarmed strikes. The chosen sequence type for this project is Physical Attack.  

The documentation covers the many technical difficulties I encountered, it reports on my development process and presents work-in-progress videos. I wanted to present my animations in a suitable environement, however, my laptop did not seem to be able to handle the added environment and I had to give up on that idea, so that I do not miss the deadline. That's why the animations sequence has been presented in a basic Unreal scene. Apart from the video that presents the animations in gameplay in Unreal, I have also rendered the animations in a suquence in Maya with Arnold renderer, which is where the snapshots are from. You can find the Maya render here: 

https://youtu.be/jlUaFK0yXio

Please read my documentation, which details all the thought I have put into this project, all the separate details, as well as the technical difficulties. Thank you for your time.