"The work of... " Players of Entropia Universe will have visited buildings, landmarks and arenas of all kinds, deployed state-of-the art weaponry and body armour against fearsome creatures and other colonists, will have explored amazing landscapes and vistas and will have traveled using fantastic vehicles of all types throughout this ever persistent virtual arena, but who are behind these creations that we perhaps take for granted. This series introduces the highly skilled artists and designers who were instrumental in bringing some of these concepts to fruition and who kindly gave EntropiaPlanets permission to feature their works. Elizabeth de la O, or Eli as she calls herself in the few emails we exchanged to get this article/interview done. She is a 33 year old woman currently living in San Francisco, California and worked for NEVERDIE studios as a character animator. To be really honest I was not aware that this job excisted, I was always under the assumption that the one that did the modeling also did the animation, but I was wrong it seems now. In the following article I'm trying to give you a peak in the world of a character animator and a bit in the life of Eli de la O. But first, what exactly is character animation? Well Wikipedia says the following about it: Character animation is a specialized area of the animation process, which involves bringing animated characters to life. The role of a Character Animator is analogous to that of a film or stage actor, and character animators are often said to be "actors with a pencil" (or a mouse). Character animators breathe life in their characters, creating the illusion of thought, emotion and personality. Character animation is often distinguished from creature animation, which involves bringing photo-realistic animals and creatures to life. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_animation I started my list of questions with a few about her to figure out why she does what she does. The first question that came to mind was if she plays any computer games herself. She tells me she started playing video games at the age of 4 on both PC and console. When she has time she plays Lego Superheroes and Portal but she is also a fan of titles like Assassin's Creed, Gears of War, the Batman series and many more. She also used to play Entropia Universe, but because of lack of time she does not play anymore, "Ironic when you work on games you have less time to play them". Next I tried to figure out how she ended up at NEVERDIE studios and why she started doing character animation in the first place. "I developed interest in animation since I was a kid, I loved cartoons and how they move was magical, out of this world for me. I developed the interest in animation when I realize I could animate something and make other people laugh or have any other response from people. Like every kid I was super fan of cartoons, Looney Tunes was my favorite instead of Disney but I also liked them. With the years I learnt to copy drawings from Looney Tunes and I spent some time figuring out why they were so fantastic, I also believed these characters existed in some alternate universe." Because of her deep passion for 3D animation and wanting to entertain a public and spark emotions with people, she started studying at Univer, Universidad de Veracruz in Guadalajara, Mexico in 2000 and graduated with a degree in fine arts with a major in 3D design in 2003. She specialized in 3D animation after that. Not knowing about the existence of Entopia Universe she started working at NEVERDIE studios in 2010, after being contacted trough LinkedIn by somebody from NEVERDIE studios. She did work on ROCKtropia, NEXT Island and Hunt the Thing. Of those 3 ROCKtropia was the most fun project she worked on, but NEXT Island was the most challenging, "It was very challenging but also I had so much fun. I enjoyed it so much because all that variety of creatures for which I had to build the rigs and animate. I had the great experience of design the rigs that would fit with the necessity of the different anatomies and behaviors of different creatures and aerial, terrestrial or aquatic animals. When a modeler finishes building a character, it's a static 3D mesh, almost like a marble sculpture. (And if you've ever tried posing and animating a marble sculpture, you probably know that it's darn near impossible). Before a 3D character model can be handed over to the team of animators, it must be bound to a system of joints and control handles so that the animators can pose the model. This process is typically completed by artists known as character technical directors (TDs), or riggers. source: http://3d.about.com/od/Creating-3D-The-CG-Pipeline/a/What-Is-Rigging.htm As mentioned she worked for NEVERIDIE studios and of course worked with Jon himself. When I asked how Jon is in real life she mentioned he is a horrible guy and she does not like him at all she said: "he is a enthusiastic guy who is passionate about everything he does and that his enthusiasm is actually contagious. He is a pleasure to work with." It seems that the enthusiasm and passion is not just an act (he is an actor after all) but just the way he is. Talking a bit about actually creating the animations she tells me that she was involved with setting up the rigs and and the skinning process at NEVERDIE studios but usually she gets involved after the riggers set up the models. She then analyzes the character and tries to find out what it should actually do and think of a way to make that work. After they figure out what the character should actually do (meaning what moves should it be able to make) she makes a test rig. Then after observing references, presumably from real like creatures etc, she gets to work using tools like Maya, 3ds Max, Softimage and helpful tools like Quicktime and After effects. > When I asked her what the most challenging animation is she did she answers that acting pieces are hardest. and as an example she gave me one she is particularly proud of, which is the Joker animation. I'm guessing what makes things like that difficult is the fact you actually have to match the movements with the words, meaning you have a lot less freedom then just random movements. > In many jobs and especially in creative ones, inspiration is very important and I was sure this was also the case with Eli and indeed it was so I asked what inspires her to do the thing that she does. As an animator obviously a lot of the 3D animated movies are a big inspiration for her and she says she is very inspired by the great work those artists and teams do. Below are a few of the videos she 'liked' on her Facebook page. One other thing that I noticed on her Facebook page was her taste in music, which ranges from classical to dance music like Afrojack and Armin van Buuren to even Metallica. Eli told me that music always make her being in a good mood, which I assume is a good frame of mind to do the work she does. Next to all that modern influence I guess most artists have some classical art they like and get inspired by as well and so does Eli. She told me that artists like Van Gogh, Salvador Dali among other classics are a big inspiration for her as well Paintings: 'Van Gogh - Starry Night' and 'Salvador Dalí - The Persistence of Memory' Something in her own words: "I love the animation world the 3d and the animal and creatures. My inspirations comes from life and people around me. Also the satisfaction at the end of being creating something that people likes and provide joy and entertainment to others." > > > http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/Elizabeth_De_la_O
For those of you that didn't notice, I changed the slider image for this interview, made a pretty bad typo in there :)
