TAYLOR PATE
Technical Animator
Roles and Responsibilities
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Concepted, modeled, and textured The Curator
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Rigged and animated player character's gauntlet
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Modeled and textured clutter items, such as the magazines and chairs
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Designed gallery logo
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Stitched together modular environment pieces
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Voiced SHI, the facility AI
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Modeled, rigged, and animated shark Easter egg
Game Information
Title - Gravitas
Studio - Space Shark Studios (13 developers)
Engine - Unreal 4
Made in 21 weeks - Shipped December 2015
24 work hours per week
Greenlit on Steam in May, 2016
Post-Mortem
What Went Well
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Once we established an art direction, we were able to make assets quickly.
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Also once the art direction clicked, it wasn't too difficult to make pieces that were consistent with each other.
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After realizing that there needed to be more communication between departments, the team started making a conscious effort to talk to each other. There was a noticable improvement.
What Went Wrong
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The team went through three different game concepts on the way to Gravitas. This severely cut into our pre-production time.
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Due to changing the game multiple times, the artists had almost no concept art for the game we decided on.
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There wasn't always good communication between departments early in the project.
What I Learned
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A design doesn't have to be complicated to be effective.
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If you're going to have a clean, uniform environment, try to build things with stitching in mind.
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People are really willing to sneak sharks into games.
Individual Assets
The Curator is easily the most recognizable thing that I made for Gravitas. The main challenge in making him was trying to give him personality while retaining the cube shape necessary for him to fit in with the gallery setting.
Originally he had a small projector, which he would use to show things to the player. While this idea didn't make it into the final game, the projector mesh is still part of his model. Instead, it's utilized as a sort of flashlight.
His speakers pop out whenever he speaks, and they have a limited range of motion which he can use to emphasize whatever he's feeling.
 Main Menu |  Hallway Between Levels |  Level 1 |
|---|---|---|
 Level 3 Area 2 |  The Gauntlet |  Level 2 |
 Level 2 Upper Platform |  Level 3 Area 2 |  Robot Close-Up |
 Intro Sequence |  Level 4 |  Level 6 Area 2 |
 Level 3 Area 3 |  The Wreck-A-Hedron |  Magazines |
Gravitas Trailer
The gauntlet rig is just a standard CAT rig. It has animations for raising, lowering, shooting, and an idle.
In order to save time, we took an arm off a model we already had and applied a deformer in order to make it larger.
 Magazine Front |  Magazine Back |  Table Mesh |
|---|---|---|
 Table In-Game |  Box Dispenser |  Box Dispenser In-Game |
 Button Mesh |  Button In-Game |  Bench Mesh |
 Bench In-Game |  Door Mesh |  Door In-Game |
 Door Animation |  Skydome Texture |
Some of the assets I made for Gravitas. The magazines would go on to become the basis for the game case insert.
The button has multiple versions that the player can find throughout the gallery. The most common version is the button to activate a box dispenser, seen at the far right.
The shark was really meant to be a surprise, but the team liked it so much that there's five you can find in the game. He has a pretty simple model, since he was only going to be seen from far away. His rig is just a bone chain, and the only animation that he has is a looping back and forth swing, to simulate swimming.
