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Tal Peleg, Senior Cinematic Animator from Naughty Dog joins Bioware

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According to shinobi, he's working on Andromeda before going to work on a New IP at Bioware Austin.

shinobi602 said:
So a little bit of cool news I wanted to share since he can now say it publically, a good friend of mine at Naughty Dog who's been the senior cinematics animator there for the last 5+ years is heading over to BioWare (Austin to be precise) to work on some great things but before that will be working on Andromeda. He's responsible for a lot of sweet stuff in The Last of Us and Uncharted 4.

And this little gem lol:

amcvholkwbcguuxpflo9.gif


Look him up when you get the chance: @the_ur_quan
Click to expand...

Slightly more official sources, https://twitter.com/The_Ur_Quan/status/704470452085731330?ref_src=twsrc^tfw
http://wccftech.com/uncharted-4-cinematic-animator-joins-mass-effect-andromeda-developer-bioware/
 
Before anyone gets excited, it's the Austin branch that handles SWTOR, not the Edmonton branch that handles Mass Effect.

Edit:

I'm an idiot and didn't read the post about Andromeda.
 
TheChaos said:
Before anyone gets excited, it's the Austin branch that handles SWTOR, not the Edmonton branch that handles Mass Effect.
Click to expand...

He is, however, working on Mass Effect and then apparently not on SWTOR according to shinobi so get excited.
 
Bioware just got a great animator. Message from Tal.

Hey everyone,

Many of you already knew it, but I thought I'd open it up to everyone: End of today, I'll be bowing out and officially bid farewell to my awesome friends & colleagues at Naughty Dog. As we're wrapping up Uncharted 4, I can safely tell the fans will be in for a treat.

Over five years ago I joined Naughty Dog on The Last Of Us. Throughout the years, I had the great honor of closely collaborating with and learning from many different talents on multiple prestigious projects. My experience at Naughty Dog had greatly reshaped me as a professional as well as a person, ultimately leading me to spearhead & collaborate with a handful of top-notch artists on a couple of personal CG short films (Dante's Redemption).

Naturally, it was time to stretch the legs and spread the wings to begin writing a new chapter.

I am grateful for the unique opportunity to be a part of Naughty Dog's mega hits. I am truly thankful for the invaluable journey, the folks I've come to work with & befriend.
I am thrilled to join BioWare Austin for an exciting new adventure that will bring a breath of new challenges and responsibilities, which I really look forward to diving into head on. The awesome folks at all of the BioWare studios have been exceptionally welcoming, and so I’d like to personally thank them for offering me a spot to help propel BioWare’s remarkable work to all new heights.

And lastly, Dante's Redemption: Act I will resume its advanced stages of production in March to see the light in the end of the year.

-Tal
Click to expand...
 
I hope they will be able to at least match The Witcher 3 in cutscenes. One thing I really appreciated about that game was every NPC/quest had cutscenes.
 
This is just speculation on my part and I may be way off base, but I have to wonder if Naughty Dog shifting to capturing the faces of the actors as part of the mo-cap performance had some part in this. The animators at Naughty Dog traditionally hand-keyed the animation in their games. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was the first Naughty Dog game to utilize mo-cap, a fact that many animators resented (some quit). However, the faces of the characters had still been wholly animated by the animators. With Uncharted 4, the faces are now part of the capture process. If that was one factor for Tal leaving, I would fully understand it. He loves his craft, and if Naughty Dog is moving more towards total mo-cap, I understand why an animator would want to find a way to continue their talents elsewhere.

That spoof of the Jack Nicholson gif above is an example of what Tal can do using key-frame animation.
 
Robdraggoo said:
Thier all abandoning ship.

Edit: oh, going TO bioware. Read that wrong
Click to expand...

EdReedFan20 said:
This is just speculation on my part and I may be way off base, but I have to wonder if Naughty Dog shifting to capturing the faces of the actors as part of the mo-cap performance had some part in this. The animators at Naughty Dog traditionally hand-keyed the animation Naughty Dog's games. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was the first Naughty Dog game to utilize mo-cap, a fact that many animators resented (some quit). However, the faces of the characters had still been wholly animated by the animators. With Uncharted 4, the faces are now part of the capture process. If that was one factor for Tal leaving, I would fully understand it. He loves his craft, and if Naughty Dog is moving more towards total mo-cap, I understand why an animator would want to find a way to continue their talents elsewhere.

That spoof of the Jack Nicholson gif above is an example of what Tal can do using key-frame animation.
Click to expand...

Perhaps. I wonder things are going to work out with CaC faces.
 
Some of the stuff he did on TLOU

https://vimeo.com/69865633

Dictator93 said:
I think you would have to be insane to hand key frame animate the hours of cutscenes with the complexity of modern facial models, and in the end it would just look worse than modern captures. I think you may be reading into his departure a bit too much.

That and I think the next ME will use facial captures.
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Yeah, sounds like he just wanted a change.
 
EdReedFan20 said:
This is just speculation on my part and I may be way off base, but I have to wonder if Naughty Dog shifting to capturing the faces of the actors as part of the mo-cap performance had some part in this. The animators at Naughty Dog traditionally hand-keyed the animation in their games. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was the first Naughty Dog game to utilize mo-cap, a fact that many animators resented (some quit). However, the faces of the characters had still been wholly animated by the animators. With Uncharted 4, the faces are now part of the capture process. If that was one factor for Tal leaving, I would fully understand it. He loves his craft, and if Naughty Dog is moving more towards total mo-cap, I understand why an animator would want to find a way to continue their talents elsewhere.

That spoof of the Jack Nicholson gif above is an example of what Tal can do using key-frame animation.
Click to expand...
I think you would have to be insane to hand key frame animate the hours of cutscenes with the complexity of modern facial models, and in the end it would just look worse than modern captures. I think you may be reading into his departure a bit too much.

That and I think the next ME will use facial captures.
 
ND animators are frequently some of the best in the business and Bioware needs help on the animation front. I really look forward to seeing what he does there. ND and Bioware are my two favorite studios so there's nothing sad about this for me.
 
Dictator93 said:
I think you would have to be insane to hand key frame animate the hours of cutscenes with the complexity of modern facial models, and in the end it would just look worse than modern captures. I think you may be reading into his departure a bit too much.

That and I think the next ME will use facial captures.
Click to expand...

That's how Naughty Dog did it until now. They never captured any of the faces. You can see their process during Grounded: The Making of the Last of Us. I'll see if I can find it.

Edit- https://youtu.be/yH5MgEbBOps?t=36m38s

That process has been made less important now that the faces are actually captured (I think they will still use some hand-key animation to augment the mo-capped facial captures).
 
EdReedFan20 said:
That's how Naughty Dog did it until now. They never captured any of the faces. You can see their process during Grounded: The Making of the Last of Us. I'll see if I can find it.

Edit- https://youtu.be/yH5MgEbBOps?t=36m38s

That process has been made less important now that the faces are actually captured (I think they will still use some hand-key animation to augment the mo-capped facial captures).
Click to expand...
This, I know.
Take note of my usage of the word "modern" facial rig. I am referencing the fact that the models and animation points for things like Nate in UC4 are much more complex than those used in TLOU where the afforementioned key framing was more viable.

I am really not sure where key frame animation of an entire performance has its place anymore with complex and eralistic human characters. It probably can only realistically be done for things like Ratchet and Clank these days. Where realism is forgone (and therefore the expectations of the view along with it) so style can take over.
 
EdReedFan20 said:
This is just speculation on my part and I may be way off base, but I have to wonder if Naughty Dog shifting to capturing the faces of the actors as part of the mo-cap performance had some part in this. The animators at Naughty Dog traditionally hand-keyed the animation in their games. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was the first Naughty Dog game to utilize mo-cap, a fact that many animators resented (some quit). However, the faces of the characters had still been wholly animated by the animators. With Uncharted 4, the faces are now part of the capture process. If that was one factor for Tal leaving, I would fully understand it. He loves his craft, and if Naughty Dog is moving more towards total mo-cap, I understand why an animator would want to find a way to continue their talents elsewhere.

That spoof of the Jack Nicholson gif above is an example of what Tal can do using key-frame animation.
Click to expand...

I know back in uncharted 2 all facial animation was done at an outside studio (technicolor), I have two coworkers who worked on it. On topic: You can't just mocap a face and call it a day as much as Andy Serkis would like you to believe. There is a LOT of keyframe massaging and brand new keyframe animation on top to make it look good.
 
These ME gifs are /killing/ me.

Bioware managed to snag a great animator. Wishing him all the best on his future projects!
Andromeda hyppppeeeee!
 
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