Chris Myers

Animation Director

818.257.2956 / stuff@chrismyers3d.com / www.chrismyers3d.com


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PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Animation Director: Dune, Funcom, Raleigh, NC, Jan 2020 – Present

  • Animation Director leading the Dune animation teams at all 3 of our Funcom studios – North Carolina, Oslo Norway and Lisbon Portugal.
  • Developed workflows and strategies to keep the team unified and integrated at all three locations.
  • Experience working with cultures from around the world and providing a healthy work/life balance.
  • Provide monthly 1-on-1s with the team to check in on their overall quality of life and/or concerns.
  • Run yearly performance reviews and discuss career paths and development.
  • Member of the core hiring team responsible for hiring multi-disciplinary applicants for all studios.
  • Directed our Technical Animator’s proprietary tools for Maya and MotionBuilder that created our core animation pipeline.
  • Developed a proprietary weapon pipeline that allows animators to share animations based on a weapon class as opposed to creating unique animations for every asset.
  • Currently working with Animation Programmers and Senior Animators to take Funcom’s Unreal pipeline and workflow into the future with next generation AAA assets.
  • Directing motion capture shoots with talent on site and over video.
  • Lead our animation team in developing our 5 tier animation definitions. These guidelines describe what stage an animation is in and at what stages it needs to be approved.
  • Pitched the animation aesthetic and created an Animation Style Video that showcased the style of animation we are using in Dune.
  • Critique and final approval of all animations.
  • Creating animations for characters and creatures using hand key animation and motion capture.

Lead Animator: Codename Mallard, Funcom, Raleigh, NC, March 2018 – Jan 2020

  • Lead the animation team at two different Funcom studios – North Carolina and Lisbon Portugal.
  • Organized and planned the entire animation pipeline. This included leading animators, Technical Animators and Technical artists on the creation of our proprietary tools to support our pipeline.
  • Developed and documented our workflow of getting animation from 3DS Max to Unreal. Taught and documented setting up our basic animation pipeline in Unreal – Blend Spaces, State Machines, Animation Graphs, Event Graphs, Animation Montages, Slote Nodes, Casting Nodes.
  • Established the animation aesthetic and created an Animation Style Video that showcased good and bad examples of what our animation style goals were in the game.
  • Critiqued all animators work on all aspects of animation and had final approval.
  • Gave animation estimates for myself and the team and planned out the animation schedule from two-week sprints to long term goals.
  • Certified Scrum Master Class in 2019.
  • Worked with outsourcing studios on their animation goals and critiqued their animations.

Senior Animator: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), Infinite Warfare (2016) Infinity Ward, Woodland Hills, CA, Sept. 2014 – March 2018

  • Point Animator for human based A.I. systems.
  • Played a major role i n the complete re-working of the A.I. system which consisted of replacing all current A.I. and also creating an entire second system for frantic combat.
  • Evaluated and organized all existing Call of Duty A.I. animations to determine a full comprehensive guide that was used as our A.I. Animation Bible for the project.
  • Renamed the entire A.I. system so every animation had a consistent and descriptive name.
  • Helped to develop the new A.I. poses and was Technical Director on motion capture shoots to ensure the new poses were correct and motions were consistent to replace previous animations.
  • Manipulated motion capture footage for thousands of A.I. animations and helped to determine scheduling for the A.I. animation team. Placed animations into our proprietary Animation State Machine and script files.
  • Part of a two-person team that created the Call of Duty Dynamic Pain System.
  • Point Animator for the Winners Circle Animations that play after multiplayer matches.
  • Directed the motion capture shoots for all Winners Circle animations and scheduled other animators as needed. Was responsible for making sure all animations were delivered on time.

Animator: Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (2014), Call of Duty: Ghosts (2013) Neversoft, Woodland Hills, CA, Sept. 2010 – March 2013

  • Manipulated motion capture footage for cinematic and in-game moments.
  • Created hand key facial animation and manipulated performance capture footage to bring the facial animation to final.
  • Key framed animations for numerous quadruped alien types, props and FX.

Animator: Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (2010), Guitar Hero: 5 (2009), Band Hero (2009), Guitar Hero: Metallica (2009), Guitar Hero World Tour (2008)

Neversoft, Woodland Hills, CA, April. 2008 – Sept. 2010

  • Created key frame animation and worked with motion capture data on in-game and cinematics.
  • Helped to develop the unique motion of Ampzilla (50 Foot Monster Robot!) and used motion capture and key frame animation to bring this character to life.
  • Responsible for updating the Guitar Hero “drumbot” animation system with limited resources.
  • Worked directly with drummer Lars Ulrich of Metallica in motion capture shoots and manipulated this footage for full motion capture songs and helped create a Lars “Drumbot” animation system.

SOFTWARE

Maya, MotionBuilder, 3ds Max, Rayfire, After Effects, Premier, S yncsketch, S lick Edit, Photoshop, Perforce, Jira, Confluence

EDUCATION

Master of Fine Arts i n Animation, Dec. 2007. Savannah College of Art and Design

Bachelor of Fine Arts i n Communication Design, May 1999. Art Academy of Cincinnati