LUCIE ROBERTS

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Sokoban

Thekla Inc. (Aug 2023 - July 2024)

Senior Animator

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Character Animation, Creature Animation, Gameplay Animation, Designer and Engineer Collaboration, Text-based Animation Graph Work

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Software: Maya, Jai

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​In 2024, I joined Thekla Inc as the lead animator for "Sokoban," an upcoming AAA puzzle game set to become the largest in its genre. As the sole animator, I designed and polished gameplay character animations for a large cast, ensuring high-quality and immersive experiences. I was responsible for creating and refining character movesets to meet shipping standards and enhancing the game's environmental realism through life-in-the-world animations. I learned and implemented animations using a proprietary text-based system, working closely with the Thekla team to elevate the game's overall visual and experiential quality. It was a great pleasure working with the Thekla team to improve the look and feel of the gameplay.

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Unannounced project

PixelOpus/PlayStation (2019-2023)

Senior Artist/Animator

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Character Animation, Creature Animation, Gameplay Animation, Animation Previs, Visual Development, Concept Art, Animator Outsource Management/Feedback/Direction, Gameplay Previs, Designer and Engineer Collaboration, Gameplay Brainstorming

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Software: Maya, UE5, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere

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On this project I became a senior animator, and I focused my efforts on creating appealing protagonists and fearsome enemies. I aided design by animating pre-visualizations for gameplay scenarios, and I aided our modelers and riggers by focusing on character personality with drawovers, tests, and expression sheets.

I animated our protagonists' moveset in maya and submitted fbxs in UE5, helping to construct blend-spaces and to identify animation implementation bugs, as well as identifying fixes for timing and posing improvements.

I directed outsource animators to make creature animations, reviewing their work and offering feedback; I also helped relay notes from our directors to our outsource animators.

I animated custom narrative moments for look-dev tests and always pushed to make the characters more appealing and unique. To this end I also pushed personality with character illustrations, expression sheets, and draw-overs. I especially loved working with our rigging TDs to make the characters more expressive.
 

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"Concrete Genie"

PixelOpus/PlayStation (2014-2019)

Released on PS4 and PS5

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Character Animation, Creature Animation, Cinematic Animation, Gameplay Animation, Visual Development, Concept Art, Character Designer, Gameplay Previs, Story boarding, UE4 Sequencer Cinematic Artist, Outsourcing Animation Management/Feedback, Designer and Engineer Collaboration, Gameplay Brainstorming, Narrative Brainstorming, 2-d facial animator

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Software: Maya, UE4, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere​

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On this project I had the opportunity to work as a vis dev artist as well as one of the primary animators and storyboarders on our team.

I had the pleasure of visually designing our main character, a young hero with long legs and a full platforming moveset. I worked up the character with paint overs and drawings I provided to our modelers, and I pushed to give our character more appeal and style. I updated the rig using Unreal's animation toolkit, and we always pushed to make him more admirable and athletic.

I was in the wonderful position to animate the character I designed, and with a handful of other animators we created a full platforming moveset and over 45 minutes of cutscene animation.

For these cutscenes I was one of two storyboarders. We began our process by drawing in photoshop, timing out those boards and importing them into UE4 (for narrative time-check). We then created three-dimensional layouts for our animators to work in. I animated a good chunk of the cutscenes myself in maya, and then I implemented them into Unreal Sequencer. I had the opportunity to light many of these cutscenes myself as well, and to control camera animation, zoom, and focus. It was a real pleasure to handle the cutscenes from start to finish.

I also lead by animating all of the facial animation of our protagonist and side-characters (excluding monsters and genies). We came up with a unique look by projecting 2d faces onto 3d characters, which enabled our small team to get the job done. I also created the phoneme paintings that our characters used to speak. All of this I did in photoshop. I and the other lead animator also worked with audio to get all the dialogue working correctly in the game.

I also animated much of the monster animation in this game, which was often technical and quadrupedal. The human antagonists were also fun to animate for gameplay as well as for cinematics.

It was such a joy to help create the characters in this game.
 

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"Entwined"

PixelOpus/PlayStation (2013-2014)

Released on PS3, PS4 and mobile

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Animator, Cinematic Storyboarder, Tunnel Builder, Visual Development, Cinematic Videos

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Software: Maya, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere

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On this project I contributed in a variety of ways: I was a primary animator for our three main characters, as well as a storyboard artist and cinematic animator. I also got to dabble in level construction and visual design.

I drew cinematic storyboards with pencil on paper, which I painted up in photoshop. I and another animator then animated the 3d characters, which we rendered out and placed on 2d photoshop painted backgrounds in Adobe After Effects. We then painted VFX frames by-hand in photoshop, and placed them in the After Effects scene. The result was an artistic and abstract intro cinematic, which matched the tone and feel of the game.

I did in-game animation for our characters as well, especially the bird character and the dragon. I and the other animator got them to fly in-sync and look playful and beautiful as they moved through the world.

On this small team, I also painted some of the 2-d image backgrounds that became tunnels that our characters progressed through. We tried to emphasize parallax movement between planes.

I also developed illustrations of our main characters using photoshop, which we used for promotions and in-game prizes.