The Golden Compass - Cinematic Artist - Shiny Ent. (2007)

One of the better examples of the auto-generated facial animations.

I helped lead a small team in creating all the in-game cutscenes for The Golden Compass, a game based on a movie based on a book. It was a much more manual process than in previous projects and relied entirely on tech / scripting instead of motion capture and animation.

While there were custom animations made for key scenes,the cutscenes were mainly stitched together from general animations and assets. This, on top of being built in a propriety Shiny engine, led to a stiff and unpolished feeling product. Reviews for the game agree. 

It's when you get into the wonk that you really can appreciate the technical victories here. All the characters had a "spirit" animal with them, that had to be linked up to their host. They would often interact with each other, needing further linking. Add a procedural-driven facial rig on top of that, and you had links upon links upon links. 

Lastly, this was released across 6 platforms, including PS2, PS3, and PSP, simultaneously through 1 tool-set. Again, this was a technically amazing achievement lost on the average consumer. In the end, that's what really matters. 

One of the technical hurdles: linked animations. The grappling scene was very intimate, and included a prop.

A great example of a very technical scene. Linked characters, animation swaps, very targeted pathing that the camera had to follow. 2 characters grappling, while interacting with a prop. All of which had to be framed with long, active camera shots.