Kenjutsu Lens | portfolio

The Kenjutsu Lens is a mobile lens that walks users through a series of kenjutsu katas while also passively teaching them Japanese. I developed this while at Snapchat to establish and validate a custom character creation pipeline. I worked on everything from concept art and rigging to mocap recording and game engine (Lens Studio) integration.

My Role

3D artist, mocap technician, engineer and designer

Tools

Maya, Substance Painter, Blender, Unreal Engine, Lens Studio, Vicon, Rokoko Studio

Timeline

~ 1 month

What I did:

Created the custom character from concept art to rigging
Used Vicon and Rokoko Studio to shoot mocap performance
Approved model topology and provided feedback when necessary
Created a procedural UE control rig asset that automatically spawns controllers in order to facilitate mocap cleanup within UE sequencer
Implemented art assets in Lens Studio and wrote behavior that drives animation and event transitions
Established and documented a custom character pipeline for future use at Snapchat

Python Face Retarget Script

I used the UE retargeter assets to transfer the body anims. For the face, I made a script to handle the blendshapes.

I recorded face capture using Rokoko.
Rokoko's exported model doesn't have joints for the jaw or eyes, while my character did.

So, in addition to connecting the blendshapes, it also keyed joint rotations based on the weight of the Rokoko eye and jaw blendshapes.

This script allowed me to quickly preview anims and export fbxs.