A grand battle is raging in space. Rebel soldiers are gathering to fight an invading race of xenophobic aliens bent on galactic domination. This war in space, cyberspace that is, unites players of the new massively multi-player online game, Tabula Rasa, in their quest to save the galaxy.
The highly anticipated game Tabula Rasa from Richard Garriott, creator of the legendary Ultima series, is the first game development project of Destination Games. It’s also the kind of game many animators dream about. Combining first-person shooter capabilities, and the social aspects of role-playing, Tabula Rasa is strange brew of extraordinary creatures, monsters, and even a giant snake-like plant complete with slithering tentacles and a razor sharp beak. In order to create characters that incite fear and awe in their enemies, and move with the agility of warriors, the creators of Tabula Rasa have compiled a team of animation professionals ready to take on the job.
Behind all of the action is Full Sail computer animation grad Kiel Figgins. His job as a creature animator for NC Soft's Austin, Texas branch allows him to get up close and personal with creatures you’d hope to never see in real life. “I came on as a part of their creature team, so I do animation, set up, rigging, skinning, scripting- all kinds of fun stuff,” he says. Kiel enjoys animating all of the unique characters in the game, but it’s Maw, that bizarre snakelike plant, that tops the list as his favorite. “That was the most fun to do,” Kiel explains. “It has six tentacle arms and a huge beak made out of bone. It traps characters with its roots and simply tears them up if they get too close.”
Its title meaning ‘blank slate’ in Latin, more and more new players are being drawn to Tabula Rasa, which has in-game characters that start off simple, then change, evolve, and become more complex as you progress through the story. Offering a lot of character variety is a huge selling point for gamers. It's also a lot more work for animators, which Kiel says that translates to more fun for him. “We have to animate a lot of variety,” he says. “We have a huge breadth of creatures that are pretty detailed and complex for games. Once we get the finer details animated, they really bring out the personality in a character and make them that much more believable and entertaining.”
Early on, the animation and cinematics of Aeon Flux, Jurassic Park, and Warcraft 2 inspired Kiel towards a career in computer animation. His passion and talent propelled him through Full Sail’s Computer Animation Degree Program, and even before his September 2004 graduation, his work was picked up on the radar of some very important people in the field of gaming animation.
TKO Software, a now defunct gaming company in Dallas, Texas, first noticed Kiel’s animation work on his personal website featured on the popular animation forum CG Talk. He jumped at the chance to work for TKO where he became an animator for their various console, PC, and hand held games. After TKO closed, Kiel’s website, now updated with more professional work, received attention once again. “After TKO I put some of my latest animations on CG Talk, [and] they made it on the front page and NC Soft found me from there.”
Now at NC Soft, Kiel says he has found a perfect balance in the flexible, character-driven world of online gaming. “I had always planned on initially going into games,” he says. “There’s so much you can do in terms of how many characters you get to animate, [and] how much difference there is between one to the next. In the past two and a half years, I’ve been able to animate characters from Ms. Pac-man to Leisure Suit Larry, and now the creatures in Tabula Rasa.”
While games remain his main focus, Kiel is also expanding his skills with a few animation projects for national television. Through various freelance opportunities with Shilo Design, a design boutique that focuses on motion graphics, Kiel has worked on commercials for Toyota Scion and the 100th Anniversary of Planters Peanuts.
Kiel says he eventually intends on applying his animation experience to cinematics, which has more of a focus on storytelling. But for now, Kiel is thrilled to be creating three-legged, fire spewing aliens. “I’m not the kind of person that likes to animate furry little creatures telling jokes,” he says. “I much prefer monsters, insects, and big guns. Just having the chance to bring these creatures to life and see them all come together in a final product is inspiring on a daily basis.”
