Web3 App (Status Unknown)

Context:
The company was primarily focused on mobile games until pivoting towards a story-driven game involving NFTs. This required a complete overhaul of the pipeline and tools.

Key Challenges:

  • Exploring AI technology for efficiency in art production.
  • Adapting new software for animation beyond Adobe Flash/Animate.
  • Implementing new tools (Spine) into existing workflows.
  • Creating a scalable and efficient art pipeline for thousands of NFT variations.
  • Managing and coordinating outsourcing teams to handle the vast volume of assets.

AI-Assisted Background Art Production

Challenges:

  • Finding a fast and consistent way to produce background art in various styles for different NFT communities.
  • Produce background with a similar perspective for character environments.

Solution:

  • Leveraged AI tools like Midjourney, DALL·E, and Stable Diffusion to generate backgrounds, optimizing settings for stylistic consistency.

My Role:

  • Partnered experimentation with AI tools, using Comfy UI and Stable Diffusion’s API for advanced control over outputs.
  • Tested different existing models and further training them with final examples of cartoon style, line quality, object clarity, colors, and more.
  • Prompt fine tuning with the ability to only change locale in script to produce consistent style output.
  • Ensure consistent perspective control using depth maps.
  • Oversaw the production of hundreds of backgrounds, integrating manual adjustments to ensure final quality. (Ones shown are those I’ve generated and manually adjusted for final.)

Outcome:

  • AI-assisted workflow increased production speed, maintaining consistent style across a large volume of backgrounds with reduced manual effort.

Software Transition & Adoption

Challenge:

  • Adobe Flash/Animate was becoming outdated, lacking advanced tools for complex animations.

Solution:

  • Researched new software options, identifying Esoteric Spine as the ideal tool due to its mesh capabilities and continuous updates.

My Role:

  • While on maternity leave, I learned and mastered Spine.
  • Pitched the software change to the studio and demonstrated its potential.
  • Developed initial rigs and provided guidance for animators and artists to learn the new software.

Outcome:

  • The studio adopted Spine, improving animation flexibility and efficiency in creating reusable rigs for NFT characters.

Pipeline Optimization for NFT Art

Challenge:

  • NFT projects often require thousands of unique asset combinations, which necessitates a highly organized and scalable production pipeline. Each community has a unique style and requires full body animated versions that are customizable to support all the combinations.

Solution:

  • Reorganized the art pipeline to support mass creation of customizable avatars and NFT assets.

My Role:

  • Led the development of initial Spine rigs for character animation.
  • Mentored existing and new team members in the use of Spine and how to produce assets that will work with reusable rigs.
  • Collaborated with engineers to ensure smooth implementation of Spine files into the PixiJS engine, sharing workarounds for its limitations.
  • Feedback on assets, rigs, animation, backgrounds, game cameras, AI needs, and beyond.
  • Pitching expansions, adjustments, or fixes to internal dev tools used by the art team including avatar system and animated background setup.
  • Production of assets, animations, animated effects, backgrounds, internal tool use, and beyond. I feel it is imperative that a leader can do the work of their team to understand pain points, scheduling, assisting, and mentoring.

Outcome:

  • Streamlined production allowed for scalable asset creation while maintaining animation quality.

Outsourcing Management

Challenge:

  • The sheer volume of assets needed for NFT collections required additional external resources. Each resource needed to mimic unique styles and understand the complexity of customized avatar asset creation.

Solution:

  • Recruited and onboarded outsourcing studios tailored to each NFT community’s unique style.

My Role:

  • Conducted assessments and provided feedback on tests for onboarding outsourcing teams.
  • Produced videos to explain necessary details about asset needs and how our scripted export files in photoshop work.
  • Provided detailed feedback and guidance, ensuring that all assets fit into the Spine rig setup and adhered to quality standards.
    • Animated effects were kept in-house.
    • Detailed/complicated characters such as the Mega Mutant Apes, were roughed out for outsourcing to cleanup.
  • Managed a team responsible for overseeing the outsourcing process and maintained communication for daily feedback.
  • Created initial photoshop templates with full organization to work with automatic script exporting.
  • Working out estimated costs, negotiations, and weekly meeting check-ins.

Outcome:

  • Successfully coordinated high-quality asset production while meeting tight deadlines.