About Rupert
Rupert Morris is a Senior Technical Artist in Halifax, Nova Scotia's video games industry. He has worked on numerous published titles over the last 15 years, ranging from AAA to casual to mid-core games, on console, PC, Android and iOS platforms.
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Originally from Vancouver, Rupert founded and worked at Whitebox Interactive, making a multiplayer battle arena based on Warhammer 40,000 characters and lore. Prior to that he was an artist with Electronic Arts in downtown Vancouver.
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Both a teacher, and forever a student, Rupert is known for incredibly high quality and equally astounding speed. Teaching others 3D graphics is his passion, and he's been fortunate enough to travel the world pursuing that passion.
Rupert is well known in Vancouver, having taught for several years at Vancouver Film School (VFS), VanArts, VCAD, and BCIT in their various Game Design, 3D, Animation and Visual Effects programs. He also lived and taught 3D in India for several years, having travelled between a number of tech hub cities (Ahmedabad, Pune, Hyderabad, Delhi etc).
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Rupert's strengths range from human anatomy and rapid sculpting in ZBrush to writing CG/HLSL graphics shaders for Unity and Unreal.
Modeling Texturing Lighting
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Technical Arts
Rigging
I've made countless easy-to-use but sophisticated rigs, from talking human faces to fish.
The spider tank (my design) rig animates itself when moved, removing the need to animate 8 legs over and over. The antenna is dynamic and whips and bends during playback.
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Gundam (my design) has various flaps and ailerons that can be controlled through one controller.
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The fish has a random seed per fish, which makes multiple identical fish have different intervals for breathing, eye movement, swim. The fins are cloth simulation for fluidity.
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The turtle and boy are from my student demo reel. The turtle animates itself (blinking, breathing, swimming).
VFX
I personally made a number of effects and particles in Mighty Battles (iOS/Android), including the decline and destruction of the 'Chompy Doors' Base at either end of the play area. The player's base eventually explodes on defeat by another player.
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Animations, baked physics simulations, particle emission and material lerping are all in use.
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I also made the snow on this level, which has sparkly glints and fake-Sub-Surface-Scattering.
For the cards in Mighty Battles, we created parallax scenes inside the card. The were made from 2.5D geometry with baked-lighting textures, flow maps, emissive materials and noise shaders to create a unique feel and show off the abilities of each card.
Particles
Zombie Beach Party (iOS/Android)
To make a fun death experience, when a player walks their conga line into an obstacle and dies, they set off a chain reaction of bursting exploding zombies flinging giblets all around. Some giblets bounce wetly on the ground.
Zombie bursting is hooked up to haptics on the phone, to make the experience more visceral.
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Pacing of the bursting is fast enough that it doesn't bore the player or impede continuing the game.
ShaderS
I've written many custom shaders to accomplish: refraction, noise blending, cartoon-style strokes, vertex animation, high performance on mobile, "Rolling World" effect, and many other use cases.
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"...Exceptional attention to detail, and an experienced eye for art and realism."
"...A real pleasure to work with."
"Seeing Rupert lead his team of artists was amazing..."
