Formed by a team of animation advocates and industry veterans, with deep expertise and experiences in animation production as well as the resources and support from international experts at Virtuos, CounterPunch can custom our proprietary technology and pipeline blueprints to integrate and meet all client’s unique requirements with corresponding solutions, given it an in-house engine or a tailored process for a specific project.
BRINGING YOUR WORLDS INTO REALITY
Animation
You can totally trust us when it comes to Mo-Cap Clean-Up, Hand key, or a combination of both.
Facial Rigging
Whether it’s Joint Rigs, Blend Shape Rigs, or Real-Time Rigs, our team will be here so you can simply plug and play.
OUR PROJECTS
Servicing the CG Industry for almost a decade, our team has worked in all platforms — assisting with both pre-rendered and real-time. Our results are guaranteed and proven with our repeat clientele and references.
Life Rendered
Counter Punch was responsible for character and environment creation, rigging, layout, animation, final lighting, VFX and rendering for the computer graphics (CG) scenes in the Life Rendered Film. The director, Emma, and Virtuos teams used Unreal Engine for the visualization and development of the story, as well as the film’s production pipeline for CG scenes.
Barbie Vlogger – Never Too Young
With partners The Werkhowse and Halon Entertainment, CounterPunch Studios created and implemented a full production pipeline to bring the Barbie Vlogger Series for Mattel, from Script to Final Render in 15 days! We’ve since worked on several episodic series we can’t share yet. But give us a call and we’re happy to to plan out and execute a quick turnaround episodic pipeline for any style: photo-realistic, hyper realistic, stylized, and 2D shaded on 3D Assets.
Mafia 3
The CPS Team provided Cinematic Facial Animation from MOCAP solve through final polish to support our clients 2K Games. 2017 was the year that video game rigging was getting a major face lift all across the industry. With FACS based Blend Shape Rigs replacing Joint ONLY rigs, our team re-vamped our animation pipeline to incorporate the updated rigs and push the quality bar past what had previously been possible.
Call of Duty – Infinite Warfare
In order to comply with high security requirements, the CPS Animators who supported on facial animation for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, relocated to work from the Infinity Ward studios in Los Angeles for several months. An Animation Sup and several Lead Animators integrated with the Infinity Ward pipeline to process large volumes of data at record speeds. The team was able to plug in and out of the client’s pipeline where needed seamlessly.
Injustice 2
The CPS Team joined many other teams to support NetherRealm Studios with the gameplay intros, fatalities, and supermoves for the groundbreaking Injustice 2 video game. Taking gameplay animation to new heights, this project was groundbreaking for the Industry. CPS was responsible for the facial animation processing and polish (from MOCAP data to import into engine) for a large amount of the gameplay between the fighting characters. We also supported with some cinematic facial animation in a character heavy chapter.
Uncharted Lost Legacy
In order to comply with high security requirements, the CPS Animators who supported on both facial and body animation for Uncharted Lost Legacy, relocated to work from the Sony Interactive Entertainment studios in San Diego for several months. An Animation Sup and several Lead Animators went through training at SIE to utilize proprietary toolsets in-house with the SIE team combined with years of experience in cinematic game animation to achieve great results.
Evil within 2
For the Evil Within 2 video game, the CPS team was able to jump in and support our client Tango Gameworks from faceover capture to facial animation polish. We were involved in the casting process of the faceover actors, implantation of the MOCAP shoots and post processing, data processing, and final facial animation polish. Having the client in house from Japan for the MOCAP shoots and several of the initial and final reviews was extremely helpful in sync up and successful execution of an international partnership.
Halo Infinite
CounterPunch – A Virtuos Studio is honored to contribute to Halo Infinite, the latest installment of the Halo series, developing facial animation assets for the cinematics of the game in both campaign and multiplayer modes.
Mortal Kombat 11
The CPS Team was thrilled to jump on and support long time clients, Nether Realm Studios, on the legendary Mortal Kombat Series (MK 11). Critically acclaimed as “skull-shattering” and “eye-popping”, this project went beyond any limits we’ve ever pushed before with a client. The cinematic facial animation was fine tuned to feature quality by taking advantage of the synergy of the latest and greatest tech with expert artistic talents. The CPS animation team supported with facial processing and polish on several cinematic chapters, as well as a few victories, defeats, and supermoves. The final output of the animation in the game is spectacular!
JUST CAUSE 4
The CPS Team supported long time partners and friends Halon Entertainment with facial animation for the Just Cause 4 video game. The pipeline consisted of MOCAP solve and polish to pass back to Halon for final polish and integration with body animation. With the Video Game Industry constantly working toward more efficient pipelines, partnerships are key in thinking outside the box and getting project completed successfully!