Just a quick heads-up to anybody that may have missed this, but leading design company SoftImage have produced a rather comprehensive article on the animation procedures utilised in Kojima’s epic Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
Available here, the guide runs through the complete process of animating Snake for the PlayStation 3, beginning at the storybook phase before moving onto the complexity of facial animation, normal mapping, cluster constraints and other technical jargon that’ll only make sense when illustrated with lots of high-resolution renders.
It’s a fantastically compelling read, so make yourselves comfy.