#two months of modelling two weeks of texturing two months of rigging and now he's HERE and ANIMATABLE

[cancan-jpg]

Assignment work!* When rigging characters for animation, the final step is the "range of motion test" - an animation designed to show users of the rig what it's capable of, and also designed to help YOU (the rigging artist) check if any motions deform your rig badly.

anyway check out my boy absolutely shMOVIN'

(*between design, modelling, texturing and rigging, this is the culmination of four assignments actually)

[hcpeisms]

trigger warnings: suicide, war, violence, death, strong feelings about war in general, ptsd (if you squint), horrible things. long post!

This uniform.

That is the only thought running through his head. This uniform.

He wore this uniform for five years. The insignia on the sleeve is worn from the countless battles it had seen. The fabric is torn in places, faded with time, faded from the sun and the sand whipping around it when he dove for cover, when he crawled to help his friends, when he was trying to survive.

There are patches that he had stitched together, his fingers absentmindedly caressing the spot near his wrist, the left one, close to the old scar now covered by a tattoo. ‘Give ‘em Hell’ peeks from under the sleeve and Dane pulls it further to cover up the words. This uniform.

It still holds the heat from the battlefields, somehow pulling his conscious back to his time overseas. The sand itches, paranoia gives him an image of a scorpion crawling up his leg. He brushes the thoughts off, reminding himself where he is. The light yellow of the walls , the chatter that comes from the hall behind the curtains. The curtains; sleek and pristine, polar opposite of himself and his assemble. He doesn’t feel the heaviness of his rifle in his hands, but that weight had shifted onto his shoulders a long time ago. The tattoo threatens to peek from under his clothing again and he resolves to pull it more violently. Loose threads from the stitches catch his attention and his fidgets. This uniform. It’s falling apart. Serves it right, just like it served its wearer a long time ago.

Eight years ago he had worn the fatigues with pride. In some sense, he still did. When his eyes met the camouflage in the mirror, he swore his posture straightened and the confidence that had shone from his face withered away. This uniform. It was nothing but  bad memory now, the stitches, the tears, the faded texture, the stubborn bloodstains still clinging to it, the stains he tried so hard to wash away over and over and over again when he had been sent home. A bad memory. A reminder.

A loud voice snaps him back from his memories and a portly man approaches him from the small gap in the curtains. His fingers twitch to salute his superior, but he is no soldier anymore. A balled fist is what the man sees, and the disapproving glare that is sent his way could not be more obvious. “Second Lieutenant Moreno --” He begins and Dane wants to snap at him, hiss that he doesn’t use that title any longer. But his jaw is clenched shut and his lungs are burning for air as the General stares him down. Small, beady eyes. Looks like a rat, that’s what Dane knows for sure. The man with a condescending sneer, coals burning in his eyes as he tries not to talk down to the young LT.

“If your father---” The man begins and Dane growl. His brows crease and a wave of heat runs through his body, seizing up his muscles and throwing his stomach into a whirl. Bile rises to his mouth as he returns a warning glare at the superior officer, and he quiets down before making the biggest mistake of his life. A glare is held for a few moment more and Dane feels his jaw aching against the grit it is under. The General scoffs and pushes past Dane who in turn does nothing. Eyes set on the curtain. Inanimate. Pristine. His father would be disappointed in him, were he alive. The thoughts are overwhelming when they are brought up. His father. Dane shakes his head and tries to coax his muscles to relax -- pain is starting to set in and stars dance across his vision. And that fucking tattoo. Another yank at the sleeve covers it well enough.

His name is called.

 “Next up, give a big welcome to Second Lieutenant Daniel Patrick Moreno, a man known for --” the woman has a shrill voice and Dane steps through the curtain before she has time to continue. He doesn’t need his platoon called out, he doesn’t need her to tell them where he has been, for how long, or why. The microphone is quickly snatched from her hands and she reels, but joins the polite applause that fill the room, the noise that bounces off the walls. The noise slowly fades off into silence and Dane puts the mic back in its slot on the podium. The lights are bright enough for him to avoid seeing the eyes boring into him, the reporters impatiently clicking on their notepads, or his old friends that might’ve showed up.

The silence lasts, lasts, longer than he realizes. Anxiety isn’t something Dane experienced before, or had trouble with in the past. Not on the battlefield, not for months after he returned home. Bouts of nightmares weren’t unusual. Neither were the panicked gasps he sometimes noticed himself take when the war was on the news.

“You heard my name. I’m not going to repeat it.”

Strong start. Murmurs erupt in the hall, irritating his ears.

“You should ll know, I have not used my rank in eight years. I am not in charge of any platoons. I am not a soldier anymore.”

More murmurs, someone asks a confused ‘what’ somewhere to his left. Confusion. Perfect.

He waits for them to quiet down. He hears his own breathing in his ears. The rush of blood.

“I was invited here because my father was ranking high in our army, and I’m the closest they could get to him. So I'm taking this opportunity to clear this mess out of my head, to clear this blood out of my lungs.” For how long had he kept quiet about those days, about the hell that he went through, what all of them went through? When it was all on his shoulders. Lieutenant... What a fucking joke.

“I need to dig holes to bury the dead.” A chuckle. Pained, silent, but it echoes in the large hall.

He thinks about Jefferson, Espinoza, Miller... Toby. He thinks of his dad. He thinks of the hundreds of faces he knows but doesn’t have a name for. He thinks of the men and women he has seen on the news. He thinks of those who returned home, and those who did not. He thinks of himself. Which one is he?

“Look at all of you here.” He straightens up. The memories are bad, simmering just beneath the surface of a man whose ego is barely intact. A man who shields, deflects with arrogance. “You haven’t seen battle.” Someone to his right murmurs about reporting from a crime scene once. He wants to scoff. Grab the murmurer by the throat and smash their head against the wall until there is nothing but a bloody mess left. No, enough blood. Enough.

“I'm so fuckin' sick of everyone's lack of honor,” The mic still catches his voice. The mumbling has stopped. No one is writing. His head swirls with everything he wants to yell at these people. The ones who put words to a paper, claiming to bring justice to the horrors their soldiers face abroad.

“I'm so sick of everyone's willingness to settle,” He knows his words are coming out choppy. Hurt. Anger mingling with fear and disbelief. They brought him here to praise the press. But they aren’t pulling him back.

“Tell me, why is no one prepared to die, for anything?”  His voice rises and he hears his own words round back to him, reaching every nook and crevice in the room, the frustration dripping into his every word. Jefferson. Damn idiot, fearless and dangerous, the king of the weaponry. He could talk for hours about the guns at their disposal, spend more hours cleaning them. He died trying to shield his teammates from the bomb intended to kill all of them. He saved his squad. He was buried a hero.

“Look at yourself in the mirror and tell me what a man is without pride,” His voice trembles and he can feel his hands shaking as he places them on the edge of the podium. Espinoza. She came from a family of soldiers, the only girl in the litter of eight brothers. Told she would never become anything akin to her siblings. Bashful grin on her face as she straightened her fatigues, pointing at the name tag. ‘They said I wouldn’t make it here’. She was twenty-three when she was gunned down, the first victim in an ambush no one saw coming. It was quick, painless, but the stains her blood left on Dane’s uniform never washed away.

“Do you know what fear does? Fear eats you alive,” Dane swallows. He can’t deny he was afraid, terrified when he landed in his destination, the desert air ripping through his lungs, the heat bearing down on him. He ground beneath him felt shaky then, the sand uneven. He was greeted by his superiors. He was eager. Afraid, but eager. Miller was always scared. He wasn’t cut out to be a soldier, but he came through as a medic. Miller, meek, silent Miller. ‘Mouse’ as they called him back then, with his big eyes and nest of hair. Dane squeezes the edge of the podium, the wood digging into the scars of his palms painfully. Remind him he’s not there anymore, that he made it back. The pain grounds some, and he always thought it to be bullshit. Now, it anchors him to the hall, keeps him from seeing every bad scene he went through. Miller. God, Miller wasn’t cut out to be in the field, but neither was he to be in the war zone, patching up soldiers. Missing limbs from bombs, gunshot founds severe enough to kill, death and misery all around him. Miller shot himself five months after arriving, leaving nothing but  sealed note to his mother behind.

“You forget those who give their whole lives to serve you, so you wouldn’t have to be afraid.” Toby. He doesn’t want to think about Toby, not really. Not about how he wasn’t shaken by the death, how he kept everyone in line when Dane forgot how to, when he sat on his bunk staring at the wall of the tent flapping in the winds that broke against it from the outside. A model soldier. The first time they met, they fought, two massive ego’s lashing on the field while others either egged them on or tried to pry them away from each other’s throats. A week later they found common ground. Toby had been the one. Every soldier has the one, someone they would go through fire for, someone whose life held a higher place than your own. Toby had been the one. And then he was injured, caught by a bomb rigged to blow at the lightest nudge of the door. ‘Back to America.’ That’s what they told him after a while. ‘They say he’s not gonna make it.’ was the last he heard about him.’I’m sorry kid’ they added.

“I lost everything in the war.” Friends. Trust. Innocence. He knew he didn’t come home with the affliction many acquired after seeing the bloodshed. Trauma was a part of a soldier, and that was it. Composed, even when every mistake you ever made plays like a movie behind your eyelids when you think about it too much.

“A war we waged. A war we send innocent men and women to fight while you and the big deciders here sit on your asses making decisions that affect everyone else but yourselves. When we put our life and limb on the line so you can write shit about us in the papers. We sacrifice to keep your country safe, but when we return home you cast us aside on the slightest notion that we might be unstable. You close the doors for us and wonder why no one wants to fight for you anymore. you throw us into the fire and ask us why we’re screaming when you burn away every part of us that held humanity.” He takes a breath of air. The hall is silent.

“And you smile when a soldier returns home sane, when his eyes are bright and he hugs his family. The next day the bodies are returned home, and you don’t even count them. You focus on the man who came home. You write your story about him and how his family is doing while there are hundreds of men waiting to be buried, while their mothers and fathers lay by their caskets and wail over their lost children. You glance at wives and husbands mourning their lovers, the mothers and fathers of their children. You skim over the children who are still wondering where their mommy or daddy is. And you focus on the man that sits on his porch and recites to you a story, The story, that you want to hear.”

He feels the silence surround him. No pens scraping. No mumbles, no hushed tones. Utter silence.

No one moves.

No one speaks.

And Dane smiles briefly, triumphantly, before he walks off the stage, thumb gracing over the tattoo on his wrist.

Toby grins as he revs the makeshift tattoo machine in the middle of their desert encampment. Toothy grin, scraped hands, no plan. It stings. Desert air trapped beneath his skin with the ink that settles there. Toby chuckles and claps him on the shoulder when it’s over. He pulls Dane into a choke hold, making fun, joking. Dane holds up the tattoo to see it properly. There, messy handwriting, yet somehow pleasing, all black ink.

Give ‘em Hell       -T.

[sunlit-helix]

Well i’ve been in school every year since i was 3 and next year i dont have to go so wup de fucking do lets figure out how i felt about college. This is very long and very rambly and very personal so don’t read if you’re not dreadfully bored.

Before I got to school I was in a very difficult part of my life. Almost every major relationship in my family ended with divorce, or I learned was abusive, in about the span of a year. I spent a good 8 months throwing a lot of belongings from the house that I lived in since i was 3. I was coping with all the other high school graduation things- worried about not being able to see my friends again when I moved, what was college gunna be like. I was never diagnosed with depression or social anxiety but I still remember being in my senior year and asking my mom to buy something for me because i was too afraid to talk to a cashier. I was a very different person, and things felt surreal because I was going through a lot of life events at once.     When I got to college things changed quickly and in a much better way. My freshman year I forced myself to be social and I met a lot of people, and got over my anxiety. I made a lot of good friends. I knew everything my major-related professors were trying to teach me already. Classes didn’t seem much harder than highschool ones. I had a good roommate and the room itself could’ve been much worse. I stopped being afraid of the dark. I stopped being kind of pathetic tbh and started growing as a person. My mom got a home that she loved and was starting to chase her dreams. My first summer 3 hours away from all my friends was lonely but I survived.

    Sophomore year was harder. The winters were starting to get to me because the rooms never have any heating, so i was buying and bringing more blankets down and doing homework under 3 or 4 layers. The rooms where garbage. I wore earplugs through the entire year to shut out the sound of snoring from my roommate so that I could sleep, and now I have regular tinnitus. The rooms were small and my desk was literally in the closet because there was no other room for it. I got very sick very frequently throughout most of the school year. The class material was still interesting to me but I was appalled that one of my professors, who worked at dreamworks, decided he wanted to teach us by just using youtube tutorials the entire year. That was and still feels brutally unacceptable when I came to college- in part SPECIFICALLY because I hate fucking following youtube tutorials and had already been doing that to teach myself 3D for 4 years. I learned how to properly animate. I started taking drawing classes because I wanted to learn and was consistently at the bottom of the class. I would continue to be at the bottom for the next couple years. I wasn’t able to hang out with most of the people i met my freshman year because I was sick and working and tired all the time. It was had ups and downs but was overall pretty miserable.

    Junior year continued the tradition of being tired all the time but was more manageable. I met more people and had the chance to socialize more. I went to my first and only college party and talked about taco bell for several hours after getting completely fucked. It was the most liberating thing I think I have ever done in my life and I wish I had the time and endurance to go to more of them.

    My senior year, man, I don’t fucking know. It was the first dorm that had heating. Really the first dorm with any kind of temperature control. Not having to share a bathroom with 20-30 men is a godsend. All male floors are the fucking worst. The bathrooms always smell like weed, shit, and cigarettes, and someone breaks a toilet once a week. I was rooming with two good friends. We had a lot of fun together. I wanted to put all my effort into my senior project but I ended up feeling drained about it. I was so burnt out. School wasn’t letting me be creative with my artwork, at least it felt so restricting with the requirements for assignments and I just was super dead. My passion for the project ended almost as soon as it began, and I worked very little on it until the last month of my senior year where I had to put it all together as fast as possible, and it shows. Going to school in a major that you think is going to teach you what you really want to know, and then being met with idle work and youtube tutorials for classes was the most frustrating thing. Well except for still having to take mandatory gen eds. I was taking gen eds up until my junior year much more than major related work, and they get in the way so much. I realized I was trans and stopped denying that I was bi right before my last semester started and it made me feel awful through the coming months.

    So the overall college experience? Well it had ups and downs, but mostly it did not feel worth it. I didn’t learn nearly as much as I wanted to learn. I wanted to learn texture design and it wasn’t even taught in any class, at all, period, so i’m going to be teaching myself substance painter and designer soon. I didn’t socialize as much as I wanted to.

    I sincerely do not understand how people were able to

a) keep friends together through the years

b) get all there work done

c) apply for jobs and get accepted out of school

d) go to clubs.

It was completely impossible for me to do. I was loaded with stress the entire 4 years. I couldn’t reach out to people as much as I wanted to and that’s what really gets me down; that It’s going to be so hard to talk to my friends because I’m out and it’s over. I was never able to balance all of it and that’s just the way it is. It’s ok, school wasn’t made for everyone, and it certainly wasn’t made for me. That said, I made deans list my first semester and my last semester only, and i’m graduating with a good GPA. I would give away all my grades for a better experience, I just didn’t know how. There are definitely more specifics I could get into I think, but after graduating like 3 weeks ago, this is what my thoughts are. I could talk about how much i hate the gen ed or other specifics, but right now all i’m feeling is that I lost a lot of my love for art by having it treated like busywork. Having to put aside work on my modelling and rendering final to prepare for entry level biology class that has 4 exams and 30 pages of notes to review per exam? Having to skip classes to do work on other classes? It’s dumb, it’s awful, and it’s too much, and it’s too much stress considering everything I learned that was major related in my field, I could have EASILY taught myself with no problem outside of college. Except maybe rigging, fuck rigging.

So college? A lot of money spent, a lot of pain, and a lot of people I wanted to talk to but wasn’t able to. I feel like i’ve grown as a person at least. I Think I know what I want more than I did before. I’m going to stop beating myself up about not being totally productive right after graduating considering I have 4 years worth of stress to decompress rn.

[mvga17]

1000 Word Post

My focus in for Semester B was to create more captivating characters. In order to do this I looked at the details that were missing and the changes that I should apply to my workflow. I did this through looking at what current practitioners are doing, but also by talking with artists. It is essential to realize that there is a certain kind of order to the learning curve and everyone takes different steps to get into the industry. This semester I have learned that I was missing some essential steps.

To find out why my art was lacking something I started comparing it to other big artists. This is when I discovered Jonas Ronnegard (2018), a freelance artist with eight years’ experience in the industry focusing on environments and specializing in textures. He has created among other resources a set of seam brushes for zBrush.

While analyzing I noticed felt that my 3D sculpts were missing detail. I didn’t understand why because I was adding very small details like skin pores and cloth normals. The JRo seam brushes made me realize something: Detail is defined in certain different levels. The first level are the big details and big surfaces on the silhouette. The second level are smaller details, which you still can see in the silhouette, but they don’t contain big surfaces. The third level is that of the small details, like stitches. The last level is that of the skin pores, almost invisible to the eye. The brushes made me understand that I had been missing the third level of detail. This level of detail made my models look much more interesting.

From the brushes from Ronnegard I discovered about Tobias Koepp, an environment artist who has worked on big games like Horizon: Zero Dawn, Call of Duty and several mobile titles. Comparable to me he keeps a blog for every project, where he shares every single step he takes on his artwork. One artwork in particular, “Oasis” (Koepp, 2017) has inspired me a lot. While keeping my own blog I was always felt I was doing it for no one in particular. However, over the last few months I received a lot of questions from people following my blogs. They wanted me to go into further detail about things that I had written.

In addition to this I also compared his workflow to mine. Koepp works for months on one project. Even smaller projects take a lot time. My own projects had only taken a few weeks up to this point. I have come to realize that it is better to take more time, than to rush it. As a result of taking more time, you can change the concept to your own liking. If something is not working out you can cut it out and recreate it. Instead of making something that I will not like completely, I should change the model until it actually is good enough. This way I will truly find satisfaction with my works.

This semester for me was more about psychological growth rather than a growth in skills. The most inspiring Game Artist I have met yet was Moby Francke at the Playgrounds Festival. He is an art director currently working for Riot, but he also worked on Team Fortress 2. His presentation was all about research, and how to apply this.

One of the biggest marks he made was about inspiration. A lot of artists including myself tend to look at Artstation or Pinterest to become inspired, or to define a concept. Moby declared that it is not good to look at other game art or games when creating something. It already exists and recreating it doesn’t make your concept unique. Instead to make something truly unique it is better to look at references from the old masters, or from real life (Francke, 2007). At that point my entire project was based on looking at other game art. I understood that while I am recreating an exciting environment it is still important to look at new things, instead of that what already exists in the game. Francke also mentioned that being an artist is not a vocation, it is a way of life. And I completely agree with that.

The visit at Rewind made me aware of something that had been missing in my art, which was a story. Having a story in your art intrigues the watcher, which is important if you want to be remembered. I evaluated why Dishonored 2 has such good environments and came to the conclusion that this is because their environments tell a story. Art Director Sebastien Mitton mentioned in an interview (Shepherd, 2016) that in order to create a good story it is incredibly important to use good references. Everything you see in their environments has a purpose, everything has a history or a future. The art is created with a story, not a separate part that is created just for the sake of existing.

The feedback from Rewind also made me understand that there are different steps of learning. For a long time I just focused on having the skills to create a character, learning programmes and techniques. Yet that is not enough. In order to get a job the art should be remembered, and the way to do that is to intrigue the viewer. To add a story.

Another issue in my art that I wanted to address this semester was the lack of soul in my characters. To achieve this I started posing their bodies to give them expression. However, when I saw the facial rig animation created by Snappers (2017) I realized that I had never actually rigged a face before. Each character of me always had the same expression. The first time I applied some facial animation was on the Rewind project. Even while I just animated the eye, the character came suddenly to life! Yes, I specialize in character art, which is a small branch if I just do the modelling. But actually going through the whole character pipeline I should try to become better at rigging/animation as well, to truly give my characters life.

There is still so much to learn, but the master has already paid off. My goal was to be good enough get a job in the UK AAA-industry.  I have actually been contacted to visit two companies. Now it is mostly important for me to remember: research, time, story, soul 

References:

Ronnegard, J. (2018). Jonas Ronnegard - Store. [online] ArtStation. Available at: https://www.artstation.com/jronn/store [Accessed 3 Mar. 2018]. 

Koepp, T. (2017). Oasis. [online] ArtStation. Available at: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/mK011 [Accessed 24 Apr. 2018].

Koepp, T. (2017). #Blocktober. [image] Available at: https://twitter.com/TOBSn08[Accessed 9 Mar. 2018].  

Mitchell, J., Francke, M. and Eng, D. (2007). Illustrative Rendering in Team Fortress 2. [online] Available at: http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2007/NPAR07_IllustrativeRenderingInTeamFortress2.pdf [Accessed 16 Apr. 2018].

Shepherd, J. (2016). Dishonored 2 art director walks us through game's phenomenal concept art. Independent. [online] Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/dishonored-2-art-director-walks-us-through-games-phenomenal-concept-art-a7318501.html#gallery [Accessed 16 Apr. 2018].

Snappers Mocaps (2017). Snappers Advanced Facial Rig for Maya and Unreal Engine. [video] Available at: https://youtu.be/Vo_FALeUc8c [Accessed 24 Apr. 2018].

[nessietessimalnua]

Research - Interviews and Skype Calls

25/04/17

Helen Duckworth - Aardman     Modelling Digital Doubles 

Working off photos of characters - got new scanners - adds texture

Nick Park wanted Plasticine mouths - Early Man: completely stop motion - making the main character (digital double) and background characters - VFX background shots (some) - Trying to make the CG models look like puppets  - Rigs are symmetrical, but puppets aren’t 

Has worked at Sony in Vancouver 

Going to Double Negative for a Disney film (doesn’t know what the project is) 

Worked on Kubo, Boxtrolls, Storks, Smurfs (The Lost Village) - “Working at Laika was like engineering,” - used magnets so they could change facial features

Topology, after it being signed off, before riggers - Goes between rigging and animation 

Pipelines are usually the same; - Disney modellers work with designers

Three modellers for Early Man; twenty-five modellers for Sony - works on several tings, not just one

RP: Rapid prototyping (3D printing);  - About five days per character (main characters - two weeks)

50% How good, 50% Personality 

Studied computer animation - wish she’d made her showreel more specific

Modellers - learn Zbrush, Maya and Houdini 

Did work experience at Aardman; opened doors and got contacts; - Aardman do internships - she worked on Pirates!. 

Working in a studio environment; working as a team 

Be nice 

Make your showreel really good 

Hugo Sands     Executive producer 

Started as an editor - post production 

Organised animation elements  - Started as a Production Manager; organising everything  - Producer; responsible for making sure everyone does the work right and on time 

Worked at Passion Pictures - Works in commercials and music videos; good opportunity to work with a lot of different styles in a (comparatively) short time (2 - 3 months per project) - Had the director of Despicable Me work for him  - Balancing Resources for revenue - keeping up creative morale  - Done videos for Coldplay and Gorillaz

Animation studios (commercials) in London/New York - quite a few 

Russel Brook - animator 

Animation: long living characters  - Compare the Market: Meerkats started as a joke/mistake by a young team - Only studio to take the job on (due to short time, little money)  - Got approached by by the director of Harry Potter because of it (the animation) 

DOMESTOS SPRAY ADVERT; “MILLIONS OF GERMS WILL DIE.”

Shorts - catches attention/quicker and easier to watch - easier to put effort into technical things.

Worked on Rockband - The Beatles Edition

Keep it short and visually distinctive; humour is good 

Put best stuff First 

Experiment 

Eivind - Red Thread Studio     Lead Animator 

Nineteen staff - in the middle of Oslow 

Only animator for Dreamfall - rigging - he gets the models, then rigs and animated them; Was one minute of animation a day - now it’s slower 

Goes to people he knows; Norwich, San Francisco - who they recommend

Worked freelance before - commercials; went to San Francisco college after NUA

Solid 2D background helped 

10 hour work day - first two hours are drawing and/or animation exercises

Max and Maya 

Good, distinctive silhouette 

Facial animation - a lot of games engines struggle with squash and stretch; they don’t have the complex code for the fleshiness, etc.

Dreamfall - 3000 - 5000 animations; he did 80% of the game (had one other freelance animator)

Steam and Playstation; - Steam takes about 10%

EA - one of the biggest producers; - Blizzard and Valve are developers and producers 

AAA - Best of the Best  AA - Medi/average games  A - Indie games 

Learn to be very fast at what you do

Learn to fail quickly - get the wrong stuff out of the way first 

Do the prep work 

Rolls/flips are pretty difficult to animate

Non-human characters are a it different; you can be more ‘crazy’

uses (basic) motion capture