Hi everyone,
Today I want to share a showcase featuring Thomas Brush, the indie developer behind the first-person horror shooter Twisted Tower, and how his small team handles 3D character animation without a dedicated art department. The whole pipeline runs on Character Creator, iClone 8, and Unity (via Unity Auto Setup and Data Link), and I think it’s a great look at how a solo or small team can get fully rigged, animated characters into a game engine as real-time scenes rather than pre-rendered cutscenes.
Who’s behind this?
Thomas Brush is the art director and founder of Atmos Games, based near Atlanta, Georgia. Over more than a decade of commercial game development, he has shipped three titles, Pinstripe, Neversong, and the upcoming Twisted Tower, progressing from 2D development to leading a small team on an ambitious 3D first-person shooter published by 3D Realms. On Twisted Tower he works alongside 3D artist Bryn, who handles character sculpting, while Brush directs the art and stays hands-on with the animation pipeline. He is also known for his game development education content, running the Full Time Game Dev course and a YouTube channel with over 345,000 subscribers, with a creative philosophy that centers on atmosphere and storytelling.
What’s the workflow about?
- Build and customize characters, fully auto-rigged with body, hand, and facial rigs, in Character Creator
- Animate characters, cameras, and lights, and assemble full cinematic scenes in iClone 8
- Bridge characters and scenes into the engine with Unity Auto Setup for shaders, characterization, and materials
- Stream entire scenes live from iClone into Unity through Data Link
- Run the result as real-time, interactive sequences inside Unity, no pre-rendered cutscenes required
Take a look at the full case study here, well worth the read: https://magazine.reallusion.com/2026/06/08/3d-character-animation-for-indie-games-how-thomas-brush-built-twisted-tower-with-character-creator-iclone-and-unity/