Wednesday 20 February 2013

Rigging!

Been rigging my fully built character, the rigging process is deceptive because on the surface actually getting the skeleton in place was the easy part thanks to the joint tool. Once I got a hand of hierarchies it became easier to organize the joints and have them fit together into a working skeleton using an IK Rig.
Connecting the limbs together used a hierarchy to make sure all movement was from the pelvis, and that the movement of the arm was from the chest etc. Much in the way the actual human body works.
Placing things within different joints was a challenge at first particularly with the shoulder pads as often they would move with the arm which would cause problems, or they would stay by themselves and the arm would clip through, these are some problems I have to correct.
Actually creating controls for the joints was done by making objects whose movement also affects the joints, using constraint tags to link the controllers and the joints so that I could use the controllers to move some of the joints, but the controllers can be in a separate folder outside of the hierarchy.
This made it easier to co-ordinate my controls because they could be organized away from the joints. These objects which don't appear in rendering can then be manipulated to manipulate corresponding joints and were mainly used for the feet, head, and some on the chest and pelvis.
The hands and knees were however moved on a separate system of "Goals", these points could be moved around to move the whole arm or leg with them. The way these were achieved was using the IK chain I made, with points at the wrists (in the case of the arms) being considered the end of the chain so this point was set to move the entire arm. From there, we set a pole which is basically an elbow as it means the arm can only bend so far, in one direction so that the character's arm can't just suddenly turn the other way like his arm has been broken.


The legs move in a very similar manner, the goal is actually a little below the knee on the model and lifts the leg up, and when move forward will cause the leg to kick out with separate controllers moving the foot. The Pole is placed at the highest the leg can reach and about as far as the knee so that it will stay where it's supposed to and be able to portray walking.

Tuesday 19 February 2013

Animex Game: Day 1

I went to the firs set of lectures for animex focusing on games. While I haven't thought of the games industry as much as film and TV, I thought that it would be handy as character animation could be similar in some ways even if there are some differences and limitations.
There were a fair few interesting speaker who focused on narrative, including Rhianna Pratchett, head writer of the new Tomb Raider reboot, who talked a lot about how story and script informs the gameplay experience and vice versa. While this isn't entirely related to animation in the film sense, I suppose technical limitations can  still inform the plot, although not to the same extent as in games, where the experience is entirely mediated by the console. Very good talk, entertaining and offered a view on the work which goes into creating a plot for a game, in recent years sometimes rivalling film and literature due to the use of professional writers.
Another speaker was Eric Baldwin, from Naughty Dog Studios, famous for the Uncharted series. His talk was behind general development of Uncharted 3, giving the audience an insight intothe jump from Pre-production to Production. The talk showed several iterations of the teaser trailer which was axtually created while the game had next to no assets, the development teams actually use the teaser trailer to take some time and create assets for the game which basically kills 2 birds with one stone as it allows you to flesh out your game while making things which can actually be used. Some of the same stuff like animatics and other elements are similar to the production process of animation, so there were a few pointers to take away about how it works and what to expect. And also how to create useful things when you have very little to work with. Interesting and the speaker was good at relaying information (Once the technology sorted it's self out).

Final talk I found the most helpful was a lecture on the use of music in games, hosted by Austin Wintory, whose worked on several games, films and most famously having done the entire score for the PS3 game 'Journey'. He spoke very much about the emotional quality of music and how it lends it's self to the storytelling in ways which often you can't get across with words. The music can change the feel of a scene entirely, whether it be a film or a game. Journey's main emphasis was the grammy-nominated soundtrack, which actually progresses in time with the player, the instruments actually won't kick in until the player reaches a certain part of the level and things such as that to make sure the music is in time with the player's progression to try and keep the experience fresh and personal.
This sort of thing can be applied to my own animation, although I'm not a composer I can appreciate the importance of how music creates an experience for the audience.

Monday 11 February 2013

HyperNurbs

Just for clarification, I've been using HyperNurbs to smooth off my character. This is why he has the rather rounded shape compared to the 2D drawing. (LEFT: No HyperNurbs, RIGHT: HyperNurbs!)
They're rather handy because they allow me to model things with minimal detail and then add it in later,  so I just need to adjust the model to my liking after the HyperNurbs have been applied so I can focus on building a general shape with the character before I create the little bits later.

He lives!

Added the head, was originally going to have a toilet brush for the character but doing the bristles proved to be too difficult as I was modelling individual clumps of brush and it came out looking too much like a set of spikes, I decided doing a loo roll would be much easier and add a little bit more humor. The hand was made using block modelling and came out looking alright, used a HyperNerbs to smooth it. Arms are just cylinders but everything is using toon shaders to make it look more like the 2D image.


 He still needs rigging and he still needs a hat, although the hat is technically optional, I feel like it really adds to the character. It looks alright to me, although I think the 2D to 3D translation went well, the character looks a bit too rounded compared with the model sheet, but it came out looking at least recognizable and you can tell they were the same character.

TARGETS FOR THIS WEEK, YEAH!

YEAH!


Monday 4 February 2013

Artistic Analytical Antics

I can't say that all of the lecture i had to watch were for me.
The one which held my interest was Peter De Sève.

His illustration style was interesting and especially the New Yorker covers because they seemed to take real life and exaggerate it just enough to make it realistic so that people will empathize but enough of a humorous or cartoony element to make it more entertaining to the viewer.
The Ice Age stuff was surprisingly good, as while I've never really been a fan of the films, seeing the process behind the character design and the translation of De Sève's drawing style into 3D was interesting, the idea that he took one face and played around with the 
proportions to create the final face.
The thing which I liked the most was the illustration style, and the painted covers on the New Yorker as it's
 cartoony yet sophisticated enough
 that it holds my interest, the colours used in the New Yorker covers help to create the warm atmosphere 
or the cold atmosphere and either way
are very scene appropriate.

Mark Craste from Studio AKA was entertaining enough, his lecture shows the power of advertising as a 
way of obtaining work but it's not a terribly interesting path to me, the Varmint segment wasn't clear enough
to follow, and the colours were incredibly dark. I get that it's his attempt to create vulnerable characters in a big
scary world but sacrificing narrative clarity and actually being able to see what's going on in certain scenes for
the sake of tone just seems a bit stupid, the actual visual quality of the animation was alright, again the process
of seeing a 2D character become three-dimensional was interesting but that's about all I got out of it if anything.

AJ Fosik creates sculptures out of a variety of materials, while I like the fact he's thinking outside of the box and
creating something extraordinary, I personally don't see the emotional aspects of his work, not to say there's NO
emotional aspects to his work, he himself said that his ideas which go into creating sculptures are very personal and 
apparently become universal, meaning others must see the ideas he's trying to convey, even if I don't.
Visually interesting, yes. Highly emotional, not to me personally.

Some more work on the character

Gave my character a torso and the beginning of his spine. The shaders have been used to try and recreate the look of a 2D drawing, it's attempting to keep the character as close to the model sheet as possible, but also it hides visual flaws in a slightly sneaky manner.
Shoulder pads were actually the same shape as the torso but smaller. Just as symmetrical though, so it keeps everything quite uniform






Created the head by using a rounded cube, simple head but it works because it adds to the rounded edges of the character which are a little bit different from the model sheet.
The face is just a texture so it can be animated, it's actually a plane which is separate from the head because I was having trouble with it on the actual head because it was mirrored on every side of the head.
The intention would be that the character's face would be 2D animation on a texture so that way I can keep some of the spirit of the two-dimensional drawing.

The accents on the torso and pelvis were achieved through  putting the darker textures under the shaders so that they would look seamless. The addition of an emblem helped to disguise it.
The emblem also helps introduce a bit of 2D work to keep the spirit of the character.