Took way longer than i'd have initially liked, but I finally got the dragon model done. It's been passed off to ricardo to rig for healthy. Overall it's pretty decent for the alpha stage, but there are still a few issues. Primarily the legs need to be bulked up, webbing needs to be added to the wings, and a the back plates need to be modeled into it instead of just placed on top of the body. However that will be fixed for the beta along with adding in secondary details in the model. While the dragon model is going to be rigged and animated, i started working on a model for the bow the human character will use. In the game, the bow will be comprised of energy, so the base model is going to be used as a basis for creating the shape with particles and/or dynamic textures. A second bow for the female character may be made, as the two characters have different design ideas behind them. Pros: Got alot done this week compared to previous weeks
Cons: Not as much done as I'd have liked
0 Comments
The past couple weeks, I have been working on expanding our list of modular assets to be used for creating the environment for the game. In a recent meeting with Dr. Wagner, it was decided that going forward it will be my sole responsibility to further develop these modular assets and implement them so that Rob can further focus on MoCap.
Pros: We are making steady progress towards having a full environment soon. Cons: I can't show my current progress since my computer with my work is currently imploding. Moving forward towards the Alpha, it was essential to start incorporating the models into the game. I spent these two weeks continuing work on our characters towards their final stage and importing the latest versions into unreal. Ricardo gave me a reference to rig the characters with the male model and I was able to rig the female model for mocap and import both into the game.
Pros The characters are in the game and the base models are finished with a final skeleton. This way I can constantly replace the models without having to re-rig the entire model and only have to worry about weight painting. I also UV-ed both base characters and since they are heavily armor based I can easily add on or replace existing armor to alter design changes. Cons While the female alpha is finished, I need to work on the male character some more to raise it to the same level, but I am sure I can get it finished before the next meeting with our advisor. The weight paintings are slightly rough in some areas and the texturing is still just base colors. Mocap work still isn’t finished yet and I’m anxious to see them in the game. This week was pretty productive for myself personally. Toggl helped increase my time spent on the game, so I can manage between class and work better. I’m looking forward to implementing texture work in the game.
The past two weeks for me has been a little slow. I have been working on environmental assets. I was able to create monoliths for our alpha. In addition to the monoliths, I made a rough terrain. I originally planned to make the terrain mostly rocks, indicating remnants of a castle with the charm of ruins. Unfortunately, as I built the scene, I realized that it looked a little too plain. To counter that, I decided to build ruins instead. I've created one of the several versions I wanted, but I do believe that in my last sprint, I will be able to have what I planned to finish. Rough animation and environmental alphas.
Ricardo almost finished an animatable rig for our game. The model and the rig will be subjected to change, thus the animation will change as well. pros: I can begin to animate. I am getting the ball rolling on my environmental side. After building rocks, I was able to push towards a better aesthetic. cons: I am a little slower than I would like to be. The animations I will make will most likely be scrapped. This week I was finally able to start rigging both the humans and the dragon. Sally was supposed do the human rigs, which are very simple since they are for mocap, but the first rig she did was not bad, but it wasn’t ready for mocap. I was not 100% sure how to do it, especially since it was modeled in A-pose, but I figured it out by rigging one of them, and made notes for Sally, who rigged the second one successfully.
The Dragon required a more complex rig since it is going to be hand animated, and it requires a different rig than a human. Going in I knew that the model is going to change, but I’m not sure how significantly. The rig I finished is still pretty rough, and is missing a few features that I would like to add, but I have decided to wait until the beta version to do that. My hope is that with the new model I will not have to change the skeleton structure so that I would have less things to redo, but I do not want to limit how much the model will be able to change either. This was also my first time making a rig for the Unreal engine and there were some issues when putting it in engine, but those seem to be taken care off. We also did another mocap session, and we have already exported all the data we captured. Pros:
These past 2 weeks have been pretty successful for me. We had a 4 hour long mocap shoot where we got both male and female animations. We started off with the more advanced takes which included dragon mounting, wall climbing, wall hanging, barrel rolls, and then we did some idles. After that we switched actors and brought in our female actor so we could have the variation. Since we had over 60 takes from the first shoot Ricardo and I decided to split up the takes so that we could get them all cleaned in the two weeks. Below I have videos of the clean shots in Vicon Blade.
I also met with Matt and we discussed how to proceed with the buildings for our villages. After meeting with Dr. Wagner we decided that we would go with a modular building system so we can easily create new buildings without having to fully remodel everything. However I had already made a model so I’ll also show that since it shares similarities in the architecture style.
Pros: Got more of the art figured out. We are scheduling another mocap shoot this week so expect new data!
Cons: The mocap clean-up took longer than expected. The shots were more complex and the ladder really screwed with the cameras.
The biggest thing these past 2 weeks was our Motion Capture session,which gave me plenty to work on afterwards. Rob set up the studio, and I was not there until the second part of the session, so I missed everything Kevin acted for, but was present for the entirety of Aviva’s. We set up a Google Sheets doc, and took down notes for each take, which has been very helpful. Since I was not there for Kevin’s part of the session, I suggested Rob and I split up the work by who was actually in the studio. Kevin’s parts were more complicated, but there were a lot more takes for Aviva’s, so I thought it seemed fair, but Rob has been talking a lot about how what he has to clean up is harder than what I’m working on. I’m not sure if he’s bragging or complaining ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
So far I have exported 18 shots, and have looked through a bunch more that I determined were not good to use. First I do the Blade post-processing pipeline, and I watch the capture clip several times from different angles. One thing I have found to be helpful is to hide everything except for the solving bone, since it is what gets exported, and it is easier to spot any jerky movements than on the labeling bone. Almost all of the shots I have worked on are fairly simple, and the actor remains upright the entire time. There were some mistakes in the session, the two biggest ones were that a hand marker was on Aviva’s thigh for 17 takes, but it’s not a huge issue since the hands usually don’t give fine data, and have more markers than truly needed. The second is that the boots seemed to be a little loose, and flopped a lot when they hit the floor, and the takes that have running lose the auto label on most steps. That has mostly just created more work for clean up, but may have made the data overly shaky. I am making good use of the spreadsheet though, and taking detailed notes on the specifics of each take. Other than that I modeled a tower, which I was intending to make a lighthouse, but I think I would rather use this design for a simple tower, and save the lighthouse for something more obvious. Tower V1 by ricardotnet on Sketchfab This week Rob and I went really in depth about what we needed asset wise for the game and decided on a modular building system. We created a list of modular building pieces to create and started creating them. From this list, I have already made several different permutations of the modular stone walls we need.
Pros: We finally have a game plan about what we need to start making interesting environments. On top of that, I am finally feeling productive. Cons: No real cons from me this week. This week was less productive than I would have wanted. Between classes, work, and our game, I didn’t put as much time into modeling the character as I could have. I finished shaping the basic armors onto the characters. I was able to rig my existing base model and hand it off to our Mocap team for testing, but I made some mistakes with the rig and model and need to redo them so I feel like I was a bit counterproductive in that department.
Pros Luckily I started my model in the summer, so I’m not totally behind. My base shapes are finished, so I just need to finish integrating them into the model. I talked to the Mocap team and have a better understanding of rigs and am able to help out with that. Cons I didn’t finish modeling the character and I need begin skinning and texturing soon. I made it a priority to finish the first pass final model to showcase to Wagner before our meeting on Friday. All the remaining armor and accessories will be modeled and shaped without the extraneous details. These next few days will be crazy, but I have to get it done to get back on schedule. The past two weeks I had a really rough start. I put in less hours than I anticipated that I could. Week 6 I wanted to step in and begin on the dragon so we would only need to worry about shaping. So I pushed aside the environment and was able to help create a really rough base of our dragon with the right topology. The loops form around the eyes for blinking, the snout will be able to deform right, as well as the legs. Topology was my main concern. Shaping will be Riley’s task. This week I’ve started on the environment but I’m nowhere near where I would like to be. I planned on having 3 rough environment assets done and to be able to dive into substance painter and figure out a basic texture map for one of the 3 assets. I even don’t have one rough environmental asset complete. However, I found a set schedule where I can sit in the labs for the next 4 to 5 weeks for sProj. I will also be able to squeeze in at least 30 hours this week as well! I set deadlines to get the totems, 3 assets, and the texture guide done!!! No excuses, if I don’t get them done, then fail me while I’m behind! But please don’t.
Since I started on the environment, I am slowly getting a better grasp on how I need to model, which is much different than I’m used to. I know how long it will take to get done so I should be in decent shape by Friday, and caught up by Sunday. Pros: - I know how long it will take to get my stuff done. But I need to make the time to get it done. - The Dragon topology is done. Cons: - I spent a while on the dragon in zbrush, but in the end I ran into too many issues and redid it in Maya - Not enough time spent on project - Time spent on project not well spent |
Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
January 2017
Categories
All
|