Went through a Unity tutorial that reviewed generally making a project, setting up files, and installing Unity. Nothing much to show here so I’ll just put this screenshot.
Category: Uncategorized
8/21/20 Animation Review
Rather than continuing the tutorial from yesterday, we are starting a new animation tutorial on walking animations.
After watching a video describing multiple guidelines for animating a walk cycle, I began following along in Maya. The first part was getting down the two contact points.
The second video was adding in the passing points
The main big thing I learned, other than just reviewing/learning about the different parts of a walk cycle, was how to mirror movements from one control/group of controls to the other through selecting all the controls in a certain way, copying the keys, then selecting them in a mirrored order (selecting the left hand control when you first selected the right) and pasting the keys. I normally used to do this sort of thing by hand so this will be much easier for the future.
Compared to the past walking animation tutorial we looked at, this definitely is looking into the body more, which is something I have only learned the basics of in the past.
8/20/20 Animation Review
We went through an animation tutorial from Pluralsight as a refresher. Most of the process was just listening but we did make two basic animations with a turret asset.
Used this tutorial: https://app.pluralsight.com/library/courses/quick-start-animation-maya-1-1694/table-of-contents
8/19/20 What I’m excited to learn about
What I’m most excited to learn about this year is just generally getting more knowledge on basic programming. I learned some last year so it will be faster to get into it but because the year was cut short and I didn’t practice over the summer, I have a lot to catch up on. I am really excited about making my first game this year though.
8/19/20 What I’m excited to learn about
Probably the main thing I am excited to learn about this year is either going to be Bifrost or improving my rigging skills, though I also feel like learning about Houdini going to be one of the most important things this year from what I’ve heard about it.
Blocking Out Project Nearly Completed
Unfinished due to the fact that I was working on a SkillsUSA project and had some issues relating to the nCloth and my saves corrupting. This is a temporary video and I will make sure to get a better version done later on.
Plane Bug Fix Challenge
After learning how to make simple vehicle controls in a script we were given the challenge of fixing bugs with the scripts in a plane game. The things I had to do involved changing the direction and speed of the plane, fixing its controls so that the player could aim it up and down, getting the camera to follow the plane, and finally rotating the propeller at the front of the plane.
Blocking Out Project 2
just finished the animation and used the cameras, going to add more actual assets later on.
Blocking Out Project
Didnt finish blocking out the storyboard I made a day ago, but this is most of the movements
Skills Animation Project 2/1/20
Ok so I haven’t posted an update in around 2 weeks so there is a lot to catch up on. Essentially I have completed 90% of the modeling that is required for this project and also worked on materials and textures for some of the models, even completing the rig for the birds that will be in the scene (they won’t be focused on so the rig is poorly done). The only two parts of the project that I need to model are the city, which I am hoping to make relatively simplistic, and finishing my characters face. I ended up encountering an issue when I built the nose, so I used an online tutorial to get a new idea on how to build it. I kept the head but rebuilt the top half of the face and reattached it. I now need to smooth out and fix the face so that it doesn’t look completely disgusting, as it currently appears to have entered both the uncanny valley and a dump.
Props Created:
I have started to create most of the props I will be using in my animation, here is the list of the props and their progress:
Notepad:
I was a bit overly detailing when I made this clipboard, but that is due to the fact that I plan on having the camera focus closely on it. I will made the actual textures for it near the end of my texturing so that I will have even slightly more experience with it, as this will have to look like someone actually wrote words on a page.
Burger:
I just made a really low poly burger, and I have added materials to some parts but not all of it yet. I am debating creating a texture for the bun or leaving it plain, and will decide that when I return to the small parts of the animation
Bird:
The bird is only going to be in the background, so I tried to make it relatively simplistic and low poly, but I still wanted to animate it so I did create a rig and made sure it was more than just a few polygons. I also made a material for it but that is just a black material since, again, it will be in the background
I would add pictures but as it turns out I can’t open the last few save files I made of the bird. I’m unsure if this is because the version of maya I have at home is a year older than the one at my school, or if something went wrong with my rigs, but until I find out if I can recover the files I will wait to post an update on them
Scythe:
The scythe isn’t meant to be very detailed, and will likely be one of my targets if my more detailed objects slow down render time too much. It has not been textured yet but that will likely be simplistic as well.
Car:
My car was based on a few pictures of a Pontiac GTO. While I may add some lights to it and change up the materials, it is mostly finished save for the grouping I may go through and some work I will likely have to do with its materials.
Continued Progress:
Death:
my death model was problematic because my cloak was made as a single flat surface, when I was planning on making it into a cloak. I worked on fixing it but the top still has some issues, I believe it should mostly be fine.
I completed two versions of the skull, the first including a jaw bone and the second with a smooth face where the mouth should be. I then used the skull with the jaw bone as an addition to the car model, as it is meant to be a tool being used by death. I also added some wrinkles in the cloth since I am unlikely to make it an actual physics cloth. The hands are made up of separate blocks, but every part of the model is combined. I am likely to make small edits with it but I’m not sure what they exactly will be yet, as I haven’t even added materials yet and thus dont know what this would currently look like as a final product.
Person:
Oh boy. So I started out the face by creating the eyes, as seen in a previous blog post, but then I moved on to developing other features. The mouth went of mostly without a hitch, though I did decide to create two versions and decide which one I liked better, but again it was mostly fine. Then I moved on to making the nose and immediately realized that I was not going to be able to make a nose that would actually look decent on my characters face. That simple addition would, no matter how I tried it, simply make the face look monsterous, and I believe the main reason for this was that I developed the eyes separately despite the bone on the eye connecting so smoothly to the nose, and thus that part would never look right if I extruded again for the nose. Because of this I began googling how other people would make their human faces, and noticed that multiple videos started by building the eyes rather than the whole head. I watched how they would build the eye sockets and slowly move outwards, eventually bridging the two parts together and building a nose out of that bridge, and realized that I had to do something similar. I proceeded to build a sort of face mask off to the side of my characters head, using the videos I found as a tutorial for some parts and a reference for others, and eventually had my own new eyes and nose. I then proceeded to delete those faces on my model to then replace with my new face, and after plenty of adjustments to make sure all the vertices on both meshes could connect I was able to combine them. Now I have a face that does look more human, but also looks like a human fresh out of multiple horrible plastic surgeries. I have hope that putting the right textures and materials will make it look better but I also believe that once I smooth out most of the parts and adjust the location of multiple facial features it will likely look much better. I also used previous knowledge in an art class I took to find an article that described the proportions of the face, regarding the placement of different parts of the face (the eyes being halfway down the face) and used that information to place edge loops onto a block that would act as a guide for how I would adjust the features.
Point is it doesn’t look very good. I have made a few edits that I believe make it look better, but i still am not quite proud of it in its current state. Once I add hair and textures/materials I’m hoping it will look much better
Previous-
Edited-
To Do:
Currently there are only a few things left that I need to do, but each is obviously going to take a long time. Modeling wise all I have to do is add some hair to my character and make his clothes wrinkled, possibly edit his face more, and create the city environment. I’m hoping most of this will go off without a hitch. Afterwards will come the materials and rigging of my characters, and while I’m hoping death will be easy as he doesn’t need to walk much and does not have legs, rigging a full human character (possibly including a face) is going to be interesting. Especially if there is actually an issue with bringing rigs to and from school, such as with my bird. After that is done, which will likely take the longest out of all of this, I have to animate it. I’m hoping that this can be done quickly, as I don’t have much time left, but I believe that if I can get most of this extra work done quickly and animate quickly as well, so long as I dont put too too much detail into the textures. The only issue now that I am really worried about is the Rigging and the Rendering, as those are the most unpredictable and most difficult parts of this process currently.
My goal will be to get all of the materials I will need done tomorrow, and to finish up every model as well. I will then look into making textures for items such as the notepad. Rigging will come afterwards and I believe that, since my main character, Dave, will not be grabbing anything, I wont need to put too much effort into his hands. Also since his legs are jeans I believe that will be easier than normal legs, so I am hoping the only difficult part with Dave will be his feet (I’m still no good at rigging feet) and his face, if that is rigged OR deformed. As for Death I believe his rig will be simple, so I am not worried about anything other than possibly his hands. The bird should still be rigged at school, but if not I have the completed model so it should be simple to rig it and be done with it, as it is a background character. I want to be animating within the next 6 days at least so that I can begin rendering soon, even if that means rendering the first few scenes overnight while still working on the later scenes during the day, or rendering at home while working at school.
I believe that this project will be a close call, but that I should be able to get it done. Even if it ends up extremely simple I am hoping the complex models will give it a decent look compared to some of the other animations and stills being entered into the competition
Jackie Bois Website 