#045 GAD BA2 - P1: Animation Continued

As I said before, once I had done the basics on everything I would then return to amend and refine the completed work. So with my essay and sculpt nearing completion, I opened up Maya and had a go at refining my animation. Previously I had intended just to amend my animation by tweaking the graph editor, but looking back on attempt I was not happy with the animation so I decided to take another try at the animation cycles and tweak the graphs as I made them. So, here are the poses for my finalised walk cycle.

This time I followed suit with a lot of my classmates and made an exaggerated cartoonish style walk with lots of emphasis on the movement of the arms and feet. I will admit it, I didn't use the graph editor for EVERY part of the animation, I mainly focused on the legs and the arms but did not use it for the body and hand movement as there was a relatively low amount of movement. Below is the result.

I did pretty much the same with my run cycle. I exaggerated the movements a lot more and I couldn't resist doing a bit of animation on the face too! I used the graph editor a bit more on this animation than the walk cycle just to fine tune the steps and almost floppy movement of the feet. Here are the poses for my finalized run cycle.

and here is the final result of the run cycle.

For tonight I'm going to take a break with Maya and move on to Mudbox to do some last touches on my sculpt. I will post the jumping cycle when I have amended and tweaked it.

#044 GAD BA2 - P2: Mudbox Sculpting

Our second assignment for this unit is to sculpt a 3D head of a person of our choosing using Mudbox. I'm going to be using one of my house mates, Anton, as my reference as It makes it much easier if I need to take another photo as a reference while sculpting.

Left, Front and Right reference shots.

First I started with the ear, the part that I thought would be most difficult. As much as I tried, even with the reference images I took, I just couldn't seem to get the shape of the ear right or the internal structure although it does at least resemble an ear. Below is a screen capture of it.

I decided to take a rest from the ear and move on to another part of the face, the nose. This time it at resembles a nose and the nose of the model, just. I found that it was easier to build up on the face first and then sculpt into it, rather than adding it in bit by bit to achieve the final piece. The lips are nowhere near done (I still need to sculpt into it) and I want to flatten the bit below the nose leading to the mouth  Below is a screen capture of it.

#043 GAD BA2 - P1: Animation Assignment

With the tutorials finished now in animating the MooM rig, we have pretty much been left to our own devices to come up with the 3 animation cycles (walking, running, and jumping). From the tutorial and a bit of work at home I already had a fairly good working point of the first/last pose. To widen my understanding of animating a walk cycle I began to do some research. I found a great website called Digital Tutors, it is a community made website where experienced digital artists can share their knowledge in the form of tutorials. The tutorial that I found was of animating a rig similar to the MooM, perhaps a bit more advanced, however I found the tutorial to be a great help. It explained the poses in the animation, key frames, using the graph editor and how to create a realistic walking animation. I found an image of the poses within the walking cycle, shown below, which I used as a rough reference for my walk cycle.

Below is an image my poses in comparison to the ones above. My poses are a lot less exaggerated, as I thought that when people walk they do not move their arms with much exaggeration unless they are power walking.

To get to this stage I edited the points of all the rigging; toes, feet, knees, hips, spine, upper body, shoulders, arms, elbows, hands, fingers, thumbs, neck and the head. While some movements are more noticeable, there are some subtle movements in the animation that add realism to it such as the curling and uncurling of the fingers on the arm movements, the slight bob of the head and neck and even the slight outward position of the knee on the step down. Below is the result:

I will visit the walk cycle later to edit the graph and improve the animation, but for now I will move on to the run cycle. The run cycle is going to be fairly similar to the walk cycle only that it will be at a faster pace and much more exaggerated. Below are my poses for the run cycle:

Just like with the walk animation, I edited many of the rigging points. I exaggerated the movements a lot more and changed the overall poster, learning the MooM forwards as is common when running (not sprinting). The arms are a lot more rigid, bent up and tight to the body allowing for a quicker swing. Below is the result:

Again, I have not yet made any changes in the graph editor, I will visit it later once I have done the jump cycle.

The next cycle is the jump cycle, I put a bit of thought into what style of jump I wanted to use and in the end I finally decided to use the first pose from my run cycle and create a running jump. That way if you put the  walk cycle, the run cycle and the jump cycle back to back, it would provide a seamless animation of all 3 movements. Below are the 9 poses I used:

Similarly to the walk and run cycles I edited all the rigging points, below is the result without using the graph editor:

Once again, I have not yet made any changes in the graph editor, I will now go back to the walk cycle and make some changes. Watch this space! No really... watch it.

#042 GAD BA2 - P1: Animation Assignment

The next stage to the animation assignment is the introduction to the character rig that we will be using for the animation cycles (walking, running and jumping). We were shown a few animation videos as well as some mini video tutorials as well as given links to information on animating the rigged model. Below are three video examples of a walk, a run, and a jump with the Moom character rig that we will be using.

Walking Animation Cycle:

Running Animation Cycle:

Jumping Animation Cycle:

First, we were introduced to the rig and were shown how to move it about. The rig was fairly easy to use and pretty self explanatory so I had no problem thinking about how I could animate it. From previous experience I knew that it is common to use 9 poses (8 different poses and a duplicate) so I knew that I would need to use 9 key frames. I started the walk cycle in the tutorial and got the basics down (leg, arm, hip, shoulder and head movement) but forgot to put it on a USB stick to work on at home. When I returned to the walk animation later that day I started from scratch and actually improved on what my previous animation had looked like.

#041 GAD BA2 - P1: Animation Assignment

For our first animation assignment, we have been asked to animate a pre-rigged character called Moom using the software Maya. We have to animate a total of 3 animation cycles, consisting of a walk, a run and a jump. It goes without saying that I want my animations to be as lifelike and as smooth as possible, so I will be looking at both small and big changes I can make in the animation using the rig for the best possible animation.

I've never used the Autodesk Maya before, only in 3DS Max. While they are similar, there are some big difference that I will have to adjust to so our first Maya tutorial was an interesting one. We were shown the basic tools, shortcuts, techniques and the general layout of Maya. Because of my existing knowledge of using 3DS Max, the process of learning the basic controls was not too difficult, in fact, my biggest problem had nothing to do with the software itself but more the operating system (Mac). In the next tutorial we went through the processes of making objects with simple shapes such as a house and an animal which I continued to do at home after the tutorial session.

A simple house using basic shapes in maya.

A rare, never seen before animal called a "piation" made from basics shapes in maya.

The next Maya tutorial session we had was more on setting up the project files and folders using the correct procedures to animate a bouncing ball rig. To begin, we had to set up a project folder and reference the ball rig into the first scene. While it sounded fairly simple, they were a lot of little things to remember such as using the correct file names to avoid confusion when looking back at the project files for making changes/edits to the animation; It took me a few attempts to get it right but in the end I got it working. The main point stressed was to have multiple saves allowing the animator (me) to revert to a previous version of the animation if I make a mistake. So after setting up the project folder and setting the rig reference up, I saved the first scene as "bouncing_ball_animation_001".

Now the animation stage begins... Using the project folder I created yesterday, I opened up the ball rig in Maya. We were then instructed in setting up the correct frame rate, axis and playback speed. For this project we were working at 24 FPS, so using the animation settings window I set up the scene with the correct settings for the timeslider and the overall animation settings. I changed the World Coordinate System to have the Up Axis to Z instead of Y, the Working Units to millimetres from centimetres and made sure the time was set to "Film (24 fps)".

With the settings adjusted to my preference I begun the animation sequence. To get the ball to move up and down it is a simple matter of creating a few key frames and adjusting the height of the ball. The problem is that ball has no squash or stretch and no easy in/out on the movements or any realistic physics.

First things first, I need to add some squash and stretch to the animation. I've only added a little bit to the ball, as if it is made of a hard rubber but you can exaggerate the squash and stretch to extreme amounts, almost till the point where the ball can be flattened into a disk. This small change, with a few tweaks, makes a big difference, the results speak for itself.

The next step is to add some acceleration/deceleration to the ball animation, to do this you use the graph editor. The graph editor stores all information on the movement of the ball such as the position of the ball, the rotation, the speed of movement as well as the key frames in the animation. With a small amount of time and a few changes in the graph editor, the animation is much better already, but I still think I can do better. So far here is my result.

I will come back later to revisit this animation as I still wish to perfect it, however, for learning the basics It is an acceptable end result. I plan to tweak the graph editor a little more and improve on the squash and stretch during the bounce and when the ball impacts the floor as well as adjusting the acceleration and deceleration throughout the cycle.

#040 GAD BA2 - P1: Contextual Studies - Job Roles Basics

For contextual studies, we have been given the task to research two job roles out of a list given to us. This list is as follows:

• Game Designer 
• Technical Artist 
• Artist 
• 3D Modeller 
• 2D Texture Artist 
• Concept Artist 
• Level Editor 
• GUI Designer 
• Assistant Producer 
• Game Tester 

I have chosen to explore and research the job roles of a 3D Modeller and a Level Editor. I've chosen these as I feel they are what I will most likely go into once I have graduated.

3D Modeller/Artist:

The name pretty much sums it up, a 3D Modeller known better as a 3D Artist is a person who creates three dimensional objects, characters, structures and scenery. The 3D Artist will generate a 3D object, from a piece of concept art, usually using one of the major software aides such as Autodesk Maya, 3D Studio Max or Lightwave.

They will work on the model from start to finish, completing a majority of tasks such as:

• Modelling
• Texturing
• Lighting
• Animating
• Compositing

The profession itself is fairly unique due to its combination of artistic skills and technology, someone who is a great artist can't do it without the technological background while at the same time it doesn't matter how much technical ability you have if you have no artistic ability; So really a 3D Artist is a combination of both of them as opposed to meeting in the middle ground.

Level Designer:
A level editor design what can be considered what makes a game, the level. While creating the levels within the game they must keep in mind how it will effect the players experience while playing and how the map will create possibilities in the game such as camping/ambush spots, sniper nests etc as well as considering the events and actions in the game that will define the difficulty of challenges that the player will encounter, thus having a great effect on the game play itself.

Being a level editor is not a first time job role, you must have a wide understanding of how the map effects the game. The role would typically be broken in to from the game testing side, where testers gain experience from their previous experience in the relation of map and level design to the experience of game play. People who wish to go into level editing would of gained the skills through modifying pre-existing games such as Command & Conquer, which has a variety of fan based tools made for creating completely new maps and levels with the option to add objectives etc.

#039 GAD BA2 - P1: Sean Miller

Today we had another guest speaker come in to talk to us, Sean Miller. He works for Sumo Digital, an independent developer based in Sheffield but with a studio in the U.S. Sumo Digital mainly develops games from the racing genera such as F1 2009, Split/Second Velocity and Race Driver 2006 but they do develop games from other genera's such as adventure and action including the following:

• Dead Space Ignition
• Doctor Who: The Adventure Games - TARDIS
• Doctor Who: The Adventure Games - Blood of the Cybermen
• Doctor Who: The Adventure Games - City of the Daleks
• Disney's A Christmas Carol
• Super Rub a Dub
• Broken Sword 4 - The Angel of Death
• Go! Sudoku
• England International Football

He talked about what Sumo Digital did in the industry as well as a basic outline of the game industry itself. Similar to what Drew Castalia said to us in his lecture, Sean said that it is important to put yourself out there along with your work on the internet (blogger, linkedin, tumblr etc...) to display your abilities as much as possible.  Sean also mentioned that gaming companies tend to like to work on franchise games that already have a fan base as it is a fairly high risk that new ideas/concepts won't generate enough interest in the gaming community.

#038 GAD BA2 - P1: Drew Castalia

Today (12th January) we had a lecture with Drew Castalia, a free lanced writer. He originally graduated from the University of Eat Anglia with a Master of the Arts degree in scriptwriting and has worked on many titles such as "Sherlock Holmes and the Question of the Future" and "Exile".

Drew talked a lot about his experiences in a nice and relaxed manner, he didn't talk in the technical jargon that makes your brain start to do somersaults on a early morning start. He showed us a guide from Bioware that he got when submitting some work that he did for them for a star wars game (around 20,000 words over a three piece submission). He also gave us some advice/tips on working in the industry such as look out for dodgy contracts (He was the original author of "The Young Sherlock Holmes Adventures" but his name was wiped from the front cover due to a bad contract).

He also suggested that we make our presence on the internet well known, either by blogging, networking or having a personal website as well as displaying some kind of digital portfolio for potential employers to look at.

I had planned to go to the second lecture (the next day) but unfortunately due to a mix up of times I didn't make it in on time.