Here I'll be breaking each stage of my project down to create a timeline.
Creating Character Art As Reference Material For Modelling
For this I've decided on one week as I'm planning to have a fairly basic superhero style character inspired by The Flash. I'll most likely use a base image the internet to use as guidelines as I'm not that confident in my 2D art skills so I feel like this will benefit me by doing it this way.
To help me do this I found a set of youtube tutorials created by Mr. H to help me make sure the features on the front and side images line up properly.
Modelling and Texturing Using Character Art As Reference
Since I want to keep my model simple as I would like to be marked on the quality of my topology, the rigging and the animation I have no plans to make my character overly complicated so when it comes to modelling I think I will need around three weeks to create my character to make sure I get all of the topology correct as well as have a nice clean model ready for rigging. I will be using 3DS Max to create and texture the model.
After taking a peek at a previous student's blog, I saw that he took around that time to create a similar character I feel like that is the most appropriate source of information to go off of as he was a student in the same shoes as I am right now. The reason I have chosen to do this is because I have no idea how much experience people on the internet have, people who create similar characters as I'm planning to create.
So with this information I've made the decision to take 3 weeks to model and texture my character.
I'll also be texturing my model which shouldn't take too long as my character will feature a very basic colour scheme of a pinkish beige for his face as well as red and yellow which should take me around a week if I do it correctly.
To help me with this I'll be using a combination of texts from booksand articles which I will create and annotated bibliography for in my proposal.
Rigging My Model
I will be using 3DS Max to rig my model as well as modelling and texturing it, I'll be using a biped skeleton to rig my model as my character is a humanoid then I will skin everything apart from the head which I will skin after the face has been rigged. Theoretically I should only need a week for this but I'm leaving myself some extra time in case I encounter some issues which need fixing.
As for the face, I plan to use morph targets also in 3DS Max, which is easier to do if the head is separate but once I'm done with the facial morphing I'll skill the head back onto the biped rig.
I think this overall process will take me around two weeks to rig my character using the biped skeleton then another week for a facial morph as I plan to have quite a few target morphs so I can have many different expressions. Three weeks total so I can make sure the rig is optimized and won't cause any problems for when I'm animating. Even if rigging doesn't take all that long, I will need some of this time just in case my topology is not correct or if there are some errors that only get revealed to me during the rigging process.
I'll be using information sources to help me which I will put in my annotated bibliopgraphy.
Animating my character!
As for animating my character I plan to create and optimize ten looping animations which are as follows: Walking, Running, Standing, Punching, Kicking and a Jump. I plan to use one week for each of these animations. But before I animate I need references, which I will spend a week doing before I begin my animating.
This will leave me six weeks which I plan to use to create a start and stop walking and running animation, with this I can have my character go from standing idle, to walking or running and then stop, reverting back to the standing animation. I'll take one week to create the start and stop walking animation and then another week to create the start and stop running animation, leaving me with four weeks.
With one of the remaining four weeks I'll be tidying up any of the animations or fixing any problems then I will use one of the the remaining three weeks to create a video showcase for my animations, showing off the animations and how they link and transition together. Then with my remaining time I'll also look into importing my character and animations into Unity and assign my character controls so my character will be able to run around and attack and such. To do this I'll be using a collection of tutorials as scripting and using Unity isn't my strong point.
Thursday, 3 December 2015
Wednesday, 2 December 2015
Pre-Proposal Research Part 2
Animation Research
Here I will document my research into animation, I'll be looking at the principles of animation, how to create natural, fluid and expressive human motion in animation as well as I'll look into the process of exporting animations into a game engine, most likely Unity since it's the engine I've had the most experience with.
The Principles of Animation and How They Help To Create Natural, Fluid and Expressive Human Motion in Animation
The 12 basic principles of animation are the most important techniques you must master as an animator. Apparently originating from Disney, they may have come up before, the 12 principles should be the best possible guide for creating appealing and realistic character animations.
Here are the 12 principles of animation in no particular order:
Timing and Spacing
Timing and Spacing in animation is what gives objects and charcters the illusion of moving within the laws of physics. Timing refers to the number of frames between poses e.g. if a ball moves from one side of the screen to the other, left to right, in 24 frames that would be the timing. You can set the amount of frames to be in one second, a common number of frames per second is 24 when animating.
Spacing refers to how a ball is placed in each of the individual frames e.g. in the same example as I used before, the spacing would be how the ball is positioned in the 23 frames before the 24th. If the spacing is close together, then the object would move slower and if the spacing was further apart across the frames the object would move faster.
Squash and Stretch
Squash and stretch is what gives objects flexibility. Believe it or not, there’s quite a lot of squashing and stretching happening in real life that you may not notice and in animation this can often be exaggerated. For example, there’s a lot of squashing and stretching in the face when someone speaks, when the jaw moves up and down it stretches your cheeks and lips and then you move your mouth if you were to whistle, it squashes.
Another example would be if you were to watch a bouncing ball, as the ball falls and gathers speed it stretches and when the ball impacts the floor it will squash and then when it takes off, it stretches again.
Squash and stretch can be implemented in many different areas of animation such as when a character gets surprised, their face would squash down then stretch. Squash and stretch is a good principle to help exaggerate animations and add more appeal to movement.
Example of squash and stretch as a character gets surprised:
Anticipation
Anticipation is to prepare the viewer for an action that is about to happen. For example the character could be about to kick a football but to make the viewer anticipate this, as well as to gather momentum for the kick, the character would first move their foot backward. Another example would be if a character was to jump, they would first bend their knees and then push themselves upward off of the ground.
Ease In Ease Out/Slow In Slow Out
When an object or character is going to move or stop there needs to be time for them to accelerate and decelerate. Why is this necessary? Because movements can appear very robotic and unnatural. For example, as a car starts and stops moving they would first need to accelerate before reaching top speed and then decelerate when coming to a stop as going from 0mph to 100mph in one frame would look ridiculous as well as going from 100mph to 0mph.
This is where spacing comes into this, having the each frame begin closer together then space further apart when it comes to the middle of the action then gradually become closer together as its coming to the end creates the effect of easing in and out. An example given by digital tutors would be if a character was standing up from a sitting position, the spacing will start off closer together easing them into the movement, and as they stand up, they will ease out of the movement. Without this acceleration and deceleration of the actions everything would be very abrupt and jerky.
Example Image:
As you can see, the frames begin closer together as if you ease the character's movement in.
Follow Through and Overlapping Action
According to digital tutors, follow through and overlapping actions are sometimes considered two different principles, but they're closely related.
Follow through is when certain parts of a character continue moving after the character has stopped. A great example digital tutors gave was; as a character comes to a stop from a walk, every part of the body won't stop at the exact same time, the arms may continue to sway forward and then back before coming to a stop. This could also apply to clothing that continues to move as the character comes to a stop.
My example of follow through is if a character was running and tried to come to a stop as soon as they could, my hair would fly forward whipping my face as it was still carrying momentum.
Overlapping action is very similar in that it means different parts of the body will move at different times. For example if a character was to lift their foot in front of them to place it on a box, the top of their leg would have to bend along with their knee or if the character was to raise their arm up the shoulder would move first then the arm then the elbow possibly causing the hand to lag behind a few frames. Other terms for this incude "dragging" or "lead and follow". Another example would be if someone were to nudge a small tree, for whatever reason, first the area around the point of impact would move followed by the rest of the tree giving you a waving motion.
"In real life, everything moves at different speeds and at different moments in time, and that is why follow through and overlapping action is so important for capturing realistic and fluid movement."
Arcs
It's unnatural for people to move in straight lines, we tend to move in some form of arcing motion. In animation this principle of arcs helps to ensure animation is smooth and moves in a realistic way.
For example, as we walk out feet don't move in a somewhat straight/square motion, it's more or a rounded circular motion, an arcing motion or if we were to turn our head from left to right, it would normally dip a bit downward during the turn, creating an arcing motion which looks much less robotic and more natural.
Exaggeration
Exaggeration pushes movements further and adds more appeal to an action. Depending on how much exaggeration you use can either make an animation appear more cartoony or robotic. If you're animating to a realistic degree even a little exaggeration is necessary to keep the action from looking unnatural. This also helps when you're trying to enhance movements or help to demonstrate the weight of the character.
For example a lighter/weaker character would hace to put more of their body into pushing a heavy car than a larger/stronger character as its harder for them to push, demonstrating the weight of the car to be difficult for a smaller character to push than a larger one.
Solid Drawing
This mostly applies to 2D animation but still somewhat applies to 3D animation. With solid drawing you should think about how you're posing your 3D character rig, ensuring there is correct balance and weight in the pose, as well as a clear silhouette. You don't really want to have the post you have created mirrored across to the other side.
When the average person stands, they tend to put their weight on one leg more than the other as balancing weight between both legs is somewhat uncomfortable and interesting and a bit unappealing in a sense that it doesn't give a character much personality.
Appeal
This principle comes down to making the viewer be able to connect or relate to the character, an overly-complicated or strange character design may not be as appealing. Some ways to generate appeal in a character is to, for example, give the viewer something to remember about your character like if the character pushes out his chest a lot or has a cocky grin on his face a lot of the time.
Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose
Another joint principle! Straight ahead and pose to pose refers to a couple of different ways for how you could go about animating. With straight it gives you a more linear approach and can feature many different aspects as each post of the animation will be created one after the other. An example given by digital tutors is: if you’re animating a character jumping in the air you would create the pose where he’s standing, the next where he is beginning to kneel down, the next would be him completely crouched, and so on. You’re working through the animation as you’re going.
As for pose to pose it's much more planned out, there's more of a set path with the most important poses required to properly express the action. Their example of this is: you could approach the exact same action as the example before with four poses, the character standing, crouched, in the air, and back on the ground. It allows you to work much simpler, and ensure the posing and timing is correct before going into each individual frame and adding detail.
Secondary Action
When you add a secondary action to support the main action it helps to breathe more life into the animation to make it move convincing and lifelike.
The secondary action is usually something subtle such as while a character is walking their shuffling around in their bag or pockets for something or just looking around, something that doesn't distract the viewer too much from the main action. Another example would be characters waiting in like taking a step along the line every once in a while, that would be the main action, but while they're in the like their could have their arms folded, tapping their finger creating the secondary action. These actions are subtle yet powerful when making the animation more lifelike.
Staging
Staging is when you make the animation's purpose clear to the viewer, its when you set up your scene, from where the characters are placed to where the background and foreground elements are placed as well as where the camera is and it's angle. This could be setting up a character and an object or two characters so that they are easily seen from the angle you place the camera in. You don't want to confuse the viewer so keep the focus of the camera on the purpose of the shot and what you want to show the audience. For example you could should the face of a character as well as an object they want, then the viewer can easily see that the character is focused on the object and judging by his expression what he wants from or to do with the object.
Exporting Animations Into A Game Engine
For this example I'm going to use Unity as the game engine I'm going to export my animation into from 3DS Max.
For bone structure based animations you first import the character and create any animation you want, using both Forward Kinematics and Inverse Kinematics. Next select all of the bones and/or the Inverse Kinematic solvers and go to Motion then trajectories and press collapse. Unity makes a key filter, so the amount of keys you export is irrelevant.
Next go to export or export selected as newest FBX format, the default export settings should be fine. Once the exporting has finished you can then just drop the FBX file into the Assets of your Unity project. In Unity you need to reassign the texture to the material in the root bone.
When you export a rigged model with a bone hierarchy from 3DS Max into Unity the GameObject hierarchy in Unity will be the same as the hierarchy you can see in the "Schematic vew" in 3DS Max. Unity will place a GameObject as the new root, containing the animations and will place the model and material information in the new root.
Bibliography:
Surprised Image, easing example + image and follow through + overlapping quote and examples taken from: http://blog.digitaltutors.com/understanding-12-principles-animation/
Here I will document my research into animation, I'll be looking at the principles of animation, how to create natural, fluid and expressive human motion in animation as well as I'll look into the process of exporting animations into a game engine, most likely Unity since it's the engine I've had the most experience with.
The Principles of Animation and How They Help To Create Natural, Fluid and Expressive Human Motion in Animation
The 12 basic principles of animation are the most important techniques you must master as an animator. Apparently originating from Disney, they may have come up before, the 12 principles should be the best possible guide for creating appealing and realistic character animations.
Here are the 12 principles of animation in no particular order:
- Timing and Spacing
- Squash and Stretch
- Anticipation
- Ease in Ease Out/Slow In and Slow Out
- Follow Through and Overlapping Action
- Arcs
- Exaggeration
- Solid Drawing
- Appeal
- Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose
- Secondary Action
- Staging
Timing and Spacing
Timing and Spacing in animation is what gives objects and charcters the illusion of moving within the laws of physics. Timing refers to the number of frames between poses e.g. if a ball moves from one side of the screen to the other, left to right, in 24 frames that would be the timing. You can set the amount of frames to be in one second, a common number of frames per second is 24 when animating.
Spacing refers to how a ball is placed in each of the individual frames e.g. in the same example as I used before, the spacing would be how the ball is positioned in the 23 frames before the 24th. If the spacing is close together, then the object would move slower and if the spacing was further apart across the frames the object would move faster.
Squash and Stretch
Squash and stretch is what gives objects flexibility. Believe it or not, there’s quite a lot of squashing and stretching happening in real life that you may not notice and in animation this can often be exaggerated. For example, there’s a lot of squashing and stretching in the face when someone speaks, when the jaw moves up and down it stretches your cheeks and lips and then you move your mouth if you were to whistle, it squashes.
Another example would be if you were to watch a bouncing ball, as the ball falls and gathers speed it stretches and when the ball impacts the floor it will squash and then when it takes off, it stretches again.
Squash and stretch can be implemented in many different areas of animation such as when a character gets surprised, their face would squash down then stretch. Squash and stretch is a good principle to help exaggerate animations and add more appeal to movement.
Example of squash and stretch as a character gets surprised:
Anticipation
Anticipation is to prepare the viewer for an action that is about to happen. For example the character could be about to kick a football but to make the viewer anticipate this, as well as to gather momentum for the kick, the character would first move their foot backward. Another example would be if a character was to jump, they would first bend their knees and then push themselves upward off of the ground.
Ease In Ease Out/Slow In Slow Out
When an object or character is going to move or stop there needs to be time for them to accelerate and decelerate. Why is this necessary? Because movements can appear very robotic and unnatural. For example, as a car starts and stops moving they would first need to accelerate before reaching top speed and then decelerate when coming to a stop as going from 0mph to 100mph in one frame would look ridiculous as well as going from 100mph to 0mph.
This is where spacing comes into this, having the each frame begin closer together then space further apart when it comes to the middle of the action then gradually become closer together as its coming to the end creates the effect of easing in and out. An example given by digital tutors would be if a character was standing up from a sitting position, the spacing will start off closer together easing them into the movement, and as they stand up, they will ease out of the movement. Without this acceleration and deceleration of the actions everything would be very abrupt and jerky.
Example Image:
As you can see, the frames begin closer together as if you ease the character's movement in.
Follow Through and Overlapping Action
According to digital tutors, follow through and overlapping actions are sometimes considered two different principles, but they're closely related.
Follow through is when certain parts of a character continue moving after the character has stopped. A great example digital tutors gave was; as a character comes to a stop from a walk, every part of the body won't stop at the exact same time, the arms may continue to sway forward and then back before coming to a stop. This could also apply to clothing that continues to move as the character comes to a stop.
My example of follow through is if a character was running and tried to come to a stop as soon as they could, my hair would fly forward whipping my face as it was still carrying momentum.
Overlapping action is very similar in that it means different parts of the body will move at different times. For example if a character was to lift their foot in front of them to place it on a box, the top of their leg would have to bend along with their knee or if the character was to raise their arm up the shoulder would move first then the arm then the elbow possibly causing the hand to lag behind a few frames. Other terms for this incude "dragging" or "lead and follow". Another example would be if someone were to nudge a small tree, for whatever reason, first the area around the point of impact would move followed by the rest of the tree giving you a waving motion.
"In real life, everything moves at different speeds and at different moments in time, and that is why follow through and overlapping action is so important for capturing realistic and fluid movement."
Arcs
It's unnatural for people to move in straight lines, we tend to move in some form of arcing motion. In animation this principle of arcs helps to ensure animation is smooth and moves in a realistic way.
For example, as we walk out feet don't move in a somewhat straight/square motion, it's more or a rounded circular motion, an arcing motion or if we were to turn our head from left to right, it would normally dip a bit downward during the turn, creating an arcing motion which looks much less robotic and more natural.
Exaggeration
Exaggeration pushes movements further and adds more appeal to an action. Depending on how much exaggeration you use can either make an animation appear more cartoony or robotic. If you're animating to a realistic degree even a little exaggeration is necessary to keep the action from looking unnatural. This also helps when you're trying to enhance movements or help to demonstrate the weight of the character.
For example a lighter/weaker character would hace to put more of their body into pushing a heavy car than a larger/stronger character as its harder for them to push, demonstrating the weight of the car to be difficult for a smaller character to push than a larger one.
Solid Drawing
This mostly applies to 2D animation but still somewhat applies to 3D animation. With solid drawing you should think about how you're posing your 3D character rig, ensuring there is correct balance and weight in the pose, as well as a clear silhouette. You don't really want to have the post you have created mirrored across to the other side.
When the average person stands, they tend to put their weight on one leg more than the other as balancing weight between both legs is somewhat uncomfortable and interesting and a bit unappealing in a sense that it doesn't give a character much personality.
Appeal
This principle comes down to making the viewer be able to connect or relate to the character, an overly-complicated or strange character design may not be as appealing. Some ways to generate appeal in a character is to, for example, give the viewer something to remember about your character like if the character pushes out his chest a lot or has a cocky grin on his face a lot of the time.
Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose
Another joint principle! Straight ahead and pose to pose refers to a couple of different ways for how you could go about animating. With straight it gives you a more linear approach and can feature many different aspects as each post of the animation will be created one after the other. An example given by digital tutors is: if you’re animating a character jumping in the air you would create the pose where he’s standing, the next where he is beginning to kneel down, the next would be him completely crouched, and so on. You’re working through the animation as you’re going.
As for pose to pose it's much more planned out, there's more of a set path with the most important poses required to properly express the action. Their example of this is: you could approach the exact same action as the example before with four poses, the character standing, crouched, in the air, and back on the ground. It allows you to work much simpler, and ensure the posing and timing is correct before going into each individual frame and adding detail.
Secondary Action
When you add a secondary action to support the main action it helps to breathe more life into the animation to make it move convincing and lifelike.
The secondary action is usually something subtle such as while a character is walking their shuffling around in their bag or pockets for something or just looking around, something that doesn't distract the viewer too much from the main action. Another example would be characters waiting in like taking a step along the line every once in a while, that would be the main action, but while they're in the like their could have their arms folded, tapping their finger creating the secondary action. These actions are subtle yet powerful when making the animation more lifelike.
Staging
Staging is when you make the animation's purpose clear to the viewer, its when you set up your scene, from where the characters are placed to where the background and foreground elements are placed as well as where the camera is and it's angle. This could be setting up a character and an object or two characters so that they are easily seen from the angle you place the camera in. You don't want to confuse the viewer so keep the focus of the camera on the purpose of the shot and what you want to show the audience. For example you could should the face of a character as well as an object they want, then the viewer can easily see that the character is focused on the object and judging by his expression what he wants from or to do with the object.
Exporting Animations Into A Game Engine
For this example I'm going to use Unity as the game engine I'm going to export my animation into from 3DS Max.
For bone structure based animations you first import the character and create any animation you want, using both Forward Kinematics and Inverse Kinematics. Next select all of the bones and/or the Inverse Kinematic solvers and go to Motion then trajectories and press collapse. Unity makes a key filter, so the amount of keys you export is irrelevant.
Next go to export or export selected as newest FBX format, the default export settings should be fine. Once the exporting has finished you can then just drop the FBX file into the Assets of your Unity project. In Unity you need to reassign the texture to the material in the root bone.
When you export a rigged model with a bone hierarchy from 3DS Max into Unity the GameObject hierarchy in Unity will be the same as the hierarchy you can see in the "Schematic vew" in 3DS Max. Unity will place a GameObject as the new root, containing the animations and will place the model and material information in the new root.
Bibliography:
Surprised Image, easing example + image and follow through + overlapping quote and examples taken from: http://blog.digitaltutors.com/understanding-12-principles-animation/
Tuesday, 1 December 2015
Pre-Proposal Research Part 1
Topology, deformable models and 3D Modelling Standards
First of all I'm looking into tips for modelling for animation, it is reccomended that I use either no triangle faces or as few as possible as it would cause difficulties with the topology and the deformation of the model.
(Topology is a term artists use to describe the construction of a 3D model, the arrangement of polygons and edges and how they flow together.)
Different Shapes In Modelling For Animation:
When you subdivide triangles, things tend to get messy. There really isn’t a visual flow to the model.
When it comes to ensuring that the model will be able to deform and animate properly in places such as joints e.g. elbows knees and wrists the modeller will be benefitted by using quads. The reason quads will help is because the modeller can insert extra edge loops but if the modeller were to be using triangles it is harder to add or remove loops that would help the animator. With Triangles, it is also harder to see a clean flow of geometry and they tend to produce sharp angles that can harm the model’s appeal. When it comes to animation appeal is important both to the model and the artist who provided the model for animation.
My Thoughts
According to this guide using quads makes the model much easier to navigate, edit as well as it will make it much easier for someone else other than the creator to view and understand the model. Sticking to quads will greatly benefit me when it comes to rigging an animating and it will hopefully prevent the model from deforming incorrectly when animating. Using quads will be far better when it comes to improving the model's topology.
3D Modelling Standards
There are no set standards for 3D models but there are standards set by employers when it comes to the models you will be making for them. Standards from employers may differ and often conflict with other employers causing confusion.
Facial Shapes, Facial Rigging and Optimizing Rigs
Facial Rigging and Facial Shapes
When it comes to rigging faces as well as rigging as a whole, there is a lot that goes into it, but the basic idea of it is you put bones into your model which act as controllers for the body parts of the model. A character's facial rig is usually altogether separate from the main motion controls. It's inefficient and incredibly difficult to create a satisfactory facial rig using a traditional joint/bone structure, so morph targets (or blend shapes) are usually seen as a far better way of doing it.
How facial rigging works using joints/bones is very similar in theory except instead of putting long bones along each section of say, an arm, you put small bones in things like a character's lips and eyebrows etc.. Which then allow you to move the character's lips and eyebrows without just pulling the polygons around.
The way I've explained rigging makes it sound a lot easier than it really is but this is just my understanding of it, I know rigging is a difficult process so I will be gathering information on it to help me.
Facial shapes and expressions are expressed by a combination of the different parts of the face, when rigging a face to be capable of these facial expressions you need to have control over certain parts of the face.
Here is an example of where the facial "bones" go:
As you can see there are "bones" all around the eyes, nose and mouth so they can move in a variety of different ways rather than just a simple opening and closing or up and down motion. The eyes are controlled by the blue and red rings and as you move them around the eye will follow so you can have the character look at different things.
In this video, skip to around 20 seconds and you can see the faces of the character's face moving around in different and fluid ways which could not be done if the face could only open and close eyes and mouth and move thing up and down.
So as you can see rigging a face is no easy task so I will need constant information which I can use to help me while I rig my character's face if I choose to do it using bones.
As for morph targets/blend shapes, which I think I will be far more comfortable with, it's a very different process. In 3DS Max there is a morph modifier which you use to morph your character's face with a controller. The idea of it is you copy the polys and vertexes, in my case the head without the eyes and mouth interior, and create copies for each of the separate parts of the face you want to morph. For example, the bottom and top eyelids will need four separate copies, one for each eye lid. That goes for the nose, both lips and both corners of the mouth. I will also need one for the jaw if I wanted to move the jaw up and down, which I believe I do. That's around 10 copies in total as I may want to morph more of the model's face.
With each of these copies, I'll name them things such as "right top eye lid" and then I'll edit the copy so the top eye lid so the eye lid moved down to about where it would meet the bottom eye lid. Once I've done this, I'll go back over to the original head, to the morpher target and select the "right top eye lid" from the menu and once it's selected it'll move over into the morpher list and I'll be able to drag the value which starts at 0% to 100% which will move the eyelid all the way down to the point on the copy has the eye lid on. I can also drag it to around 50% and the eye lid will go half of the distance.
I'll then continue to do this for the rest of the model's facial features I want to move and thinking about it, this is a much better way of animating a face in my eyes and I think this is the way I'll choose to animate my face.
Optimizing Rigs
When rigging you basically set up a skeleton inside your character this is arguably the easiest part but in order for your rig to work properly, the bones and joints must follow a logical hierarchy. When setting up the skeleton, the first bone you place is called the root joint/bone. The root joint/bone is normally the pelvis as it works well as the center of the character. Every joint/bone after that will be connected to the root either directly or through another joint/bone e.g. the forearm bone will be connected to the upper arm bone, by a joint, which is then connected to the shoulder bone, by a joint, which is connected to the spine segments and eventually this will lead to the pelvis, the root.
Forward kinematics is one of the two ways to calculate the joint movement of a rigged character. Any given join can only affect parts of the skeleton that fall below it on the joint hierarchy. For example, rotating the shoulder of your character changes the position of the whole arm like if you were to stretch your arm out straight then bend the elbow which would in turn make the hand move. When animating with forward kinematics, the animator usually needs to set the rotation and position of each join individually to achieve a desired pose the animator would work through the hierarchy sequentially: root > spine > shoulder > elbow etc.. The final position of a terminating joint such as the end of your finger is calculated as a function of the joint angles of every joint above it in the hierarchy.
Inverse kinematics work in the opposite way, they work regardless of a hierarchy so if you were to move the hand which is fairly low on the hierarchy the rest of the body would follow the hand so the model doesn't break.
Setting constraints is important to make sure the rig maintains realistic proportions so by setting constraints you lock the position of each joint in relation to the rest of the rig.
Bibliography:
Modeling with quads or triangles + images: http://blog.digitaltutors.com/modeling-with-quads-or-triangles/
Facial Rig Picture: http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/speed-facial-rig-enhance-your-character
Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XULwjjk0DLo
First of all I'm looking into tips for modelling for animation, it is reccomended that I use either no triangle faces or as few as possible as it would cause difficulties with the topology and the deformation of the model.
(Topology is a term artists use to describe the construction of a 3D model, the arrangement of polygons and edges and how they flow together.)
Different Shapes In Modelling For Animation:
Triangle
When modelling triangles are, according to this guide, typically avoided as they can cause problems when deforming and animating a model as the faces don't really bend as you'd expect when for example bending an arm.
N-gon
N-gons, a five or more sided shape, should be avoided as it causes many problems when deforming and animating the faces could move in an unexpected way.
Quadrilaterals
When it comes to modelling, quads seem to be the way to go as they will ensure clean topology as well as ensure the proper deformation when animating.
Edge loops
Edge loops are, most of the time, a continuous loop which has no starting or ending point. E.g. if you were to select and highlight one vertex and follow the loop round eventually you'd arrive at the same vertex. Edge loops help when adding detail such as wrinkles or folds as well as they can help define how sharp an edge is. If an edge loop runs into a triangle, it ends the loop and breaks the flow of the line leaving it as no longer a loop.
Subdividing
When subdividing quads, your results are fairly predictable. You have rows and columns made up of four sided polygons and it is easy to see where those polygons will be split in half once it is subdivided.
When you subdivide triangles, things tend to get messy. There really isn’t a visual flow to the model.
Smoothing
When it comes to smoothing the geometry or using a quick smooth preview feature, triangles will cause anomalies across the surface of the model. Because of the uneven amount of vertices, the triangle can cause strange bumps or pinches in the geometry. This similar thing can happen to geometry created with n-gons but in an even more unexpected way.
When it comes to ensuring that the model will be able to deform and animate properly in places such as joints e.g. elbows knees and wrists the modeller will be benefitted by using quads. The reason quads will help is because the modeller can insert extra edge loops but if the modeller were to be using triangles it is harder to add or remove loops that would help the animator. With Triangles, it is also harder to see a clean flow of geometry and they tend to produce sharp angles that can harm the model’s appeal. When it comes to animation appeal is important both to the model and the artist who provided the model for animation.
My Thoughts
According to this guide using quads makes the model much easier to navigate, edit as well as it will make it much easier for someone else other than the creator to view and understand the model. Sticking to quads will greatly benefit me when it comes to rigging an animating and it will hopefully prevent the model from deforming incorrectly when animating. Using quads will be far better when it comes to improving the model's topology.
3D Modelling Standards
There are no set standards for 3D models but there are standards set by employers when it comes to the models you will be making for them. Standards from employers may differ and often conflict with other employers causing confusion.
Facial Shapes, Facial Rigging and Optimizing Rigs
Facial Rigging and Facial Shapes
When it comes to rigging faces as well as rigging as a whole, there is a lot that goes into it, but the basic idea of it is you put bones into your model which act as controllers for the body parts of the model. A character's facial rig is usually altogether separate from the main motion controls. It's inefficient and incredibly difficult to create a satisfactory facial rig using a traditional joint/bone structure, so morph targets (or blend shapes) are usually seen as a far better way of doing it.
How facial rigging works using joints/bones is very similar in theory except instead of putting long bones along each section of say, an arm, you put small bones in things like a character's lips and eyebrows etc.. Which then allow you to move the character's lips and eyebrows without just pulling the polygons around.
The way I've explained rigging makes it sound a lot easier than it really is but this is just my understanding of it, I know rigging is a difficult process so I will be gathering information on it to help me.
Facial shapes and expressions are expressed by a combination of the different parts of the face, when rigging a face to be capable of these facial expressions you need to have control over certain parts of the face.
Here is an example of where the facial "bones" go:
As you can see there are "bones" all around the eyes, nose and mouth so they can move in a variety of different ways rather than just a simple opening and closing or up and down motion. The eyes are controlled by the blue and red rings and as you move them around the eye will follow so you can have the character look at different things.
In this video, skip to around 20 seconds and you can see the faces of the character's face moving around in different and fluid ways which could not be done if the face could only open and close eyes and mouth and move thing up and down.
So as you can see rigging a face is no easy task so I will need constant information which I can use to help me while I rig my character's face if I choose to do it using bones.
As for morph targets/blend shapes, which I think I will be far more comfortable with, it's a very different process. In 3DS Max there is a morph modifier which you use to morph your character's face with a controller. The idea of it is you copy the polys and vertexes, in my case the head without the eyes and mouth interior, and create copies for each of the separate parts of the face you want to morph. For example, the bottom and top eyelids will need four separate copies, one for each eye lid. That goes for the nose, both lips and both corners of the mouth. I will also need one for the jaw if I wanted to move the jaw up and down, which I believe I do. That's around 10 copies in total as I may want to morph more of the model's face.
With each of these copies, I'll name them things such as "right top eye lid" and then I'll edit the copy so the top eye lid so the eye lid moved down to about where it would meet the bottom eye lid. Once I've done this, I'll go back over to the original head, to the morpher target and select the "right top eye lid" from the menu and once it's selected it'll move over into the morpher list and I'll be able to drag the value which starts at 0% to 100% which will move the eyelid all the way down to the point on the copy has the eye lid on. I can also drag it to around 50% and the eye lid will go half of the distance.
I'll then continue to do this for the rest of the model's facial features I want to move and thinking about it, this is a much better way of animating a face in my eyes and I think this is the way I'll choose to animate my face.
Optimizing Rigs
When rigging you basically set up a skeleton inside your character this is arguably the easiest part but in order for your rig to work properly, the bones and joints must follow a logical hierarchy. When setting up the skeleton, the first bone you place is called the root joint/bone. The root joint/bone is normally the pelvis as it works well as the center of the character. Every joint/bone after that will be connected to the root either directly or through another joint/bone e.g. the forearm bone will be connected to the upper arm bone, by a joint, which is then connected to the shoulder bone, by a joint, which is connected to the spine segments and eventually this will lead to the pelvis, the root.
Forward kinematics is one of the two ways to calculate the joint movement of a rigged character. Any given join can only affect parts of the skeleton that fall below it on the joint hierarchy. For example, rotating the shoulder of your character changes the position of the whole arm like if you were to stretch your arm out straight then bend the elbow which would in turn make the hand move. When animating with forward kinematics, the animator usually needs to set the rotation and position of each join individually to achieve a desired pose the animator would work through the hierarchy sequentially: root > spine > shoulder > elbow etc.. The final position of a terminating joint such as the end of your finger is calculated as a function of the joint angles of every joint above it in the hierarchy.
Inverse kinematics work in the opposite way, they work regardless of a hierarchy so if you were to move the hand which is fairly low on the hierarchy the rest of the body would follow the hand so the model doesn't break.
Setting constraints is important to make sure the rig maintains realistic proportions so by setting constraints you lock the position of each joint in relation to the rest of the rig.
Bibliography:
Modeling with quads or triangles + images: http://blog.digitaltutors.com/modeling-with-quads-or-triangles/
Facial Rig Picture: http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/speed-facial-rig-enhance-your-character
Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XULwjjk0DLo
Monday, 30 November 2015
Timetable/List of things I need to research
Here is my list of things that I need to go over this week as well as find information sources for:
I'll hopefully be making a start on my final project proposal Wednesday afternoon which I will then continue to work on Thursday hopefully being able to get it handed in by either Thursday afternoon or Friday morning.
- The Principles of Animation
- Creating natural, fluid and expressive human motion in animation
- Look into the process of exporting animations into a game engine
- Topology and deformable models
- Facial shapes and facial rigging
- Optimized rigs
- 3D Character standards and protocols
I'll hopefully be making a start on my final project proposal Wednesday afternoon which I will then continue to work on Thursday hopefully being able to get it handed in by either Thursday afternoon or Friday morning.
Job Research 3 & 4
Today I took a look at a few job ads as one of them was extremely short I decided to merge two ad evaluations.
Job post three
There isn't much information apart from that the company "Boulder" are looking for 3D animators to work on a new 3D series, whether this is a TV series or an online series isn't clear.
There is a short list of skills and although this isn't a job ad for anything to do with animating for video games I still think that the information is helpful.
The fact that they want experience in 3DS Max or Maya leaves myself open for a wider range of job opportunities than I thought and although I'm working on a project that involves the creation and animation of a 3D character for a video game, the skills required here allow me to perhaps look into animating for non-video game purposes in the future.
More skills:
I read through the rest of these list of skills and although most of them were present in one form or another in another job ad I blogged about I didn't much notice them in the sea of requirements for video game specific requirements. I just thought I'd blog about this job ad as it made me think of animation as well as general working skills and that they need to be focused on too.
This may seem a little irrelavent but some of these skills I do plan on working on such as the ability to work to a weekly quota since I will have a weekly schedule for my final project.
Job post four
A job ad for a freelance position as a character animator to be animating certain exaggerated fighting animations.
I'm getting to the point where the requirements are getting rather generic, with job post four they ask for previous experience, an understanding of animation principles and techniques which is one of the things I plan on looking into and blogging about this week.
Other skills include experience with iterative design and being comfortable with trashing work, I have been known to not know when to give up but hopefully if I go into working on something knowing it may be trashed, I'll still work my hardest to make it the best it can be.
Next up on my blog I'll be creating a timetable for this week based on what I think I need to look into as well as working on my proposal.
Job Post 3:
The successful candidate will have all of the skills and characteristics listed below:
Job Post 4:
http://supertype.com/
http://arena-gods.com/
Payment will be structured per animation. Deliverables, delivery time, room for iteration, and price will be agreed upon in advance and payment will be made upon delivery of completed work. We strongly prefer using PayPal for payments, but we can make bank transfers if absolutely necessary.
We’re looking for someone we can potentially build a long term relationship with spanning multiple projects.
Supertype is a new independent game studio comprised of Mark Parrish and Rodrigo Costa. While originally founded in Beijing, China, they are currently based in New York City and Florianopolis, Brazil. Arena Gods is their first game as a new studio and development is going pretty damn good.
Responsibilities:
– Create key-frame character animations for the combat moves we design.
– Work strictly with one humanoid character.
– Adjust the timing of fast and slow attacks.
– Adjust animation transitions from other movement actions like standing, running, and rolling on the ground.
– Adjust transitions from one combat move to another, to create combo moves.
– Work remote from the team and communicate with team members in other countries in different time zones.
Requirements:
– Previous experience with combat/fighting video game animation.
– Both technical and artistic animation skills with a strong understanding of classic animation principles and techniques.
– Experience with iterative design and comfortable with trashing work.
– Experience working remote with minimum supervision.
– Strong attention to detail.
– We prefer animators working in 3DS Max.
– Bonus points for experience with Unity3D’s Animator.
– Passion for fighting games is a big plus.
– Passion for arena fighting games is a mega plus.
Please send a link of your demo reel and questions to mark@supertypegames.com, with ‘Character Animator’ in the subject line.
Contact: mark@supertypegames.com
Bibliography:
Link to Job Post 3: http://www.animatedjobs.com/jobs/experienced-3d-animators-wanted/
Link to Job Post 4: http://www.animatedjobs.com/jobs/3d-character-animator-for-steamps4xone-game/
Job post three
There isn't much information apart from that the company "Boulder" are looking for 3D animators to work on a new 3D series, whether this is a TV series or an online series isn't clear.
There is a short list of skills and although this isn't a job ad for anything to do with animating for video games I still think that the information is helpful.
The fact that they want experience in 3DS Max or Maya leaves myself open for a wider range of job opportunities than I thought and although I'm working on a project that involves the creation and animation of a 3D character for a video game, the skills required here allow me to perhaps look into animating for non-video game purposes in the future.
More skills:
- Strong grasp of basic animation fundamentals
- Great work ethic
- Ability to work to a schedule/quota
- Good creative Vision and to be detail orientated
- Flexible, willing to learn and self-motivated
- Good interpersonal skills
I read through the rest of these list of skills and although most of them were present in one form or another in another job ad I blogged about I didn't much notice them in the sea of requirements for video game specific requirements. I just thought I'd blog about this job ad as it made me think of animation as well as general working skills and that they need to be focused on too.
This may seem a little irrelavent but some of these skills I do plan on working on such as the ability to work to a weekly quota since I will have a weekly schedule for my final project.
Job post four
A job ad for a freelance position as a character animator to be animating certain exaggerated fighting animations.
I'm getting to the point where the requirements are getting rather generic, with job post four they ask for previous experience, an understanding of animation principles and techniques which is one of the things I plan on looking into and blogging about this week.
Other skills include experience with iterative design and being comfortable with trashing work, I have been known to not know when to give up but hopefully if I go into working on something knowing it may be trashed, I'll still work my hardest to make it the best it can be.
Next up on my blog I'll be creating a timetable for this week based on what I think I need to look into as well as working on my proposal.
Job Post 3:
Experienced 3D Animators wanted
Job Description
Boulder are looking for 3D Animators to work on our exciting new 3D series.The successful candidate will have all of the skills and characteristics listed below:
- Proven 3DS Max/Maya software skills, preferably on a long form animation series
- A strong grasp of the basic animation fundamentals and a great work ethic
- Must be able to work to a weekly quota
- Must have good creative vision and be detail orientated
- Must be flexible, willing to learn and self-motivated
- Must have good interpersonal skills
Job Post 4:
3D Character Animator for Steam/PS4/XONE game
Job Description
Supertype is looking for a freelance 3D Character Animator to craft fluid combat animations with exaggerated, visceral motions for our upcoming multiplayer fighting game, Arena Gods.http://supertype.com/
http://arena-gods.com/
Payment will be structured per animation. Deliverables, delivery time, room for iteration, and price will be agreed upon in advance and payment will be made upon delivery of completed work. We strongly prefer using PayPal for payments, but we can make bank transfers if absolutely necessary.
We’re looking for someone we can potentially build a long term relationship with spanning multiple projects.
Supertype is a new independent game studio comprised of Mark Parrish and Rodrigo Costa. While originally founded in Beijing, China, they are currently based in New York City and Florianopolis, Brazil. Arena Gods is their first game as a new studio and development is going pretty damn good.
Responsibilities:
– Create key-frame character animations for the combat moves we design.
– Work strictly with one humanoid character.
– Adjust the timing of fast and slow attacks.
– Adjust animation transitions from other movement actions like standing, running, and rolling on the ground.
– Adjust transitions from one combat move to another, to create combo moves.
– Work remote from the team and communicate with team members in other countries in different time zones.
Requirements:
– Previous experience with combat/fighting video game animation.
– Both technical and artistic animation skills with a strong understanding of classic animation principles and techniques.
– Experience with iterative design and comfortable with trashing work.
– Experience working remote with minimum supervision.
– Strong attention to detail.
– We prefer animators working in 3DS Max.
– Bonus points for experience with Unity3D’s Animator.
– Passion for fighting games is a big plus.
– Passion for arena fighting games is a mega plus.
Please send a link of your demo reel and questions to mark@supertypegames.com, with ‘Character Animator’ in the subject line.
Contact: mark@supertypegames.com
Bibliography:
Link to Job Post 3: http://www.animatedjobs.com/jobs/experienced-3d-animators-wanted/
Link to Job Post 4: http://www.animatedjobs.com/jobs/3d-character-animator-for-steamps4xone-game/
Friday, 27 November 2015
Pipeline Research
Today I looked into the 3D Production Pipeline here are some websites explaining 3D character creation for games:
http://blog.digitaltutors.com/bringing-hero-life-indie-game-development-pipeline/
http://www.digitaltutors.com/learningpath/113-Indie-Game-Development-Pipeline
In the first link it explains the development process for a Hero character for an indie game. This pipeline explains that the development stages of the hero relate to the animation. To begin I must design what the character looks like, by sketching for finding images for reference. To make things easier I believe finding or designing a character standing in a T-pose with multiple angles such as a front view, side view and maybe a top down view.
When it comes to modeling the character I'll be using planes, to act as a canvas so I can texture them with the reference images. Making 3 faces of a square so I can begin creating my character in between them so I can simultaneously position every face of the character within the guidelines of every angle to keep the character from looking strange. e.g. having arms a lot wider from the front than the back etc..
Example of how I'll use planes to help me model my character:
Once the character has been made in a T-pose I'll make sure my model is capable of deformation. By that I mean that I need to edit the model slightly around the areas that would bend or more to make sure the model doesn't look irregular or break when it does. I'll be improving the topology of the areas around the limbs and face to make sure they can be manipulated properly.
Next I'll texture my character, the character won't have that many different colours as I have the image of a Flash-esque superhero uniform in mind which will cover most of the character's body.
As you can see, The Flash only has about 4 colours but I won't be having white patches for eyes I want to have eyeballs that can clearly be seen looking around so as for the eye holes in the costume my character's head should look something like this:
Next up comes rigging, in the pipeline guide I've been following the character they created has disjointed limbs as in he has a head, torso, hands and feet, none of which are connected. That aside the guide explains that they used Inverse Kinematics to provide a sense of length so the arms and legs don't get pushed too far away from the model to keep the model's proportions.
Taking a closer look at kinematics on the digital tutor's website I read that Inverse kinematics makes it so a child in the character's rig's hierarchy can influence the movement of the parents. They give an example which is: by utilizing IK in your character’s arms you can position your character’s hand and the rest of the character’s arm chain will automatically be calculated. From this I gathered that if I were to move the character's hand upwards, the arm would follow. Another way to describe this is if the character had their arm straight up in the air then you were to grab the hand and drag it downward, the elbow and shoulder would bend and move downward with it.
When I read about forward kinematics I was rather confused, it works in a different way that is supposed to be more precise. If you were to lift the hand up the rest of the arm wouldn't bend to follow it, the hand would just stretch upwards deforming the arm. It's as if each joint moves independantly of each other.
From this I've decided that using inverse kinematics to keep the character's body together and while using bipeds in my second year of uni for animation I feel like I will be much more comfortable using the same sort of system.
As for animating I plan to make about three looping animations most likely being an idle animation, a walking animation and a running animation. As for other animations I'm thinking about making other animations such as a punch, a kick or a jump. I could possibly look into animations such as taking a punch or a kick but for now, before I've started planning out my timeline for completion, I'm just going to look at those five animations and think about making them as good as possible.
I also took a look at a pdf called: "3D Production Pipeline in Game Development" written by Peter Ciszek. I scrolled to page 12 to chapter 3.2 and he has said the process for creating 3D Models for games is: concept drawing, Modeling, sculpting, texturing/UV-mapping, rigging and finally animating.
Here is what I think my pipeline will look like:
1. Idea/Finding/Creating Reference Images
2. Modelling the character using the images as guidelines as well as improving the model's topology so it can deform correctly
3. Texturing the character
4. Rigging the character
5. Animation
Plane Character Creation Example: http://xx-ritsu-hime-xx.deviantart.com/art/Megaman-Zero-Zero-3D-WIP-302765236
The Flash Image: http://batmanytb.com/Flash%20II%20%28Young%20Justice%29
The torso + head Flash image: http://geekleagueofamerica.com/2013/08/12/dvdblu-ray-review-justice-league-flashpoint-paradox/
Inverse and Forward Kinematics: http://blog.digitaltutors.com/understanding-inverse-and-forward-kinematics/
3D Production Pipeline in Game Development pdf: https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/bitstream/handle/123456789/40995/URN%3ANBN%3Afi%3Ajyu-201302271274.pdf
http://blog.digitaltutors.com/bringing-hero-life-indie-game-development-pipeline/
http://www.digitaltutors.com/learningpath/113-Indie-Game-Development-Pipeline
In the first link it explains the development process for a Hero character for an indie game. This pipeline explains that the development stages of the hero relate to the animation. To begin I must design what the character looks like, by sketching for finding images for reference. To make things easier I believe finding or designing a character standing in a T-pose with multiple angles such as a front view, side view and maybe a top down view.
When it comes to modeling the character I'll be using planes, to act as a canvas so I can texture them with the reference images. Making 3 faces of a square so I can begin creating my character in between them so I can simultaneously position every face of the character within the guidelines of every angle to keep the character from looking strange. e.g. having arms a lot wider from the front than the back etc..
Example of how I'll use planes to help me model my character:
Once the character has been made in a T-pose I'll make sure my model is capable of deformation. By that I mean that I need to edit the model slightly around the areas that would bend or more to make sure the model doesn't look irregular or break when it does. I'll be improving the topology of the areas around the limbs and face to make sure they can be manipulated properly.
Next I'll texture my character, the character won't have that many different colours as I have the image of a Flash-esque superhero uniform in mind which will cover most of the character's body.
As you can see, The Flash only has about 4 colours but I won't be having white patches for eyes I want to have eyeballs that can clearly be seen looking around so as for the eye holes in the costume my character's head should look something like this:
Next up comes rigging, in the pipeline guide I've been following the character they created has disjointed limbs as in he has a head, torso, hands and feet, none of which are connected. That aside the guide explains that they used Inverse Kinematics to provide a sense of length so the arms and legs don't get pushed too far away from the model to keep the model's proportions.
Taking a closer look at kinematics on the digital tutor's website I read that Inverse kinematics makes it so a child in the character's rig's hierarchy can influence the movement of the parents. They give an example which is: by utilizing IK in your character’s arms you can position your character’s hand and the rest of the character’s arm chain will automatically be calculated. From this I gathered that if I were to move the character's hand upwards, the arm would follow. Another way to describe this is if the character had their arm straight up in the air then you were to grab the hand and drag it downward, the elbow and shoulder would bend and move downward with it.
When I read about forward kinematics I was rather confused, it works in a different way that is supposed to be more precise. If you were to lift the hand up the rest of the arm wouldn't bend to follow it, the hand would just stretch upwards deforming the arm. It's as if each joint moves independantly of each other.
From this I've decided that using inverse kinematics to keep the character's body together and while using bipeds in my second year of uni for animation I feel like I will be much more comfortable using the same sort of system.
As for animating I plan to make about three looping animations most likely being an idle animation, a walking animation and a running animation. As for other animations I'm thinking about making other animations such as a punch, a kick or a jump. I could possibly look into animations such as taking a punch or a kick but for now, before I've started planning out my timeline for completion, I'm just going to look at those five animations and think about making them as good as possible.
I also took a look at a pdf called: "3D Production Pipeline in Game Development" written by Peter Ciszek. I scrolled to page 12 to chapter 3.2 and he has said the process for creating 3D Models for games is: concept drawing, Modeling, sculpting, texturing/UV-mapping, rigging and finally animating.
Here is what I think my pipeline will look like:
1. Idea/Finding/Creating Reference Images
2. Modelling the character using the images as guidelines as well as improving the model's topology so it can deform correctly
3. Texturing the character
4. Rigging the character
5. Animation
Bibliography:
Plane Character Creation Example: http://xx-ritsu-hime-xx.deviantart.com/art/Megaman-Zero-Zero-3D-WIP-302765236
The Flash Image: http://batmanytb.com/Flash%20II%20%28Young%20Justice%29
The torso + head Flash image: http://geekleagueofamerica.com/2013/08/12/dvdblu-ray-review-justice-league-flashpoint-paradox/
Inverse and Forward Kinematics: http://blog.digitaltutors.com/understanding-inverse-and-forward-kinematics/
3D Production Pipeline in Game Development pdf: https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/bitstream/handle/123456789/40995/URN%3ANBN%3Afi%3Ajyu-201302271274.pdf
Wednesday, 25 November 2015
Job Research 2
Today's job post is for an animator job at Automaton.
In the short description it says that as an animator I would be responsible for creating and exporting realistic animations to bring their models to life. This would make this job something I am definitely interested in. While it doesn't exactly say what I would be animating apart from it mentioning characters, most likely human or human-like, and creatures. I am very much interested in animating these types of things.
Taking a look at what the requirements are as well as some of the optional requirements a small grin appeared on my face.
First of all, I noticed that when it comes to experience in software is asks for experience in either 3DS Max or Maya both of which I have used although I'm much more comfortable using 3DS Max that Maya.
It also says that one of the requirements is to have developed my art skills and strong portfolio as hobby/job experience or through a recently obtained degree. Thankfully I'm learning about putting together a portfolio as one of my modules so I'll be getting a better understanding of that this year.
They also ask for someone who is passionate about video games and that I would aspire to create games that meet my own expectations. Obviously I'm very passionate about video games but now that I think about it I often think to myself while playing games how things could be better in my own eyes or I get a bit annoyed if it seems like something is lazily made. I don't think you should settle for anything less than what you envisioned something to be unless it's out of your control or ruins something else that's equally important.
As one of the optional requirements is to have experience in modelling and/or rigging both things I would like to try and implement into my final project. Since this is a job for animators I imagine that knowledge of both modelling and rigging should help in the animation process.
Link:
http://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/animator/28154675?WT.mc_id=indeed
Text:
In the short description it says that as an animator I would be responsible for creating and exporting realistic animations to bring their models to life. This would make this job something I am definitely interested in. While it doesn't exactly say what I would be animating apart from it mentioning characters, most likely human or human-like, and creatures. I am very much interested in animating these types of things.
Taking a look at what the requirements are as well as some of the optional requirements a small grin appeared on my face.
First of all, I noticed that when it comes to experience in software is asks for experience in either 3DS Max or Maya both of which I have used although I'm much more comfortable using 3DS Max that Maya.
It also says that one of the requirements is to have developed my art skills and strong portfolio as hobby/job experience or through a recently obtained degree. Thankfully I'm learning about putting together a portfolio as one of my modules so I'll be getting a better understanding of that this year.
They also ask for someone who is passionate about video games and that I would aspire to create games that meet my own expectations. Obviously I'm very passionate about video games but now that I think about it I often think to myself while playing games how things could be better in my own eyes or I get a bit annoyed if it seems like something is lazily made. I don't think you should settle for anything less than what you envisioned something to be unless it's out of your control or ruins something else that's equally important.
As one of the optional requirements is to have experience in modelling and/or rigging both things I would like to try and implement into my final project. Since this is a job for animators I imagine that knowledge of both modelling and rigging should help in the animation process.
Link:
http://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/animator/28154675?WT.mc_id=indeed
Text:
Animator
- Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
- Competitive salary
- 34 applications
- Job type: Permanent, full-time
- Date:
- Reference: 28154675
Posted by
Automaton More jobs from Automaton
Automaton More jobs from Automaton
Automaton is a young games company looking to match
the experience of its world-class tech team with artists who strive for
AAA quality. As an animator you will be responsible for the creation
and export of realistic animations that bring our models to life.
We are looking for individuals with a healthy disregard for constraints, who aren't afraid to experiment with the new and up and coming. Come and work with a high caliber, motivated team to shape the future of great gaming.
RESPONSIBILITIES
We are looking for individuals with a healthy disregard for constraints, who aren't afraid to experiment with the new and up and coming. Come and work with a high caliber, motivated team to shape the future of great gaming.
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Create, iterate and polish AAA-level animations of a multitude of different character and creature types.
- Be proactive in seeking feedback and pushing yourself creatively.
- Contribute to helping improve the workflow of the animation production pipeline.
- Give and receive constructive and creative feedback across art disciplines.
- Work within the development team to resolve technical issues with animations.
- Participate in game playthroughs reporting issues and giving feedback on your personal opinion of the direction of the project.
- Recognise areas of opportunity and help others create AAA-standard work.
- Education: you either developed your art skills and strong portfolio through on-the-job/hobbyist experience, or through your recently obtained degree.
- You are an expert in one or more of the following industry standard tools: 3D Studio Max, Maya, and/or MotionBuilder.
- You have a creative nature with strong problem solving skills.
- Your ability to multi-task and prioritize work appropriately demonstrates your efficiency without compromising on quality.
- You are a gamer who is passionate about video games, and aspire to create games that meet your own high expectations that you will enjoy to play.
- Game industry experience preferred but not necessary, however skills and experience of delivery throughout all areas of the development cycle is a huge plus.
- Strong technical background with the ability to work in an agile environment and grasp new programs and systems quickly.
- Experience in modeling/rigging.
Tuesday, 24 November 2015
Job Research 1
The first job I took a look at was a volunteer job which has the potential to turn into a permenant position with full salary and benefits. So it's not exactly a job and there's no promise of a job either but it is in England and does have a list of requirements which I can take note of.
The job requirements that I have some experience with are:
Keeping the polygon counts reasonable - I've worked with polygon count restrictions for my assignments so I have experience with cleaning up models to reduce the polygon count.
Using technical software packages, such as 3DS Max, Maya and Blender - While I have never used Blender I've been using 3DS Max at Uni for over 2 years now and I've had a go at using Maya which I got the hang of but I think there is room for improvement in both pieces of software.
Building up accurate, detailed frame-by-frame visuals - I've mostly created looping animations such as walking but I've also created a kicking animation, a basketball shooting animation as well as an idle animation and while creating them I was taking into account the weight distribution and redistribution of the models frame-by-frame but there is room for improvement for me when it comes to this.
Working to production deadlines and meeting our commercial requirements - I've been working on group projects so I have a good idea what it is like to work with production deadlines.
Designing the art work and models for games - I've done both of these things while working on projects at Uni
These are a list of requirements that I have noticed that I have some experience with and understanding of, in the description it mentions that I need to have a strong understanding of the modelling and/or animation process for games. These are two things I plan on researching and learning about and applying what I've learned to my final project.
Link to job post:
http://www.indeed.co.uk/cmp/Hydra-Studios/jobs/Realistic-Game-Modeller-Animator-f8e86da04eeee355?q=Character+Animator+Games+Animation
Job post text:
The company builds realistic games with a small team which we are currently expanding. our current team is passionate about the work they do and enjoy the work type, they are all strongly motivated and can work with their own initiative, to make a career within our studio, and we are looking for like minded people who have the drive, ambition and passion to be successful.
This role would be perfect for someone who would like to gain experience to further progress. The successful candidate would need a good level of communication, be trust worthy, polite, optimistic, with a good eye for detail.
the candidate should have a strong understanding of the modelling and/or Animating process for games, they will need to posses the ability to work well in a team and have a good level of imagination. We are looking for someone who also posses good leadership ability and the desire to potential manage a broader team as the work loads increase.
experience is not required but is desirable.
If you would like to take advantage of this brilliant opportunity within hydra studios, apply now, you will gain invaluable experience, portfolio work, and essential knowledge of the game creation process.
please ensure that when applying you add your portfolio and cover letter along with your CV.
Tasks typically involve:
**This role has thepotentialto turn into a full time permanent paid position within Hydra Studios
Job Type: Volunteer
The job requirements that I have some experience with are:
Keeping the polygon counts reasonable - I've worked with polygon count restrictions for my assignments so I have experience with cleaning up models to reduce the polygon count.
Using technical software packages, such as 3DS Max, Maya and Blender - While I have never used Blender I've been using 3DS Max at Uni for over 2 years now and I've had a go at using Maya which I got the hang of but I think there is room for improvement in both pieces of software.
Building up accurate, detailed frame-by-frame visuals - I've mostly created looping animations such as walking but I've also created a kicking animation, a basketball shooting animation as well as an idle animation and while creating them I was taking into account the weight distribution and redistribution of the models frame-by-frame but there is room for improvement for me when it comes to this.
Working to production deadlines and meeting our commercial requirements - I've been working on group projects so I have a good idea what it is like to work with production deadlines.
Designing the art work and models for games - I've done both of these things while working on projects at Uni
These are a list of requirements that I have noticed that I have some experience with and understanding of, in the description it mentions that I need to have a strong understanding of the modelling and/or animation process for games. These are two things I plan on researching and learning about and applying what I've learned to my final project.
Link to job post:
http://www.indeed.co.uk/cmp/Hydra-Studios/jobs/Realistic-Game-Modeller-Animator-f8e86da04eeee355?q=Character+Animator+Games+Animation
Job post text:
realistic games modeller and animator
Hydra Studios - Wakefield
Volunteer
The role is for a new start-up
self employed business, who specializes in Open world and RTS games.
unfortunately this is only a voluntary position, but has the potential
to turn into a permanent position with full salary and benefits.Hydra Studios - Wakefield
Volunteer
The company builds realistic games with a small team which we are currently expanding. our current team is passionate about the work they do and enjoy the work type, they are all strongly motivated and can work with their own initiative, to make a career within our studio, and we are looking for like minded people who have the drive, ambition and passion to be successful.
This role would be perfect for someone who would like to gain experience to further progress. The successful candidate would need a good level of communication, be trust worthy, polite, optimistic, with a good eye for detail.
the candidate should have a strong understanding of the modelling and/or Animating process for games, they will need to posses the ability to work well in a team and have a good level of imagination. We are looking for someone who also posses good leadership ability and the desire to potential manage a broader team as the work loads increase.
experience is not required but is desirable.
If you would like to take advantage of this brilliant opportunity within hydra studios, apply now, you will gain invaluable experience, portfolio work, and essential knowledge of the game creation process.
please ensure that when applying you add your portfolio and cover letter along with your CV.
Tasks typically involve:
- Keeping the polygon counts reasonable;
- Designing the art work and models for games;
- Liaising with other staff to ensure the finished product meets expectation, this can include liaising across departments, with programmers and/or animators;
- Creating your own artwork, for your own models within the game;
- Drawing in 3D to create sketches, artwork or illustrations;
- Designing models, backgrounds, sets, characters, objects for the environment;
- Using technical software packages, such as 3DS Max, Maya and Blender;
- Building up accurate, detailed frame-by-frame visuals;
- Working to production deadlines and meeting our commercial requirements
- Liaising with programmers and modellers to develop animation from their concepts and/or animating your own custom models for the purpose of the game, while keeping the polygon count low;
- Designing the art work and models for games
- Meetings to discuss goals/ideas and deadlines
- Liaising with other staff to ensure the finished product meets expectation
- Creating storyboards that depict the script and narrative.
- Drawing in 3D to create sketches, artwork or illustrations.
- Designing models, backgrounds, sets, characters, objects and the animation environment.
- Developing the timing and pace of the movements of a character or object during the sequence of images and ensuring they follow the soundtrack and audio requirements;
- Using technical software packages, such as Flash, 3ds Max, Maya, LightWave, Softimage and Cinema 4D, Blender.
- Building up accurate, detailed frame-by-frame visuals;
- Recording dialogue and working with editors to composite the various layers of animation (backgrounds, special effects, characters and graphics) in order to produce the finished piece.
- Working to production deadlines and meeting our commercial requirements.
- Potentially leading a broader team of animators as the work load increases.
**This role has thepotentialto turn into a full time permanent paid position within Hydra Studios
Job Type: Volunteer
Catchup!
While the blog has been quiet I was handing in my project proposal which was admittedly fortunately refered. Yes you read that right, after recieving feedback and then rereading my proposal I know I would be having a number of issues while trying to follow my timeline as well as the brief didn't actually clearly explain what it was I was going to be doing.
Whether the cause was lack of sleep or just lack of research I've requested my resubmission deadline to be on Friday the 4th of December, giving me just under two weeks to research properly and create a proper proposal.
I'm still very interested in character animation for games so I'll be looking into jobs of that description. I'll create a list of skill/experience requirements that come up frequently while job searching and colour code each skill based on how much they come up.
Once I've created a list of skills I'll categorize them depending on how much experience I have with them.
I'll then research each of the skills to get a better understanding of them as well as a better understanding of how long they may take to learn as well as implement into my project. I'll research pipelines of character creation for games as well as a pipeline for the animation process with my main focus being on the animation side of things.
Once I've got a reasonable timescale figured out based on my experience with each part as well as how long each part would normally take I'll draft up and refine some timescales for the project.
Whether the cause was lack of sleep or just lack of research I've requested my resubmission deadline to be on Friday the 4th of December, giving me just under two weeks to research properly and create a proper proposal.
I'm still very interested in character animation for games so I'll be looking into jobs of that description. I'll create a list of skill/experience requirements that come up frequently while job searching and colour code each skill based on how much they come up.
Once I've created a list of skills I'll categorize them depending on how much experience I have with them.
I'll then research each of the skills to get a better understanding of them as well as a better understanding of how long they may take to learn as well as implement into my project. I'll research pipelines of character creation for games as well as a pipeline for the animation process with my main focus being on the animation side of things.
Once I've got a reasonable timescale figured out based on my experience with each part as well as how long each part would normally take I'll draft up and refine some timescales for the project.
Monday, 9 November 2015
Rethinking my idea - again!
After seeking some guidance I've been told that if I was to make an animation on it's own that I may struggle with it. I was also told that modelling a character suitable for animation, rigging said model and then animating some demonstrations of the character's movement capabilities. I may have the time to also create a short animation for the character. It's believed to be well into my capabilities that this is possible and I'm eager to do it.
I also looked at a forum and found this post:
http://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3994
This post has an estimate of how long it takes to create professional assets for a game called "Blood Frontier" The times don't appear to be all that long but I have to take into account that these are created by professionals who have a lot of experience in character creation.
Also the character models most likely don't have rigged fingers and of top of that they are made from a low poly count.
Modelling and "Painting" a character apparently takes from 30-50 hours but taking into account my model will be smoother and of a higher quality on top of the fact that I have next to no experience in creating and texturing a model I think I could end up taking up to 3 weeks just modelling the character, leaving time for fixing any errors I may come across.
As for rigging the character I expect to spend around 3 weeks on this but it may take longer as I may have to edit the model to make sure the limbs bend properly as well as the face may take me a while so I may have to add on around 2 weeks for breathing room bringing it up to a total of 5 weeks for rigging. The models rigged by professionals apparently take 4-8 hours to rig but since I'm adding fingers and facial rigs I will need more time especially if I encounter any problems with the model. As for animating I plan to make some demonstration animations to show what the model can do as well as spend some time creating a short animation in any extra time I have to further demonstrate the quality of the created character. Apparently short character animations take from 1-2 hours but I should be able to manage two a week, making sure they're of a decent quality as well as leaving time to fix errors in the model/rigging I notice any problems. The short animation will most likely be the character interacting with some objects. As for the demonstration animations I think I'll be able to create two per week for 2 weeks creating 4 demonstration animations they'll be walking, running as well as a possibly punching, jumping or just an idle animation of the character standing around most likely looking rather bored.
I plan on using 3DS Max for the whole project as when I was looking for jobs in character rigging quite a few such as the following require experience in 3DS Max:
http://jobs.gamasutra.com/job/3d-character-rigger-el-segundo-california-28545
http://www.totaljobs.com/JobSearch/JobDetails.aspx?JobId=63980495
The second job requires experience in turning 2D characters into 3D, which I feel is a necessary component in any model creation process. I recently blogged about a creating a reference for modelling. I drew out the front, side and top views of a goblin which I would then use to model. So I'm most likely going to either create my own, use a free to use image online or to take a free to use image and edit it to my liking.
The image I created in the recent blog post wasn't particularly great quality-wise so I'll most likely spend a lot more time on it that I did, which was only two afternoons. I think I should spend two weeks on this, the first week I should spend coming up with character designs or creating a collection online and then the second week creating a reference suitable for modelling. I'm leaning towards a superhero type theme as most of their costumes are simple in design such as the Flash's costume as shown in the image below.
I'll most likely be spending around 2 weeks over the entire project researching if I struggle with anything. Since I have next to no experience in modelling a character I'll be expected to take quite a long time on this. Along with texturing the character I expect I think I'll take up to 4 weeks. Jose Lazaro, a professional character artist, was asked how long he usually takes to create a 3D model and he said
"Well, that depends on the character as well, but I usually spend between one and three weeks for character."
As I'm fairly new to character modeling I expect to take longer that him.
I also looked at a forum and found this post:
http://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3994
This post has an estimate of how long it takes to create professional assets for a game called "Blood Frontier" The times don't appear to be all that long but I have to take into account that these are created by professionals who have a lot of experience in character creation.
Also the character models most likely don't have rigged fingers and of top of that they are made from a low poly count.
Modelling and "Painting" a character apparently takes from 30-50 hours but taking into account my model will be smoother and of a higher quality on top of the fact that I have next to no experience in creating and texturing a model I think I could end up taking up to 3 weeks just modelling the character, leaving time for fixing any errors I may come across.
As for rigging the character I expect to spend around 3 weeks on this but it may take longer as I may have to edit the model to make sure the limbs bend properly as well as the face may take me a while so I may have to add on around 2 weeks for breathing room bringing it up to a total of 5 weeks for rigging. The models rigged by professionals apparently take 4-8 hours to rig but since I'm adding fingers and facial rigs I will need more time especially if I encounter any problems with the model. As for animating I plan to make some demonstration animations to show what the model can do as well as spend some time creating a short animation in any extra time I have to further demonstrate the quality of the created character. Apparently short character animations take from 1-2 hours but I should be able to manage two a week, making sure they're of a decent quality as well as leaving time to fix errors in the model/rigging I notice any problems. The short animation will most likely be the character interacting with some objects. As for the demonstration animations I think I'll be able to create two per week for 2 weeks creating 4 demonstration animations they'll be walking, running as well as a possibly punching, jumping or just an idle animation of the character standing around most likely looking rather bored.
The short animation's duration will be planned out once the character has been created, rigged and the demonstration animations have been completed. While this short animation is an optional part, if I have the spare time I will be working on this to further demonstrate the capabilities of the rigged character.
Rendering the animation as a image sequence rather than a video will save me a lot of time as I can use video editing software to create a video out of the images which I learned from the following of forum post post by "clockwork":
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-33891.html
As for what I want to be marked on, I want to be marked on the quality of the model, the rigging as well as the quality of the demonstration animations.
Image bibliography
http://batmanytb.com/Flash%20II%20(Young%20Justice)
http://www.g4g.it/download/comment.php?dlid=1865
http://www.g4g.it/download/comment.php?dlid=1865
Interview quote taken from:
http://www.tutorialboard.net/interview-3d-character-artist-blitz-game-studios-jose-lazaro/
Thursday, 5 November 2015
Rethinking my idea
At first I was seriously considering creating a model, rigging and then animating the rigged model for my final project. To be honest I wasn't confident in being able to handle it all and I think I should just animate and animate alone. It's been brought to my attention that A: an animation project could make for a good final project provided I put the work in and B: working on the three things would leave me with three not so refined skills rather than one skill that could impress employers.
So unless something comes up with huge warning lights telling me not to pursue animation I'm going to forget about modelling and rigging and push forward with animation. Thanks to my job research I know that a piece of software that's used by professionals as well as expected by employers is Autodesk's Maya.
After playing around with Maya and looking at various tutorials I created a quick 8 second animation to get a feel for the way it works. I downloaded a rigged practice model from:
http://www.animationmentor.com/
I downloaded The squirrel and stewart rigs, the squirrel being for beginners and the stewart model being a professional quality rig for use by animators of all levels. I only had a quick play with the squirrel rig but I decided to try making an animation with the stewart rig.
Using the stewart rig in Maya was strange to me, I felt a bit like my experience with a similar piece of software, 3DS Max, was both helpful but also a bit confusing as the tools in each program aren't the same or go by different names. While moving the character around I noticed there were some similarities with Source Film Maker, a free program I used to create one of my previous assignments. I started out with a rough animation and then went into each of the frames to try and make them seem a little more lifelike.
Here is my short eight second idle character animation I created using the stewart rig to get a feel for the animation controls:
"Stewart" starts by tapping his face with his finger as well as his foot on the ground, he then shifts his weight onto his other leg to tap his toes on the ground with the other foot while slightly hunching over and looking downwards. He also spreads his arms slightly to keep his balance on one foot.
When making this animation is was originally over in a couple of seconds as "Stewart" would perform all of these movements quickly one after the other. I used the graph editor and the scaling tool to change the timing of each individual body part. I got the idea to create this animation while pondering what I should have "Stewart" do when I figured there was no reason not to have him also ponder this question. I'll definately need to plan out any future animations by storyboarding as this will actually give me something to animate.
This was quite a learnable as well as enjoyable experience and I'm genuinely excited at the thought of pursuing a career in 3D animation as the process of animation is long but to me, it's extremely enjoyable even when making something as simple as this.
Saturday, 31 October 2015
Creating a reference image for Maya modelling
This week I ran into some troubles but it did give me a good time to think about what I really want to do for my final project.
After looking at many different job openings for animators I noticed that the vast majority of them require experience in modelling, rigging and animating all in Maya.
Over this week I've been switching between computers as I keep running into problems I've been practicing modelling in Maya. I've also been creating a set of reference images for model a goblin and in this blog post I'm going to explain how I did it.
Excuse my poor art skills but I did manage to create a goblin which will greatly help me when modelling.
I created the following reference image in photoshop.
The first thing I did was create the image you see in the bottom left, using rough sketching lines then going over the lines that fitted the best in a layer in front of the rough lines.
To get an accurate drawing of the goblin from the side I drew lines across to the right so I could get the height of the top of the head, facial features, ears arms and legs. This way I could make the parts of the goblin the same height from all angles.
To create the top view I drew a line on the left image going to the red line, which is the border of the image. I then could turn the image 90 degrees anticlockwise and using the line I could make sure the goblin was the same distance away from the border after it was turned.
Once it was turns I drew lines from the bottom left image and the top right image up and across to the top left image so I could line up all relevant features of the goblin.
I can create flat planes in maya to make part of a cube and start building the goblin within it, by pasting the top view, front view and side view on each of the planes and line my model up with the lines to hopefully create a good looking model which I can then smooth over.
I used this process I learned from an extremely helpful youtube channel which has Maya modelling and reference material creating guides.
I had a lot more fun that I thought I would have creating these reference images and I'm really looking forward to modelling this goblin.
The next week will be spent modelling this goblin using the reference images and I'll be using the video guides I found to help me. But as for the rigging, if I have too much trouble trying to do it I may use mixamo's auto-rigger.
For my final project I'm not sure about creating a goblin model and animation but I'm positive I'll be wanting to create models and animate them because of how much enjoyment I've had just creating a reference.
Here is the youtube channel which helped me figure out Maya and also helped me to create a set of reference images.
https://www.youtube.com/user/misterh3d/featured
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