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
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