Dragon Bait and Animate

Between myself and Ryan, we've got all of the animation done for Cure, now it's time to go back and tidying up any mistakes and fix any glaring errors. I've pulled together a video with all of the animation in order (Apart from the introductory walk cycle) and now I'm going to go through it and try and pull out any obvious errors. At the same time, I need to go through the clips after she attaches the "Cure" and add it in for continuity. I also need to add in the "Dead Polygons" before I export to Unity and after that I want to add in any animation required for polygons falling off her. Phew, lots to do! So the things that need improvement from this video are the points where mine and Ryan's animation mix. I didn't realise until I pulled it all together how different are styles are and I need to smooth out that transition. I also need to cut down some shots and extend some shots. Specifically where she picks up the Cure needs to be a li...

I've spent the last couple of weeks tweaking the character mesh to tidy it up for rigging. I used Advanced Skeleton 5 again to rig this character as well as looking at a few online tutorials to make sure I got the most out of the rig. I also used Advanced Skeleton to build a facial rig which works better than expected although the blink function didn't work properly so I added in my own blend shape to allow the character to blink. I also tweaked some old assets and built a couple of new ones to bring into the final environment.  I forgot that there was an email about sending in artwork that might be selected to be used on the Masters show posters so I posed my character and pulled together a render in Maya that I felt represented my project and compared to earlier work, I feel that this has a lot more style and personality. So now I'm pulling in all of these assets and final ideas into Unity for the final project and I hope to have this all set up b...

I spent a little while working on setting up a basic scene in Maya and found a lot of inspiration the the PS4 game 'Bound'.  I love the way they do the far away scenery and I like the idea of the world cracking and moving around my character so I tried to incorporate this into the test scene I was building.  There's a lot that still needs to be worked on, especially the far away background but I'm happy with how it's slowly coming together. I also spent a bit more time playing about with lighting in Maya and trying to get it to look a bit more like I wanted it to look originally and the idea that the face is projecting it's own light and coming to life. Again, there's lots more to work on but I feel like I'm getting somewhere.

I was thinking today about an older concept I had when I started developing the current idea for 'Cure' and I think it would be easier for me to focus on research on something I really care about: Mental Health. The narrative throughout 'Cure' was initially developed with the thought of depression and loneliness being at the centre. The loneliness aspect was singled out for most of the continued development but I would like to bring it back to its roots of depression. With this in mind, I spent today thinking about lighting. After running a couple of tests in Maya, (Lighting in Maya is hard) I sketched up some rough thumbnails of how I wanted the lighting to appear to the audience. So I want to run some more tests and practice lighting in general for the future. In other news, I put together a little comparison image of some concept art and the final model.

I'm very nearly finished my sculpt, just need to add my skirt and tidy up a few things before I paint and pose. I was really unsure to begin with how I would make my braid for the hair but I found a video on YouTube that really helped: So I used this as a basis to build my braid before adding a sphere for the rest of the hair and sculpting it until I was happy. With the hair finished I tidied up some things on the body before adding in some clothing. I built the bracelets in Maya using a torus and pushing the inner ring further into the centre to create a more concave shape. I also built the basis of the gauntlet in Maya using primitives of boxes and deformers to build the basic shape before importing the individual pieces into ZBrush to build the whole gauntlet. I then used masking and the extract tool to pull out the base clothing before going in and adding in bandage-like details. I'm really happy with what I've been able to achieve so...

This week I started the 3D modelling for my character assignment having finished up the T-Pose and roughed out an almost-finished base mesh. I finished the base mesh but the topology was not ideal so when I took it into ZBrush I Dynameshed it before starting to move it around to block in my character. After the model was Dynameshed, I just started working on the general shapes needed to match the character concept art and T-Pose.  There is still a lot of work needed in the arms, legs and face but I roughed in the torso as well. I'm trying to keep it very stylised, using references from real anatomy studies as well as looking at some stylised sculpts.

I've spent this week working on a set of storyboards for my final Master's Film as well as putting them together in a rough animatic. This really helped nail down some of the story and how the film might look when it's finally put together. It was a lot more work than I initially expected as I kept thinking of new storyboards that would be needed. I'm not an amazing rough artist, but I feel these boards get the story across. (Some of them are out of order here).

After yesterday and today I'm feeling a lot more confident in the my general story idea. I like the pace and tone and now just need to find out what the ending means to me. I had several ideas about what it could mean including the guilt of selfishness as the character sits alone in a dead world as well as the feeling of loneliness and that no matter what my character did she was ultimately alone which I know can happen to people all over the world. However, yesterday we had a fantastic workshop with Mark Grindle where we got to talk about our ideas and hear his feedback. To him, my ending was comparable to the digital age and the loss of ourselves/humanity in a digital environment and I really like that concept, especially considering it's in a 3D setting. As for the story itself, there's one image that keeps sticking with me so I quickly drew it out today in Photoshop in about an hour to try and get it solidified in my head. I like the idea of the camera being close up ...

The biggest concern for me with my masters project is not having a story that will entice an audience, despite the fact that to me, the story is not the most important part of the project. I want to focus on style and using the 3D software to make the world look sharp and 3-Dimensional. However, I have spent the last week or so trying to develop something more solid as a story - as well as simplifying what I have. Our character is first seen walking through rows of medical tents. She is losing polygons that fall to the ground to leave a trail of pulsing red shards. As she continues, we see that she is following a beep on her wrist monitor until she pulls back a tent flap and finds what she was looking for. This is something that can cure her, a USB stick or an SD card, something that she slots into the wrist monitor (That is possibly a part of her) cures her. The pulsing red trail of polygons stops and fades and she lets out a sigh of relief. But everywhere she looks there are piles ...

Part of our course for this semester requires us to take a character through a full development process, from 2D concept art, turnaround and model sheet as well as a storyboard and animatic before we take the character into 3D and create a model that can be rigged and posed. I had originally planned to use the character I'm going to use for my final Project but since she is going to be low poly and not have a lot of detail, this assignment seemed like a good chance to try something different. My plan now is to use a character I've had in the back of my mind for a few years... more like 6 years. The Dragon Walker. She's a fantasy character with strong links to dragons and magic and has a tribal feel to her. So I started out with my inspiration board. I love the style of Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Moana and Fable: The Journey artwork. So I pulled all of these references and ideas together to help me design my character. I went through several different sketch...