Last Check

This week I mainly worked on just Wednesday before demo day.  I helped mainly with making sure the animations were in unity. I also helped with cleaning up some of the last minute motion capture animations. Also did some play testing making sure things looked good in engine. The level wasn't uploaded at the time so the scene is pretty bare.

Running with Style

Strafing. This has definitely been one of the harder animations that I have done. Rather, I thought it was until I looked differently on the situation. My main concern was about the legs when the character does the strafe run. In my head I was picturing the legs crossing over and maybe having the feet turn the direction the character is facing. I actually looked at in game models of characters strafe running. The main example I used was a human for the World of Warcraft. I spent a good amount of time just walking, and observing how these in game models walked; the characters would mainly have their body turned while having their legs/feet in the direction they were moving.

Running

I'm moving onto a running animation. It's more difficult than walking in my opinion, but still relatively easier since I'm mainly just animating the legs. Luckily the character will be holding onto a spear with both of his hands, so I really only need to animate the swaying of the shoulders. This goes for pretty much every manual animation.

Key Framed Walk Cycle

With an updated spear mesh and helmet I started working on the key framed animations that we couldn't get with motion capture. I think it's a good challenge doing it this way. While motion capture may be easier, manual animations have been more comfortable for me. I still think that the animation team could have done all the same animations manually. It may seem faster, but I've noticed that trying to fix motion capture data to fit your plan can be very challenging.

Updating the Helmet: Low Poly Count

One rule for modeling video game characters and assets is that they should remain at a relatively low poly count. Depending on the system used, the polygon count can fluctuate. One issue that arose for our project was the spear character helmet. While the original helmet looked nice; it was definitely not suitable for gaming engines. the poly count on the original helmet was near 40K polygons. If we wanted to use the helmet that poly count needed to be drastically reduced. I decided to remake the helmet, but still try to maintain the original design. I managed to remake the helmet with about 800 polygons total.

Spear Armor Updated

I decided that I wanted to change the spear armor a little bit. I felt that the colors didn't work as well as I thought. I mainly removed some of the excess colors and well and added more geometry to the jacket and pants. I didn't bother adding geometry to the gloves or boots since I figured those parts would most likely not be seen up close too much.

Mocap Data

We finished capturing all the mocap data. Next we have to clean the animations.  There were some animations that we were not able to get data for because of how the body suit was set up. The person had to remain tethered to the power source. We will have to do manual keyframed animations of walking, running, and possibly jumping.

The photo below show the raw .bvh file uploaded to a biped in 3ds Max. The mocap data is all FK type of animations hence all the individual keyframes.  The picture below is just a portion of the list of raw file animations we captured.

Second Half: Class 1 Armor Modeling

With some concepts to choose from, I started modeling possible armor pieces for the class 1 character. I'm a bit unsure about creating separate pieces and then applying it to a biped. I'm used to making an entire mesh with the clothes/armor modeled into it. However, I can see the advantage of doing it this way.

A New Character

I finished up a few concepts for the class 1 character. I was working on the class 2 before.  This character was a jetpack man and had influences from Star Lord and The Rocketeer. It was a bit difficult to come up with ideas, but I think I made a few good concepts to work with. I'll have to see how the teammates view these.

Testing in Unity

I have a decent understanding of Unity, but I definitely could get better. I had exported my model with the animations. I had difficulty getting the animations to run. It was later on that I found out that I needed to also have scripts to run the animation sequence. After many attempts and with the help of Nevin and Mike, I managed to get a functional crossbow in Unity.

From my initial Unity Test

Animating the weapon

I realized after I created my first crossbow that the model had way too many polygons. I then removed as many edge loops as possible. I managed to greatly reduce the total polygon count. The first crossbow was several thousand polygons while the new one was a little over 400 polygons. The animation proved to be challenging since I had never animated a bow before. I watched several video tutorials and I managed to get a decent animation.

The textured crossbow, rigged for animation.

The Crossbow

I started working on a concept/3D model of a crossbow for the character. I wanted to try to make it look futuristic and simple at the same time. Crossbows at the time Tell was set, were rather simple in design. I had never modeled a weapon, so this was fun/challenging to do. The following images are references that I used to model the crossbow.

Starting the Game Characters

After testing the art pipeline, and making sure it runs smoothly, I finally started on a concept for an in-game character. This character is based off of the folk hero William Tell. I wanted to create armor for a character that represented a futuristic look of the clothing Tell would have worn.  It was a bit difficult because Tell was wearing cloth as well as essentially a skirt and a shawl. I feel that the concept I made portrays the characteristic of William Tell. I based the armor of of the following picture (He's on the far right with the crossbow).

Still Testing the Pipeline

I continued to work on testing the art pipeline. I wanted to test a custom character. I also wanted to try to model something based off a type of art. In this case, Ben 10 character.  Modeling was difficult at some points since I didn't fully get how to get the hard edges in certain areas. However, I feel that I did a good job with the model I did create.

The top picture is the reference I used to model/

Change of Plans

There was a misunderstanding in what our task as artists was supposed to be. Initially, we thought that we needed to create concepts and then we would go on from there. However, we actually were supposed to test the art pipeline.  I wasn't sure exactly what that entailed at first, but I quickly understood and asking some questions; I needed to see how things went from concept to possibly to in game-engine Unity.  This picture was taking a basic model from another class of mine and exporting it to Unity. Everything worked well, so I had a good idea of how the art pipeline was supposed to work.

Continuing Concepts

This week, the art team continued working on concepts. We also would do research on different armor types/character types. This concept I created was based solely off an idea that someone suggested. I wanted to create a "musical" type of character, so I decided to go off of a guitarist. My thought was that the guitar he used would also be his weapon. The weapon may even shoot musical-note ammo. The following is going from basic form to final form like my previous concept.

Starting Right at It

Things are starting quickly. The art team has decided to start doing some concept sketches. We don't really have a set character type so we will come up with anything.

  This was a futuristic concept that came to mind. The main characteristic is most likely the curvy shapes/armor.

This is the first step in creating a samurai/ninja type of character; I started with a basic outline/silhouette.

Continuing from the outline, I added outlines of the armor pieces.

Finally, I added coloring as well as a little shading to have the 2D image pop out more.

New Game

I'm excited to see how this semester will go. Overall, I was happy of what I had done last year with Fifth Sun. It could have been better, but I thought the game was pretty good.  This semester, I'll be starting a new project with some of my Fifth Sun teammates.

We went over game ideas and decided to make a game called Wreck-quisition.  It'll be a 3D arena-style fighting game. I look forward to see this game come to life.

Boats Revisions

I worked on touching up on the enemy spawn points. I was asked to make a sprite of a destroyed boat as well as sprites from different angles. At first, it seemed like the request was out of the blue, but I quickly got over it, and finished them.

Spawn Points, and Agile Work Flow

I started working on possible spawn points for the enemies. We were thinking that since the city is surrounding by water that the enemies would come on boats. At first I was thinking of large boats, but then I remembered that the enemies would have to cross land first; Smaller boats would be more appropriate.

I'll be honest that before working on these spawn points, working on tasks didn't really feel like agile work. Previous works still felt like water fall. Working on the boats finally felt like agile because I really did get to work with programmers/designers at the same time I was working.

Rechecking My Sprites

This week, I primarily worked on just checking over my sprites. I know it doesn't seem like much, but our team is doing clean up, and I want to make sure that my animations still look good. The main thing I was searching for was dead/white pixels in the animations. When the animation is put against a dark background, these pixels are more visible.

Trying Out Building Assets

This week I was trying to work on helping with the building assets. I will be honest I don't really like working on these because I find it more difficult to create a certain building look. I was trying to base them off of this type of architecture and design.

Update: I eventually decided not to continue to work on these buildings and looked to work on something different.

Cut Scenes Touch Up

I was asked to do some touch ups for the cut scenes. The overall look was good but my black circling was getting cut off. We wanted the blackness to encompass the entire image so it would look better in video editing. So that's really what I focused on.

It may not look like much but I was having some difficulty trying to get a perfect circle if you will surrounding the pic, I had to work on a certain filter.

Cut Scenes

This week I worked cut scenes for the intro of the game. I was a bit rushed unfortunately because I actually will not be home for spring break. I won't have any access to a PC to work on the cut scenes. I based these pictures off of the concept that the product owner game me.

These are the completed cut scenes before I go on break,

Creating the Death Animation

After looking at the reference videos on death animations, I started to think of a possible animation for the pike man. I started out with sketching out on paper, since I was working at school.  I didn't have my tablet with me, and I don't really like the big tablets that the school has. I chose to draw a quick 6 frame sequence that I think looks realistic enough for the character.

Update: This is one of the frames colorized

How Do Characters Die?

After talking with my teammates, I feel like I should probably work on creating a death animation for the pike man. I'm not quite sure exactly how I want to do it. I want the animation to be unique but at the same time I don't want the animation to be too long. I also have to take into consideration that the pike man enemy will be spawning a lot, so a quick death may be more appropriate than a long "oh what a cruel world" slow death animation.

I did some research by looking up game death animations. Specifically, I want to refer to death animations that may include a spear. I found some good reference videos. I looked at three videos of League of Legends animations. I remembered that the these characters have a spear/long pole.

Starting the Second Sprint: What next?

I just finished the first sprint, and overall I think it went rather well.  I finished up the movement sprites for the pike man in all four directions.  I am not sure exactly what I should start on next for this upcoming sprint, but I'll talk with the other animators/product owner to see what a good start to this sprint would be. I'll be sure to try and update in future posts.

Front Remake and End of Sprint 1

A few weeks into the semester I had a go at making a very simple jab motion for the pikeman. However, now that several weeks have passed and I am more comfortable in pixel art, I wanted to redo the front attack. I wanted to see if I could use my better skills to make a more animated attack. Furthermore, I felt the the first animation did not fit with the other three sides. In addition, I updated the sprite sheet that I have for the pikeman.

The original attack is on top while the new animation is on the bottom. I learned a lot from this sprint. Primarily, I learned to better express shadows on pixel art, which I feel adds a lot more to the picture as a whole. I look forward to finishing up the rest of the "inbetween" animations such as an idle animation, death animation, and damaged received animation.