animation progress 2

I have continued to animate the rest of my idea and have made the man carry more boxes in more ways. i even had him add a little flag to his little box fort!

Once i had finished all the animating i went back and corrected any clipping errors i could see, there were quite a few, but of course 3D models aren't like us humans if the sense that the skin will change shape when pressed. With 3D models you have to just readjust until the mesh isn't colliding anymore. It may take a while to get it perfect but if you have a good animation in the end its worth it.

A problem i found i had when animating  with this model is that near the end of animating his head had completely detached from his body and i had to animate it separately. this was quite difficult, as i could never get the position of the head perfect on the body! I used head turning techniques to make it look like the head was fine.

The finished render can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59HZ1KXUJHY

Though the quality isn't that great, you can see the storyboard put across through to the video.

animation progression 1

I have started to animate my idea with an existing character rig i found on the 11 second club website, i have been following my storyboard but have decided to change the end of it. Instead of the man just putting the box on his back, he will now walk forward and place the box on top of another, then he will continue to build boxes up in a flash of scenes, and eventually he would have built a little box fort.

here you can see the new storyboard and progress screenshots:

in the images above you can see the animation starting to come to life, here you can see the new storyboard taking effect, here are some screenshots.

after reviewing what i currently have a few times, i have seen a few errors, like clipping, out of pace animation sections etc. once i have finished the whole base animation, i will go back on the whole thing and correct any mistakes.

Final major project

We are at the point of the year where we are on our last project, for this project we are able to do what ever we like as long as we follow units 6 and 4.

For this project the freedom didn't really suit me well, i do not handle designing my own ideas very well and had a hard time deciding what i was going to do for this project. i did a few idea tests with modelling and came to the conclusion that i did not want to do that.

i sketched design images for a tutor like building and planned on making that, but i much prefer creating character art and so had no motivation for the building. i then decided i would instead of wracking my brain to design something i would model the head of my friend anna, the model progress went well but again i didnt find it pleasing.

i have finally decided to do an animation, a soundless animation showing i can understand the weight of objects and animate them accordingly.

i thought of a few ideas of how i could do this then came up with a simple idea of a man trying to pick up a heavy box, trying many ways to lift it, eventually getting it onto his back and leaning forward to walk but the box slips and falls, he falls with it.

this will show the weight of the box, the strain on muscles of the man and the weights of the man when effected by the box.

i have created a story board to detail my idea in image, i collected reference images of my friend anna acting out the scene i had in mind before i dre it. here you can see it:

Warden progress

After finishing modelling the armour in Zbrush, I have started to creating the new low poly mesh around the high poly model imported from Zbrush itself.

As you can see in the first image, i have changed some details when retopologizing the model. I have changed the leg armour (was hidden on the Zbrush model) and added some to the arms. I have also edited the body shape to make her slightly more curvy around the hips. the second image is a angled view so you can see the model better.


One of my team mates, melissa, has created a high poly sculpt of the wardens face, as you can see in the second picture above i started it when that screenshot had been taken. i have finished creating the bottom of the face, but i need the high poly sculpt of the helmet before i can model any further.

After completely finishing the mesh i was able to rig the model, i created a basic human skeleton within the model using the joint tool then added curves to act as controllers for the IK handles on the bone set.

 

i also animated the model to walk, as proof that for this project i can animate.

Once happy with the rigging and animation, i finally was able to start UV mapping and texturing. with the limited amount of time left on the project, i just UV mapped the torso, body and legs. But was only able to draw the textures for the main body unfortunately.

 

when i was UV mapping, i split the body up into coloured sections. this made it easier for me to create the maps.

Zbrush

I have started using Zbrush to create my female base model. I used Z Spheres to create the basic body shape then converted it to mesh to edit, and create this:

I have also started applying armour to the base model in a seperate file. But unfortunately ZBrush has stopped working for me and i may have lost the file.

Concept

The game i am working on is called "A Bounty Hunters Promise". I am a Character Artist in this group and am working with Melissa. we have agreed that Melissa is better at drawing so she is in charge of character concept, and i am better with 3D modelling so i have taken charge in that. I did work on a few design sketches that melissa is now developing further and adding details to so i can model them properly.

These four outfit designs are drawn by me, and will be developed further by melissa.

This picture was drawn by melissa, once i saw it i thought it would be better to work off them seeing as they were quite cool ideas. we have been working off them and melissa is putting everything together.

textures

I want the robot to look rusted, so a dulled grey metal with a few spots of brown and orange tones to create that old rusted look. I unfortunately didnt have the time in the end to add the rusted details but i did make the robot look old by adding darkened shades to the metal to make it look at least a bit scuffed.

UV mapping completed

It took 2 evenings, but i managed to finish the UV mapping for my entire model. Phew!

UV mapping is definitely not my favourite part of making a model but id still do it.

I managed to spread the UV mapping over 3 image files. The body piece took up one file itself due to the fact that that piece is bigger then the rest and i wanted to keep everything in proportion.

Here are some screenshots of the completed UV mapping.

Some of the object gave me a difficult time when i was creating the UV mapping. I'll have to think about UV mapping when making future objects, plan the UV's while creating the mesh. I think that will make the process a whole lot easier.

The objects have been mirrored so they have the same UV's.

UV mapping

I hadnt done any UV mapping over the weekend but i have just started it. I started about 2 hours ago and have 4 parts of the model mapped. UV mapping is probably the hardest part of model making for me, just because of the fact that it takes so long to map it without scripts for one. Also getting all the mesh mappings to keep their size ratio against each other object is also something I find difficult, but am getting better with it.

Progression 2

Today i finished building the mesh of my robot by adding the shoulder mechanics, the head features and wires.

I also rendered a picture of my model with occulsion, for realistic shading effect. I changed some of the settings to make the shadows more visible.

Tomorrow i will start creating the UV maps for each part of the model and i will be drawing the textures. This will take a few days minimum.

Pitch model progress 1

Once i had finished the sketches, i decided to go with the spherical robot design to create as a 3D model. I made the torso first of all, and added the window at the front of the chest. I then created a low poly version of the robots head as a placeholder until i create it properly, this was just to give it the full effect even without having a proper head in place.

Once the body and head were complete i looked at my design and decided i needed to draw some basic orthographics for the legs in order to make them properly. It isnt enough just drawing a design and making it there and then, an orthographic will help you create it specifically how you wish it to be made.

I drew a side orthographic of the leg in separate parts so it would be easier to make each individual piece. I made the separate pieces, then fit them together with bolts i had made. 

After looking at the completed leg for a while i made the upper half of the leg longer as it looked too short for my liking. Then i adjusted the position of each part of the leg to create a hunched pose. I created a piece to join the body and the legs together.

I then drew the orthographics for the arms, this took a bit longer because i was trying to think up the mechanics for the shoulder. I didnt just want a ball joint, i wanted there to be a realistic shoulder like movement.

I havent created the shoulder joint yet but i did create the arms and put them next to the rest of the model to bring out the full effect of the yet to be finished model.