Endless Runner/Specialsation: Production

Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/DNbyG

Next up was to actually produce some work! I used a production pipeline similar to one that would be used for a realistically styled game by following a few tutorials and modifying parts of them.

My process ended up like this:

Character model:

• Concepting
• Base low poly model in 3ds Max
• Sculpting in Zbrush
• Retopologizing in Max
• UV Unwrapping in Max with the TexTools plugin
• Baking Normals in XNormal
• Texturing in Quixel
• Testing in Unity
• Skinning in Max
• Animation in Max
• Testing in Unity

Other Assets:

• Referencing
• Modelling in Max
• UV unwrapping in Max using TexTools
• Texturing in Quixel
• Testing in Unity

Concepting

I chose to do the snowy landscape theme for my part of the endless runner and so tried to create a character that would look like the fit in that kind of environment. My first concept was the one to the left, but I decided to scrap that one because it didn’t really have a purpose or role, so I designed the second character to be a hunter and tried to convey a little more personality in her design.

Modelling

Because I hadn’t used Zbrush before I decided to start with a base for the body to at least have somewhere to start with my sculpt. I studied appropriate face topology for this and actually reused the head of this model when retopologizing.

Sculpting

http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/1093-Introduction-to-ZBrush

I closely followed this ‘Introduction to Zbrush’ course on Digital Tutors to learn how to sculpt and applied what I learned to my character, like what tools are, the hotkeys, how to edit the resolution of your mesh and all sorts of other things. I found it incredibly helpful and probably wouldn’t have been able to figure Zbrush out without it! To do the clothes and hair I referred to these tutorials on Youtube because the digital tutors one didn’t cover that. (ANM220.LO07 Evaluate the literature on contemporary animation practice and use this information to shape and develop your own practice)

Progress shot

Final sculpt

Retopologizing

http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/2291-Creating-a-Stylized-Creature-for-Games-in-ZBrush#overview

I used a course called ‘Creating a stylized Creature for Games Using 3DS Max and ZBrush’ to learn how to export my sculpt from Zbrush to 3DS Max and retopologize. I found the process much simpler than I was expecting though it was quite time consuming! I mainly used the extend tool in the freeform ribbon tab. I made sure to keep animation appropriate topology and keep it relatively low poly since it would be animated and in a game. (ANM220.LO07 Evaluate the literature on contemporary animation practice and use this information to shape and develop your own practice)

UV Unwrapping

The ‘Creating a stylized Creature for Games Using 3DS Max and ZBrush’ also came in really handy for this! It suggested to use TexTools and I found that incredibly helpful and think it sped up my process quite a lot! Along with this it showed how to use symmetry with your UVs which saved me heaps of texture space.

Baking Normals

Again, I used the ‘Creating a stylized Creature for Games Using 3DS Max and ZBrush’ and it recommended separating all the different parts of the mesh and sculpt to do an exploded bake for better quality, so I went ahead and did that. I then plugged both my high and low poly meshes into X normal and baked it out. I had to play with settings like the padding until I got something I was happy with, and fixed the rest of the obvious errors in Photoshop by painting over them. I should do a little more research into how to do this better in the future because there were quite a few iffy bits!

Texturing

Before bringing my model into Quixel I baked out an AO map in X normal too, which I found much easier to do than in Max! I then played around with the materials in Quixel until I had textures I was happy with. I then tested out the textures in unity and found out it didn’t support gloss maps, but I felt they weren’t really needed.

Skinning and Animation

I then skinned it and animated the final run cycle for the game which I went over in this post. I then opened everything up in unity again for a final test, then uploaded the final .fbx files for use!

For the other assets I went through a similar process, but only using the steps outlined in the list at the top of this post. (ANM220.LO09 Research, design and implement a production pipeline for a chosen specialisation.)

Here’s some footage of the final game! We collaborated with Chris Gleeson, an audio student to provide us with a different background track to better suit every different theme, and it’s a shame that all the audio that was made couldn’t be used because not all of themes had complete model sets. Along with this some sound effects for the characters voices were added for when they jump, slide, get a pick up, or hit something. (ANM220.LO02 Effectively integrate sound with animation.)

References:

http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/2291-Creating-a-Stylized-Creature-for-Games-in-ZBrush#overview

http://blog.digitaltutors.com/understanding-a-3d-production-pipeline-learning-the-basics/

https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/game-asset-production-pipeline-unity-1929

http://blog.digitaltutors.com/whats-the-difference-a-comparison-of-modeling-for-games-and-modeling-for-movies/

 

 

Endless Runner/Specialsation: Planning

I chose the modelling Specialization for this tri and was also part of the endless runner project, and since I had to do very similar things for both of them I decided to combine them into one to help save time! I learnt a whole bunch through this project, like how to sculpt, retopologize, bake normal maps using x normal, some basics in unity and how to animate a run cycle.

To start off with I help out Ben a little bit with the project conception and management side of things. He explained his concept to me and I explained from an animators perspective what that would involve from us and other things to be aware of. For example, we intended to just use one set of animations and a specific rig and apply them to everyone’s models, but I brought up that doing that would probably make it hard to include secondary animations for people’s characters if they had long flowing parts or something similar. We didn’t want to increase to workload for everyone even more by asking them to do animations also, so Ben made sure to make everyone aware this at the start of the project.

Along with this, based of Chris’s suggestion, I made a starter kit and instructions for the project to help ensure everyone’s models were to the correct specification and to make the programmers jobs easier. I tried to consider as much as possible and explore any issues that could arise down the production pipeline while also consulting with Ben to see if there was anything I could to do to make implementing the models in the game easier. For example, I set the pivot points to the bottom-center for the obstacle assets and to the start of the road sections so they could easily be adjusted to the correct positions in engine. 

Along with this we had a folder in google drive set up, and because we were doing a parallel style production everyone had their own folders in which they could place their models into rather than having different folders for each different model ect. and we fond it worked very well foe the people who ended up completing their scenes. We also had a slack channel set up were we could announce meetings, show were we were up to and ask for feedback or questions and found it was essential for the communication in this project. (ANM220.LO14 Describe efficient workflows for handling asset data across various production stages, from concept to completion.) (ANM220.LO17 Implement & maintain technical frameworks that allow for collaborative production)

To try and help keep everyone on track we had weekly meetings on Wednesdays where we asked to be up to a certain stage in the production pipeline and show off our work to the rest of the group to receive feedback. I think this agile based methodology would have been very effective if the endless runner wasn’t a side project and more of team could have been up to date, but it worked very well for me and kept me pretty well on track.

(ANM220.LO15 Produce work on time and within scope by engaging appropriate project management methodologies)

 

 

Digital Sculpting Research

Digital sculpting technology is a comparatively recent method of creating Computer generated 3D models, which involves using software to manipulate a digital object as if it were made of a real-life substance such as clay by providing tools such as push, pull, smooth, grab and pinch.

One the first occasions of when digital scultping software became avaliable was in 1999 at SIGGRAPH (short for Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques) where Ofer Alon, the founder of Pixologic Inc, presented their newest software, ZBrush, which remains one the most prominent 3D sculpting software today. It gave 3D artists the ability to create highly detailed 3D models in much more natural and intuitive way, and revolutionized many different types of production pipelines.

Video games, for example, has been influenced by such a degree by digital sculpting that in many production pipelines the process of creating a 3D model has been reversed. Instead of beginning with a low poly mesh and only using a sculpting program for detailing, now high resolution sculpting is now the starting point, meaning an artist has the freedom to experiment with making the most suitable character first before creating the best topology for animation for that figure. (ANM220.LO04 Describe how the history of a chosen specialisation has influenced current industry best practices) (ANM220.LO07 Evaluate the literature on contemporary animation practice and use this information to shape and develop your own practice)

Since digital sculpture produces work very similar to traditional sculpture, you can apply the elements art to it as you would with a physical work of art. The elements of art are form, line, color, space and texture, though clearly some are more applicable to digital sculpting than others, namely form, colour, space and texture.

Form refers to an image’s shape, volume and believability that it exists in 3D space, and is probably the most important element for sculpting. There are two types of forms, geometric forms- which have a specific name associated with them, contain simple 2D shapes, and are usually man made- and organic forms- which do not typically have names asscociated with them and are comparatively complex when compared to geometric form. These two types of form could be associated with whether hard surface modelling or sculpting would be better suited to a particular shape. A sculpture’s form must be recognizable and accurate from every viewing point in 3D space for it to look aesthetically sound. For example, I had to study the shapes that occur in plaits to help make my characters hair convincing in 3D space. I found that if I pictured the plait as three separate and very malleable pieces of rope it was easier to get the placement of the hair to look right.

Texture is another very important element in sculpting and is integral to communicating what a surface is actually composed of, and can help add interest and contrast to an image. Texture, unlike the other elements, is strongly associated with the sense of touch, and how vividly something is able to depict how it’s surface feels usually depends on how realistic it looks or is. Texture in art can be split into two categories: Actual or Implied texture. Actual texture is what an artwork feels like when you actually touch it, like a physical sculpture or the surface of a painting. Even though digital sculpture is in three dimensions it is also impossible to actually touch unless 3D printed, so digital sculpting will more often fall under the implied texture category and the same can be said for physical marble statues that depict textures like fabric and skin. Implied texture is when something contains an illusion of texture. To create a more believable implied texture for a 3d model you can include a range of different maps, like albedo, normal, specular and gloss, along with actually adding texture to the topology of your model by sculpting. For example, in the image below the stitches were sculpted in while the texture on the fabric was added through applying a normal and albedo map in Quixel. (ANM220.LO05 Research and describe the role of visual fundamentals in producing aesthetic images in a chosen specialisation)

References:
http://pixologic.com/zbrush/industry/video-games/

http://cymae.deviantart.com/journal/A-Visual-History-of-3D-Art-284617122

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_sculpting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elements_of_art

http://thevirtualinstructor.com/form.html

https://www.sophia.org/tutorials/elements-of-art-texture

 

Solving the janky foot problem

So recently I volunteered to create a run animation for the endless runner, as the one we were supplied wasn’t exactly what we were after. However I didn’t know how to ‘mirror’ the steps to make them identical, so then came up with the idea to animate both feet taking the same step and then offsetting one to create a run cycle with identical steps.

excuse the crappy render and slow speed!

I had to skin my character to the rig Kynan made for the project, which my character didn’t exactly fit, but I tried my best to make sure the mesh deformed as appropriately as I could make it. (ANM220.L O03 Produce user friendly animation rigs suitable for an intended purpose.)

It wasn’t very fun

However I ran into issues when importing the animation into unity. For some reason, the right foot would twist, creating quite a painful looking run in-engine.

ow

I had no idea what was causing this so initially thought I had accidentally done something to the rig. I tried very hard of find anything out of place but couldn’t, so decided to try resetting the X form. It did nothing, so I did some googling. After quite a search, I found a post online where a person said they had the same issue as me, and said they found the solution by including the rig in T-pose on the first frame then beginning the animation loop in the frame after that. So I went back into the max file where I had the animations, moved the default T-pose to be included in the animation at frame zero, exported it and imported it into unity and I found it worked for me too! (ANM220.LO06 Access and apply information independently to solve creative and technical problems)

 

 

Trust In Time Post Mortem

For one of my cross-disciple projects this trimester I worked on a 2D pixel art game in a domestic interior setting. It was super fun to learn and slowly be able to flesh out a house using tilesets and sprites.

I found this video super helpful, and informed basically the entire process I took:

Here are all the assets I made! I ended up making much more than what was needed because the game designers wanted the assets from all four angles, and even though I discussed how it was unnecessary with them it only actually changed at the very end when the games programmers went through and cut the unneeded angles out with me, which saved me a bunch of time.

note:i didn’t make the rug or wooden block assets (ones without thumbnail)

For a better view I threw together at least one angle of every asset below!

And here are the animated character sprites I made! The game went under quite a huge change just after I had finished the mother’s walk cycle and it didn’t end up getting used, but I think it was a good practice for walk cycle that would actually be used in game.

All of these assets had to adhere to the 128×128 tile set size and be submitted as .psd files and be aligned appropriately depending on what direction they were facing. For the  animated sprites, each frame had to be centered in one of these 128×128 tiles and be place logically so they would look right and be easy to implement in engine. (ANM220.LO08 Investigate and implement art production pipelines for artists working in real time environments.) (ANM220.LO20 Create visual assets for other creative media projects to a documented specification)

I wasn’t really given a set style to work from for the interior assets other than simple, but tried to stick with a simple and slightly dated decor and tried to repeat certain textures and colors thought the assets to give a more unified feel. (ANM220.LO10 Combine elements with consideration of visual fundamentals to produce aesthetically cohesive work)

Aftermath Project Post Mortem

Second Project for this trimester is the Aftermath Project, in which we were tasked to create a small real-time environment that must depict the aftermath of an event. Our team chose to do a steampunk setting, so I suggested making our environment be in an airship and we discussed possible scenarios to depict the aftermath of, deciding on a siege/break-in by pirates. Our first intention was to no model the airship that scene is located in and just the pirate ship, but we received some feedback that for the airship idea to be convincing, some of it would have to visible from the interior, so we changed plans and modelled the ship that the environment was set it instead, and based on a suggestion we decided we could copy and modify that ship to become the pirate ship. (ANM220.LO19 Work objectively towards a common goal by giving constructive criticism and applying feedback)

Our first task was to create concept art! I found it quite difficult to get the perspective working in this piece, so it took me quite a lot of time to complete it, but I think it effectively conveys the atmosphere I was after.

Since our end product was to be rendered real-time in unreal, we had to follow certain procedures to ensure our environment wasn’t too expensive to render out in a game engine. Our main constrains to ensure this was limiting our poly count and texture size. Some methods for doing this would be making a low poly mesh look higher poly by baking a similar high poly mesh as a normal map applied to the lower poly mesh, or keeping the working size for the textures large and then resizing them for the final product to reduce pixelation. (ANM220.LO08 Investigate and implement art production pipelines for artists working in real time environments.)

These are the models I made while keeping in mind the above constraints! I used Quixel to create PBR textures, which first requires colour ID and ambient occlusion maps, but after that it is super easy and fast to create really nice textures for the models! (ANM220.LO01 Produce 3D models in accordance with contemporary production methods and pipelines.)

These three books are Brooke’s models which I textured:

Our production process was quite effective! We had a moodboard to draw from so our models would be uniform and because all of use were using Quixel all of our textures had a similar style also so I think out final product had quite a coherent feel. All of our models and textures were stored on google drive so they were easy to access for each team member, so we cold help each other with texturing and easily import the assets into unreal. (ANM220.LO10 Combine elements with consideration of visual fundamentals to produce aesthetically cohesive work) (ANM220.LO12 Evaluate the effectiveness of production processes undertaken)(ANM220.LO14 Describe efficient workflows for handling asset data across various production stages, from concept to completion.)

This is the final product! I feel that I could have worked a lot harder on this project and produced a lot more assets, but as a whole the project fulfilled the brief and was a successful creative production.

(ANM220.LO16 Operate in a production environment to conceive, create, and implement creative productions)

(ANM220.LO18 Interpret a brief and deliver a product to a client’s specification)

 

 

Rapid Reboot Project Post Mortem

Tidal wave of blog posts incoming! Really should have done this earlier, whoopsies. Lets see how much I can remember.

The rapid project for this trimester was to create a short teaser trailer for a classic video game. As usual we had a time budget of 10 hours a week as well as randomly generated specifications. Our group generated the games Jazz Jackrabbit and Monkey Island and the teaser styles Environment fly through and music video. In hindsight we really should have asked for another roll on the game choices as none of us were familiar with either of those games, but we ended up deciding on Monkey Island in an environmental fly through style.

It was decided pretty early that we would do the project in 2D seeing as most of the team said they were more competent with drawing than modeling. Our initial plan was to make flat illustrations and zoom out through the various scenes, starting in a building and then resolving with a wide shot of the Island. I made some rough color keys/environment concepts after doing some research into the locations in the game.

The Jail on Melee Island

Outside the jail with the church to the right

Shot of the whole of Melee island

We pitched this idea and provided a storyboard and received some criticism that our teaser wouldn’t be capturing the essence of the original Monkey Island game, which I agreed with and really should have pushed my team more to take it into consideration. I think as a team we really needed to become more familiar with game as a whole instead of just jumping to conclusions about what it was about, which definitely isn’t the right way to appeal to fans of the series and create an effective trailer. (ANM220.LO19: Work objectively towards a common goal by giving constructive criticism and applying feedback, ANM220.LO12 Evaluate the effectiveness of production processes undertaken)

I was asked to create a vertical slice quite early in the project to show what the final project would look like.

I made sure apply some visual fundamentals with this piece as it was supposed to represent the final quality of the project! Colour theory, lighting and values were things I relied on to keep the illustration interesting as the jail was quite dull, composed entirely of browns and blacks, so I made sure to have enough contrast between all those things, like the blue shadows and the orange of the firelight. There’s no fire in the scene because it was going to be added in after effects. (ANM220.LO10 Combine elements with consideration of visual fundamentals to produce aesthetically cohesive work)

I made sure to keep the image size large because the camera would be zooming through the image and if I didn’t you would likely see pixels in the final product. I was also asked to keep different elements on separate layers in case they needed to be animated in after effects to create a better sense of the camera moving through the illustration. (ANM220.LO.11 Output work that conforms to technical specifications required for the chosen medium)

We had a change in the production method about halfway through our project, which required a few of the assets we had already done to be heavily modified and ended up increasing the workload for a few team members. We were asked to separate the background we had already done into separate images and remove any lighting we had painted in so the environment could be built in 3D in after effects using cards and have the lighting applied in there. I really should have shared my thoughts on it more as I felt it was a bit of a risk so late in the project and took some of control I had over what my art looked like in the final product away.

So I split up and reduced the lighting I had done in the jail scene. All our assets were kept convieniently on Google Drive And we communicated on Slack, though we would have benefited a lot more from more exhaustive documentation and a more fleshed out assets list, which I really should have helped out with. (ANM220.LO17 Implement & maintain technical frameworks that allow for collaborative production)

Here are the rest of the assets I made for the project!

And the final product in which we asked some audio students to create a backing track to fit the video. It turned out they had a few issues we had no idea about, so we probably should have prompted them to communicate more or added the to our slack. (ANM220.LO02 Effectively integrate sound with animation.)

I’m not entirely happy with the final product but we did get in on time and to the brief’s specification, that being a teaser of our designated game and style that was between 15-30 seconds.

(ANM220.LO15 Produce work on time and within scope by engaging appropriate project management methodologies) 

(ANM220.LO16 Operate in a production environment to conceive, create, and implement creative productions) 

(ANM220.LO18 Interpret a brief and deliver a product to a client’s specification)