Ned Bunsem Animating - All Rendered

Above is the rendered walkcycle animation of which from the playblast version you can tell that it needed fixing and when i went back into Maya i found that the frame settings were wrong and needed changing to real time 24 frames per second. Once i had done that i had to go back into the key frames of the walkcycle to make the animation flow much better but i had also needed to make areas of the model to animate where as before the movements weren't animated and i had to do this within the day as this clean up process was pretty much close to the deadline making other parts of the projects to fall back on the time, but with the animation this is the stage at which i ended upon at the end of the day and i know that there is much more room for improvement but due to the circumstances that time had to be limited. Above is the rendered turnaround animation of Ned Bunsem in a pose ready to attack the enemies with his sauce gun. Above is the rendered animation of Ned Bunsem of which i had to redo because as you could see in the playblast version the speed of the animations was pretty slow and so once i went back into Maya i found that i had not been playing the animation in real time 24 frames per second which after updating the setting the frames needed updating to the setting of 24 frames per second so using the graph editor i was able to push back key frames and set them at a pace of which worked much more efficiently to end up the animation you see above.
Above is the rendered turnaround animation of Super Ned the concoction of boredom.

Ned Bunsem Animating - Super Ned

Now Super Ned wasn't planned but rather something i had done quickly just because i was bored with animating Ned so i had taken a new scene consisting of the rigged Ned and just positioned him into a hero pose and modelled a quick cape and thus Super Ned was born and after i had done that i posted a quick render to Tom and said that this could be an unlockable costume and this is something Tom had mentioned previously where the use of social networks could help to unlock content.

Ned Bunsem Animating - Turnaround

Now for the turnaround animation i carried on my earlier notion in a previous blogpost where i mentioned that when i used the weapon modelling as a means of reintroducing myself to Maya and being able to use that model somewhere down the line, well here it is. I had taken the attack pose concept art and used that in the turnaround animation however there had been a problem with the positioning of Ned's left had as you can see it acts as a placement for the weapon where as the concept art he is hold the weapon. The reason for this is due to the rig prohibited the geometry to bend in that position as it would rotate so badly and had been substituted by this other perspective, which i feel still goes along with the pose.

Ned Bunsem Animating - Walkcycle

When animating the walkcycle there was much more of a problem as soon as i started to animate there would be a problem with the models geometry and rather than weight painting then i had left it till the end when i had all the key movements set and started to weight paint rather than moving the leg and constantly going back and weight painting. But along with that problem the fluid movement of the leg was an issue where once the foot hit the ground it seemed like it took a little bounce so i had to refer back to the graph editor and tidy up the animation to which i'm still not satisfied with but the issue i see now is the pace of the movement an issue i feel can be rectified through final cut.

Ned Bunsem Animating - Idle

One of the animations listed as my deliverable was an idle animation and what i had chosen was for the main character Ned Bunsem to be looking side to side and then start to wave, simple and friendly. Whilst positioning Ned in key poses from side to side i din't really find a problem that was until i started to animate the wave in which i found a dip in the left shoulder of Ned and couldn't really sort it out through the weight painting and had to lower the height of the wave and along with that, smooth the animation using the graph editor as the animation wasn't flowing quite the way i wanted, but in the end i had done the animation to where i had been satisfied.

Ned Bunsem Rigging, Handles and Weight Painting

The reason i listed rigging and animating as one of my deliverable is solely down to my previous animations which wasn't my best and i felt that having the awareness of the animating process would help in a CV and to reestablish my skills at animating. The thought process of rigging became much clearer to me and i noticed and understood why i had to do certain things which would affect a later piece of movement. So i began the rigging process by adding a skeleton and joints to particular areas of movements such as elbows, hips, neck and so on but then once that had been done i had to create the method of movements so adding controls to those specific joint movements.

Once that was in place i had to bind the skeleton to the model and then i had started to restrict particular movements such as the elbow moving in directions it shouldn't but also adding new forms of movements through IK handles to allow a more precise range of movement for something such as a heel movement. This process is daunting in trying to get the right angles and forms of movements before locking in the range of movements of the character but i was able to understand the thought process behind the locking of controls and in my previous character model i worked at a much tighter and free modelled character to which his feet weren't flat and that is where i realised why i needed to keep the feet flat to the floor and is something i noticed in the controls process as it made the workflow much smoother and relaxing.

 

Once the handles and controls were set i of course tried the controls out to see their movements and found anomalies in the characters movements from stretched legs to expanded arms and this at which point weight painting comes into affect. I had to do alot of weight painting and moving the character into various positions and as you can see in the image i had limited the amount of edge loops in certain areas which really did come in effect once the leg started to be positioned but weight painting had allowed me to smooth out the leg without adding edge loops. In the end the positions i place the character in weren't as streatched as before but looked much more fluid and is now ready to be used for animating.

Ned Bunsem Textured

Here is the complete and textured model of Ned Bunsem and as you can see from the video above there had been areas of which needed individual focus when it had come to texturing such as the N symbol on Ned sweater and the freckles on his cheek. But generally the visual representation of the character Ned Bunsem uses the various colours quite well on the model as each colour is important to the area that it covers and is in a colour tone will not be used in the level texture allowing the character to flow through the level without a clash of colours. Also the use of simple block colours is favourable to the model as additional detail could be streatched when animating the character but where the character is at and the texture myself and Tom are happy with the current stage and feel that haaving the character simple is better than having details which would hardly be noticed in gameplay, so we are looking at keeping the colour pallette of our game to a minimum.

Ned Bunsem UV Mapping

The next process which was needed was the process of UV mapping the Ned Bunsem model which is a difficult process in which i had to maintain the areas of the model in the UV map to allow myself to know what areas i am working with and as you can see i did break the areas such as arm, leg, hands and so on to allow myself to focus on certain areas. The fact that the areas had been broken into separate pieces and done through only have of the model is because i realised that the model would be symmetrical would not need additional UV maps so i could focus on one half but when it had come to adding individual bits of details i would do so by taking the faces of that explicit area and UV mapping it to be textured separately. The reason why the route of taking away individual faces didn't matter was due to the model consisting of block colours which is why the high level UV mapping was not needed, for example taking the face and having it UV mapped separately, where as Neds face is primarily made up of his glasses and his smile and right now i am at the stage of texturing Ned with block colours as areas of detail, the reason for this is because the size of the character is not at scale of which high levels of detail will be noticeable.

Ned Bunsem Modelled

After taking a break and lowering the weapons polycount i returned back and started to finish the model of Ned Bunsem by completing the modelling of his arm and hand and then added the glasses after mirroring the model of Neds body as most of his shape and body is symmetrical where as his hair and the freckles on his right cheek are not but i will be adding them through the texture process. I think looking back at this model there is room for improvement, just like anything else but i feel that where i am at it and comparing it to my previous model this model shows my modelling skills have improved to where the model is much smoother and the methods of coming up with a model such as Ned as i learned to keep any figure modelling in a T-pose and to work from a cube and extract into the shape you are working with. Considering the amount of faces used in the model my thoughts are at a stage where i am confident in the stage at which the model is currently at but feel that their is an improvement that can be made where i could lose faces and once again i believe that working at the scale i am currently at is why i am trying to go into much detail with the modelling of the character and as this model is aimed at IOS and Android devices which had been reminded to me from one of the feedback i received, then perhaps the need for a lower amount of faces is expected and i should lower the faces but when doing so i came across many faults in the shape of the model and when removing certain edge loops that they will become a problem once animating so i had decided that i will try to keep the model at the current stage where i do believe it is at a level which acceptable for an IOS and Android platform.

Weapon Polycount Lowering

As mentioned in the previous blogpost i had gone overboard with my polycount which is evidently shown in the above video and i had planned to go back and model the weapon to where it shows the design of the weapon and having a better polycount. So i had started with the current high poly model and started to remove unnecessary edge loops to lower the faces and in the process retain the weapon shape to where it is visually similar to the design and is recognised by that fact and not needing a second glance. As you can see in the video below the amount of faces has been lowered by near half of what it had been and still retains the shape and look of the design so i am happy with the stage at which it is at however i still feel i could lower the faces more as i am looking at the weapon at a large scale where as when it come to being used the weapon will be a much smaller size, a size can get away with a smooth shape but another factor is that i need to finish off the Ned model as well as the other but i feel the use of the weapon at the end of the projects is in a pose so lingering on the model is not necessary for now.

Modelling the Weapon and Character (Ned Bunsem)

With my role covering the character and concept art side of the project i had done much of the concept art and the designs and ideas for the characters which the next step of my deliverable was to produce a 3D model of the character and have him rigged and animated. So rather than jump into the deep end of modelling a full character, i decided that since it had been a few months since my last use of Maya that i should model something quickly and simple to reacquaint myself with tools and modelling. So i chose to model the weapon which was simple in it's design and could serve a purpose in posing the character so there is a use later on. I kept the model close to the design and i believe that perhaps in doing that i had gone overboard with the polycount and which is why i will have to go back into the model and lower the polycount to where the model retains what it is trying to show but also keeping the polycount as low as possible.

After the weapon model i was ready to take on a much more of detailed model coming through the modelling of the main character. I tend to start a modellign process by starting with a cube and then extruding to the design however i tried a new process in which you use a plane and mould that plane to the design, this process had been one which i had seen Chris do. But when i had tried the same method i couldn't get the process right as i ended up starting with the plane but once i tried to mould the shape of the design i wasn't able to form the shape correctly and rather than carry on and refer back to my comfortable method as this will allow my pace of modelling to be much quicker and i feel that the plane method will be best suited for a simpler model such as the weapon. Once i had gotten the modelling process underway i had confidently been able to model the shape of the character from head to toe and have come upto the modelling of the arm. Throughout the modelling of the character the design was rounded but simple so i had to keep the smooth round look for the model going for all the areas but i had come across problems where the model would have uneven edges and wouldn't be smooth. So i started using a method in which i could smooth the model then remove those additional edges and vertices so the polycount would stay the same and through that smooth tool i could maintain a smooth and rounded looking model without any additional edges. With that in mind my next process is to finish off the model and then work on the texture.