Wednesday, 25 January 2017

Create an Animation following industry practice


DADA Puppet animations

Walking
Running
Jumping
 Lunging
Spinning



The animations came out ok, but they were short and not very good quality animation wise. Given more time I could have possible made the movements look better.

Work from before the latest project.


My plan is to make a two part animation of a ship being infected and what's happening in the ship.

I started work on the first part of the scene: the ship being infected. I got the main blobs of infection placed and animated.


Before

After
I got the tendrils animated and added some colour.


Ship with added colour




Colours used

Shapes used

I added some textures to the model (image dark due to no lighting yet)
Metallic ship and organic infection
I added some lighting to the scene

I added a camera sweep

I added a background


That's part 1 finished, now I need to make part 2, which is in the ship.

Planning an Animation

Burndown chart

Updated burn-down chart
Dada artwork is abstract, outlandish and doesn't make much sense. 
Sophie Henriette Gertrude Taeuber-Arp made Dada style artwork such as fabrics and puppets.
We will be using these puppets as inspiration for our animations.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb5Hhr7yfCUxgsHo3vjOf9anq-1Bn1cwPjgwJl5oE5yMcSFJF4aX4LupxkY5Lv2i5xJMM3QA6LqEruBypgo_9lfVQoHhD6l4JTutLBCbYIozdICbVlh_PakH7_YBy-3z8Su6JT6-wDmHY/s640/15.jpg

Animations in vidio games
By studying other peoples animations it will help me improve my own.
animations help add immersion to improve the feel of the game, some examples of reloading animations include this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7HGmUBQOHM&list=PLPjqp8O5Qe9kF9eprzmw7UkhzJSSJ9Sf5&index=12
The animations in this video are rare reload animations that act as random easter eggs and also add a bit of humour.
Some other games have special easter egg animations, like in the newest DOOM game, doom-guy plays with toys hidden throughout the map.
According to Craig Chapple "Ensuring seamless animations to your game characters is essential to creating an immersive experience."
http://www.develop-online.net/tools-and-tech/12-animation-tools-to-bring-your-game-characters-to-life/0197015

I made a puppet of my own. Here is the creation stages.
I made a body out of a large cylinder and the tops of legs out of smaller cylinders
I added lower legs with slightly longer cylinders, with the front ones at a bit of an angle
I added feet by using spheres and cutting them in half in edit mode
I added a neck and head using two cylinders, with the head being a bit shorter
I added antlers/horns by cutting a chunk out of a torus (doughnut shape) and pointing the ends.
And then I did the skeleton.

I Added some materials, made an alternate version and added a basic skeleton

This is where I parented the mesh to the skeleton
I did some skinning to fix rigging issues (bits not moving with the rest)
To do this, I edited the mesh using vertex groups and assigned bones to the correct parts of the mesh


A basic idea of how the puppet would move

I have created a risk assessment form.
Hazard
Rating
Responsibility
Methods to avoid hazard
Action complete?
Computer crash – lose work
5
3D Modeller
Save work often
yes
Copy right materials used
4
3D modeller
Create original models.
Check copyright status
yes
Back pain
2
3D modeller
Sit properly
yes
Eye strain
2
3D modeller
Balance brightness and distance from screen
yes
Server failure – work inaccessible
5
College IT team
Keep servers maintained, investigate all problems.
Yes?


I simple created a story board
Robot stacks boxes, boxes fall over, robot falls over
The story has been updated, this is now no longer relevent

I made another simple and rough storyboard for the ship being infected and whats happening inside.


Mood-board for updated work

This mood-board and animation work is also now out of date.



Week 1

I came up with 3 different ideas with genre, who the protagonist is, what the disaster is and what the foreshadowing is. 


Option 1:
Infestation

Prisoner

Zombies

Mysterious illness
Option 2:
Action

Guard

Prison break

Shifty behavior
Option 3:
Lovecraftian

Prisoner

SPACE CTHULHU

Whispers from nowhere


I chose option 1 because it sounded easier, and I also have some assets already.



After the planning I have decided that I will make a cut-scene to show what the game is about.


The plan for the cut-scene, the protagonist will be running from zombies on a space station.

Target audience

I looked around at how target audiences are displayed and this is how Quantic Foundry does theirs.



My results would likely have different levels as the audiences for strategy and zombie games can be quite different, with higher levels in excitement and fantasy than strategy.

My game would likely cater to fans of the horror, action and survival genres.

The target audience would likely be those of 18+ years of age and a higher proportion of males than females.

https://tiga.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/4257-TIGA-Genre-Report-2016_v3.pdf

This chart by Tiga shows how action is the most popular with horror being least.
This means I could use the popularity of action to get it noticed, and the lower amount of horror use to avoid an over saturated genre.

Ethical and legal

I must be careful to avoid infringing on any other zombie games too heavily, but due to the large number of them, some overlap will likely occur.

Ethically, the game will probably be banned in Germany for violence.

Due to previously mentioned violence, the game will likely be rated around a 18+ PEGI rating.

As this is a college cutscene, i won't bother with an the legal stuff of making an IP, because if someone bothers to take it all the way through, they could probably make it better than me.

There likely not be anything that could cause problems gender/ethnicity wise, besides one really intolerable person to kill off for laughs.

Contract

My minimum product will be of a cut-scene showing the incident on the ship.
I will need to model the characters and environment and then apply basic textures to them, with a mix of image and generated textures.

Smart target

For the remainder of the lesson I will start work on assets for the animation.


Smart target 2

Continue making assets for the remainder of the lesson.

Smart target 3

Continue with materials/assets without murdering the client

Theory and Applications

Introduction and applications
3D is used by the interactive media and computer games industries to show far more detailed visuals than is achievable with 2D visuals.


Games
3D in games helps add a whole extra dimension of play and detail compared to 2D games.

https://media1-us.shopto.net/ShopToMedia/images/screenshots//PS4MO59/b.png


TV
TV programs using 3D gives an interesting comparison to the usual 2D cartoons and such.

 click for Source (full link is too big to fit)

Film

3D films are rather popular at the moment for similar reasons to the TV programs.
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/pixar/images/c/ce/Wall-E_Cubecolors.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090615011459

Education
3D in education can help to better visualise the information.
https://3dprintingindustry.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/education_3dp.jpg


Web
3D on the web is a nifty way to make your stuff stand out.
http://cdn.csswinner.com/images/websites/2016/feb/1312135578.jpg

Medicine
3D can be used as either a visualisation aid or more recently, for making medicine, prosthesis and more.
https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/exo_0005_Layer-1.jpg

Mathematics
3D shapes are a important part of mathematics, so they are obviously used there.
http://study.com/cimages/videopreview/screenshot-158_111793.jpg

Engineering

3D in engineering lets you visualise the parts you will be working with before you even get/make them.
https://www.consilio3d.com/file/2016/02/ducati-clutch-cad-530x298.jpg

Architecture

3D in architecture lets you see what the building will look like, letting you change anything that isn't quite right.
http://www.siliconoutsourcing.net/images/architecute_3d/115_b.jpg

Product design
3D in product design lets you check that the product looks how you want.
http://mms.businesswire.com/bwapps/mediaserver/ViewMedia?mgid=348981&vid=5

Geometric theory
Vertices
Vertices are the singular co-ordinates in space. A minimum of 2 is required to create an edge.

Edges
Edges are the lines that make up the edges of a face. A minimum of 3 Edges is needed to make a face.

Faces
Faces are the flat parts of a 3D shape.

Polygons (Tris/Quads)
Polygons are the basic 2d shapes that make up the surface of a 3D model.

Meshes

Primitives
Primitives are the most basic 3D shapes (spheres, cylinders, cubes, etc.)

Wire-frame

Co-odinates

Rigging
Rigging is the addition of bones to a 3D model to allow easier/better animation.

Skinning

Bones

Vertex groups

Mesh construction
Navigating blender

Primitive modelling

Box Modelling

Extrusion modelling

Location, Rotation, Scale

Modifiers

Materials

Rigging, Skinning and Animating

Displaying 3D animations