I first thought that doing this would be pretty simple it’s
just a biped rig just on all fours instead of standing up. In fact it was a lot
more difficult the first expected because in this case dogs need a few more
joints in the hind legs to make them more I found this out after looking at
some antonym and dog skeletons. In my first skeleton (the green one) I added a
joint in the front of its chest which I know they don’t have but it’s to make
the chest move a bit more when its moving, barking and sitting down. I think
this bone will wont be used that much moved by itself but with it being
parented to everything else it should make very small movements which will make
it look better when animated.in the pinkish skeleton I added more joints to the
spine and some more to the tail so to give the spine more of a curve and to
give me more use of the tail. With more joints in the tail I can animate it
more effectively and make it look more realistic. The both pairs of legs aren’t
connected to the spine joint yet because I’m going to IK them to another joint
so the back of the neck moves a bit when the dog moves with the front legs and
so the backside of the dog and the tail moves slightly when the dog moves with
the back legs.
Monday, 11 August 2014
Human skeleton
Having done a bipedal rig before this was the first rig I
did knew where to place the joints and what kind of IK’s to use. While I was
doing this though I was partially watching a video that my tutor had made the
year before for a bit of guidance during the constrain section of the rig
because I hadn’t done it for so long. Weight painting on this was also strange
because for some reason the knee could affect the head but I soon sorted that
out with changing the paint to heat and seeing where it was affecting and just
painted it away. I find turn the weight painting mode into heat and seeing it a
lot easier where its playing it is very helpful and I just change it back and
go back to painting in black and white.
Shark skeletons 2
I thought that I should also make some joint systems/joint
chains to that could be used with deformers for other game engines that aren’t
unity. The yellow skeleton has more joints within the second dorsal fin and has
anal fins, which is a lot closer to a proper shark skeleton. Although it also has still the pectoral fins
(front fins on the bottom) connected to the spine. This is mainly because it
doesn’t look like they are fully connected to the spine within the images I’ve
looked at and to keep them consistent I thought it was a good idea to keep the
same on this skeleton at least. The blue shark skeleton is the closet to the
real thing I could get without it actually being a shark. Potentially I think I
should move some of the fins a bit more so they are more inline with each other
and possibly lift the spine up a bit more to add a bit of a curve that all
sharks have. The red skeleton is the blue skeleton minus the chain in the tail
I thought this would be interesting to experiment on weight painting and deformers
to see if I could make the tail move realistically without having a bone there.
Shark skeletons
Not having made a rig for a shark before it was strange
working out where to put joints have where not to. After looking at some
antonym of a shark and looking at videos of how they move I found out the
general areas of where to but a joint chain/joint system. Which is the green
skeleton. After talking to my tutor and some peers they said that I should add
some more joints into the fins so they can move a lot easier. I was a bit wary
of doing this because naturally a shark doesn’t have joints connecting its fins
too its spine but to be animated and also added to unity I would have to join
them some how. Which is the pinkish skeleton. This skeleton seems to work fine
when I move certain joints about and will need some extra weight painting so
that the top dorsal fin doesn’t more the back as much as it does at the moment.
Modelling
I tried really hard to do the best I could while modelling
the human and the shark and above are images of what I have made. But knowing
full well my modelling skills aren’t the best I looked at images of the human
body and shark body to get the right shapes. With time not being on my side I
decided to get some other models from off the internet. And because of this I found out what i had
been doing wrong with my own models. I hadn’t been using enough polygons to
start with the models I got off the internet had loads of faces. Also they had
multiple edge loops in places I didn’t even know of places them and they made
limbs/body more circular which would help more when it got to animating so they
would move more dynamically.
Dog model
I got the dog model off the internet as well sadly due to
time I didn’t even get to try and make my own. I noticed within this model that
it didn’t have as polygons as the other two models but it was a very nice model
even having polygons coming off a tail to make it look like a scruffy tail.
Which I think is a nice touch to the model and I wonder how it’s going to be
affected when I’ve bound it to a joint chain.
Matt's Videos
During last year our tutor made some videos on how to rig
and use the rigs to animate. I’ve watched a few of them to get back into
rigging. Mostly I used these videos for the weight painting because it is one
of the most tedious parts of rigging in my opinion and relearning the basics of
it really helped me get back into it. I find refreshing my memory on things is
very helpful every once in a while and lets me remember things I might have
forgotten quite easily.
How to cheat Maya 2013
I’ve only just got this book with a recommendation from a
friend. From what I’ve read of it, it’s going to be a good book to help me out
if I get stuck with anything. It has separated each part of the rigging and
animation process down into chapters that have easy to read and has informative
pictures that show step by step how to do things. I think this book will help
me more when i get to the animation process of this piece of work because it
has multiple chapters on walk cycles and other things about animation.
Game character development with Maya
I’ve used this book a lot of the couple of years I’ve had
it. it is very informative and is useful getting you out of sticky situations
because it seems to know where you’re going to possibly fail or where most
people general fail during certain parts of character development. I personally
like the Rigging section it is very help and simple so that I can get back into
the groove of rigging and start off where i last was.
My presence
I don’t have much Internet presence at the moment. I have
made my own personal email and have started making linkedin and deviantart
pages for my work to be published on. I’m still trying to define what. I
wanting to be a games developer – generalist but I think I have to improve in
Modelling and UV mapping before this can happen. Since the second year I’ve
always wanted to have a logo to the one below but I think I need to make it
look a bit more professional. But I like the idea of having a capital D and a
joint chain within them to show I’m more specialised into rigging.
I’ve only just heard about LinkedIn and partial how it works.
It is a website that can be used to get jobs and find your own employers by
name. it is also a good place to network. Currently I’m setting my own LinkedIn
and will be adding more things too it like showreels, portfolios and a more up
to date CV. Hopefully using this I will get a job or get to know a potential
employee.
Tuesday, 5 August 2014
Rezzed
Rezzed is a bit like eurogamer but is more aimed at smaller
development companies within the indie game side of the industry. I didn’t know
a lot about this expo before it was too later for me to go. But I watched a few
of the developer sessions and they are very instresting and I think it would be
a good idea to attend this expo next year with the idea to network and get
useful tips to help me with my own work.
Game city nights
I went to the game city nights little event that was held in
Leeds in 2012 which was awesome. Leeds
was one of the last on the little kind of tour they were doing before the big
expo down in Nottingham. There were two lecturers from universities in
Nottingham doing the event and it was very educational they told us how they
got into the industry and how they are doing now. They talked about a bit of
history of games and how much the prices of games and game booklets cost within
the years. Sadly missing the one this year I would hopefully try and attend the
big expo in Nottingham and see what it’s actually like after getting a little
taster of what it was from the little event.
Eurogamer
I went to eurogamer 2013 and it was great. It was a huge
learning experience where I find out multiple different things about the gaming
industry and how to publish my own work on a larger scale within the talks that
where held. Up coming games where there with demos that you could try out and
talks about what they have done during development and how its progress to what
it is now. Knowing this I will be trying to go to eurogamer 2014 this year to
try and get a better understanding on how things work and hopefully later on
down the line my own work will be on show there.
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