Robot Animation Updates!

In today’s lesson with Matt we went through the 12 principles of animation again. This was just at the beginning of the lesson as a refresher to what we need to include in our own animations. Making sure we have exaggeration, squash and stretch etc.

After he set us off, I play blasted what I done last week the blocking phase where I got out the poses of the animation. Where I want the robot to be. This is what it looked like after I finished the blocking for the robot.

This week I started to smooth out the animation starting with the beginning and I started to add a bit of exaggeration to my animation. This is what the beginning of the smoothed animation looks like.

Next week I am just going to animate the robot and then I will go back later and add in the exaggeration. A problem which I have ran into was the boxes. The boxes are just static props however the robot does crash into the boxes so I will need to animate the boxes to move.

Animated Short Progression!

Today was the first lesson back with Matt. In today’s lesson I continued what I started a few weeks ago before the Christmas break. I have finished my assets and I started to figure out where I should put certain key frames to make the animation look as good as possible I have started blocking it out.

After I positioned the assets where I want them to be; in their ideal place for the robot to crash into them, I then started to block out my animation. In this lesson I only animated the robot but keeping in mind that I will most likely need to animate the boxes, barrels and water bottles later on that the animation requires as the robot crashes into them. This is what the finished assets look like.

As you can see I have just duplicated most of the assets from the shelf and scattered them around the scene. I did however import my barrel which I created with James a while ago to mix things up a little bit and have the robot crash into some barrels instead of just boxes. I did also create a closed box which I scattered around the room.

As I was saying earlier on in the post the animation blocking is almost complete  I just need to add a few more key frames to get a feel for how the overall animation is going to look before I start to smooth out the animation and animate the boxes.

Secret Room Project!

Earlier on in the week I finished my secret room project all together it took me around about 8 hours to complete.

The whole secret room project I wanted to create a Sci-Fi room. I did originally have a secret room completed which just needed texturing until recently, however I wan’t satisfied with how it turned out so I changed the whole project. I’m not going to put images of the Sci-Fi room on as it isn’t important.

The actual secret room took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do after the Sci-Fi room. I was browsing the internet looking at cool rooms and I though about doing a living room or a room to be able to just relax in. This is what I went on to do. It took me a while to create the first sofa and I went through about 2-3 sofas until I got the one I have now. The sofas before the one I currently have were all blocky, they all looked strange and uncomfortable. This is the final sofa which I came out with. It is completed with a nice black/grey texture on it to make it look comfortable. The arm chair next to it was very simple to make as I just deleted the pillows on the sofa, selected the vertex and moved it in. The texture was the same for that.

The coffee table has chrome/grey legs with a wooden bottom and a black glass top finish. The coffee table took me around about 30-45 minutes to come up with a nice design. The television stand was the hardest to come up with as I didn’t know which design to go for. I didn’t know whether to go for a simple TV stand. I decided on a TV stand which was larger than the room mainly to give the room some depth as if the room was all on the same level as each other then it would look boring and too much alike. Adding the larger TV stand fills the room and prevents it from being boring.

The mini table near the sofa I modelled in 10 minutes. The top also has a glass texture and the legs are chrome it was very simple to model however it looks good. The light in the corner does have a plug however the wire messed up and I had to remove it. The light design is quite bespoke and it isn’t just a basic pole light. It actually makes the room look better than what it would if it were a normal lamp.

Overall I feel like the whole room looks good. I think the way everything is positioned is good and the colours/textures which I have used are good. The floor actually has a wooden floor texture which I will show at the end of the post. I feel like I could improve the room by adding a proper texture to the walls instead of a blue colour. However, the sofa with a basic black/grey colour looks good on the sofa. I did try (with help from my brother) to use substance painter on the coffee table. All the textures were on and I was planning on doing all of the textures in substance however I couldn’t re import the file into maya.

Here are all of the pictures of the room.

Animation Updates!

In today’s lesson with Matt, I started to build on my animation. As we didn’t have Matt last week I started to block out my scene ready for when I start animating it. So far I have created a shelf, which I duplicated as I will put different assets in different places. I have created boxes to go onto the shelves and bottles. I still need to texture the boxes and the shelves as the bottles I created a while ago and added textures onto them.

This is what the bottle looks like.

The hierarchy was messed up today as I didn’t have the arms added to it. This means whenever I moved my model, the arms would just stay in the same position. Even if I rotated the body backwards the arms would just float and stay in position, this was a simple fix as I just added the arms to the hierarchy and it all works now. I also need to create a couple more boxes as if I just use the same box over and over it will look repetitive so I need to create 2 more assets for it to be done fully. Next week I will import the barrels I created with James to add to the scene however I will need to change the texture from rust to a different texture so it fits the scene.

This is the shelf and the boxes I created. As you can see I need to create a few more assets to make the scene look natural. Apart from the assets I am ready to start my animation as I created my character set today also.

Sci-Fi room!

At the start of today’s lesson, Ant started the class off by showing the class some slides (as James was absent). The slides were covering the portfolio game which I am going to be creating for the portfolio. I haven’t got an idea for what game I am going to do but I am thinking something up.

For the actual lesson, I was creating my secret room. The theme for the room is Sci-Fi. I feel like I can do this theme well and how well it has went so far is very good. When doing the room I came across a problem. I wanted to create a curved floor so it looks like it is a big ship and it has a lot of turns for all I am only doing a small room of what would be a big ship. I figured this out, however I don’t think it was the most efficient way of doing it. I created a cylinder and I deleted some of the faces so I had so I had the curve shape which I originally wanted. From here i just placed it where I needed it.

I also created only 1 panel and duplicated it so next week or later on today I will need to make a few more panels to give it a nicer feel and make it different. This is what the room(s) look like so far.

Tony WIP!

In today’s lesson with Tony I finalised my mechanical design. From here Tony showed the class how to import the 3D object from photoshop into maya. To import it into maya what I had to do was right click onto the final mech design layer, export to 3D. When it is in 3D on Maya, once again right click the layer and then export. The file that I exported was an OBJ. From exporting the OBJ I opened a new scene in maya and imported it into the scene. There was a problem when importing it into the scene as it wasn’t on to the grid I also had to centre the pivot to the object so I could move the object accurately I had to find the grid which I did by zooming out and moving the object to the grid.

This is what the mech looks like in maya.

Pre-production animation!

Animation Preparation

So far in my planning I have completed my 10 Ideas, my synopsis, treatment of my final idea and my asset list. I feel like I have chosen the best idea possible which I can complete to the best of my ability. I have also almost completed my storyboard which I will try to complete in Tony’s lesson when I have a bit of time on the drawing tablets. I am happy so far with the final project I have chosen I feel like I can go far with the project. Next week when I start the animation I will start off quite slow and take my time and always refer to my storyboard and treatment. I don’t want to rush into the animation. I want to make sure that this animation is done to the best of my ability.

 

Analysis Of Game Design!

In today’s lesson with Chris, we were talking about games and game audience. We were talking about how games have changed over the years and Chris gave us an example of Zelda : Breath of the wild the dev’s decided to design the game in there old software and seeing if it would work before they put it in there new software.

I now need to cover a range of at least 3 games from different generations of the games industry.

1. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 26 October 2004

I have chosen this game because of how far the grand theft auto series has come. The game has come very far and is accessible on most platforms such as Playstation 2, PC, Xbox, Xbox 360,  OS X, Playstation 3, iOS, Android, Windows phone and Fire OS. There is two developers of this game, Rockstar North and War Drum studios. Rockstar North is based in Edinburgh, Scotland and was founded in 1984 and have released quite a few big titles. The target audience was from ages 15-18 however it caught the eye of people much older also and some younger (like myself at the time). I did play this game but not on release of course. GTA San Andreas was heavily based on California and Hollywood. Since it was a game on every console, the devs would of had to change a whole bunch in the game to fit all consoles. For example to move forward in a car they would of had to program it to move forward on every console like xbox hold RT, PC press W, iOS hold the screen. However I played the game on PS2. The mechanics of the game were very good for the time of release. The audio files were very good also. Nothing was off or muffled or quiet it seemed like they done a real good job overall of the game. In GTA there was obviously a shooting mechanic. However the shooting took place in a 3rd person POV but this didn’t stop Rockstar north and War Drum studios. The shooting was very smooth and it wasn’t clunky, you could aim on all consoles with the joystick and mouse etc. The game overall was a very good game for the times and how it has improved over the years is very, very cool.

2. Call Of Duty 

I have played the Call Of Duty games since forever. The reason being my dad used to play them so I got into them at around Big Red One on the PS2 and I loved it. It as released 1st November 2005. In the earlier Call Of Duty’s (COD’s) there was no ADS Like CS games back then and still now and in big red one for the guns to be able to ADS and hold your breath whilst sniping to be more accurate whilst shooting was really cool at the time. The ADS was slow and obviously has been improved. The shooting mechanics were very good for back in 2005. The sensitivity was nice and you can melee attack which was crazy how you can press another button and it would knife someone. You can also throw different grenades. The movement was quite slow but the maps weren’t too big so it didn’t really matter. At the time you couldn’t sprint but as I said it didn’t matter. During the game there was also a mountable the MG42 it worked pretty well but the swivel movement was quite jolty and the design could of been improved. Overall the design of the game was good and I feel like this was the breakthrough for future COD’s (except Infinite Warfare and black ops 3 of course).

3. Counter Strike:

This is a game which I am currently spending a quarter of my time on. Counter Strike is a huge game globally having a peak of 601,881 players in the past 30 days. Counter strike is a heavily PC based game. Though valve have tried releasing it on Xbox one, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and more the first person shooter just doesn’t feel right without a keyboard and mouse. The controls are smooth with a keyboard and mouse you can control the weapons whilst using a keyboard and mouse and you aren’t restricted in any way. With the controller (whether it be PS4 or Steam controller) you are restricted. CSGO is a game based on skill there are many spray patterns to learn and with the controller it is so hard to actually learn any of the spray patterns with an analog stick. The design is outdated on some maps like cache and mirage however with new updates re-skins of maps are being added. For example inferno and nuke were the first maps to be re-skinned, with the new maps being more appealing they tried it with dust 2. The most fan favourite map of them all and with this update the map is going in new directions as well as the game. This game clearly isn’t made for console, or phone due to the mechanics of the game not necessarily the hardware limitations.

Inferno Before

Inferno After

The picture on the left is inferno before. As you can see it is dull and lacks colour. It isn’t very appealing to the eye. Whereas the picture on the right (the very same bombsite) is very colourful, is very appealing to the eye and is very good looking in terms of a game.

Platform Game Updates!

In today’s lesson with Gary, I finished off my MagicaVoxel robot character. After I finished it I exported the file as an OBJ and imported the OBJ into Mixamo to see if the animation side of things would work.

When doing so however I encountered countless errors with my robot. When I exported the robot the first time with the wings, I had to add the joints. Elbows, knees, chin, groin, and wrists however when I added the elbows, I think the joint attached to the wings as well as the arms this means when using the the fly animation the wings would bend with the arms.

To try and fix this I made them smaller, however this didn’t work either. After thinking for a while I decided to do a jetpack and then import that into mixamo. This worked better as the jetpack doesn’t bend with the arms when my character is flying.

This is what it looks like finished and coloured in MagicaVoxel and animated in Mixamo.

More Coding!

In today’s lesson we were re-introduced to two new errors within coding. Syntax and semantic errors. 1 of the errors was very easy to spot because it was just messed up brackets. Instead of using proper brackets the code used the square bracket []. The other error (Semantic) was not so easy. The semantic error was the more than symbol. The line of code was  if (toTarget.magnitude > range) {  This error is because of the more than symbol. The line of code is basically saying that the space mine will chase the spaceship when it is out of its range (5 m) but when the spaceship is within 5 m of the space mine it wont chase the spaceship. This needed to be changed so the line of code looked like this

(toTarget.magnitude > range) { This line of code is saying that when the spaceship is within 5 m of the spacemine it will chase it. This means when it is out of range it wont. This means if there are multiple spacemines they will only attack the spaceship when in range reducing lag.

This is what the code looks like 

I can use this code in many different games like the pachinko game and the Ball roll game. I can use the code to do things like open doors or for the pachinko game make the balls have an effect before the pachinko ball touches it.