Character Updates!

In today’s lesson with Matt, I worked on finishing my character which I started last lesson. I now have a finished hierarchy and I have added some features which will be able to demonstrate a few features of the 12 principles of animation.

I have added an antenna onto my robot. When I start to animate this will add realism to my robot because when it starts to move around I can make the antenna move the other way like it is dragging in wind. I have also added arms which at the moment don’t look too good however they can be changed. I based them off the robot Wall-e and the have the claws on the end. I have also left space for joints at the elbow and shoulder so when it moves I can move individual parts of the arm.

I have also completed the pivot point. I placed the pivot point on the bottom of the robot. This is because when the robot moves I can rotate the upper body freely. This means if I am moving the robot around I can angle it slightly so it looks like it is being pushed over because of how fast it is moving.

I have also completed my hierarchy and all of my hierarchy works. When I move the main body I can move it around without it breaking off from other parts of the robot. I cant also rotate the body like I said before. The hardest part about today was figuring out the hierarchy for the arms. I did figure it out however by linking them to the body and not the parent. This means it still moves when I move the parent however when I rotate the body to a slight angle the arms move with it.

This is what it looks like as of right now. The arms will be updated with a colour and updated overall to make them look more appealing.

Sound Effects – Pachinko Game improvements!

Today in Chris’ lesson he introduced us to a site called BFXR. This is a website where you can make your own sound effects. I made three sound effects a ball drop sound, a collision sound and a level complete sound.

So far I have only added the Ball drop to the pachinko game, However when I added the sound it didn’t play when I was dropping the pachinko balls. After messing around in the settings I figured out that it was fairly simple to fix by just ticking a box which said “play on awake” which allowed the sound to play when clicking the mouse or pressing the A button on the controller. It already it seems so much better. The ball drop sound brings life to the game and when I add the collision sound it is going to be really cool. The ball drop is a really nice techno sounding beep but it makes the game so much better as you can actually hear the ball dropping instead of just looking at it drop. It gives the game depth.

The other sounds (Collision and Level complete sound) still needed to be added. At the moment I need to figure out a way to add both sounds to the game. Hopefully it is fairly simple. As I was adding the sounds I needed to add a new script. The new script had to be added to the pachinko ball prefab. After adding the script to the pachinko ball I needed to just assign the ball drip sound.

MagicaVoxel work for platform game!

In today’s lesson with Gary he showed the class a program called MagicaVoxel. On the program you can design your own characters, literally anything. At the start of the lesson he told us about a new project a new platform game. I started to think about scenarios for the game and I was thinking about a futuristic setting. The next part of the lesson with Gary he asked us to research character design. I researched for around 5 minutes when I found a character on the internet which was made in MagicaVoxel,  called Megaman the Japanese character created by Capcom.

This is the image I found. After playing around with the program for a while I started to model based off Megaman. I managed to get a whole character done with no problems. However I did struggle for colour choice and this is still yet to be decided. I have went for a blue like Megaman however I have added red highlights white goggles, and some wings. I have highlighted using black and I have added a golden belt

This is what it looks like so far.

Compositing

At the start of Tony’s lesson the class was asked to research about 1 point perspective, 2 point perspective, 3 point perspective and atmospheric perspective.

Here are some examples:

1 Point perspective: Is when things go towards a single vanishing point.

Two point perspective; two point perspective is when there are two vanishing points on the horizon that are 90 degrees apart.

3 point perspective; 3 point perspective is when parallel lines meet at two different points on the horizon.

Atmospheric perspective; a technique of rendering depth or distance in painting.

At the back end of Tony’s lesson, I started on my own scene for Tony. He asked us to create a new cube in perspective and replace billboards. He showed me new tools such as the distort tool and the free transform tool (keyboard shortcut CTRL+T). This is what it turned out like.

(Ignore the grey above the cube).

Research, Making Models + Setting Up Hierarchy!

A hierarchy is a collection of parents and child linked together in a single structure. A parent in animation is an object which controls more than one object “children”. However a parent can be controlled by a superior parent. A child is an object that is controlled by its parent. An object which doesn’t have a parent is an object of  the world which is an imaginary object that acts as the root of all other objects in the scene.

Making my model!

I researched what I wanted to do for around about 5 minutes before I decided on the robot. I looked at lots of different types of robots. Ones with wheels, tracks, ones who float etc). I have decided to do a robot with wheels.

Pachinko Game Updates!

In today’s lesson with Chris I started to improve my Pachinko game. However when I started to edit a few things and add a few things I encountered an error however I fixed this. What happened was my pachinko ball broke. Instead of being a pachinko ball it would shoot red laser beams so, like the smart guy, I deleted it and had to re-do it however, the pachinko ball now full works and it has a custom trail which follows it and removes itself after 1 second of life.

To add the trail I selected the pachinko ball prefab, selected “add component” and then searched trail renderer. From here I messed around with the settings of the trail to see which one I liked best, I decided that the 1 second life span would be good enough as if the pachinko ball is bouncing off pegs and the trail has still not disappeared it will be hard to see what is going on. Therefore after a 1 second lifespan, the trail disappears. Adding a trail makes the game pop as it isn’t just a boring ball bouncing from 1 peg to another. It makes it seem more fun and lively when I have the trail in the game.

I have also added a “pop in” feature which also looks really cool as everything pops in when the game is started. When a peg is hit I want to add a pop out feature so it will look better than it just disappearing.

This is what they look like.

Character work with Gary!

In today’s lesson with Gary, I finished off the character work which I needed to put into after effects. After encountering a few problems such as my character not showing up in element3D so I couldn’t put all of the textures on my model.

I didn’t know what to do at first, so I deleted the files and re exported the model. Then I encountered another problem and I had to ask Gary for help. My drive was full so I had to change the location however if I just done it regularly the location wouldn’t change. So I had to copy and paste my link from the S-Drive so it would work. From here I exported it out, set up element3D and then added the textures onto him. Now my character is just starting to move however it is taking a very, very long time.

For now it is just going through the animation frame by frame and it will take some time. I will update with a GIF later on.

Homework Blog task – “Juice” and “Game Feel”

The term “juice” is used when a game has added layers to add to the satisfaction of the game. However adding juice to a bad game doesn’t make it better. Say if a gun is shot in a game, to juice this motion you can add a screen shake and a kick to make it feel like it is actually shooting. Overall the term “Juice” is adding effects to a game however over juicing a game can make it look worse than it already does.

Game feel is just how to game feels. Everyone has an opinion on a game feels. Whether the graphics are good, the controls are smooth and overall just how it feels. These factors can effect how a game feels and your opinion on it.

Mario is a good example of a game with good “juice”.

Research task – Tony!

Simon Stalenhag:

This image uses a lot of dead robots from big to small. I could implement something like a dead robot in to my scene. I could really use a design like this in my own work.

Ian Mcque:

I like this image from Ian mcque as the theme which I am going to do is utopia and dystopia and for Ian Mcque this could be his version. This could be his version of heaven or it could just be a huge spaceship.

Fengh Zhu:

I really like this picture from Fengh Zhu as it could be his version of hell. A run down city with a bunch of skulls all over. I can really take influence from this and input something into my work.

Ashley Wood:

I like this image from Ashley Wood as it is a tech robot. This could also be their version of hell.

 

 

Lamp updates!

 

In today’s lesson with Matt after we went through each others work and peer assessed it, Matt gave us time to improve our animations. From the feedback I got, I was told that the lamp hangs in the air for a while at the end of the animation so I went and I changed a couple of key frames to make the lamp look like it comes down on a clean landing. However I still need to exaggerate the landing by moving the lamps head because at the moment the lamp head is just still as it lands which isn’t the most realistic thing.

Here is the updated animation!

and here is the old animation.

As you can see at the end of the old animation, the last part of the lamps jump stutters for a second as it hangs in the air which I didn’t like and the person giving me feedback also noticed. So when I got the time from Matt that is the part that I instantly went to so I could change it and make it look better.

Now to improve this further, I can add more exaggeration at the end of the overall animation by squishing the lamp down further than what I have and also adding in the head nod.

I can even improve the animation further at the beginning as my lamp only crouches. This is anticipation but to make it look better, I can add in a little wiggle so the lamp looks like it is actually preparing for a jump.