Lamp Jump Peer Review

Assessor Name: Ben Whiteley

Feedback:

1) What is working well with their animation?

Their is no example of the animation bugging/glitching randomly during the lamps jump.

2) What principles of animation have they demonstrated and how can you tell?

Their are clear examples of anticipation in this animation, as when the lamp begins to jump, it crouches slightly beforehand.

3) Does the timing of their animations suit the style of the actions?

Yes, as the lamp needs to crouch before it can launch to get any distance, therefore the timing of the crouch is appropriate to the animation.

4) what isn’t working as well with their animation?

The lamp appears to hang in mid air for slightly too long making it look not as smooth as it should do.

5)What could they do to improve it?

They could add more key frames to that point, in order to possibly make it appear more smooth.

 

 

JuiceBox Scripting!

At the back end of Chris’ lesson we were messing around with “JuiceBox” scripts. There are things such as pop in and pop out, rock and a lot more. From a slide on the board I managed to get this square scripted using the script “PopIn” as you can see. From the pop in script I can customize it to make it my own by setting timers and delays onto the script. For example some squares could pop in straight away but some could have a 3 second delay.

Ways to improve my pachinko game!

At the beginning of Chris’ lesson I am looking at ways to improve my pachinko game. To do this I am looking at a simple breakout game by grapefrukt. They made the breakout game to show how simple things can improve the way games look.

All of the things which I can add to my pachinko game to make it look more appealing came from playing around for 30 seconds on this breakout game. On the actual pinball for my pachinko game I can add a trail which follows the ball everywhere it goes. This would add a bit of liveliness to my pachinko game as the ball wouldn’t look dead and you can follow certain ball if the player spawns in a few.

Another thing which I can add in to my pachinko game is a shatter on the pachinko balls. This means that when the pinball hits the pachinko ball it doesn’t just disappear it actually looks like it has been destroyed. This also gives life to the game as a few pieces would fly off and go all over the screen and add “juice”.

Another thing which I want to add is a screen shake when the ball hits off the side. This will add a nice feel to the game instead of just a plain boring game.

Model WIP, Maya and Element 3D!

In today’s lesson with Gary we are working towards finishing off our models getting them into element 3D and creating a scene.

First of all he set us on a task to find out a way to get our animations from maya to element 3D. I watched a couple of videos but none were right. Gary then showed us what we needed to do for this and set us off a task.

So far I imported my character model into maya by dragging and dropping it and then following steps on a tutorial. Once the model was in I had to drag out the key frames so the animation would play on a constant loop then I added in a new script which would allow me to export the maya file into Element 3D. After I dragged and dropped the script I had a few errors with the exporting.

The first error came when instead of only creating the relevant files it created lots of irrelevant ones. This lead to the second error. The second error was with all the files that it had created I was unable to import the files into element 3D because of how many there was. To fix this I dragged everything which I needed (being the body, bottoms,hats,tops,shoes,eyelashes) in to one file, selected the joints and my model and re exported it. This time it worked and it is ready for next lesson I can import it into element 3D and continue.

Moodboard Planning

To complete James’ lesson I have completed my moodboard for the project. The theme which I have chosen was the SciFi theme which I talked about previously when talking about Steven De Vries work. I have chosen the SciFi theme as I love the way that the SciFi stuff looks. I love the way the hallways look and all of the paneling and the futuristic look as a whole. I feel like with SciFi I can create a whole bunch of things. Even boxes look futuristic and really cool.

3D Environmental Artist Research!

At the start of James’ lesson he told the class about the new project which we will be doing over this term. The project which we are going is 3D modular environments.

To start this project off I am researching 3D environment artists. The artist which I have found is called Steven De Vries. He has worked on games such as Killzone 3, Horizon Zero Dawn, Killzone Shadow Fall and other titles like this. I like his work because most of it is sci-fi. Horizon Zero Dawn is a futuristic sci-fi game and the stuff he most likely designed for that game looks really cool. The benefits of using a modular asset workflow is that nothing is misplaced and everything is neatly laid out so it is easy to find. However using this, you can spot a lot of the same assets due to the assets being duplicated. If they use too many of the same asset it becomes repetitive.

Steven De Vries presents his work/WIP using screenshots on a blog. He talks about what he done to get to his point whether it is finished or WIP. Then he provides screenshots. He also has a portfolio which he writes in chapters every time he gets to a certain point in his work, he calls it “chapters”.

I can use his techniques in my own work by updated my blog every time I make a chunk of progress. Then from the screenshots I can describe what I actually done and how I have developed the work from the last time.

Pachinko game + Feedback!

The feedback I got was mostly about the level design. Most feedback was about how the levels are laid out and how I should continue with this throughout the game. I agree with this as it makes the game fun and easier to play.  However, some feedback was talking about how the levels should add colour and I 100% agree with this. The levels at the moment look boring as they are just plain white, if colour is added the player will be more intrigued.

Most people picked up on the fact that my goal didn’t catch the balls and add them back onto the ball dropper. This is because I didn’t get round to coding it. I will get round to coding the goal to catch the balls here are a couple of examples of feedback.

“Fix the goal as it doesn’t catch the balls”.

“Fix the goal and add colour to the levels”

“Add colour or artwork”

Overall I agree with all of the feedback I have received, I think that I can build from the feedback and make the game better. Even if the feedback is negative like “Goal doesn’t work”. Because the goal generally doesn’t work and it needs to be fixed.

 

Lamp Animation!

In today’s lesson with Matt I started and finished the lamp animation. In the lesson this I only needed to get the lamp blocked out because next week Matt is giving the class time to finish out animations off.

Animation blocking is a technique animators use. They use it to create the key poses which is used to get the feel for the timing and placement of a character/characters. Animators use this as they can work out every single movement.

Here is the animation. This is what my animation looks like when it was only blocked out.

The principles which I have used are anticipation. Anticipation is used when the lamp squashes down and gets ready to jump. Anticipation is used to prepare the audience for something which is about to happen so when the lamp squashes down it is preparing for a jump. In this animation I used pose to pose. I started with the start and ending and filled in the in between adding in key parts like the squashing down and stretching up. As you can see when the lamp jumps the foot of the lamp trails behind and when it is coming down from the peak of the jump it prepares for the landing. This is an arc movement. Arc is a natural action so when the lamp jumps, the foot trails like it would normally.

This is what it looks like when it is smooth.

As you can see at the end it looks unrealistic as it slows down stops for a second and then plants the foot of the lamp. I will fix this in next weeks lesson with Matt. Therefore it will look a lot better than this weeks. To improve the ending I will have to edit the key frames and change the way the foot of the lamp is positioned.

Adobe Fuse CC Work!

In today’s lesson with Gary created a character in Adobe Fuse. Adobe Fuse lets you customize your character, from the arms, legs, muscle size etc. After this I sent it to Mixamo. In mixamo you can animate characters and I animated the character which I created today. In mixamo you can choose thousands of animations. I chose a punching animation.

Next lesson with Gary I am going to import my character into Maya so I can then import a scene and make it look really cool.

This is what it looks like stationary.

This is what it looks like when it is animated and moving.

Finishing room!

In today’s lesson with James I changed the layout of my room and rendered it out.

As you can see by the image below I have the render of the room after the changes. I will put a before image also.

In the lesson I used the Arnold  renderer to render my room.  It is all white for now however before the render I did add some basic colours to everything just to give the room a bit of life. From here I would like to add actual textures onto my objects such as a wooden floor, the wooden shelves and cabinets a leather bed frame etc. I could even add in a carpet to make the room feel cozy and add realism. I can add back in the window and set up a light on the desk which can shine on the keyboard and mouse etc. 

This is what the room looked like before the render.

Here is the room before the render and changes.

Above is a wireframe render of my room.