MOC Update

First pass at the animation for My Paranormal Holiday :D its got all the loops merging into each other so wont make a whole lotta sense.  Gonna be refining it over the next few days! voice recording today yay!

Moments of Consequence Update

Just a quick update :)

The team is working together great and we now have a new recruit:

Jacqueline Blundell our Production Designer who has put together a couple of pretty cool room designs for the final environment.  

The design has changed quite a bit from the initial paranormal activity pitch.  We have axed the static camera system in favour of spending more time on the dramatic last scene where Cass tries to convince her Mother about the strange stuff happening in the house.  I would still like to implement the static cameras and the recording gameplay but maybe at another date.

So the script is shaping up well, I have finished all 3 characters and Jacqueline has completed all the drawings for the environment.  Next stage is to build the environment in Max which is quite a big task since I want to make all the drawers, aga, windows, doors etc to work like real world objects.  e.g the windows have to be able to blast open and the door has to be able to come off its hinges.. This has actually been much more fun than I thought, its a bit more work than my usual level design but when you start to play around with moving doors and sliding curtains it starts to feel really real. Can't wait to have it textured and lit!!

Here are the completed characters

Moments of Consequence Update

Ok so tomorrow is the first group presentation for the Moments of Consequence project.  My team is totally on board with the idea of doing a Paranormal Activity style twist to the game so I guess I can unveil the bare bones of the story :)
Above is Cass fully rigged, Skinned and with a bunch of phonemes and emotions that all seem to be working great!
I currently have a team of 4, including myself.  We have Jon Harbottle working as writer and Sam Bank and Helene Sifre as Producers.  Sam is also going to do some of the music too which is a key part of establishing the theme.  I am also hoping to recruit a production designer to consult with for the level design and set dressing which I hope to hear about soon.
So far the story beats involve an initial set up explaining our main characters back story and current motivations then diving straight into the paranormal!! The second act will be filled with gameplay in which the player has to switch between static cameras set up around the house and use their limited recording ability to try and catch evidence to prove to the parents that they have to leave the house, culminating in a few alternate endings depending on the players choices!
So 4 weeks of production till the deadline and i'm hoping to get 2 more characters, an environment and the gameplay sorted.. no problem :)

Moments of Consequence Update

Just a quick update for the Moments of Consequence project, I have been working on Cass for a few days.  I completely redid the face since it looked way too old, this did mean deviating from the concept art a bit having tried lots of shapes out in Zbrush that didn't look good in 3D.  The new Cass has been, re-topologised,  colored, normal mapped and is now gonna be rigged yay! I guess ill be able to see how well my topology worked soon, I do expect it to need tweaking but I hope not too much... famous last words :p

I really like character modeling! but there is still so much more I want to learn with Zbrush I feel like I could do so much better if I were to complete a few Digital Tutors tutorials or maybe a more official short course in character modeling... just wish I had the time! this Moments of Consequence project is gonna be hard to complete in the time frame anyway... guess that makes it exactly the same as every other project I have worked on at the NFTS though :p.

Synthespians Final

So the Synthespians project is officially over and i'm now working on the early stages of Moments of Consequence (the last project for the first year!)
This was a pretty tough project to get done in the short time frame especially since I wanted to do a bespoke environment to test how much I had learnt in the last few months.  I am pretty happy with the final product, not so great on the gameplay front but I have learnt a lot in terms of environment building and texturing for a low poly stylised World of Warcraft style environment! I think I will do more of this kinda stuff in the future since it was so fun :)
I managed to finish off a stone tile, stone wall, wood, metal and cloth painted texture for this environment but I was sticking quite close to  my reference photos so when I have more time I would like to also try and build some custom textures from actual photos instead :) anyway here are some of the screen grabs
     (you will have to forgive the rather dull lighting since my Unity [not unity pro] cant do deferred lighting).  The video however was made from my school computer and has the actual lighting I wanted for the final product.  I will have to look into this cos Unity standard's lighting does not look good, (well at least I cant make it look good) So I guess that is a good enough excuse to move on and to try UDK or Cryengine instead, we will see, I think i'm stuck for Moments of Consequence for now though.

Intro splashscreen

Really liked how the large teeth turned out for the main stage!

The Thriller Jacket was really fun to make in Iclone! quite challenging since most of it was made with an original image with a lot of warping and painting in PS.

A look at the gameplay, you (representing the crowd) choose whether Zombie Jeff is doing a good job or not, leading to different animations and endings based on the crowds reactions.

Thank you Mixamo! for the actual Thriller dance animation! really helped! though combining Mixamo with Iclone animations was not easy ;p I wrote out the workflow on an a4 page and it took something like 10 steps from Iclone out to max then Mixamo, 3Dexchange and back etc!

A look at the zombie crowd, I didn't model these guys they were free but I did have to re-rig and animate them since the fbx had been rigged with a different modifier rather than skin which unfortunately doesn't export to Unity.  The crowd have a rather simple AI they will either Idle, raise a glass, boo or sleep depending on the players perceived performance.  When the whole audience is asleep the player has lost!

Yay for barrels! a shout out to Ben Cowell-Thomas our 3D guru who taught me how to properly build my first barrel back in January.

The sad ending where upon realizing he has sent the whole audience to sleep out protagonist trudges off stage.

My ever so slightly complex animator allowing for Zombie Jeff to progress through each verse but also switch out to play a nervous hand through hair animation if he is doing particularly badly.  This probably wont mean much to anyone who hasn't worked with Unity but it took a long time to get right.  

One big take away from this project, for me, was to stay as far away from Iclone as possible!.  It is a great piece of software for pre-vis but if you'r using Unity I personally think that's where it should stop!  I ran into so many issues trying to get Jeff into Unity and animate correctly that I knew I could fix if I had made the animations bespoke in Max or Maya.  I was freaking out a little bit when we only had a few hours till presentation and he wouldn't stay on his mark!  I guess the bottom line is that without Iclone there is no way I could have pulled off this project at all in the time frame but if I was going to show this off properly as a finished piece it would mean building a new character in Max and Zbrush and rigging and animating him from scratch! Maybe that's me being picky but there are just too many issues that apparently dont have any fixes and it just put me off Iclone as a tool for anything beyond pre-vis..

Synthespians update

Just finished my Synthespiens presentation wow, no updates on my blog over the last week :p it's been pretty insane! I'll post some retrospective updates to show how it turned out! Spoiler!! but despite some crazy bugs and pipeline insanity I managed to pull it off :) modelled textured and all yay!

Photos some time over the weekend once I've had some sleep! Bye!

Synthespians Update

So onto stage 2 of Synthespians.  For this part of the project we have to create a small interactive scene with a character who performs a virtual piece of music or speech etc.  I chose to do a Zombie Karaoke bar in which our protagonist is competing for the title of best singer and dancer.  The piece I chose for my character to dance to is Thriller by Michael Jackson... obviously :p

I'm going for a low poly painterly environment kinda like World of Warcraft style.  Ideally I would build unique characters to match that environment but within the time scale I am choosing to focus on the environment and animation rather than character design.

Deadline is the 24th so only 1 week to put this all together... and I have to complete a separate Games Design Document in that time,,, and Riot started a 3D fan art character challenge, like the one I did for BlizzardFest that I totallllly! want to enter... sign no sleep for me then ;)

Will keep you posted as to my progress, wish me luck!

My most recent late night work :)

Having completed the grey box a couple of days ago I thought I would move onto props... not the usual progression but I was waiting to get the go ahead for the concept first and figured I could use the props regardless :) I have been given the go ahead for my concept so yay! 

All my extra props for my Zombie Karaoke dungeon have been modeled and UV'd and I have completed my first painterly texture!

I'm pretty happy with the models and very happy with the texture :) looking forward to seeing it in game.

Next stage is to build a few more textures e.g wood planks, stone walls and repeatable metal then I will have some v cool models (I hope).

Synthespians

Starting the penultimate project for my first year at the NFTS!! A little nervous about how much time is left and how much I still want to do.  For the Synthespians project we were introduced to IClone.  It's a pretty good piece of software for quickly generating characters, animations etc but I'm not a huge fan since there is not quite as much customization as I would like for my final projects.  Our first task was to, using IClone, create a 3D version of ourselves and have them do some form of interaction in Unity.  I wound up creating a scene in which my 3D alter ego acts in front of a background, and if you change the background the music and animations change for the character.  It was pretty fun as an exercise but for my final project I am hoping to only use IClone for adding certain time saving animations to characters I create myself.

So this weekend I got a jump start on modeling the main character for my final project "Moments of Consequence."  My wife, Jen, did some great concept art for this character and I stuck as close as I could to the original sketch (with my current Zbrush skills).  Planning on learning TopoGun for the next stage in the pipeline before texturing and rigging. :)

I have actually decided on a concept for my final project but it has taken me since... July I think and has gone through several iterations.  The final concept couldn't be more different from my original idea :p but that's how it goes I suppose.  I wont divulge any plot or themes yet ;) but don't worry when I meet with my writers and producers in a month or so i'm sure i'll blog about it.

Anyway here is Cass:

Concept art by Jen Killick

Initial T-Pose made with ZSpheres

 After this weekend :)

 She spent a long time in the Uncanny Valley but I think I just about pulled her out for the "Toony" final look I was going for.

 You may notice the hand wraps from my first Zbrush project! they just look so cool I think Jen added them just to keep me happy :)

I got very close to heading into Max for the Converses but I stuck with it just to learn more Zbrush and i'm glad they don't look that great but i'm quite happy with the end product and I learnt a lot :)

BlizzardFest Submission

Ok... I'm done!  12 days from concept to final render, textured, modeled, posed (multiple times...ugh)
I am so happy with the result! the whole process has been a blast! even the very late nights.
I do know I am not competing in even the same league as some of the other guys in this competition but for me it has been a fantastic learning curve! I have learnt so much and now cant wait to apply what I have learnt to my future projects!

Looking forward to seeing who wins! good luck 3D Total team!!

Original reference images including Braum from League of Legends :) and then the colored concept image.

After going back and forth between max and Zbrush this was the final mesh for the character! not great but next time I know how to make it much better :)

Normal and diffuse texture channels, this probably wont interest the majority of you but I do love a nice texture sheet :)

The final textured sculpt of the Terran Sentinel... maybe now that I have a low poly version I might give rigging and animating this guy a shot :)

BlizzardFest update

So only a few hours left till the deadline eek!! I found out pretty late that for the 3D competition entry you have to submit texture maps and wireframes.... Oh.. So there went my Monday evening (and most of my Tuesday morning) but I now know how to project high res detail to low poly stuff in Zbrush and have fallen for the topology brush tool!! So this might be the last update before I dive into photoshop for the final stretch

I have enjoyed this project so much! And learnt tonnes! When Glen Keane visited a short while ago he said something I really related to. He told the audience you make the most progress when you take on something that you have no idea how to accomplish! It's not the easiest way to live but I do love it as a mantra.

So in a few weeks I will be starting the Moments of Consequence project and now armed with the tools I have just learned during this project I can't wait to start!!

Enjoy the last batch of progress pics!

 All textured and scratched! the polypainting was much easier than I was expecting... well compared to the sculpting.

 A little closer look, I really liked how the helmet turned out!

Finally posed! took waaay longer than i thought it was going to! and its not nearly as dramatic as i was hoping but still on to the next stage!

Here is the texture page! up till 7:00 am projecting all the high res meshes back onto new low poly objects, Z brush was very intuitive during this process but now I know how to make this a lot easier for future projects!

Not a submission page just a combination of a few test renders :) 

Advanced Games Design

One of my favorite assignments for this module!
In pairs of 2 we had to design and build a boardgame in an afternoon to be played after lunch!
Quite a task but the whole year group banded together and we came up with 3 very fun game concepts.
My team built a turn based evolving narrative game based around crunch in the game industry.  Each player is in charge of at least 1 department and have to ensure that they keep their productivity in the green.  As the game progresses it becomes harder and harder not to mess up as each department succumbs to lack of sleep etc.  One player takes the role of producer and instead of contributing to a department directly can instead save a failing department (with a few lucky dice rolls).  This was a vital position but wound up not being very fun to play for the first few turns... will need some tweaking in the future.
At the end of turn 6 the team ships their product regardless of the quality of each departments contribution.
The game still needs some balancing but the few games we tried were very fun!
During playtesting our team wound up shipping a game that excelled in Art, Animation and Writing but dropped significantly in PR! leaving us with a good product that no one ever found :p
The next play through with the year group went much better with all departments doing pretty well.  The producer was able to save the Programming department around mid game! which was lucky!  Hoping to develop this game further some day when I have free time....

BlizzardFest Update

OK i'm quite happy with the sculpt at the moment.  I'm still new to Zbrush but I have learnt so much diving into this project and it is such a great piece of software!
With the deadline as close as it is I think I have to just bite the bullet and move onto texturing... so here goes :)

BlizzardFest Update

  Hats off to the guys who developed the original Terran Marine! this was not easy!

Yay all ready to send to Zbrush.... never tried doing it with such a high poly export...

It worked! now to try smoothing and sculpting but first sleep!

Ok back to BlizzardFest stuff!

I've had a little trouble getting Zbrush to do the kinda hard surface modeling I wanted so I have returned to old faithful 3DSMax.  I've had so much fun putting this guy together but have to admit starting on the torso was a little demoralizing its a surprisingly complicated shape!  Still I am very happy with the look so far! Also had quite a bit of fun animating my Shield! which can pack up and deploy now.... (kinda a waste of time for a static image but I couldn't resist)

Still I have finished the low poly model for my Sentinel character and successfully imported it into Zbrush yay! next up is to start smoothing sculpting posing and texturing! which i'm hoping to do entirely in Zbrush but we will see.

Masterclass with Glen Keane (Legendary Disney Animator) tomorrow!! actually going to go to bed on time to make sure I get the most out of his presentation!

Encounters Interactive Cinema Project!

Got a screen capture and video for some of the work I did on our most recent project ICPirates for the Bristol Encounters film festival.  We had to produce an interactive cinema experience in about 6 days!  The project was pretty intense and we were bug fixing right up to the last minute before showing off the project.
I worked on the UI and the pirate pistol duel for the finale!  The UI was pretty simple but we were using BrassMonkey as our input system (which allows audience members to use their phones as controllers).  This took some getting used to as we had never used BrassMonkey before.  I am happy to say though that we all pulled together and produced a great product for the day.
There is a chance that we will add some further development and polish to this project for an upcoming festival soon so I will keep you all posted :)

YouTube Link to the PistolDuel

UI Display pushed to Phone Controller

Image on Cinema Screen

BlizzardFest Update

Yaaaawn! totally worth the late night : Here's the concept sheet for my BlizzardFest Submission - will hopefully start on the 3D blocking out tomorrow.

Here is the final look - I have a few shield concepts though, guess I will have to pick one, I'm leaning towards the top right design but maybe I will get some feedback from some of my fellow team mates on the 3D total forum.

Good Night everyone...off to school in 6 hours :)

BlizzardFest Entry

I've decided to try out for the BlizzardFest Chellenge! Im Submitting for the 3D section yay!

OK the idea is a seriously heavy marine sent into battle in front of the main force to soak up damage and repel surprise attacks.  The armor would be modeled quite closely on the far right image but the right side (Not shielded) would be left lighter allowing more flexibility allowing the units to attack with a whip like weapon around their shields once they are engaged in close quarter combat.

Gonna be a few late nights ahead but I hope to have it blocked out in a couple of days

btw - none of the above images are mine working on a rough character sheet now :)

Learning Zbrush!

The final render for my Zbrush Intro course! Really enjoyed the program, I think its gonna become a staple in my work at the NFTS.

check out the turntable at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ4J2NxARys

Learning Zbrush

I'm back!
After a nice, mostly relaxing, holiday I am just about ready to head back to school!  I'm actually quite excited to get back to the long hours and tight deadlines! We are starting back with a week or so long games jam in preparation for the Bristol Encounters Festival but more on that later.
I have just today finished the Digital Tutors quick start to Zbrush Vol 1-5 and am very happy with the result!!

first few minutes getting to grips with the interface

a weird gecko/chameleon thing I made while trying out Z painting 

First try at sculpting mountain like geometry from a primitive

Sculpting a rocky terrain

Adding a metal base

First play with ZSpheres!! such a good way of blocking out!

fleshing out the basic form

final sculpt

adding a bit of texturing

taking a look at hard surface modeling

trying out the polish brush I used in Mudbox... works much much better

all the assets in one place

wow trying to position the hose was not easy

UV unwrapping too!

posing the character! also tried out a little morph targeting for facial expressions

final look.  Grass was built in Zbrush with the hair modifier and then sculpted!