Sculpting done

Modelling continues. I've now finished sculpting the luchador's body in dynamesh, in these pictures i've added in placeholder eyes to sculpt around. The character is now ready to be retopologised.
I have not caught up to my original schedule and the christmas holidays are soon to be over, I will have to put a lot more time into this project over the 2nd term of uni, and focus less on my group project.

Some reference material for modelling my Luchador.

Modelling Starts

I have finally started sculpting my first character in zBrush, I begun by using zBrush's 'zSphere' feature to create a block out of the general shape of my character, I then converted the zSpheres into an adaptive skin, before converting that skin into a dynamesh, allowing me to freely sculpt without having to worry about topology.

Wrestlemation

Progress review is coming up shortly, I made this illustration as a cover page for my presentation, but it also doubles up as design work for my luchador.

Time keeping

In my project proposal I came up with this project plan in order to try and keep on top of this years work load. Unfortunately I'm already behind on this plan as I haven't yet started modelling my characters but I am hoping to catch up over the christmas break.

3rd Character

For the third character I wanted to do something completely different to the previous characters,  which to me meant either creating a quadruped rig or personifying an object. As I figured quadrupeds don't really belong in a gym/wrestling environment I decided to develop the idea of one of the gyms props being alive. Of the various ideas I came up with I thought that a punching bag has the most potential for movement and personification.

The Referee

Development and some reference material for the Referee character. I'm looking for the referee to be physically opposite to the Luchador, small and skinny as opposed to tall and muscular. This should make rigging both the characters a unique experience that i can learn from.

The Luchador

Wrestler design progress, I am leaning towards the green and orange colour scheme for the luchador's costume.

Moodboards

Some Style moodboards for the general feel of the characters and design aspects for the Wrestler character.

Project Proposal

I have finally decided on my finished project proposal!

Project Description

My project will be to create two to three animation ready characters. This will include designing, modelling, texturing, rigging and skinning the characters so they are ready to be used in a modern animated short.

Rationale

My reasoning behind choosing this as my project is based on my aspirations of becoming a character artist and/or rigger for a career. It is also the field I enjoy the most based on previous experience from university and my own personal work, this has been reflected in my grades from previous modules.

                                                                                        

While I know that this area is currently my strongest, I am also very aware that I am not yet close to producing work of a professional industry standard. Throughout the course of this project I aim to significantly improve my skills in 2D design work, modelling, texturing and rigging.

I intend to use the final products of this project as part of my online portfolio in the hopes of securing job opportunities in a character development or creation field.

Technical Overview

Areas for Investigation

For my project I will be investigating modern character modelling and texturing techniques and workflow in order to produce industry standard characters. I would then need to look into advanced rigging and skinning techniques to ensure my characters deformation is of the same quality as those in short animations coming out today. I would also like to research anatomy, muscle rigging and deformation to be used with at least one of my characters if time permits.

Background Research

I have looked into various sources of research concerning both the design and the production portions of my project to gain a strong foundation to build my project up from.

In terms of character design I have watched various tutorial video’s online. The most useful of which have been Feng Zhu’s School of Design episodes; 18, 30 and 62. I also have several concept books containing character development for various games as well as ‘The Skillful Huntsmen’ which contained lots of useful tips for designing new characters. These have given me a better understanding of both the difficulty and time constraints of designing original characters and influenced my decision to limit my project to 3 characters.

Production research has mainly been focussed around modelling and rigging of characters as I feel these will be the most challenging portions of work to get right. Using online tutorials and character creation books I feel I have a strong understanding of the basics in both these fields but will need to consult and combine various guides and tutorials in order to create high quality characters with advanced and complex rigs.

 

Literature Review

·         Zbrush Character Sculpting v1 – Book

o    Takes you through the entire character modelling process step by step which will be a constant aide during my character modelling and texturing project phases

·         Rig it Right – Book

o    Demonstrates various different approaches to rigging all sorts of different characters and environments for Maya

·         Digitaltutors.com  – Website

o    Digital Tutors holds a wealth of resources for learning and will be invaluable through all stages of my character creation, in particular however the ‘Maya Muscle’ section will be invaluable to me.

·         Stop Staring 3^rd ed. – Book

o    A comprehensive guide to faces, containing useful information to do with modelling topology as well as facial rigging and animation

·         Character Rigging, Deformations, and Simulations in Film and Game Production – Article

o    This article explores the theory behind different approaches to rigging, deformation and dynamics and production practice for all three. It also details how to implement the various techniques.

·         Developing a Unified Pipeline with Character – Article

o    A paper explaining the evolution of Imagine Engine’s character creation pipeline which will help me to better organise and manage my time and the creative process, albeit my production scale will be much smaller.

Methodology

My project should contain 4 main stages. The first stage will be designing my 3 characters on paper and using digital drawing software such as Photoshop. This will be where the majority of my project’s development will take place around who and what the characters are and what their purpose would be if they were to be used within an animation.

The second stage involves realising my designs in 3D using primarily Zbrush and Maya. This will include modelling, sculpting, re-topologising and texturing the characters to a professional standard. 

Next I will create individual rigs for each character; for at least one I intend to create a muscle based rig, however if muscle deformation proves too difficult for me to accomplish in the time frame I will just produce another standard rig instead.

The final stage of my project will be producing short animation displays to showcase the character’s rigs and movement. Time permitting these shorts will be showcased on a small unique environment with consideration taken towards lighting and rendering. These animations can then be used in my online portfolio.

If at any point this workload proves too much for the projects time frame I can remove the final stage and have the final rigged characters as my deliverable rather than producing shorts. Alternatively I can drop one of the characters and just produce two to completion.

Research Ethics

Due to the nature of my project there should not be any inherent ethical issues to consider.

In order to avoid any legal issues I must ensure all of my content is original and that any work from a different source used for reference or development is correctly and appropriately referenced and credited in my work and in my report.

 

Project Deliverables

·         2-3 animation ready character models, fully textured, rigged and skinned.

·         A short demo show reel demonstrating deformation for each character

·         A short accompanying design book show casing the creative process.

·         A written report of the project.

Project Plan:

October

Week 1 - Proposal

Week 2 – Proposal

Week 3 – Proposal / Character Design

Week 4 – Character Design

November

Week 5 – Character Design

Week 6 – Character Modelling

Week 7 – Character Modelling

Week 8 – Character Modelling

December

Week 9 – Character Modelling

Week 10 - Texturing

Week 11 - Texturing

Week 12 –Skeleton Rigging / Texturing

January

Week 13 - Skeleton Rigging / Facial Rigging

Week 14 – Facial Rigging

Week 15 – Muscle Rigging

Week 16 – Muscle Rigging

February

Week 17 - Skinning

Week 18 - Skinning

Week 19 – Short Animations

Week 20 – Environment Creation

March

Week 21 – Lighting / Rendering

Week 22 - Rendering / Lighting

Week 23 – Contingency Time / Report

Week 24 – Report

March 21^st Project Deadline

March 28^th Report Deadline

References

-          Feng Zhu School of Design. Available at http://www.fzdschool.com/programs_design_cinema.html (Accessed 15 October 2013)

-          Digital Tutors. Available at http://www.digitaltutors.com/ (Accessed 15 October 2013)

-          Kaufmen, A., Haddon, J., Imanishi, I. and Moser, L. (2013) ‘Developing a Unified Pipeline with Character’ – DigiPro Proceedings of the Symposium on Digital Production, pp. 37-43.

-          McLaughlin, T., Cutler, L. and Coleman, D. (2011) ‘Character Rigging, Deformations, and Simulations in Film and Game Production’, ACM SIGGRAPH Courses, Article 5.

-          O’Hailey, T (2013) ‘Rig it Right! Maya Animation Rigging Concepts’, Abingdon, Oxon: Focal Press.

-          Osipa, J (2010) ‘Stop Staring – Facial Modeling and Animation Done Right, Third Edition’ Indianapolis, Indiana: Wiley Publishing, Inc.

-          Robertson, S. (2011) ‘The Skillful Huntsman’. Culver City, CA: Design Studio Press

-          Sims, A. (2012) ‘Zbrush Character Sculpting – Projects, Tips and Techniques from the Masters’, UK: 3DTotal Publishing.

-          Spencer, S. (2011) ‘Zbrush Character Creation: Advanced Digital Sculpting, Second Edition’ Indianapolis, Indiana: Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Hello World

This will be the development diary for my final year project at Teesside University.
It is early days yet and I haven't yet decided exactly what I would like to produce as part of this project, but I am leaning towards a project involving character creation and possibly rigging.