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 3rd 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 21st Project Deadline
March 28th Report Deadline
References
-
Feng Zhu School of Design. Available at http://www.fzdschool.com/programs_design_cinema.html
(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.
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