Rigging

This was probably the most tedious segment of this project, I attempted to rig my own character. I started from the bottom by adding IK handles to the ankle area. 

 I then started to rig the bottom half of the body adding all the joints (hip,knee, ankle, foot and heel) I then went up to the rest of the body and the head, I did the arms and fingers as well, I only did one side as I was going to use the symmetry tool to mirror it over to the other side.

 After Mirroring all the joints I decided to attach controllers to all the joints to allow me to move the body a lot easier. as you can see from the image below.

I decided to abort the rigging as it started going haywire certain controllers werent operating properly where as others weren't binding to the mesh in the way they were meant. this meant it was a huge problem as I had to look for another solution, although I do not regret going down this as it too me more about rigging as I only had done it once before. (Character Design Module Year 2)

Crate Creation

As I was looking into my enivronment I realised it was very bland and there was nothing interesting in it. so I thought adding some props would be a good idea!

this is a model of the crate that I created this is a simple cube with reverse extrusion to give that crate look I didn't do to much in terms of modelling as I thought the detail would appear a lot more if I textured it.












This is an Image of the UV texture that was applied to the crate the main problem I had with this was getting everything lined up correctly so there were no seams when it came to rendering! I didn't manage to get it lined up corrrectly.

I also added a normal map to give it that extra wooden detail I used a photoshop plug in called Ndo2 which automatically creates a normal map, which was really helpful as it allowed me to adjust the level of detail however with this I think I added sightly too much detail. as you can see below.

I think this was a successful segment of the project as there wasn't many faults I think the seams could have been a lot better as they were quite noticeable when test rendering.

Re topology

After I had finished the Sculpt I didn't want to transfer the sculpt straight in to maya as it was around 2 million points, which would have hurt the render time severely. So I decided to take it into 3D coat which is a program that allows you to cut down the amount of polygons you have on your object.

So this is the first time I had played around with it, I decided to go with using the auto re topology  feature as it saves me a lot of time and I don't have to go out of my way to re topologise it manually.

This is a more close up verison of the auto topology as you can see one of the disadvantages of going with the auto retopology option is that, the topolgy is not as correct as it would be if it was done manually. If I had more time and a chance to get more familiar with the program I definitely would have done the retopology manually.

Sculpt Complete

So I finished the sculpt for my main character (Julius) I was happy with the final outcome even though I had to restart the character.

What I liked about this character was that I managed to sculpt it without the symmetry tool but at the same time this backfired on me as the face came out slightly distorted. I improved my skills with Zbrush even further from when I started practising in august. I lowered the polygons on the clothes so it would be a lot easier to render in maya and it wouldn't slow down my pc when importing. I think I got majority of the anatomy right, however I do feel that I could have made him slightly bulkier however I thought as he is in isolation in the story it would be convinient to have him slightly skinnier than his original size. If I could do this again I would definitely do this with symmetry so the face doesn't look so distorted and out of shape!

Model Sheets

I created a set of model sheets for both characters even though Deano is not going to be included into the final piece of the trailer.

This is Deanos' full body Model sheet, I aim to add detail and color to it through Adobe Illustrator, I had difficult adding little details in such as the eyes and other facial features as well as some clothing such as the tie. I think the result will be better when Finalized!

This is Julius' Model sheet I had fun with this one as I hadn't practiced my anatomy skills so setting in the muscle structure would have been a small test for me. I think I messed up the bicep muscle on the second illustration to the left, the bicep is normally facing forward when the arm is positioned like that. I  also think this will look a lot better when digitally painted!

Research Completion

I finished my research paper it ended up being around 2550 words, I have yet to add my primary research to the appendices and add the pie charts to the actual research. I had jane give me feedback on the paper. My biggest issue was the wording of my sentences as they could easily have been interpreted  in a different way and they needed to be directed.

From what I did I think my research was thorough, I had strong references, from media articles to studies. I think that I could have done more research on this subject as it's such a popular subject for video game.

Early Sketches.

I did these sketches of the environment to get a kind of idea to visualize on paper what it should look like, this is the auditorium and the entrance to the cell where julius stays. I wanted to have an eerie scene to get an intimidating  

This sketch was the inside of the cell I wanted to get a very grimey look, I wanted it to be very shady and gloomy.

I also did various character designs and just tried creating various looks for both characters. for deano I gave him so features that made him looked older and more wise, as well as some looks to make him slightly intimidating such as the scar, I added Notes on both character note sheets.

 For Julius I just played around some more with the features, I tried to get a more of a younger look to show immaturity in his character, I gave him a depressed look too, to show himself drained from the isolation, although he seems starved in the illustration I've done.