Cryptic Worlds

It’s been well over 11 years since Toy Story 2 graced the silver screen, I saw Toy Story 3 in 3D just yesterday and it was exactly what I expected from Pixar, a quality movie and a quality “threequel” to boot.  I read about what it took to make Toy Story 3 and it’s pretty interesting. The original rigs and models they had used 11 years ago for Toy Story 2 were incompatible with the current software they use so everything had to be recreated for the movie, amazingly I couldn’t tell the difference however Buzz Lightyear did have a helluva lot more detail and as they stated in the article he was made up several pieces instead of a single mesh. As for the human element in the films the Hair and Fur modifier they use now is definitely well beyond what they used in the original 2 films.  Now, I didn’t have to see it in 3D but I felt compelled to dish out the extra $2 to see just how different it made the experience. It was cool, unlike some other “3D” movies where the effect was thrown on half hazardly close to premier, Toy Story 3 used it very well. On a more professional note I have to wonder what all goes into the creation of content for the Real D technology and more importantly the new technologies video game companies are going to be employer when the 3D Fad hits game consoles. I wonder where it’s gonna fall on me when I finally get a job in the industry, just what am I gonna have learn or for that matter will I be involved at all? I think it’s important to wonder these things since if the “fad” actually catches on for a while I may just be involved in it somehow.

I finished up my Annulnali character model I started months ago as a side project for my demo reel, I think it looks pretty good. Enjoy.

For the first part of my capstone an inorganic object is required, I split it up into 3 weapons for the game I want to make and the capstone is based around. I thought it’d be easier then it was to complete this part of the project but it took me much longer then original predicted. However I have finished them, except for the rather plain look of the PAK Rifles texture I’m pretty satisfied with how they turned out. The 3 weapons out of the 7-8 I had conceived for the game include:

Protonic Accelerated Kinetics (PAK) Rifle

This weapons I designed to fulfill the purpose of the token shotgun weapon, giving it a more sci fi approach as in it shoots out shards of energy instead of buck shot. I’m not as satisfied with the outcome of the texture of the rifles body however.

MKV Inferno Flamethrower

This has my favorite texture job of the 3 weapons here, I think it came out really nice however it does show the weaker texture of the PAK Rifle if they were placed side by side, I’ll have to think of what to do to make the texture better on the other gun.

Cryo Rifle

This is one of my favorite weapon concepts, a cryonics gun (a freeze gun).  I wanted to make environmental hazards in game like coolant tanks so a freeze effect would be cool to use for a weapon.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted guns to have secondary fire but I thought it’d be cool to make this guns secondary fire shoot a projectile that creates icicles when it hits a surface which you could then throw enemies into to impale them. The possibilities are endless! (At least.. as far as I can program lol)

Next up.. Characters

I’ve started my 6th and final term for the animation program and I’ve just finished the first of 11 weeks until I’m finished. It’s not long at all.

We have Animation Studio as one of the most intensive classes for the term and I’m going with the modeling track. Since Game Art is what I’m shooting for I decided to make my capstone video game based as in I’m going to focus on creating content for my game except more intensive and of a much higher poly count. Since I have 2 low poly models done I’m pretty far ahead except the plan is to undo the triangulation I did on them so I can create a high poly model with intricate detail from my existing characters to later bake into a normal map to be reapplied to a lower poly model. Seems like more work then is necessary? Well for one it does give a level of detail you can’t achieve with photoshop alone not to mention I’d have examples of low and high poly respectively. I find it exciting, I dunno about you but it should be fun. What I really hope to achieve with this capstone project is to really come up with some great stuff that an employer at a Game Studio can look at and see that I am more then capable of doing the work necessary to be an asset. I really feel confident in what I may achieve with this.

In other news, I’ve gotten some XNA under my belt, the book I acquired recently is pretty good however I feel like the author assumes too much at places, now the book does do a good job of introducing XNA 3.0 but it seemed like he jumped from one way of doing it in Chapter 2 to an entirely different way in Chapters 3 and 4 which didn’t seem to relate at all. I’m like a chapter or so away from starting the 3D aspects but the 2D parts are pretty interesting. I’ll be announcing my bizarre 2D test game in a later post. I guarantee either a good laugh or a raised eyebrow lol.

I had finished my previous low poly model with several drastic changes from the previous picture posted on my blog, I’ll post those after the jump, however I started and completed another one as part of an XNA project I want to try and make a reality. I’ve definitely gotten more competent at working in lower polygonal limits with this new one being 790 triangles (still haven’t gotten to under 600) and only taking me about 2 days to complete and fully texture. I have several other components to make but I have my image planes all set for their creation so I think i’m on track! This character pictured to the left is the player character for a side scrolling shooter from my Chronicles of Terrus universe, as of yet I havn’t decided whether to give him a distinctive name or just a nameless space marine. Depends on whether or not I can get any workable code written before I can get to the story bound details.

Some other angles and new renders of previous model (continue reading…)

My attempt at a low polygonal character for an assignment going over low poly character construction. So far this guy is clocking in at 988 triangles. I find it odd actually wanting to use triangles since we had been taught that triangles are undesirable but they are used extensively in low polygonal modeling however if you have the ability to go high polygonal (4k+ Polygons) then triangles can be avoided. I want to add a cloak and a bottom jaw as separate objects to this guy but I have to continue to work it down further. I’ve seen people who have made working characters at 500 triangles but I don’t see mine being that low poly and functional at this point. It’s not suppose to look pretty by itself, the texture mapping will be what makes this look good. Though I believe I’m under the typical amount of triangles for a model found in a PSP game.

Lipsync assignment, I chose the chainsaw gag from the Simpsons. I decided to mod the premade rig to sorta look like Homer from The Simpsons.

I’ve been working on building up my portfolio for character design. So far I’ve been pretty slow at it as I’ve only gotten 2 fully modeled (minus a few accessories such as hair and cloth) characters done. My 2nd personal character is the 3D rendition of the Annulnali race from my Chronicles of Terrus universe. This one unlike the Vulkanian is skinned with 3DS Max’s Biped skeletal system which I’ve not really experimented with until the Advanced Animation class that I am taking this term, while parts of it are pretty cool others I don’t like as much such as some of the ways the bones rotate or turn as opposed to the standard IK Bone system I had utilized for the Vulkanian. It does however have a built in walk cycle but it yields rather weak and robotic looking motions so it really comes down to personal preference I guess. I’ve heard the industry loves the Biped system for humanoid characters but I’ve also heard that when hiring, they usually look for people who have used the systems walk cycle so maybe it’s better that I refine my standard skeletal systems and my walk cycles.

As I’m more focused on Character Design and Construction, it’s mainly my focus as of late but the progression of learning better techniques for character modeling have slowed me down a bit but I hope to start churning them out at a more steady pace so I have a stellar portfolio to show off my skills.

I’ve been meaning to post these for quite some time now but it’s slipped my mind along with many other things as of late so here they are for your viewing pleasure (or displeasure). If they play slow lower the quality.

Note: I havn’t figured out how to create loaders in ActionScript 2.0 or 3.0 yet so wait a bit before hitting play

(continue reading…)