GAME PROJECT - personal projects

I learnt alot from creating the vehicles for this game, however, I felt I could do more to learn about using Maya or 3D in a way that's suitable for games. I had kept the models simple before to ensure the resolution would not be to high to fit in the game. However with these exercises shown here I learnt new techniques to create low resolution props and models that can be animated within a game and its game play.

One of the first exercises I tried was to create some foliage for a game. The best method to create  and irregular shape, like this ivy leaf, was maya's create polygon tool. I added the details to create a high resolution leaf. But for just one leaf, this created alot of polygons to the model.

Used normal maps to create the leafs texture from the high res model. Add 32 bit in photoshop to use alpha channel. Only use alpha channels when using opacity maps as the empty alpha channel takes a lot of space within a game. Also, only alpha opacity maps use 32 bits to compensate for the alpha channel.

This creates a leaf texture that can be added onto a plane. Duplicate leaves along a curve (curve represents vine)

Underneath view

top view

 

High resolution model

 

Low resolution model

GAME PROJECT - BIKE

The smallest of the vehicles to be built next is the bicycle! This I thought would be the simplest but when I attempted it I was very wrong.

I started by gathering images and plans for bikes. The most complex part would be to create the gears so images that included the gears was important. Its important that the wheels of the bike can be animated but not necessary to animate the gears.

Bike plan

reference image BIKE HANDLES

reference image GEARS

One method I tried to build the frame of the bike, was to use extrusions along a curve. However I found the simplest method was to just use the extrusion method I had used before with the car and the tank, starting with a block and extruding the shape until it resembles the bike frame. This was effective but creates a blocky, square frame. Extruding along a curve, using NURBS circles, may have produce a smoother, rounder frame.

The handles and seat were created separately, as were the wheels. This was also to make the texture map editing simpler, when it came down to arranging the UV layout.

Bike frame UV

Handlebars UV layout

Gears UV layout

Wheels UV layout

Once again, the bike needs to be able to move along for the purpose of the game. In Maya I've been using locators and expressions for this, in expressions editor.

Gear UV texture

Once I lay out the UV's for each section of the bike I used Photoshop to create the textures that would then be placed over the UV layout. I was able to do this using the layers to see the UV outline and another layer for colour. Of course when placing the texture on the model in Maya, the outline of the UV texture shouldn't be included. Otherwise black outlines would show across the models texture. This is quite an interesting effect but not one I'm after with these models.
The bike had the most UV layouts and separate textures as this made it simpler when unfolding the UV layouts in the UV editor. Unlike say the tank or car which, though larger models were much simpler to unfold.

Games design - Building a car - MAYA

For this games design module we've teamed up with programmers who are designing a game that teaches concepts of physics to students between the ages of 14-19. The game engine they will be using is the free software, UNITY!

My team have designed their game that demonstrates the laws of physics by using different size vehicles to roll down a hill and land on a target. The idea is simple which makes it suitable for students in the age range    to learn these concepts.

My task is to create these vehicles. Using Maya, I will be creating a bicycle, car and a tank. The wheels should be able to move independently as the vehicle moves forward and back so to roll down the hill and gain momentum from its own weight (its weight would be programmed in UNITY).

To start with I began by building the simplest of these vehicles, the car. For this I chose a simple car design (fiat PANDA). I used simple extruding methods to create the shape and details for the car in Maya.

http://www.tutorialized.com/view/tutorial/Rotating-Wheels-on-a-Car-Maya-Tutorial/24527

The next step was to work out how I could rotate the wheels of the car.

I used the tutorial above and advice from tutors, who suggested using locators in Maya to create the movement of the wheels. This works nicely in Maya, but found when importing the object into UNITY, the locators were there but had no effect. This wasn't a problem however, for the programmers, as they said the texture itself could be animated to spin as the car moved, as opposed to the wheels themselves. This I was told would be a more efficient method and could be done in UNITY.

The next step then for me was to texture the car. The model is fairly simple so the texture would be responsible for extra details. I had quite a few problems at first when trying to apply my textures. I found this was due to trying to add too many textures to one model e.g. the car body was one colour, but the windows were to be more clear and transparent. But the problems started when I tried to directly apply this using Maya's own textures. I discovered this cant be done in Maya, which is why texture mapping is vital for this.

With the texture maps, I would be able to create a texture map, which I can apply all the textures to. I used help from tutorials online and games design books to help work out how to move and sew textures together to create a flat, opened out layout of the car.

I could then import the map into Photoshop CS5 and build them there.

Business for animation - introducing new project

Back off our christmas break and set our new project for business in animation. The brief asks us to create a 5 - 15 second advert for the 'food network', from chello zones CBS promotions.

The choices are:

• Street food month: A celebration of the worlds most irresistible street food. Taco's, grilled cheese, Indian takeaway, pretzels etc.

• Sugar rush Sundays: Best sweet tooth recipes ever. From s'mores to hand made chocolate crunch bars covered in bacon, promoting sugar foods (cakes/ chocolate etc.) related programming.

•  Italien Month: The best italien cooking, celebrating all that is italien. Promotes a whole month of italien food related programmes with a chance to win a vespa!

I have chosen to have a look at the street food category first. For some ideas I had a look at the food networks street food gallery.
http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/article/street-food-gallery.html

Also a look at what else could be classed as street food with info on the british street food awards for 2012
http://britishstreetfood.co.uk/street-food-heroes/

Its important for the food network logo to be present in the advert at some point.

Planning on using After effects to create a few simple tests using shapes. The audio for this advert is 4 seconds long.

started coming up with ideas, trying to keep with the street food theme.

Digital Landscape - Testing and production

Will be using Adobe after effects to create some animation. Using the rotobrush tool to cut out footage that will serve purpose to our animation

the video below is a good example, showing the seeds growth sped up over time. I'l be using the rotobrush to cut out the seed in action!





With the music we want ambient sounds and music that represents growth and magic!

The link below details a science experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(season_2)#Episode_23_.E2.%38%30.93_.22Exploding_House.22
"Seven small greenhouses were set up on the M5 Industries roof. Four were set up with stereos playing endlessly looping recordings (as having the MythBusters actually talk to the plants could contaminate the samples with their expelled carbon dioxide): Two of negative speech, two of positive speech (Kari and Scottie each made one positive and one negative inducing soundtrack), a fifth with classical music and a sixth with intense death metal music. A seventh greenhouse, used as a control sample, had no stereo. The greenhouses with the recordings of speech grew better than the control, regardless of whether such talk was kind or angry. The plants in the greenhouse with the recording of classical music grew better, while the plants in the greenhouse with the recording of intense death metal grew best of all despite somewhat dying, because the battery died on one of the timers that was watering the plants."


This is interesting and I wonder if we can incorporate a plants favourite music into the animation, whilst keeping with the ambient theme.





http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop/?id=vid0274
After effects - puppet pins and animating drawn characters

http://www.marciastutorials.com/animatedrainbow.html
Creating an animated rainbow using Adobe Photoshop. I chose to use after effects to achieve a similar result.





http://library.creativecow.net/articles/drozda_jerzy/ParticlePlayground/video-tutorial
fire effect tutorial using after effects



access to elmos online folder:

GAME PROJECT - TANK

GAMES COLLABORATION PROJECT: A group of programmers have been asked to design a game aimed at 14-19 years audience. It should be educational about the laws of physics and use these principles in some way, e.g. gravity, electricity, magnetism etc.

I will create the game art and vehicles.

The next vehicle to be created is the tank, which will be largest vehicle in the game.



helpful link:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-228328.html

I started with a simple model for the tank body and looked at how the tracks could be made and move in the game. The locators could be used the same way as the tread should move around the wheels as the tank moves. The programmers had already decided to animate this in UNITY themselves, but for my own benefit I wanted to try and find a way that I could this myself.

The most popular method I found for this was to use Maya's wire tool. This way I could model the tracks to fit around a circle wire frame and then use the control vertex points to shape the wire frame to fit the tank.

This works well but I still find there are problems with the treads distorting around the wire frame as I try to rotate. Also, this only moves the treads when rotating them, as opposed to them rotating as the tank body moves back and forth. Perhaps the wire frame can then be used with the locators to achieve this effect.



After this I was able to finish the model, which needed some tweaking after building the treads. Again, the body itself was kept fairly simple, so extra details would be in the texture map.

This video demonstrates the Method I used to create a wire frame 

for the tank treads so that  the object would rotate around the wire.

A simple method I tried to duplicate the tread along the wire, was to use Maya's animation tools, motion path, followed by animation snapshot. This works great as its fast, however The main problem with this was the spacing between the treads, bunching up at the start and end of the wire. This was due to Maya taking into account the animation principle, ease in ease out, when attaching an abject to a motion path. This was solved using the graph editor.

After this I was able to finish the model, which needed some tweaking after building the treads. Again, the body itself was kept fairly simple, so extra details would be in the texture map.

 

For the textures I used Photoshop to build up a rusty metal feel using these images. The chipped paint and rust to make the metal seem battle worn and used. 

    
I used images like these for reference to colour the tank, which I decided upon a camouflaged metal.

And this is the final UV layout for the body of the tank. The largest of the vehicles, but definitely the simplest to unfold!