Animations

I've been doing animations of our 3 animals basically non-stop this weekend.  Our game is due on the 31st, so we need our stuff.  I still have some work to do with the tiger, but basically for now I'm all done animation wise.

We were told that it would be nice to see more of the animals so the player feels more connected to them.  So, I thought maybe that maybe when the tiger and rabbit hit something, they could do some sort of somersault and flip around.  Albeit, the player would only see the flip happen in a short amount of time (like a second or less), they'd still at least see something.  It also is good feedback that the player hit something.

These animations aren't perfect.  Animals don't do straight somersaults.  I figure when the other artist remakes the rigs I can go in and be able to make the animals move more naturally.  However, I don't want them to move exactly like they would in real nature.  They are still made out of paper.  So, I have to wonder what a could way to animate it would be.  Do I make it as natural as I can?  The player will sees a tiger, so do they think it will move exactly like a tiger or will they see that's it's paper too and won't expect it to move naturally?  I'll have to test it out.

I've also been researching on how animals flail when they trip.  I haven't been able to find a tiger flailing, nor a rabbit.  I did find a documentary about the Out of Africa Park in Arizona.  It shows the caretakers playing with a lot of the animals including tigers and panthers.  I haven't seen any tripping or too much flailing, but it's giving me an idea on how these felines move.



I also found a live stream of cats! So, I've been watching what they do and how they move. Not to mention they're super cute :)
http://new.livestream.com/FosterKittenCam/TheSpiceKittens

So, the other artist had sent me a rigged goat for me to animate.  Over the weekend I did a run cycle and realized a lot of the rig was broken or weird.  At school, I showed it to the other artist and it turns out her version was correct, so something happened when she saved it out and sent it to me.  She did it on Maya 2012 and that version of the software has been very buggy, so it's possible and most likely that the rig broke while she saved it out.  She re-saved it out and gave it to me and it worked.  So, I am re-doing the animations.  I have a run cycle and am now trying to work on a walk cycle, a jump, and ramming for the goat.

Other than that, I finished the caves and sent it off to our level designer to populate and put it around our track.  The bamboo texture isn't there on the entrance because the other artist is creating a texture for them.

So, we've decided that there will be different "biomes", if you will, in our game that will benefit a specific animal that the player can transform into.  These include: highlands where the goat will travel faster, jungle where the tiger will travel faster (grass on track), and the cave where the rabbit will travel faster. I've already started on the cave and some environmental stuff for the jungle and highlands. Now I just need to do a cave that's turning and a cave that's splitting along with other plants and environments for the different areas.

I received our goat with a makeshift rig so I could animate it for our presentation on Wednesday (today).  I animated this run cycle in about an hour.  It's alright.  I had my art III professor who is an animator look at it and critique it. He gave excellent pointers, like the neck should go down when the body is bending and inward.  This is no way final. once we get a better rig on the goat, I will put a final animation on him.


... I have no idea why the video is slanted ._.  I'll fix it when I figure it out.

We have a presentation coming soon and we needed art assets and quick.  So, instead of making new assets I decided to take some of our old ones and touch them up.  I took the cave and added stalactites and stalagmites for the player to dodge.  I also talked with the engineers to see how long it would take the player to go through the cave.  I didn't want so many obstacles going by too quickly and frustrate the player.  It turns out, each of our tiles, which are 40 x 40 squares in Maya, take the player 2 seconds to cross. Not a whole lot of time, so I placed the obstacles farther a part.

After a while though, it turned out best to take out the stalactites and stalagmites out of the cave mesh and make them their own separate object.  That way it will be easier to test them in the game and see where they can go.

As for textures, so far I've been using tiled/seamless textures, so my UV maps are kind of all over the place.  The other artist is going to re-texture our assets later.

Waterfalls

I've been sick for a couple of days, but that doesn't stop me from making me some waterfalls! WOO!  Before I hand it over to the programmers I will put it in Unity to see if it fits.  I am curious if I made it too big, and if so is it something the programmers could just re-size or if I have to do something.


A lot of this was inspired from The Paper Fox.  Their stuff is amazing.

Learning More About Time Management

I've made three tracks so far for our game that we can recycle throughout the game.  Yay for modular design!  However, I want to mention what happened with the first two tracks and what I learned.  It took me about 30 minutes to get the basic design for the ground and modeled out.  Then it took me hours, HOURS, trying to figure out texturing.  When it came for my stuff to be due, I had the geometry, but texturing was just so-so and not final.  I finally realized I shouldn't have put so much effort into the textures, as I can do that a bit later.  The programmers need the geometry as soon as possible so they can test it out.  With those hours spent on textures, I could have made more tracks and other things to populate our world.  With every game I've made I learned that it's all about timing and getting things out fast (yet efficient) to meet the deadlines.  So, I will henceforth create our geometry and put my basic textures on it and send it to the engineers ASAP.  I can worry about final textures later.


Then, we realized something.  It would be easier to create the geometry around the tracks in Unity, then place a paper texture on it.  It makes it easier for us artists and the engineers.

On a side note, I've started another blog for my Art III class!  Check it out! :D  www.sketchz.blogspot.com