Limitations On Games Rigs

Having done some research into limitations for game engine rigs i have a few limitations to consider for the final piece. 

- Joint count is dependant on engine (UDK is 75 mesh altering bones, or 250 total)

- Max of 4 bones influencing a single vertex

- 1 Root Bone

- Many game engines do support Blend Shapes, but i will be trying to build my face without them.

Character Design

After taking that body shape into photoshop i widened the legs and experimented with armour and tattoos.

I didn't like the bracers, but the shoulder pads definitely  made him look more evil and added to his huge body. The image below shows the final design i will be going for, the view from behind was a quick flip and re shade so it looks bad, but it shows the idea that i wanted a tattoo to be "carved" into his back.

Here is another idea i played with of taking him into the future to an almost Mad Max style universe. The bionic eye and arm are things i haven't decided on yet, and i'm tempted to put the eye in on its own.

This last image is experimentation with weapons. And i have decided to go with a huge war axe. In  my mind an axe is just far more brutal than a sword and suits the theme of an antagonist barbarian far more.

Body Shapes

More work on muscle shape and body shape for the character.

I really want an exaggerated size for him to make him seem more evil and really really strong. The end idea is for quite a caricatured appearance similar to fable in the way they make their people have huge hands and faces.

After more playing around i decided on this body shape. Its huge and far more cartoony than i thought i would go but i think it suits him quite well and will be interesting to model.

Day 8 - Bionic Eyes

Didnt get as much done on this one as id have liked, but it was fun

Day 7 - Strange Feast

Took a  bit of a break from this over Crit week.

This first one was meant to be a man eating a tiny man, but its not very clear cos i messed up the colour pallette

This one was a copy of a very successful digital painter who put up a recording of his painting process.

It took me the full half an hour to get about half way through what he did, and that doesn't look anywhere near as good.

Day 6 - The Prophet

I tried using a new technique with this one, blocking in the shapes with the lasso tool.

The subject is a take on one of my ideas for the Shaman coursework, but it would make a rubbish game character so ill just paint it instead.

Day 5 - Sky Boxing

Day 4 - In the Volcano

Day 3 - Living Doll

Day 2 - Tomb Guardian

Daily Spitpaint

As part of a Internet group i'm trying to complete a half an hour painting every day, choosing from a set of given topics. This was my first one, and i wasnt particularly happy with how it turned out.

I spent too long trying to draw the form of the head rather than focussing on lighting and then ran out of time to finish the piece. 

Day 1 - Swamp Monster

An initial idea for the shaman, though he seemed a bit evil and dark for someone who is supposed to be friendly.

Very early sketches of the Celtic warrior, simply establishing body shape and scale. I looked into the anatomy of super heroes and decided to base my character from that extremely muscled physique. With this in mind he will be at least 8 heads tall.

Custom Attributes and Control Shapes

Completed the basic rigging on the Grunt rig this evening. Custom attributes have been added for the fingers and thumbs, and placed into the wrist controller. I've refined some of the control shapes and tightened up the rig around the wrist as previously it wasn't controlling correctly. Although the mesh works now, the control shapes on the shoulders and head are not moving with the rest of the rig, meaning after the first movement the control shapes are in the wrong place. This is probably something to do with the way i have parented the skeleton but i will fix it soon.

I also did another test of skin binding to see how the rig interacted with movement. It was mostly okay, but the chest deformed allot with shoulder movement and the feet were not easy to control. 

Im wanting to stick to the Game rigs over animation i was considering a tool to make control shapes for various body parts and to add pole vectors to joints.

Research For 3D Character Brief

Ive done some initial research to try nail dow different Character ideas. Doing a mood board of each character concept has helped me see which directions i could take them stylistically.

·       Aggressive and brutish antagonist based loosely on Celtic culture.

The celtic themed warrior has the seemingly simplest theme of all the concepts. This would be an interesting character to pursue because it would teach me allot about modelling human anatomy, and as it is the only one of the three that is Antagonist rather than protagonist it would give me potential to explore how to make the character intimidating and "enemy-like" rather than a player character.

Im also considering taking this idea and combining it in a way with the futuristic theme of the shaman as there is no specified time frame. A futuristic Celtic brute would be a very unique project.

Naturalistic and agile hero warrior based on the ancient Mayan Culture.

This would be a very fun project and the idea of modelling a bright colourful hero, with a large head dress and obsidian sword sounds very appealing but i feel like there is less room for original concepts within this brief. The above images show examples of ancient Mayan stone work, and my initial ideas revolve around incorporating designs like these into bright metal armour that would be worn by a light on his feet skirmisher.

Peaceful and progressive shamanistic ‘elder’ figure based on ‘futuristic’ technology.

My initial thoughts on this were that it would be quite boring, but having researched it deeper i have become quite drawn to it. The idea of making a character similar to that of a servitor (bottom right) is one i have wanted to do for a while, and incorporating shamanistic aspects could make it a very unique character. My idea for this is a "Machine Shaman" perhaps a spiritual leader to a group of androids or cyborgs.

From this i have decided that i either want to make the Celtic antagonist, or the futuristic shaman, both could be very original concepts and i'm excited to some initial character concepts.