[Done and Done! Uploading has had some issues. Because of the unstable Braodband after the line being fixed the connection keeps timing out. Please, Internet Gods. :( ]
Crossing the finishing line, the final video for this module can be found here:
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My Hardware struggles and internet issues aside, now I can publish all these drafts at once! Here's going to be a little reflection of my handling of this project. (A little texty, less visual in this post!)
Expectations
When starting this module I was 100% certain on the topic I wanted to address, but not sure how to address it. As the weeks went on, I started to focus more on other people then looking at myself - which was the main concern. The idea came from a thought of helping Twitch streamers achieve a 'new step' a way to stand out from others. A service I can provide to those who want to personalise their stream, be it as a hobby or a job.
I set the expectation bar higher then I knew I could achieve, this was so I could scale it down to size when errors and problems occurred. Which happen naturally, unfortunately. As I progresses with the project, I started getting ideas on how to take it further and actually develop it into a usable service for streamers as my final project in Final Year.
Outcome
Overall, I am satisfied with how the final video looks, but I can see the areas I could improve if I were to repeat this project again. As a creative person, there's areas I know I could improve in. For example, 3D Rigging is torture, and the actual text of the video could use some tweaking. Typography is a weak area for me also. I'm happy with how the models came out, and enjoyed making them and the video itself! The graphics suit Twitch's theme to the point. I think everything came together quite well and I think it's a good starting point for my final project - it would need more networking and research. A lot more 3D models, and practice in rigging! I gotta show case these little guys.
Again, when I looked at my anamatic for my potential final outcome I decided I didn't need all of the aspects for a potential final project draft, and it would be better to keep the cards in my hand before showing off all my ideas without validation and research behind them!
Time Management
I struggled with time management a little about 3 quarters of the way through this project. Around the Christmas period was challenging, my family had a difficult time with the holiday season after the passing of someone close over the summer. Something I expected would happen but held me back a little more then expected.
With this in mind, I'm happy with how my time management skills have improved over the 17 odd weeks of this project. It got off to a slow start but once the ball got rolling it, I started getting really excited about the project and the outcome I was going to submit. There's room for improvement but I enjoyed the project which helped with my time management.
What I would do better
If I had the chance to do this project again, I would certainly put more practice into 3D Rigging. I would love to actually create some sample models to send potential clients and hopefully obtain paying clients for finalised models. Working to someone elses ideal is something I'm favourable at.
The audio and text work for the showcase video would have to be touched up. Audio is not my strong point, and it didn't get a lot of planning. I'd spend some more time testing out various audio samples before choosing a final piece.
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And with that, I thank you for your attention. If you want to see anymore of my own personal work, you can find me at any of the links below!
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Stage 4 will consist of setting up the scene and animating the walk animation for each character. A little easier compared to stage 3, that's for sure.
Method of Ease?
To start of, I wondered of a way to copy the data from Soda's 'Skin' and paste it onto the other models. I did some various things using different scripts and systems but after testing them out and tweaking them I might as well have just done a whole new skin for each one! So I scrapped the copying idea, and started from scratch..
Walk Animation
With each model skinned, I started to create the walk cycle. A motion I could copy from one model and paste between all 3, a bit of time saved.
I created a motion layer with a walking preset. Which I then tweaked the various settings to meet the smaller and distorted proportions of the chibi skeleton.
Skinning Issues!
While creating the animation for Shilin, I noticed some severe rigging issues regarding her hair. When I was trying to make a custom animation for her quotation screen I found some issues that required her to be completely reskinned. I didn't have the time to do this. As a result, NONE of the chibi models have a custom personalised animation for the video. After the hand in date I will work to adjust this as I want to make these models suitable for others to use.
Side Note.
A little note on time, I'm sitting comfortably on schedule as it stands, with enough time for subtle tweaks (Shilin required too many changes to validate) and rendering as required. My concern at this stage is my laptop. It's been having Graphical issues and hardware crashes so my backup plan is to send the files to a render company in order to recieve the results for hand in date..
Render and Pre-compose!
Always have a back up plan.
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While the walk cycles render out, I tried to set about making the video graphics in Photoshop!
This was simple enough, considering I already had various mock ups and an animatic to work from. The graphics in the animatic were close to the final deal but they were on the wrong scale and not split into seperate layers, meaning I couldn't edit each asset as I needed to.
Recreation
Creating graphic designs in Photoshop is something I also enjoy. I'm not a technical minded person, it makes my head hurt and I start taking away from the design when I'm focusing on technicalities! So, creating the graphics and setting up the video felt more like a much needed unwind session.
The images are simple vectors, put together with blur effects, dropped opacity levels and a neat layout to create my 2 main graphics for the video.
Aside from this, I spent my laptops power rendering out a HD video grid with smokey effects ontop for the intro scene of my final video. So worth it. My only concern at this moment is the time its taking my laptop to render the walk cycles in 3DS Max, hardware issues make this increasingly more difficult..
Audio
I wanted something with fancy sound effects and really show off these guys but I started having a bit of a mental block so I went for dramatic instead, and used "O Fortuna". Seemed pretty fitting.
Last Steps
With the graphics and audio set up in Premiere, all I needed to add was the render files for my 3D models! Look out for the final upload.
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Stage 3 consists of rigging the 3 chibi models ready for animation. This is something I dread and it is certainly not my strongest area. I believe if part of my project were to not look at high quality as it could be then the fault will be with the rigging stage. It needs a lot more practice.
Rigging
This stage consists of bones and skinning. I'm using CATmotion objects for each chibi. After creating the bone structure for the first model, Sodapoppin, I can save it out and relay it over the other two models. But that's not the tricky part.
Ew, Skinning
Skinning is basically assigning every vertices a weight to the nearest bone, the weight will calculate how much that bone will effect said vertices when it moves. It's awfully tedious, and I don't enjoy it at all. I much prefer to model and texture, but it's good practise. At least I can say I can.
Onwards to composing the walking animation!
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Onwards to stage 2 - The Unwrapping and Texturing ~
I painted every texture for each model, which made it harder on me but I prefered it that way if these models were going out for people to use publicly. Meaning I had to unwrap each object on a individual level before merging everything into one object. I personally prefer this work flow.
Timescale
Sodapoppin was my first textured model, he took 10 hours on average to fully texture. This was because he was the first model I attempted and I didn't have a specific workflow to follow at this stage.
Shilin was second, and she took about 7-8 hours approx. An improvement on Soda, I was happy with the outcome.
Nightblue3 was the final model. At this point I had a nice workflow, so I managed to complete him in 5-6 hours. This also gives me some scope for making this into a service!
The 3 Chibi's stand in all their glory, ready to be rigged out.
Stage 3 - Rigging
Stage 4 - Animation + Set up
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