Environment complete on my side

Just completed doing the environments, hope it looks good. If there is anything you guys want me to add just let me know while i continue to rig the ninja

Single chain IK sover

As the rig develops i gain further knowledge on the tools which are needed to full take advantage of the characters rig. I thought i might as well give up a little summery on the information i found on using inverse kinematics over normal joint orientation, plus this could be a little guide in to using the single chain Ik solver. OK what i did first in order for me to familiarise myself with the IK handles was to produce a mock test on a test rig which represents as the bones inside the leg. To make is easier i will play blast the video of the rig without any IK handles to that of one with IK handles.



As you can see from the above video as i move and rotate the joints you will see the knee and ankle joints also move, there are no bends occurring when they are to
.


After i add the IK handle, it keeps joint on the first cube as i rotate or move the hip joint. But if i pull to far away from the hip then ankle will pull away from the IK handle

Adjusting the orientation of the rig

Just finnished of tweaking off the joints of the ninja rig, i made sure all the verticle joints such as the spine, pelvis, head and leg were having the z-axis pointing towards the same side. Also the ninjas hand rotational points were not in the correct position and is something which i also sorted out. Pictures below

Little message for the rigger

Ok this is towards Dan and Josh as you guys are also going to take part in rigging. The key element to rigging is to have a proper and functional joint orientation. Having the proper local rotation axis for each joint is crucial when setting up and animating a character. Basicly each joint has a local roation axis that defines how the joint will react to transformation. For most part of a character i found out that the default orientation in fine. By using orientation you will ensure that all local axes of the new joints are aligned with the bones that follow.

Rigging update

I’m quite surprised to say that I really enjoy rigging at the moment, unless i encounter something which is really mind juggling then I’ll take back my words. So far I produced the fully body rig for the Ninja character, it’s looking good at the moment. The next stages I’m heading towards are the joint orientation and the inverse kinematics, once I get full understanding of these techniques I will the move on towards the leg, arm and spine set up. I will post some image below of the rig so far

So far so good

Just being rigging over the past few days now and everything is going all good. I’m not yet finished with the rig as i still need to do joint orientation and inverse kematics, i just did a little test by binding the rig to the ninjas body to see if the movement are up to the standards. I think it’s going good so far but ill post some pic with him doing some little movements. Also on my blog i have the full body rig, not complete though

Hitman Character switch

While developing the Hitman character, questioned whether having both me and Josh develop the characters in two different programmes would result in unpleasant effects when animating or rigging. As I mentioned on the group blog, i imported the Hitman character which was modelled in Zbrush in to Maya just to get an understanding of how tall the Hitman would be in comparison to the Ninja. The first problem I discovered would was that the topology was not similar to that of a model done in Maya, in order for me to fix this problem i would have to re-topologize the whole mesh of the Hitman. If do decide to do that it would be similar to me starting from scratch and modelling the Hitman again. The second problem I found was that the clothes were not extruding out of the Hitman body without the body deforming. I don’t blame Zbrush for these problems; it’s the way I approached modelling the character in Zbrush without knowing the correct pipeline for moving between Zbrush and Maya when modelling the characters. Hopefully through time I will learn the correct method of moving meshes across two different software packages. I know it’s not impossible as the industry use these pipeline everyday when given project to complete, this is something that I would have to look in to my own time. And hopefully when i do feel confident enough to fully understand the method of modelling in Zbrush and Maya, I would then say I would be able to model any character given to me.

Plan of action

Ok at this stage i have kind of left the Hitman character to one side for now, just wanting to let you know im going to produce a test rig on Joshes ninja model, hopefuly i will get a better understanding of the Rigging tool as i go along. I should have the test done soon so i should hopefuly show the progress. If everything seems to be going good then im gona ask Josh if i can then start to fully rig the ninja character, who knows if josh dosent mind i could help out with the rigs of the other characters

Concern on High res Enviornment

At the moment me and Sam haven’t really decided on a max poly count for the outdoor environment, we decided to model everything that needed to be model which includes all the little details, and if worse comes to worse when rendering we need to go over the file and look for some unnecessary edges which can be deleted. I don’t know whether the high details on the environments will cause any problems for Spencer when he comes to texturing, and if it does that something I’m going to have to sort out at that time. Our group is going to go into uni tomorrow to catch up and I’m hoping that I will be able to get the master file of the environment off Sam so then i will be able to place what I’ve modelled in the same file Sam has his models in. If I can get the any lasting changes done on the environment I will then be able to concentrate more on the Hitman character which i will try have completed by December, not to mention i have to start rigging to, so that’s another reason for me to finish the character model first.

Hitman development

It’s been about a week and a half since I started modelling the Hitman character, and everything seems to be going as expected. Me and were given to project of modelling the characters, i took on the Hitman and Josh took on both the target and the Ninja. As Josh had previously modelled characters in Maya it was fair to put him in charge of the character development process, whenever I would in doubt about modelling the Hitman a certain way, Josh would be a good person to ask for advice as I would be modelling from his character designs. As Josh modelling was produced in Maya i started developing the Hitman in Zbrush, both programs have their advantage and disadvantage. At this stage I could say I’m about 90% complete with the modelling of the Hitman, the only issue that may arise is on the clothes, which can be created in Zbrush but I can’t seem to get the hang of the mesh extraction tool. If worse comes to worse i would have to import the model in Maya and Model the Hitmans clothes as a separate geometry and parent it to the hitman body. I have kind of taken a break from the Hitman and concentrated on modelling the environment. Below is an image of the hitman character so far

Progress update part 2

Ok during the start of the Christmas holidays i started creating the hitman in zbrush, been continuing up to point where i needed assistance from Josh on how he wanted his character looking. Wednesday the whole whacked team came into uni to catch on the progress and help out if needed. Sam wanted to show me the layout for the environment where the apartment and motel were going to be, but he had forgotten to bring in his memory stick. So Wednesday was a day for me to catch up and tweak more on the hitman character, so far everything is going good no hiccups yet. Later that day Sam sent me the layout file through email and i got cracking on producing one half of the environment while Sam does the other half. Below is a picture my side of the environment so far, not yet completed though

Inspiration for modelling the motel or apartment

Well today I have been modelling the apartment while listening to the resident evil 2 soundtrack. For some odd reason it was inspiring me to model the environment similar the rundown apartment in resident evil. Here is a picture of the idea

Progress report

Just wanted to give a little progress report on my stuation so far. At the moment i just finnished off Gareths essay so that one essay of of the way, ive been also doing some more environment concepts in maya which ive yet to put on the blog but instead ill hand them in for submision. What i have planned so far is to complete my last essay and when im done with that ill get started in modelling the Hitman, i think Josh has already started on modelling the characters.

Boom box concept

TV concept

New shot

Room in occlusion layer

Ninja concept

Advice from Spencer

Earlier in the day i had a disscussion with Spencer about the style our group were haeding for, he also let me know that he needed a modelled out environment to give him a rough idea of the style we were going for and the layout of the room. I took one of Sams concepts that he had done for the targets motel room and i decided to go ahead and model this out for spencer. After completing the model members of the groujp came to a disscussion of why the environment wont work when animating in that particular scene. Taking refrence from Sams concepts the modelled environmetsn came out to small and with little room for the characters, mainly the hitman. One of the first problem that was talked about was about the door being to close to the wall, in the scene where the hitman steps in tp the targets motel room in comes in by smashing the door open. The concept shows the door to close to the wall and would not allow the door to rotate enough. The second problem was the size of the room was to small, in one of Josh's storyboards it shows a whole pile of bodies stacked up in the corner of the room. With the room i built there was not enough room to have placed the bodies. In a way it was good for me to go ahead an model the inside of the motel, beaucse if i hadnt we wouldnt of known about the problems that came up. Below is a print screen of the room i modelled based on one of Sams concept

Progress update

At the moment im concentrating on my the cocepts for some of the characters, i dont known how many more character concepts im going to do but ill do enough just to make sure. Im seeing Dan's concept work that he done using adobe illustrator and i hope to try and learn it to produce some good concepts

Environment concept

Hoodlum concept

Latest test

this is the latest test, the thing with this one is that i have bumped down the resolution of the liquid by .5. I originally had it at 2 but for some reason realflow woulnt allow me to simulate over frame 56 and thats less then 2 seconds. The resolution is now 1.5 but i could bovioulsy play around with more of the settings. I shope be hopefuly getting another 6 gig ram so ill be alble to simulate out more realistic type water if thats what we are going for.

Beer can test 1 & 2

Here are both the beer can test one with dent occuring on impact and the second just normal. I prefer the first over the second one

Boxer hitman

Ninja concept

Concept hitman

First test

This is the first test i managed to produce, i havent added the water in just yet, i wanted to see if i was able to shatter the glass from the direct impact of the bullet. The only thing im kind of noticing is that the shards have less gravity which makes them float in the air for a bit. This is something im going to look into though

Beer can scene dynamics

Just been thinnking up ahead about the scene with the beer can exploding as it was shot with a rifle. While talking to Dan he suggested about possibly using either realflow or ndynamics for the the fluid which comes out of the beer can. There are several ways in which this can be achieved, im going to go ahead and do some test in realflow to see what i can get. The way i was thinking about doing this was buy first having a cup, glass or can modelled in maya. Im already familiar with Maya's shatter effects, so all i'll have to do is just bake out the simulation in Maya and then transfer in to Realflow as an SD. After that all the magic happens in Realflow.

Motel text maya concept

Quick style lettering done in maya as a concept

Quick model concept

Just roughed up a qucik model of one of Dans motel concepts, i need to work more on lighting though

More concepts

Rough car concept

Talk with Dave

At the end of the our group had a little discussion with Dave, it was a while since we last spoke to ave or Mike about our film idea. Josh began explaining the story to Dave as he had his storyboards on the computer. Earlier in the day we all gathered in the third year room to time out the length of the film,i thought we were aiming for at least 2 minutes but it came up to 1 and a half which is pretty good. As Sam and Dan acted out the scenes and Josh timing them, it gave us a rough idea of how long each shots were going to be and to avoid any unnecessary actions. I cant remember who but someone tweaked the ending of the film which i think works really good. As I and also the other members of the group felt having the film end off with one of the ninjas hand landing of the target was not a way to end a film off. Someone suggested having the target praising the hitman for saving his life and as the hitman walk out towards the front door the camera pans round to show a whole army of ninjas waiting to attack.

The reason i thinks this works so well and also what Dave thought worked well was that the audience really doesn't know if the mission was actually successful.Towards the end of the film the hitman manages to save the target from being assassinated by the ninjas, and when the last ninja is killed the audience will think that the mission to save the target was successful. But when the hitman walks out the front door he is then confronted by a whole army of ninjas as the film comes to an end, Dave said that this ending worked well as it lead the audience wanting to see if the hitman and the alleged target are able to make it out alive.

Slob concept

Movie teaser poster

PC problem fixed

I managed to save my hard drive from totally not functioning, so i was able to get all the years work backed up onto my external hard drive. I’ve done some more concepts drawing at home, and im just waiting to reformat my pc and install all the necessary programs’ like Photoshop and Maya. Once I get them installed ill colour in my concepts then ill post them up on my blog

Motel signs styles

Motel inspiration

I thought i mite aswell add some images for different types of motels out there, you could call this research

New idea

The hitman is part of an on going government assassination group, the difference between the government organisation and other assassination groups is that the crooked government feels no remorse for whom they kill, no matter the age gender or even if they are totally innocent. Anyone whose a threat to the company has to bee taken out.

Story starts off with a new member of the crooked hitman organisation being given his first duty, it details for him to assassinate a target who may have witnessed a crime and may be a threat to the company itself. As the hitman takes aim on his target we take a a view from insides the targets house where he is been confronted by a robber, and the hitman does not know what is going on. As the robber takes off with the victims belongings he takes aim on the man and pulls the trigger. The target opens his eyes to see that the robber has been shot dead and wonders out towards the window to see who was looking out for him. It cuts back to the hitman as he packs up his equipment and grabs a a4 sheet of paper with the information on the target. He has a look at it and then smirks while he tears it in half.

Talk with Mike and Dave

Today's lesson was more on how we could improve our story, and what was needed to give the characters and the plot a twist. Some of the new things i learnt was that the a story is split in to three acts, one being to establish the other being to complicate and the last was to resolve the problem. In all today's morning lesson went pretty good and it really did help me to understand on what was needed to have a successful story. The afternoon session was about us explaining our story more in depth to Mike and Dave, this session was really on how we really portrayed the characters in the short film and how they develop as the story progresses. As we talked moer about our story Mike and Dave were easily able to pick out that there were realy no moral or meaning to the characters and that they really didn't have any relationship between them. The more we discussed the more we i reliesed that we really didn't have a good ending to the story, i think our current idea was that the hitman approaches the targets door then it ends with the screen fading black. Obviously this wasn't our final idea but it was our current idea and would need a lot of work. Mike suggested it was best if we ended up delivering a twist at the end of the short, something in which the audience wouldn't expect on happening.

That's when we all gathered around and discussed on how we could change some parts of the story to give the characters some meaning to the short film. One thing i kinda go confused on was the genre that we were heading for, our current story more focussed on the gags through out the story and really didn't really focus on the purpose of the character, for example who is the hitman and what kind of connection does he have with his target. When we were told to focus more on the characters it kind of took away the humour element of the short and became more serious. In the next post ill talk about the new idea i came up with after the dissuasion with Mike and Dave

Story idea

That little discussion we had at the end of the day, i thought i mite as well write up the story i briefly explained in class

The hitman is part of an on going government assassination group, the difference between the government organisation and other assassination groups is that the crooked government feels no remorse for whom they kill, no matter the age gender or even if they are totally innocent. Anyone whose a threat to the company has to bee taken out.

Story starts off with a new member of the crooked hitman organisation being given his first duty, it details for him to assassinate a target who may have witnessed a crime and may be a threat to the company itself. As the hitman takes aim on his target we take a a view from insides the targets house where he is been confronted by a robber, and the hitman does not know what is going on. As the robber takes off with the victims belongings he takes aim on the man and pulls the trigger. The target opens his eyes to see that the robber has been shot dead and wonders out towards the window to see who was looking out for him. It cuts back to the hitman as he packs up his equipment and grabs a a4 sheet of paper with the information on the target. He has a look at it and then smirks while he tears it in half.

Update

As my hard drive has gone hay wire, i wasn't able to finish off coloruing the concept for the fat slob. In the mean time though ive managed to do some more concepts and i should have my pc up and running by end of this week so ill be able to complete the character concepts.

Hitman concept