Advanced Games Development BLOG
Rigging...
08/11/2014
To start, myself and my animator partner Michael Taylor have been looking into the scaling of the biped that we are going to be using for the mesh being created by our artist.
We came across a few minor problems about the pelvis and not having the legs of our biped to be animated correctly, so by adding a gap with flaps we were able to animate through this problem.
At the moment the mesh is being changed as we had thick block biceps with a large scarf for the character. This would have caused some skinning issues and the arms wouldn't have been able to be lifted for certain animations such as 'ladder climbing'. By removing the block out of this section and using a ball and socket joint we should be able to get ourselves around this problem. Also by thinning out the scarf so no collision will be made between this and the arms.
Animation Tests...
10/11/2014
Above are the first three tests I have completed to see and discuss with my team members how we want our main character to move. These animation showing the walk, sneak and run cycle that will be used in the game as the main movements. These shall also be seen the majority of the game.
Further Tests...
10/11/2014
Since the last post I have set up a small render scene for the test animations to be viewed in. This will be shown in the lecture my team will be presenting on the 11/11/2014. I have created a new walk cycle since the last one as well as add in another crouching cycle animation. This is still only in the test phase to see if we like them or if they will be needed to be changed once in the Unity engine.
Unity...
16/11/2014
Here I have been looking into Unity with the help of digital tutors. Understanding the importing of FBX files from 3D Studio Max. Getting to grips with the rigging system and coming across a problem with the Biped Xtras we are working with on our rig.
Whilst in 3DS MAX we changed the world co-orndinates to a Y-Up World, this is because Unity is a Y-Up scenario and 3D Studio MAX is set in Z-Up. To enable the animations to be exported into Unity I first had to bake down the animation within 3DS MAX. This so the Unity engine is able to pick up the animation as well as the animation we have on the biped xtras.
Once we had them baked down we imported the FBX into Unity with a test, being a range of motions. Having a rig slightly different to a basic male set up I allocated bones to the correct areas that will be the parent bones and that drives the rest of the animation. Making adjustments along the way, this being the fingers as we are only using two finger bones with two finger links in the rig. Also making changes with spine that we had to change as the auto rig had failed to allocate the bones to the correct areas.
Above is a screengrab from the finger placements that are driving the rig for this hand. As before the bones were placed in different areas so these had to be swapped out for the correct bones.
When it came to the clavicles (being optional for Unity) we decided to add them into the rig anyway thinking this will be better for the animation. But this turned out to somehow connect to the neck which made the animation on the arms to be disturbed. Making them move, even if the arms had no animations on them.
Further more I had finally managed to swap all appropriate bones for others and had the biped working fine. Testing the animations in the preview screen I saw that the biped xtras weren't being read in any way. So only the biped animations from 3DS MAX were being shown on the mesh we had within Unity.
I didn't know at first if it was because of the naming conventions I had done for the rest of the rig within Unity and the mesh we was using. But I found out in the end that a 'Mask' and 'Transform' had to be enabled and applied to the biped rig. This then enabled a roll out to add in the biped bones from the MAX animation. So by enabling all of these and applying them to the rig we was able to see them animate on screen.
To the left we are able to see the full named conventions within the rollout of the 'Transform' tab. This is where I was able to activate the biped xtras and linked the animations in with the rig.
Below we see a screen grab of our mesh used with all the main bones used to drive the others. This including all the biped extras, linked to 'Spine' & 'Spine_1'
Unity Testing...
16/11/2014
Once we had the animation working within Unity, before myself and my partner went to finish the animations we decided to have a practice within Unity as we learnt that you are able to export a single FBX. File. Which can contain all of the animations for the character. So we had a practice splitting up the animation using the 'Range of Motions' test which we put into Unity to test first. This has made us a little more comfortable to when we put in our finalised animations and to be imported to the animation tree and controllers.
Animations...
Michael and I had decided to split the animations for the player character evenly but to make sure we do these to our best as the anim list is shorter than a usual playable character. We had decided as the demo is coming up for this Friday (21st November) to get the two main animations finished that we be seen a lot during gameplay. These animations being the jog cycle (the main movement for the character) as well as the sneak cycle ( this being a button hold to control the character in a slowe manor for the sneaking sreas of the game).
So below are the two animations I have worked on today which we will be putting into the game very soon. I had to task of the sneaking animation & I also made the first idle animation of the four that we are going to have so far.
A final blend of the three animation I have created so far and that are now implemented with the game. Soon I shall be finishing my victory animation for the completion of the game/objectives. Then to move on with my other animations on the list.
Demo...
02/12/2014
After a few of the basic animations were covered, they were then sent into Unity so that the animation controls and animation trees could be created to control the character. Also for a hand in requirement the team had to produce a working Demo that had been created with all the up to date controls, animations, programming, design and art styles as well as assets.
Below is a compiled video of scenes from the Demo.
New Mesh, New Animations...
With having a handful of animations so far myself and my team mate Mike have gone back through these animations to make them look better.
The reason for this is also because there has been a slight change in the mesh, therefore some of the animations didn't look quite right. Mainly being because of his body now being slightly different proportion.
Also having a fully textured and final mesh we are able to complete the final animations for this character and have a final list of animation that will be used and shown in the gameplay.
To start with, the sneaking, rocking idle and the body pop idle have been the first from my animation list that have been tweaked and fixed for the new rig and mesh.
Next to work on is wall shuffling and all of the crouch animations that will be used for the characters hiding abilities in game
Alfie Animations Complete...
Now having completed all of the player character animations that were set set for me I had then moved onto working with implimenting them into the game as well as working on an NPC character, this being the lamp. Only to have a few simple animations given for this character I had him having a basic idle which is used as his patrol. A detection animation for when the player character has been spotted, followed by a chase animation for when the chase scene takes place and the player character has to get away.
Whilst working with these, we noticed some animations were going into the engine on an angle and slightly pivoted away from its original axis. This was a simple fix by re exporting the animations as well as baking the animations down whilst during the export.
Final Hand-In DEMO...
A DEMO preview of the final hand in video for the deadline of the project. Recording of the User Interface, level one and the final credits. During the demo we show the layout of the level, aims of the game, collectibles and the all round game play. Fading the video out at level two, but this is to show that we actually have another level in our game.