Initial 'INVASION' Alien Ideas...

Our new Module is titled 'Invasion!' and involves an 'abduction' and the need to design an Alien.

My initial concern is for the motive of the alien  'kidnapping' a human - in this case a photographer - to be believable enough. My concept at the moment is for the alien to be somewhat human but altered, possibly incorporating a camera into the design, so it sees the camera as it's kin. 

I'm quite interested in the Alien being 'real' - (in the sense that it is not made in Maya), so I will be looking into masks and prosthetics.

Walking Dead: The Game - Looking at Textures and style

Designed by Telltale games and based off the comic, Walking Dead: The Game has a quite a striking look. Though it is 3D it has a very 2D slightly cell shaded style which mimics the visuals of a comic, keeping true to it's original reference material. This sets the tone of the game as seperate to the usual 'zombie killing' games, and instead prepares the player to be emerged in a narrative fitting of a comic book.


It interests me that the texture of this game is able to be so stylised and resemble it's concept art quite a lot, and therefore come across as the designers intended. It's something we were trying to accomplish with our animation, and though it worked to an extent, could probably have been better, perhaps for example in the texture of the clothing etc.

However, by having a slightly cartoony style in our own animation it, hopefully, makes clear that it is not an animation (or possible game) that is too serious - and is meant to be fun.

         

Around the 3:40 mark in the video the design is mentioned and the reservations behind how it could have looked. It highlights that there could have been a problem with this style of texture with this game, and that a risk was taken to give it it's quite individual look.

An interesting review of the gameplay and how the 'point and click' style enhances the narrative. http://www.pcgamer.com/review/the-walking-dead-game-review/

The Gaze in the Media Essay (Plus Lecture notes)

Both Coward's 'The Look' and Mulvey's 'Visual Pleasure' essays highlight the importance the camera has on the gaze at women in the Media. The gaze predominantly caters to men, and is enhanced through films, photography, advertising and most forms of visual media cementing the idea that 'men's scrutiny of women is just part of the natural order' (Coward). Whereas Coward investigates the effects this has on women in society Mulvey chooses to focus more on the nature of how it is executed. 

Both argue that the power of this male gaze and it's lack of retaliation, as women have an 'inability to return such a critical and aggressive look' (Coward), causes women to be seen as passive and subordinate. Coward goes further to suggest that this has a powerful effect on women which, whether consciously or unconsciously, creates an anxiety in them and therefore a willingness to conform towards striving to become the unrealistic images presented. The sexualisation of women, which reinforces an acceptance in society to voyeuristically view women as objects, is enhanced through the media and can be controlled through choices of camera work.

Mulvey points out that in a film the 'conventional close-ups of legs or a face' of a woman give the narrative eroticism. She argues that 'one part of a fragmented body destroys the illusion of depth' and 'gives flatness, the quality of a cut-out or icon'. This is a technique used quite frequently in films, by introducing a female character through close-ups of her body the film is inviting, and somewhat forcing, the audience to view her as a cut-out instead of a character. For example this is seen in quite a few 'action' films, where the lead is a strong male character and the female's only roll is as the 'eye candy' to be gazed at by the viewer. Any guilt the viewer may feel for watching her, perverse or otherwise, is minimised by the fact the protagonist (and usually male character) of the film is also being a voyeur. The female character offers little to the film other than to enhance the male characters narrative, as put by Budd Boetticher: 'What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance'. These techniques highlight an underlining theme that is pressed upon women, which is that their worth is directly connected to their aesthetic.

This is obviously something which concerns Coward who argues against the suggestion that women are naturally vain and identify with this kind of imagery. Instead she draws attention to the growing discontent woman have in themselves 'in the pursuit of 'the feminine ideal ' - exemplified by voluptuous film stars and skinny fashion models'. The media which enhances these views, whether knowingly or not, is an incredibly powerful thing and as both texts discuss, the gaze it supports has the ability to effect how we view others as well as ourselves.

Lecture Notes

Coward, R., The Look, in Thomas, J. (ed) (2000), Reading Images, Basingstoke: Palgrave

Mulvey, L. (1975) Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema cited In Badmington, N. and Tomas, J (eds) (2008) The Routledge Critical and Cultural Theory Reader, London and New York,

Setting Textures and Extra Items

So the setting needed to be quite simple but effective - we were going to be relying on the lighting change quite a bit in order for the buildings to look somewhat real and then (when they tumble down) fake, so the designs didn't have to be too complex. After Alex pointed out it would be easier to use blueprints of buildings to create the outline, I decided to draw a few plans and then colour them. Most below are mine (except the bottom right building which was a source image).

Having a few different designs I could mix and match and adjust the colours and details of the buildings slightly so they didn't seem to same-y and repetitive. However I was worried once dropped in (since each block in the set is a duplication of each other) the streets looked too repetitive. Once lights were added though, this didn't seem to be a problem, as the main attention is on the characters.

To add a little bit more detail and character to the set I drew a few newspapers and grates to be added around the set, (again I was influence by ParaNorman and it's 'wonky' designs', in a bid to try and not make everything stream lined). 

Making Moustache Man Move (Rigging and Weight Painting)

Due to Moustach Man's build the rig had to slightly differ from the ones we'd made for our aliens. For example his arms were so stubby there wasn't really a big need to add a forearm roll.

When weight painting I discovered a problem with the feet, whenever there was any influence on the ankle the foot would bend in, making it quite hard to create any form of Set Driven Keys for the foot control. After attempting to correct it through weight painting the influence on every joint it became obvious I would have to start again and detach the mesh from the rig. I then rebuilt the leg joint chains, this time only having one knee joint instead of two. The leg mesh is so thick and blocky that there is minimal movement in them anyway, so this seemed appropriate. After re-skinning the rig seemed fine.

The Key feature of Moustache Man is his moustache! It was very important that his moustache could emote (since he didn't have a mouth or jaw). By giving him movement on each side and a little on the bottom he is able to snarl and plump up his moustache. Weight painting this was quite fun as it allowed me to add expression to the character - especially when controlling how much of his nose would flare etc.

Another difference to the Alien Rig was giving Moustache Man the ability to point, just by adding another joint chain in the hand for an index finger and then creating a Set Driven Key that would cause the other fingers and thumb to ball into a fist whilst the Index Finger stayed outstretched.

The model of Moustache Man proved a little difficult to weight paint as his blocky solid shape really hinders movement or otherwise causes really noticeable deformations, therefore his movement was slightly limited (for example he didn't have a neck so could barely move his head). However since he is only in the scene for a few seconds and movement isn't that complex (and as he is meant to be blocky it makes sense for his movement as a character to be quite restrained) this isn't a major problem.

UV Mapping and Texturing Moustache Man

After Siobhan modelled Moustache Man (HERE) he was given to me to UV map and texture.

I decided to UV map the torso in bulk, allowing just one UV texture to be used on all aspects of Moustache Man's body since it was all one mesh. 

I tried to add some detail such as arm hair and creases into the shirt, but I had to take into account how much the texture would deform once the rig was added to the mesh and limbs began to bend, therefore I avoided adding too many creases etc, to things like the knees and elbows.
By constantly reloading the textures I was able to see what was working and what wasn't, for example the golden buckles on the braces were too large to begin with so had to be adjusted.

Eyes (Unity Problems)

A problem I have noticed with my Alien model, which is especially obvious once imported into Unity, is the size of the eyes in relation to the head. Though they fit, at certain angles the inside of the head is visible (therefore in Unity with back-face culling there appear to be empty gaps). A 'quick-fix' I've been shown is to Scale the eyes in Unity in order to 'fill' this gap, luckily this doesn't effect the already baked-in animation, though there is the odd flicker when the alien Jumps.

Animating the Alien

Now that I'd finished the rig I had to animate it. Unfortunately the fore-arm roll would cause the hands to shake despite the controls being at zero, but the rest of the movement was easier to control, especially with the use of the Controllers. Using these allowed me to create key frames and stances, with the help of The animator's Survival Kit (Richard Willliams) I was able to create a walk cycle, as well as a jump and idle. The animation isn't fantastic, there are some alterations I would make, such as to his legs during the jump so he looks less floaty.

Rigging and Weight Painting the Alien.

Rigging the Alien model was quite time consuming, but helped a lot when we began rigging our own characters as we could understand the basic principles and transfer and modify them to fit the structures of our models.

I found myself having a few problems now and then when weight painting and adding the forearm roll as the mesh would deform sometimes. Though it was a bit disheartening having to un-bind the mesh from the rig a few times, it helped to re-start and work through what went wrong.

Weight painting is interesting though, adding the influence allows a bit more expression to the character and you're able to give it a little bit of personality (especially with aspects such as the mouth and eyebrow movement). 

Colour Concept for Setting Textures

The concept for the setting is for it to look like a city, but really be made of cardboard panels. Therefore  the models to be textured will be flat (see on Phil's blog HERE) so the design shouldn't be too complex.

Inspired by the designs of Mingjue Helen Chen on her blog HERE for 'Paperman', I've tried to make the designs quite stream lined and simple. Only adding a slight amount of detail and depth (e.g window blinds). 

The colours shouldn't be too strong, as we want the focus to be on the Gloria (and later Moustache man) and in general are going to be swamped by fog and shadow, therefore not seen too much. However I've tried to find a slight range between the buildings so they don't all look too similar.

'Final' Storyboards

Using screen shots from the environment to plan camera shots in the storyboard made it a lot easier to plan the movement of the characters. Our story now has changed slightly from the original storyboard, and will begin with Gloria after falling then flashing back to the beginning (aided by a voice over with some form of 'let's start from the beginning'). Also, instead of constantly running and creeping Siobhan thought it would be a lot more interesting to have her jump to the side.

Draft Storyboards

Our first initial Storyboard for this animation/in-game cinematic, was documented by Phil HERE.

I then drew our 'second' version adding Phil's initial notes on camera angles and movements.

Phil then created a cinematic with these images (adjusting the order etc, since we were still developing)(seen HERE).

Texturing Gloria

Siobhan has modelled our first character Gloria HERE and UV mapped her HERE leaving it ready to be textured. I have tried to translate the character design and colour concepts onto the UV map. 

Face:

I enjoyed colouring the face and adding extra details, such as blushes and freckles etc, to give Gloria a bit more personality and individualism (whilst making sure the textures won't be distorted when the jaw opens etc). By constantly reloading the hyper shade in Maya I kept track of the progress and edited the colours etc where applicable.

Hat and hair Texture:

Using sourced textures (e.g from cgtextures.com) then using the filter 'high pass' and setting the layer to 'overlay' I could add slight textures to features such as clothing etc. whilst still keeping the colour. This allowed my texture to look less painted and plastic and hopefully gave it a little bit of depth. Because of the overall style of our concept  I haven't attempted to make it look too realistic, only adding depth and detail where I thought it was needed.

Finished texture:

Final Colour Concept - Gloria

A little rough, but the key colours are there to reference when colouring the UV.

Final Colour Concept - Moustache Man

The colours are now a little brighter which hopefully will stand out enough whilst still keeping a muted/understated tone.

Skin tone and colouring development cont...

The details of the faces in the stop-motion animation 'Paranorman' has inspired me to add more detail onto the faces of our characters. Such as freckles, flaws and reddening of the cheeks and nose. As I am still developing the colours (before transferring them to the UV map) adding these little details has allowed me to brighten the previous colour schemes I had hopefully improving the overall look.

Colour Development...

Our characters have been built, but still need to be textured! Since we are aiming for Sepia tones, I've been focusing on browns/beiges when experimenting with colours, though I'm a little worried the character's will seem too washed out with these.

The animation HERE, is interesting as it not only tackles our theme but also uses faded colours to it's advantage. This has been useful to use as reference when attempting to pick the colour pallet.

However, when experimenting with colour for moustache man (as I was quite happy with Gloria) I altered the settings to try and work out the best 'sepia' look and was greeted with the below image:

This is way too bright, but maybe highlights a dullness in the original colours?

Since our characters are quite stylised I can't help but feel maybe this brighter slightly more 'cartoonish' colour palette would be more suitable, perhaps not as bright (as it could be very distracting on screen). However I may just be distracted by the change and over-thinking too much (as I've uploaded this now it seems REALLY bright). I will definitely discuss this with the group and hopefully reach some form of decision, as we need to take into account which colour scheme will compliment the strong use of shadows we intend to have. Another possibility, instead of colouring them this way, is to use a form of filter when the characters and setting etc is transported into Unity.

Moustache Man Turn-around with notes for Modelling

Moustache Man Development.

Affectionately known to us now as 'Moustache Man', our second character needs to compliment Gloria's design whilst also being interesting on his own. This is an initial mood board/sketch-dump of him based on Siobhan's initial designs (HERE).

I'm worried he looks too cuddly if I make his height too small (see rough scale HERE) or too out of proportion if I don't adjust his head shape. Also though just wearing a suit seems quite plain and formal, I'm leaning towards him wearing a shirt with rolled up sleeves to illustrate he's been evaluating/testing Gloria all day.

Working from this mood board I've sketched out a rough idea of his final design and await feedback from the rest of the group.

I think he should have a clip board to illustrate he is judging Gloria. (Our initial rough storyboard is seen HERE ) so will have to consider the design of that writing something simple like 'Official Exam' seems way too obvious - further thought is needed.

Concept Art!

This concept art was to get a general idea of the use of colours we'd use (we're aiming for a Sepia-tone - leaning towards red rather than yellow) and an idea of how we'd like the environment to look. One of my team-mate's, Phil, modelled a set out of cardboard HERE which has been incredibly useful for visualising shots and movement for our story as well as being valuable reference for concept art.
We want the environment to look real until the end of our 'scene' where it will be revealed to be a 'set', so thick shadows, smoke and the use of lighting will play heavily into creating this 'real' atmosphere and will hopefully echo the 'Film Noir' style I have been drawing reference from.

Gloria Turn-around!

Black and White turn-arounds of Gloria. (Colours to be determined). 

As the legs and part of the coat are to be separate I layered the turn-around so both can be referred to when modelling.

 I also thought it would be useful to create a head turnaround in flash, this was to give an idea of how the hair would look in 360, as well as helping my drawing/proportion/continuity skills.

Flash turn around of Gloria (click to view)

The hat is also an important aspect to our character but will be modelled separately. 

Research and Refining First Character Design

I found this character sheet from Lilo and Stitch quite useful when thinking about the shape and design for our 'main' character Gloria. By simplifying the design into key shapes the character can be blocked out and their key attributes highlighted.

Lilo and Stitch Character Design

For example, using round shapes adds to femininity - such as large hips etc. This is something I am trying to apply to our character Gloria by giving her the classic 'Hourglass'. However proportion wise she is mostly legs, illustrating that she is slightly out of balance and quite likely to fall over. It also allows us the chance to add comic effect to the Character's interaction by creating a large height difference between Gloria and the Boss/Inspector character. Using this idea of shapes it seemed natural for the Boss character to be opposite to Gloria - therefore  squarer and stouter, implying he would never fall over. (More of his development will be blogged later!) 

Our Character Designs thinking about Height 

Style wise I've noticed an upcoming animation from Walt Disney Animation Studios called 'Paperman', it's interesting as it blends 3D animation with 2D. I find the character design of the woman interesting and useful in terms of the fact it's quite simple/cartoony but effective, and her face has the balance of feminine and innocence that I've been trying to achieve with Gloria. Though we probably won't be having our cut-scene in black and white, the simple tones and lack of incredibly detailed/realistic texturing on the characters is useful to keep in mind.

Paperman Character Designs

'Meg' from Paperman's Hair also is quite of interest to our character design, as though it seems quite natural it also has a structure and simplicity to it - it's mainly made up of a few key shapes. 

 When thinking about our character's hair I have to take into account the fact that she will be wearing a hat for most of the time (until it gets knocked off), so have tried to make the top quite flat, only allowing curls at the bottom.  Luckily the style around the 1950's is quite 'set', so hopefully when this is modelled her hair can just be solid shapes that are later textured slightly/given a shine. 

Context of Practice Lecture - Psychoanalysis (Notes)