normal mapping and uv mapping research

http://www.tutorialized.com/view/tutorial/Use-Maya-Transfer-Maps-Tools-to-Create-Normal-Maps/25213
this is a tutorial that paul gave me for the normal mapping problem.

i have read it all and now i had some idea about the skills. this is something that i never thought at the first place. now i can understand that why the game characters have such high level detailed mesh but with only about 10,000 tris faces. this is very helpful to me. its like opening a new page for me. now i can free myslef to model a high detail character and then transfrom the details to a low level model with normal mapping.

paul also introduced another sotware call blender to deal with the uv mappin problem this week. i had a look and feel about the same. it is a very strong uv mapping software as well. i felt that it could aslo deal complex UV very well. however, i have alrdy finish the uvs for my characters in the scene. but i will try this software next time when i need to unwarp uvs.

this is the link i have read.

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Textures/UV/Unwrapping_a_Mesh unwarp a mesh
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Textures/UV/Managing_the_Layout managing the layout
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Textures/UV/Editing_the_Layout editing the layout
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Textures/UV/Applying_an_Image applying a picture

http://www.ibiblio.org/bvidtute/mytut/uvtut.avi this is a link to download a tutorial video. it is very helpful~~ after watching that i have alrdy have some idea about how to use blender.

after all, thx paul for providing this such helpful information.

Assessment 3 modelling

LEON !!! FIRST~~YEAH

this is the male character i m working on in my story. he is a male centaur and his name is leon. it took me a lot of time to model it coz i have to model a human and a horse. but im quite happy with the outcome.

the lines look good and tidy. i think it will work fine with joints. im trying to think about that im modelling a game model. so i need to reduce as much faces as i can. however, if the character do not have enough faces, it will not work smoothly after the rig. So this will be the biggest problem that need to be concerned. i will find out the solution to that. i think there has to be a way to do that. coz i know most game characters do not contain more than ten thousand faces. but ten thousand faces are not enough to present a detailed game character. so i hope i could find a way to this ASAP. before that, wt i can do is just use "soft edges" and try to model the character as smooth as possible in the lowest display level.

i used UVLayout to finish the uv for leon. its a very strong software to deal with complex uvs speically for human's uv. it only took me about one hour to unwrap the uvs. i export the character to OBJ file from MAYA and then load into UVLayout. after unwraping the uvs, i reload this OBJ into Mudbox to paint the texture for it. it is the first time for me to use Mudbox, so it has been a little hard for me to control the brushes. however, mudbox could only have me a brief idea about the texture. i exported the texutre layer from mudbox and loaded into Photoshop to draw real texture. the texture is not 100% complete and i will do some more detailed texture in the next sesmter.

In the end, leon has 9404 tris faces which is not bad but not very good. coz i havent do the weapon for him, and it is just the lowest vision. i was trying to reduce his tris faces into 5000, but i failed...... coz im afraid of the range of the movement will be effected if i reduce the tris faces into 5000. however, i will try to reduce it again during the holidays. i will use this model in my project in this semester.

HERE COMES OUR AVA~~

Ava is another character in the project. she is a female centaur. i saved sometime when i was modeling her coz i just need to finish the human body part for her. i copied the horse body part from Leon and change a little bit outlook in order to let it looks more like a female. after all, i merged them together. and Ava is finished~~~~

i m quite happy with Ava's appearance as well. but i still got the same problem which is i cant help myself with reducing the amount of the faces. i still model her like i was modelling the object for a animation film. i put too many detail on her ear and hands. i hope it will work fine in unity otherwise i will have to reduce it.

I finish her UV in UvLayout as well. after that load into mudbox the paint the texture and then finish it in Photoshop. this is not the final vision. i will do more texture for her in the next semseter.

Ava has 9758 tris faces. its too much for this vision i think. again, hope she will runs good in the real time game engine

ROBOT

This is the robot i will use for this semester. it is just a very gruff vision. it has too many faces and i havnt do the UV or texture for it. it will just be displayed in the scene. It wont be moving or having any behavior. The full vision of it will be finished in the next semester.

Assessment 2 Proposal for Andy’s project

The story I am going to create happens at another universe in space. Drota is a very immemorial planet in this universe. It is a world of wonder and mystery with extreme danger and strange beauty. Wild grassland covers most of the planet and a wide variety of animals could be found in Drota. Centaurs are the main specie that rules the planet; they are simple, brave and honest. The centaurs live in a tribal society; yet there are two very strong clans that exist at the same time. The war and diversity between them have been in battle for thousands of years. One side thinks magic is the most powerful thing to learn and control. The other, thinks physical strength is the only thing that matters. Both of these two clans have their own belief. One believes sky and the other believes forest. They will continue this combat forever for their own beliefs.

One day, everything is changed. The third influence arrive this wonder land. A very highly developed civilization named Viper wants to attack this planet and occupy the variety of resource on the planet. Their army consists of robots with self-governed complex artificial intelligence. This is a complete mischance for the centaurs. Most of them are killed and their homeland is plundered. In this special circumstance, the two clans decide to unite in order to fight their enemy together and win this war.

This is the background behind the story. The story is between one male centaur named Leon and another female centaur named Ava. Leon is the prince from the physical clan and Ava is just an average female centaur from the magic side. They are not supposed to talk to each other. Even sighting the opponent would mean to bring death, simply because they are different.

In the beginning of the story, Leon is on his way to a mission. At that time, Viper already occupied a part of the plane but the two clans still do not want to unite. So each side is only fighting for themselves. When leon walks into the middle of the jungle, he hears unusual sounds. he is a very good warrior; therefore he knows there must be a battle around. he slows down, quietly paced behind a tree; carefully observing the events happening in front of his eyes. It was a female centaur and a self-governed complex artificial intelligence in the fight. she did not use bow and arrow, instead with magic. "She is from the other side". Leon studied quietly. "Good, my mission today is to unite the two clans to flight Viper together, i should use this great opportunity to show them how strong i am and how easy the war will be if we unite."After the quick thought he raced into the fight and he damaged the robot severely. The female centaurs is Ava. She was so surprised that a male cenaur from the other side just assisted her to fight with Viper inside of kill her in the back. However, she is a good enchanter. She realized that she should focus on killing this robot first. She took the opportunity to use her magic and draw the robot's power out with her mouth. Seeing the slowly fallen robot, the two young centaurs looked at each other. Leon speaks: "my name is Leon, I am the prince of the other side and it has been such a honor to fight with u. Please take me to see your sheikh; I come with my father’s message. Ava suddenly tenses. “Why do you want me to take you to see my father? You want to be killed?”, Ava said ironically. “No, "No, I'm going to see you sheikh to discuss the forming of an Alliance. Today's battle proved my intention is correct. You have the ability to draw out their powers, but you need time to cast magic; and we can provide you strive for this point of time. The situation now is very critical; we should unite to protect our homeland! “Ava thought for a moment and replied, "well, surrender your bow and arrow, we must set off!"

Requirement of musci and sound

There are battles on the scene, so i want to have some sound effect for fighting. I am not sure if we can do dialog for the characters, but if we can do it that will be very good. And i also want to have some sound effect for the robot.

And the music is also very importat for the project. I want to have some differnt pieces of music playing in the different part of scene. For example, when Ava walks in the jungle, it will be a quiet music. And change to a very tense music when she hears something.

Plz contact me if u are interested in.

zheng1390lin@hotmail.com

Robot（this is the resouce pic i might work through on the robots in my project)

AVA




AVA



LEON



LEON

LEON&AVA

project one for KIB325

plz click here to download the unity project from badongo

Assessment 3--Animated Sequence

This is the final vision of my animation sequence. I been keep doing this short animation through the whole semester. I really appreciate this unit provide this such opportunity for me to practice my animation skill in this short period of time. I feel I have been improve a lot on this area from seting up this blog and creating this animation. I have learned how to choose the right motion for the characters, how to set key frame and how to switch camera. This is very necessary konwledge for me to continue the further study in this major. I konw there always will be better vision for the animation, but I am pretty happy for this one at moment. So hope u guys like it too~~!!

ANDY

Animation work for other unit

This is the short animation I did for another unit. I define one character is Mickey Mouse and another one is Minnie Mouse. I try to relfect realistic animations, anthropomorphism, puppet animation and 3D animation in this short creative work.

Coz the model I used is from this unit, so I want to upload this animation on the blog and share with other people. This is a 30 sec animation. Hope u guys like it.

week 7's task---NEW animation playblast in the new vision

This is the new vision of the animation. This is frame 1 to frame 290. I have added a lot of new stuff into the animation. I have added frame 151 to frame 290 which is the flighting part. MAN IN BLACK will lift the table and throw it away and then they start flighting. But VIZZINI forgot the girl could also make him lose the flight. BUTTERFRY push the chair to make VIZZINI fall over. I have also added the facial expressions for all the characters. And i also use the ak_switchingCamera to switch the camera. So i have select five cameras in the different angle to produce a better focous.

This is the last 100 frames. I did this in another scene because it is completely different story. After BUTTERFRY pushed the chair to make VIZZINI fall over MAN IN BLACK finally save the girl. And then MAN IN BLACK will hold the girl and console her. The girl will kiss the hero. I also have already put the facial expression on the characters. I used the three camera in this scene.

This is not the final vision for my animation. Lots of thing still need to be polished. Such as more appropriate facial expression and movement as well as the camera angles.