The brief:
To satisfy this brief you are required produce a single 3-D CGI character model based on designs and drawings developed during this module. Through the construction and development of this character model you will need to demonstrate technical competence in the application of a range of specialist 3D digital animation skills and processes (LO 2).
Also, working together as a team (preferably within a group of 3) you will be required to construct a single environment where the individual characters produced by the members of your team meet. It is required that the film includes examples of animation processes covered by the module so far. The final project should evidence your ability to recognise and formulate responses to problems encountered during production relating to 3D digital animation (LO 3).
Initial Research:
There was 3 in our group and after a quick brainstorm we had 2 general idea paths that we could follow; A Steam punk, Bioshock theme, a dystopian mushroom kingdom theme. We had a shared pinterest board which we all pinned valuable imagery to.
We discussed the pros and cons of each theme, for example; the steampunk one would be a harder task as would have to model detailed steampunk humanoid characters, while the mushrooms didn’t have to be simple but would require less detailed work so we agreed on using the mushroom idea with a big overgrown dirty environment.
Here are the selected images for the environment from the pinterest.
Here are some of the best images for the character design.
Initial Character Modelling
This was the first character attempt I tried modelling for this project as a test. I used a method of UV painting for the mushroom top however there were a lot of broken seams. The mushroom was modelled from a cube and then sculpted with the in built sculpting system within Cinema4D. The character was interesting to model and taught me a lot of techniques, I think the proportions of the model are not in proportion which makes the character look pretty bad and the textures on the mushroom top are also not the best so I will take a different approach when modelling a new character.
For this attempt I used a sphere with the segments changed to 8 to start the model, extruding parts and smooth shifting them to resemble a shape of a mushroom
With texturing I tried the UV painting method again but I still ran into problems using this method, there was always broken seams whenever i painted the red colour on the hat leaving red marks on the body. So i just opted for using materials instead of painting.
From the basic mesh I sculpted extra geometry on using the sculpting manager similar to the first model. I gave him human shape features such as a pot belly and large man breasts, a spine which leads to his bottom.
For the body texture is used a material effect called subsurface scattering. This material is really good for creating realistic skin shaders as it takes light sources into account and then diffuses them beneath the texture creating great highlights shadows. These were all colour tests.
This is the most appropriate colour, so I will use this light skinned material
I also added eyes which were 2 squashed spheres with a eyeball texture from google with added reflectance.
For the mouth I achieved this by using the knife tool within the sculpting section in Cinema4D. I subdivided the mouth to work with more polygons, then I pushed the new polygons into the body creating an indent which is his mouth.
Rigging
When trying to rig my character and build a skeleton I had extreme difficulty. When making and binding a skeleton to the model the polygons and weighting was creating errors.
When rotating the joints it displaced wrong polygons
As shown in the pictures when rotating any limbs it starts deforming the mushroom hat. As far as I could see there was not a work around that I knew of. I will have to think of a different technique to use when animating the mushroom.
I tried playing around with clothes on the character like shoes but they really didnt work as they looked too out of place and clunky. The shoes were a premade model from https://free3d.com/ I discontinued the idea of clothes and shoes.
Finished Character
Environment
When making the environment, it consists of several cube primitive which make up buildings and an alley way. Within the alley way I scattered objects in a unorganised manor to show that its an dirty not well cleaned environment. I built a brick pattern along side the outer buildings to demonstrate that its brick building and to add detail. The props in the scene are; barrels, mushrooms, fire barrel, wire fence, fire exit stair case and a door with a light.
Within the scene I managed to set up a 3 point light rig to light my character using actual objects to emit the light. The light are sources, highlighted by a red box.
This method of lighting gives really defining highlights and shadows. The red fire light is quite strong and possibly washes out some of the other light sources, however you can still see the lighting effects from each direction.
Trying to figure out whereabouts to put my character was difficult. He needed to be in the scene, well lit but not being obstructed by objects. I came up with the solution of sitting him on a barrel near the fire so he didnt look unnatural standing next to the fire
Here is how the character is positioned on a barrel. I had to manually pose him as rigging him did not work like i previously mentioned.
To animate the character I used a twist deformer to twist his body from one position to the next to looking at the camera.
I have 3 virtual cameras in the scene which all shoot different angles of the character and the enviroment. The cameras also have some depth of field settings that goes in an out of focus which adds a nice layer of detail to the animation.
Finished Animation
With added fire crackling sound effects I finished the animation.
Reflection
During my time making this animation I encountered several issues and problems, some which I managed to resolve, others which I did not. The main issue for me was the inability to rig my mushroom character. This proposed several issues for me, firstly when I modelled the character, I made him in a T pose to rig him at a later stage. The T pose gives me the ability to rig him easily as his limbs are horizontal but being unable to rig him made me have to re model his arms into a downwards position which was difficult as it looked unnatural because the polygons have just been moved down.
The second issue was painting UV texture maps. I tried to use this method as I have never looked into using and painting UV maps. I found that Cinema4D does not have a very good UV painter as a lot of other designers have said the program leaves UV seams at unwanted places which I found to be true. There was no way around this as my model was not perfectly modelled so the extra polygons made it hard for Cinema4D understand where the edges of my models UV were.
The positives of the assignment was getting to use Cinema4Ds in built sculpting mode. I have never done detailed modelling in the program before so this was a good opportunity to try that. The character proportions were a lot better than the first initial model which made it look a lot cleaner and finished. The use of the material effect, sub-surface scattering in conjunction with the 3 point lighting in the scene made the character look a lot less flat and added some nice highlights and deep shadows which would otherwise be lost if not using the effect.
Lastly, I can’t do finish the reflective without talking about the fact that this was meant to be a group project. As the most experienced 3D artist in my group, I took control of the planning, idea and creation part of the coursework. While we all pitched ideas it was I who had the casting vote of what would be too hard to make or too time consuming. Saying that we did not time manage this coursework well is an understatement. We met once ore twice to discuss ideas with the intention of having the characters in rough done after Christmas which did not happen. I moved on to create my character and make a start on the scene. The very first environment idea was to be a big looming mushroom kingdom with big mushroom acting as canopies in the sky but it had to be quickly changed as the idea was ambitious and I feel the others wouldn’t be able to help model something of that sort. So preventing myself from doing all the work we opted to go for a back alley over grown environment which should be easier for all of us to model.
Wanting to meet up and see where we all our with characters and props for the environment I called a team meeting to which my bemusement there was no sign of characters or initial drawings let alone props for the scene. As the deadline getting increasingly closer (3 days away) we didn’t have much time at all, counting the fact we need to render the final video which takes upwards of a 12 hours. I talked to my tutor with suggestions of what to do with the project. Excluding their work and rendering mine on its own with all my props was the only option to get it finished in time. Which was the option I took. I think possibly for my next group assignment I might look into changing my group up a little bit as its getting slightly repetitive, however I think everyone in the class is comfortable working with their close friends so possibly a group work where we are assigned people might be something different.
Ranting over and focusing back to my work I am somewhat pleased with it. Visually its not the best looking thing, but it did not have to be. It was not meant to be polished, just to have all the key elements of a 3D scene should have, lighting, texturing, camera movement etc. The environment is defiantly the stronger part of between the character and the scene.
DSpall Animation Blog 