The majority of my Semester was spent working on this project. Now from the outside it may not seem to big, but Personally I feel I have Learned a lot.
I had a lot of fun with this project ( and some frustration like most things) but In the end I am happy with the result, and feel if I were to go back and do it again that I could do even better. I'll talk a bit about what I did as progress through the project, and then finish it off with all I have learned
- Creating the Mesh
- Rigging/Animating
- Textures and lighting
- Summary
- Progress Gallery
Creating the MEsh
After watching a few videos on sculpting and re-topology techniques I learned that one of the best ways to make a low topology mesh was to simply sculpt it by hand and then use the mesh manipulation tools to create a new mesh on top of that.
It's a little confusing to explain, but it's like taking a rough pencil sketch and then lining it with ink, or like making a cast of a face (kinda)
Overall I feel very happy with this mesh, there are definitely things I would like to go back and fix, but considering it was a first for this method, I am pleased. Some things I could improve on are making cleaner edges around limb joints, and I would like to get better at making smooth hard surface models.
It's a little confusing to explain, but it's like taking a rough pencil sketch and then lining it with ink, or like making a cast of a face (kinda)
Overall I feel very happy with this mesh, there are definitely things I would like to go back and fix, but considering it was a first for this method, I am pleased. Some things I could improve on are making cleaner edges around limb joints, and I would like to get better at making smooth hard surface models.
Re-Topology (Left) Original Sculpt (right)
Rigging and Animating
This was a fun one. There's nothing quite as fun as being able to freely manipulate a figure and have it react like the human body. I spent a good bit of time on rigging and animating. Rigging the mesh requires creating a skeleton, then mapping the skeleton to the mesh through weights on the different parts of the body (eg. arm bone is weighted to the arm allow control of only the arm) Then after fully setting up the skeleton (the polygonal blocks in the first picture) we add in special meshes to replace the bones and make it easier to see as well as manipulate the bones.
Some further info on the bones, using IK (Inverse Kinematics) on some of the bones allows them to act as a parent and drag other specified bones around for example, if you properly set up IK on the hand of your mesh, you would then be able to grab the hand and drag the whole arm, rather than just rotating the hand in a fixed point.
Down below are some images of the mesh with the rig, as well as a before and after shot and walk cycle.
Some further info on the bones, using IK (Inverse Kinematics) on some of the bones allows them to act as a parent and drag other specified bones around for example, if you properly set up IK on the hand of your mesh, you would then be able to grab the hand and drag the whole arm, rather than just rotating the hand in a fixed point.
Down below are some images of the mesh with the rig, as well as a before and after shot and walk cycle.
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Texturing and Lighting
Texturing and lighting was not the focus of this project, but I did still add some so as to be appealing to the eye. The textures are basic materials (primarily diffuse and glossy) simply mapped to the individual points on the mesh. As for the lighting I used a HDRI (High Dynamic Range Imaging) as a skybox which lights the scene based on a 360 degree image provided to it. The light and colours from the image are then translated to light created from the 3d engine. This allows for very natural light, as well as nice reflection in glossy objects.
Summary
In conclusion, I'm overall quite happy with how this turned out, I learned a good bit more about creating a proper mesh with clean topology, and look forward to making apply this. The rigging and animating was definitely the most satisfying part, as seeing something you create come to life is, and in the future would perhaps consider redoing this project (or one along similar lines) with an advanced grasp on mesh topology and materials/lighting.
Down below you can find a gallery of all the documented images from this project. I'm looking forward to continue doing this, as it just get's more enjoyable the more I learn!
Down below you can find a gallery of all the documented images from this project. I'm looking forward to continue doing this, as it just get's more enjoyable the more I learn!
Gallery
Two more gifs from failed attempts (left one has knee popping, Right has obvious ground texture problems but it has a roundabout view)
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