Game Art & Machinima: Initial Concept Ideas

Character Sheet

Below is the relevant information about my Robot character.

Humanoid Robot Character Research

For our Game Art & Machinima project, I've chosen to create a humanoid robot character and it's Archetype falls under 'Villain'. After creating my first draft of the Robot, I received some criticism during one of the interim Crit sessions. It was brought to my attention that my character looked too much like the 'Iron Giant', therefore I had to work on another idea. Revising back to the criticism I noticed there were a few similarities, I guess I drew the character with the Iron Giant in my subconscious. 

figure 1

fig 1

Above (figure 1) is my idea of the robot redrawn by my group member Jess, the Robot has similarities to Iron Giant.

figure 2

 fig 2
Figure 2 is the Iron Giant.

-I then begun re-researching to get inspiration for new ideas by looking at illustration of Humanoid androids online.

-Although my new idea was sort of straying off the 'humanoid' angle, the idea was to have a head for a body and it's arms and legs connected directly to the head. I did some research of 3D android illustrations to help me execute my plan. Below are a few Ideas and inspirations which caught my eye.

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is a theory of the mind and it is also a therapeutic process. It's a process done by one individual who's professionally trained to listen to another individual, trying to understand issues and problems they derive from the past. Psychoanalysts are experts on human development and human behaviour, they're skilled to understand what lies on the patient's subconscious.

Sigmund Freud was one of the first people who listened in this unique way, he was a neurologist by training. He treated hysteria patients using psychoanalysis and he gradually developed this process of listening to individuals and connecting the dots. He grew tired of people looking at him and he suggested his patients to lie down, therefore developing this technique of using the couch. This technique worked so well because it freed the patient and let them open up when they speak about very intimate things.

Freud also studied the stages of infancy, the stages a child goes through in order to become a fully conscious being. A child develops preconceptions that must be dealt with in order to develop successfully through the Oedipus complex, castration and penis envy. The dynamic unconscious is created through infancy to protect our conscious selves from events, ideas and thoughts.
-Psycho-sexual Identity
Oedipus complex- sexual/love feelings towards mother and resentment of father through childhood dependence and self centred world view.
-Castration complex
The boy fears castration while the girl accepts that she has already been castrated. (The phallus as a symbol of power).

-Penis Envy
The girl experiences this when she begins to realise she does not have a penis, not as a sexual organ but a way of relating to the father-figure.

-The Uncanny
The uncanny is something that is simultaneously unnatural yet familiar. Analogies between the unconscious (psychology) and the uncanny (aesthetics).

-Freudian Models.
Id, ego, super ego this means Unconscious, preconscious and conscious.

Id (unconscious) - it represents the biological/ instinctual part of ourselves.

Ego (conscious) - this one represents the individual/ personality of ourselves.

Super-Ego (social-order) - In Psychoanalysis, according to Sigmund Freud, this is the component that is developed because of the Id. It is the formation of internal standards (most importantly included are morals). The superego strives for perfection. This component is initiated by the pressures of parents, peers, and society.

After Sigmund Freud died Jacques Lacan represented his own brand of psychoanalysis in the 1960's-70's 'claiming a return to Freud'

-The Lacanian Unconscious 

It is structured like a language , the language is the discourse of the super ego.

-Conclusion

Psychoanalysis provides us with the definition of the unconscious, its a tool to help us understand how art and design affects us and why. Many films of our generation have referenced psychoanalysis and Christopher Nolan's Inception being of my all time favourite. 

Game Art & Machinima: Surveillance [Draft 1]

The first draft I came up with was about surveillance, it is about two characters interacting with each other in an elevator. They are in a urban cooperate building, their mission is to explore the rooms in search of the server room. They are being surveyed through CCTV cameras and given instructions by an anonymous person heard through a tannoy, they're are given clues on where to go. 

-When the characters are in the elevator idle, a female voice is heard over the tannoy:
"This is not a training exercise, you're equipped with live rounds and your mission is to locate the server room. You have exactly 60 seconds until the floor security is activated. Good-luck gentlemen."

-When the voice is done talking, the elevator doors reach the top floor and a ping sound is heard and the doors open. The characters begin to walk/run through the corridors trying to locate the right door.

Character & Environment ideas :- 

• Elevator
• CCTV in elevator
• No dialogue heard as the characters speak as this will be viewed from CCTV cameras 
• Simple hand gestures when the characters speak
• Long narrow corridors in a cooperate building, plain carpets, walls, neon lighting, office water coolers, plants, chart posters and doors.

This idea didn't end up being chosen by my group.

Weight Painting // Custom Attributes (Alien)

After the character was bound to the geometry, it was time to start weight painting. Weight painting took me a while to understand in terms of which parts of my geometry needed influence and vice versa. After asking relevant questions and doing a bit of researching it became understandable. Once I got the hang of it, it became an enjoyable task. 

-I flooded all the influence on the end joints such as the fingers, the toes, the jaw end, the left and right brow, the left and right eye, the head end and finally the root joint. After this I begun repainting in the positive influence on the jaw end. 

fig 1

Fig 1 shows weight painting of the jaw, this makes the deformation around the mouth look natural when the subject is animated to talk.

-After weight painting, I begun creating custom attributes on the controllers. These were to control the fist, peel heel, toe tap, stand tip etc. These attributes are very helpful when it comes to animating, they make the work flow much faster. This also helped me detect the joints which needed more painting. For instance every time the heel peeled, the was geometry being pulled, this gave me a clear visual of where I needed to paint. 

fig 2

fig 2 shows the process of creating a custom attribute on the fist by setting driven keys. Set driven keys gives me an opportunity to load the driver (controller) and the driven (joints), by this I can set the keys at the values I want.

fig 3

Fig 3 is the peel heel attribute and it's numeric value at 10, that is the maximum the character can peel the heel from the surface. 

-The process of creating these attributes takes a bit of time to get the hang of it, I'm looking forward to doing it for my Robot as it will help a great deal. 

Rigging // Controlling the Alien Character

Rigging is a stage I haven't touched until now so it was really interesting to learn. As Mat was teaching this stage I really enjoyed the session as I was up to speed with the process. I understood why joints had to be place where they were, this gave me an in-depth look at the character's skeletal system. I was also looking forward to learn how to place the custom controllers and see how the joints will move.
Below is an image showing my full skeletal rig.

 fig 1

Figure 1 above shows the full rig that I created to fit to the alien's geometry, this process was relatively not difficult to do but it is vital that all the joints are in the correct place other wise the deformation  will not animate accurately. The skeleton has not yet been rigged to the geometry.

After this process was done, I begun adding custom controllers using Nurbs curves and primitives, this course of action is to help move the skeleton.

fig 2

Fig 2 is the top view of the skeletal rig with controllers created

fig 3

 Top view of the skeleton and controllers (figure 3)

 fig 4

UV Mapping the Alien character

After modelling the character, I begun the stages of UV mapping. I had an idea of using a ramp shader for the Alien and make it have 2 or more simultaneous colours blending into each other. I wanted the character to be simple as this is not going to be part of the cut-scene /cinematic, it's just a learning curve therefore it does not need to be looking professional. UV mapping is a process that gave me a hard time last year, but following the guides refreshed my mind and got me up to speed. Below are the steps I took to get to the final product. 

 fig 1.

Using the UV Map Texture Editor (figure 1), I unwrapped my mesh using automatic mapping, I find it easier that way compared to how I'm taught during the studio sessions.

 fig 2.

For the eyes (figure 2) I simply selected them and assigned a blinn and chose a black colour, I increased the specular shading to give it that Alien eye look.

 fig 3.

On the Hyper shade menu, I chose a clever tool called the ramp shader, this allowed me to blend various colours. I only chose to do two colours of what my idea of an alien would look like and that is green and yellow.

fig 4.

Above (figure 4) is my final textured character, To say I first found UV mapping a daunting task, I'm happy with it as it does not seem to have any weird seams, it has a flawless texture and therefore I'm happy at the stage I'm at with UV mapping.

Developing an Alien Character

On this Game Art & Machinima module, we were given a brief that indicated us to produce two characters which will have to interact with each other. Now of course this mean having to create a character in appropriate stages such as Modelling, Texturing, Rigging and Animating. Now this is a process which is not easy to do for a beginner, its not just clicking, dragging & dropping, therefore we were given a task to get us up to speed. After attending studio sessions and following a few video guides, we are to create an Alien character which in the end should be able to be animated.
Below are screenshots of my progress as I'm beginning to model.

I began by Modelling the half of the head so that i could easily mirror it and make it symmetrical.

 figure 1

 figure 2

The Alien head (figure 2) has brows, eyes and a mouth yet to be extruded out.

 figure 5

On figure 5, I created individual fingers on the hand, 2 fingers and a thumb.

 figure 6

Figure 6 is the entire half body of the Alien, the head, torso, arm and leg, figure 7 below shows the mirrored geometry.

figure 7

 figure 8

I created the eyes separately from the body so they can be Animated without influencing the geometry around them.
The next stage I'm moving to is UV mapping.