Project Learning Outcomes

    I have a few projects I'm planning on working on this summer break. I'll be blogging one such project here. 

So, what am I doing? 

    I'll be 3D modelling a basic, stylised low-poly body with the intention of dressing, rigging, animating, and shading it. If I have the time/if I continue working on this past this summer, I would like to create different and distinct characters by adjusting the base model to create new body types, as well as modelling more clothes, hairstyles, and accessories for the models.

I've been heavily inspired recently by Ivan Constanta's work! (but mine will probably need to be much simpler than his works)

  

I realise this is high scope but, as this is a personal learning project, it's pretty low pressure. I'm also aware that many of these skills would be easier to get into with pre-made assets but I am interested in 3D modelling itself and would like to understand how the stages connect and what is required as the assets are moved from stage to stage.

 

I've given myself this project to:

• Generally improve on my 3D modelling skills. Initially, I considered focusing on hard surface modelling this summer since I didn't get much practice in this for my Communicating in 3D project. Character stuff just always excites me more though, and so I feel like I'll be more motivated if it's character-focused and this will be work that I'm more likely to want to specialise in. Additionally, 3D modelling the clothes and accessories would give me hard surface modelling practice.
• Learn how to rig a body. I plan to keep the rig fairly simple. I'll keep it to the main body structure, and eyeball and eyelid movement at first so I can animate some basic idle poses, walking, interactions. Stretch goal/if I'm having fun: different(?) mouth movements, hands. Face movement/expressions may be more effectively achieved in this style using UV maps with 2D expressions? Will research further.
• Get the hang of shaders. Honestly, I'm looking forward to this part the least, and may put it off by just modelling more stuff. Ideally, for this project, I'll learn how to create stylised shaders with a 2D cel shading appearance. This might be a bit too ambitious for my first time playing with shaders. It might be better to first learn how to follow a beginner tutorial that teaches me the very basics of using and adjusting shaders. 
• (Side Quest) Familiarise myself with state machines. Once I feel my project is ready, I would like to import it into Unity and have the character be player controllable. It would be helpful for me to know how this process works even if it's not a direct task in my role. I still need to know how my assets will be used in future processes so that I know what state they'll need to be in for the programmers. It will also help to keep this in mind to make sure that the looping flows and the transitions between animations are smooth. Achieving this step for this project would require me to have quite a few different animations.

 

What will/could I do with this project?

    Really, I just came up with this to practice using Maya and familiarise myself with further stages of the 3D animation pipeline. And make some lil fellas :). 

But also, this project would work well for creating some game assets. Because I'm planning on giving the characters a very basic face with minimal rigging, they won't be very effective in an animated series or film (or a heavily narrative-focused game). I would like to give these characters some different clothes, hairstyles, and accessories as well, mostly just for funsies but also because it may pose an interesting challenge to rig and animate with. This again lends well to them being implemented in a game. ...I also just really enjoy character creators and character customisation in games.  

 

What will my timeline look like?

        I'm going to have to sit down and figure out when exactly I'll be working on this um.. soon. But here's what future me needs to consider:

I will have a few other summer projects I'd like to put some time into. When I'm working on these, I may pause my work on this project, or work at a slower pace. I have:

• a summer contractor job that I'll need to sink 5+ hr/wk into
• a zine that I would like to finish within the next month
• an online game dev course that is estimated to be 27hrs long (I'm gonna round that up to 50hrs, so 3 weeks?)
• to learn the basics of using shaders, separate from this project (~2 weeks)
• potential game and art projects with friends! And just my own art stuff.

Here's how long I think I'll need for each part of the project, in the order that I will try to tackle things:

• Character and style research and planning: 1-2 weeks - including a rough turnaround to be built upon later for diff. clothes and hair.
• Base model (body, head, hands): 4 weeks based on the pace I was working at for my previous (and first) 3D project, and the relative simplicity of this model.
• Rigging and animating: 2 weeks for a walking cycle. This is hard to say as I've never done this or looked into it deeply. 

(I would be very happy with all the learning and practice I will have done at this stage! This also seems like a reasonably achievable stage to reach for the summer.)

• Clothing modelling: 1 week to come up with some clothes to model. 2 weeks to model. 1 week to figure out rigging with clothes? This kinda depends on how complex I want to go with the clothing design. This will hopefully be a nice break from learning a whole new skill as well. 
• Texturing: Again, I will probably try to get the hang of shaders in a different context first. I'll have a better idea of long this stage will take at this point as well. A pretty length period of time though, I think.

(I would consider this project and my learning complete at this stage, but would continue to work on different character variations, items, and animations. Whether I would still plan and track my progress with this, I'm not sure.)