Unit 52 3D Animation

3D Animation

In this first session we began to create shapes and rearranging their position to get the maximum effect. Having learned how to move, reshape and add a texture/colour to a shape will make my 3D work more effective in the upcoming projects. Throughout this process due to completing early, I went on to rearranging the shape on top of each other and adding a custom texture to the shape made it a little more personal.

First I began by selecting the 'Move Tool' and the 'Model Tool'. I then added a cube from the primitive shapes menu, after creating the cube I included a sphere. While including the sphere it was placed within the cube and so I had to reposition the sphere about 300m along the Z axis. I included 1 more shape which being a cone and as before it was placed in the cube itself and so I had to move the shape -300m. I had to move it -300m along the Z axis because otherwise it would be positioned on top of the sphere.

After I needed to include a floor object to make it look like it is standing on some sort of surface. Because the objects were sinking in the surface, I had to raise them up about 100cm so it would sit nicely on top of the floor. 

After everything is set and positioned, I wanted to make it more colourful and attractive. I used my own downloaded textures that suited pretty nicely within the objects. I first had to 

Materials Manager > New Material > Double Click Material Thumbnail 

It'll take me to the editor, I will automatically be within the colour selection and I can change the colour by clicking on the box. After selecting the colour, I added a reflection in the reflection menu on the left. 

As I was still in the learning stage of using Cinema4D, I had missed a fair few lessons in which could have helped me. 

Types of Animation

Stop motion animation, are 3D characters which the animator makes an armature or skeleton using metal and then using clay, plastic or rubber to ''dress'' up the character. To make the finer details they use other materials such as hair gel, cloth, wood, toothpaste and cotton wool. The objects and characters that should be moved during the animation are set with the scene in the background, taking pictures and moving them ever so slightly and taking another picture.

Claymation is another type of 3D animation, claymation is a stop motion animation using models made of clay. They have a wire frame so that the clay can be shaped around it using clay tools and fingers. To stop the figures from misshapen during the handling, they use quick hardening clay is used.

CGI or in other words computer generated images. In 3D computer generated animation the animator creates a virtual skeleton and models 3D figures of the virtual skeleton. The models are able to be manipulated and rigged into moving into the required position to create movement.

Influences for My 3D Animation

I looked at a few youtube clips of 3D animations I could possibly get ideas from. 

I found that this is an effective animation I could get an influence from because of its sci-fi features in the character and the movement of the armour makes you think ''Whoa, thats futuristic'' I find this helpful because it helps me get ideas for what I hope or what I could possibly achieve in my 3D animation which is required to be a sci-fi scene. I am not 100% sure that this was made in Cinema4D but even so it is a great animation I could get ideas from.

Sci-Fi Environment

I thought it would be a good idea to look at a few images of sci-fi environments, as I was looking into these images I gathered information I thought that would be very effective in my animation. I figured that many sci-fi places have ships and dwell in the space aspect of the the genre. They tend to have quite bright objects with a fair few glowing pieces to the images/animations.

Sci-Fi Characters

I figured that I would look into the characters as well in the sci-fi world. I gathered that they have quite space like armours/gear. They dwell in the technology upgrades in the gear our soldiers in the armour wear and they have quite some flashy gear as well. Robotic etc.

Sci-Fi Objects

I looked at a few objects that would work within my ideas in the animation I could possibly create. I noticed that majority of the objects glow. I found that this would be very effective in my ideas that I am currently thinking of. They're all very metallic in their material look wise, which also will help within my final animation.

Proposal

For my proposal I intend to create a big death gun like in the star wars Death Star. When I read that the animation had to be Sci-fi I instantly thought of the death star and how I could possibly produce that in my animation. Instead of being a massive object in space, it will be a static object on a planet and it will go through the process of a plasma cannon, it will shoot a laser beam into the galaxy.

I thought this was a good sci-fi idea because the objects will have similar materials as the influences in the images I had found as well as the moodboard I created. I saw that they like their objects to glow and so I thought it would tie in with the brief as well as the genre.

Moodboard

Mindmap

Sketches of My Ideas

The dog in the top right is a mechanical dog, it fits well in the sci-fi theme as it is science fiction. If I were to animate it, I would have had it travelling through a city filled with sci-fi scenes.

The plasma gun in the bottom left corner works well with the theme because its not a usual gun. If I were to animate it, I would have a character later on created if I am to follow this idea shooting at an alien in a war scene.

The sci-fi glasses in the bottom left is a technical pair of glasses, I came up with the idea as I myself have glasses and would love to have a pair of these but if I am to animate these I will have these computer techniques and programs showing and glowing on the pair of glasses. I wouldn't have just the pair of glasses. I will have a face behind with human reactions such as eye movement and eyes closing etc.

The glove on the left is a plasma gun within the hand. I will have created a generating moving hand that charges up to shoot out of the hand, it would be like iron man and his guns in the marvel movie.

The plasma cannon in the middle top, I have it animate and flipping around each of the rings to charge up the power of the cannon. The parts around the outside will be glowing and have a sci-fi material. This idea is effective because I will have it sitting on a planet and it will shoot a beam from it, firing at another planet and exploding.

Storyboard

Progress to Final Outcome

During the making of my cannon, I had to use a lot of tools to make it how it looks, I followed a tutorial on youtube on how to extrude and inner extrude. While following this tutorial I created a well made object.

Here are a few of the objects and scenes I used within my work. They have had materials added to them which makes it much more effective.

Final Outcome

Evaluation

I believe my 3D animation is fairly well made, I made it as sci-fi as I could with the plasma cannon shooting into space. If I didn't have to spend about 12 hours trying to render it so I was able to upload it to my blog I would have made a second part to my animation of which it would be hitting a planet and exploding but for a few weeks, I wasn't able to render my 1st scene so I was worried I wouldn't be able to include it into my animation. I am still very happy with what I created, it works well with the theme.

Unit 67 Computer Game Engines

Unit 67 Computer Game Engine

To start off with this unit I had began to start using Unity for the first time ever. I started off by creating a rolling ball game in which you had to collect these cubes. I followed a tutorial on youtube to help me create this minigame.

While following this tutorial I was able to complete a game to the maximum like this tutorial has done.

This is a screen shot of the final ball game I had created following the tutorial. Everything worked just like the tutorials work.

Here are few screen shots of the codes within the ball, it consists of the balls movement with wasd or up arrow, down arrow, right arrow and left arrow. All movements are coded. The collectibles are also coded to being picked up and added to the counter in the corner. The coding also is the reason as to why the collectibles were spinning.

Here is a screen shot of all my components within the ball game. 

A close up of the ball and the collectibles.

10 Page Game Design

My game is going to be called Bristol Harbourside Maze. I intend to target the age group of around 13-18 due to its difficulty in completion of the maze size. It will be rated at a 3+ Rating because it doesn't contain much violence to have it any higher.

I intend to release the game by the 10th of December.

The game story is that you don't start right at the harbour side like everyone else plan, I wanted to be different and that you had to travel to the harbour side in a 3D maze to end up at the harbourside in which it would be a 2D game.

You will find the main character in Bristol attempting to find there way to the harbourside with is on the other side of the map.

You're a 15 year old who has a date at the Bristol harbour side if you don't find your way through the maze to get to her and collect the points to pay for dinner your date will leave you for good.

The game is split into 2 parts of which one is a puzzle game and the other is a collect one. Both are set in different places. The Maze is in a 3D world and you have to navigate your way through to get the next part of the challenge which will turn into a 2D collectable of which you control a ball and make your way around the map to collect the golden coins but be careful not to fall into the water.

When you first pop into the game you start in the house of the main character. The surrounding area of what you search through in the game will be full of roads and trees to set a calm mood but will also be quite stressful due to the difficulty of the maze.

The only game mechanics that are in my game is the 2D world where you pick up collectables to beat the game in the end and have a successful date.

The only enemy the main character has is time, you will have to get through the maze as quickly as possible. The world is the characters enemy.  

A start up menu will be first presented to the player. They will have to choice to go in or simply exit from the game, it will be the persons confidence to get through the game in a certain time.

Different Game Engines and their Functions.

Scratch is a programming language which edges on the really basic side of computer programming. It is a online multimedia  authoring tool that can be used by almost anyone to create a game using stepping stones to get more advanced in the computer programming world. Scratch is a basic form of coding because everything is pretty much done for you. Commands are simply displayed on the right for any command you would want to give. The functions of scratch is that everything is laid out for you and you would simply take a script from the list and place it in the editing block on the right and you can control a sprite which is usually 2D and command it to do whatever your mind sets. 

Unity is a cross platform game engine which is used to develop games for PC, Consoles, Phones and Websites. It is in fact the default software developing kit for the Wii U. This software is much more difficult than scratch as there are 2 possible game styles you can create. Either 2D, 3D or even both. The difficult part for this is the coding function. You have to place the commands in a code form not like tabs in scratch. Literally codes, but unity is nice and can also give you assets you can use from the store which makes your life easier, you'll just never get the experience to code things yourself and learn the software entirely.

Unreal is a game engine was primarily aimed at first-person shooters but have been fairly successful in creating other game style genres like stealth, MMORPG and other styles. The functions of unreal engine is that is used C++ which is a high degree portability and is a tool used by many game developers today. The big games like Bioshock were created in unreal engine. Even Gears of war. The functions are the same like unity with the coding world.

Flash is usually an animation software but also uses the same style coding like unity and unreal engine. As before coding is very precise and demanding in any sort of software that you use. Flash is an adobe product which has other functions such as animation. I have had experience with both animation and game creation with flash and I believe have turned out successful. I would have never thought that flash would be able to be game creating material. 

Harbour Side Research

This is the bristol harbour side, I found a few images of what it looks like as this can help me greatly within my work as I have a major reference to use in my work. 

From these images obviously water is a major aspect to the harbour side as well as boats.

3D Maze

I decided that I wanted to not start at the harbourside from the start but that you have to get to the harbourside from a location. I created a maze in paper at first. I measured each point, in cm which helped me through the editing in unity.

Here is my 3D part of the work, I had created. I didn't want to be the same as everyone else with their work being right at the harbour side. I wanted the person to travel to the harbour side and in which would change into the 2D game part in which is at the harbour. I thought a maze would be a fun and challenging game, in all honesty though I do think I should have added a map in the corner to show the maze as the maze is pretty difficult to get through; even for me.

Step By Step Guide to get Textures.

Here is the menu of where I add my floor textures, trees and grass to add more of a interest in looks.

After clicking edit textures you want to add texture to it.

Hit select and you'll be brought up to a box full of assets I had downloaded.

Select a asset to add to your collection of terrains, trees and grass.

This is the tree I had used within my work. I was able to adjust the sizes of the trees and the amount in one lot. This is a great asset as I can make each of my trees unique.

Here are a few assets of more trees I  could have used.

First person view of the maze. Looks quite nice actually.

2D Section of my game.

As you can see, I used the same sort of game style as the ball game I created a while back but instead on a 2D world. You must collect a few objects around the area.