I decided to have a quick look into modeling a character for CGI animation, as I felt some form of 3-D medium would be my next area of investigation, and I believed I had already touched upon stop motion with the paper cutout. So I decided to look into CGI and software such as Maya.
I know from a workshop with Ian last year and what I've heard from friends, that 3-D modeling isn't easy. However, I still felt I could give it a go, no matter how much of a failure I thought this decision would become.
As I was very inexperienced in the field of modeling I decided to try to work with a non organic design to start with. I chose to try and design a Police call box (TARDIS) as its shape is very blocky, which made me fell it could be easier to achieve than a design with confusing curves and angles, etc. I also chose this design as I am massive fan of Doctor Who and so modeling this would be of greater interest to me.
Although I knew full well I wouldn't learn how to model well in the short time before deadline, I wanted to think about goals I could set myself to possibly continue with after the module ends, so as to continue my own learning, rather than just meeting the requirements of this module and dropping it all afterwards.
Below you can see the two images I prepared, ready to model the Police Box/TARDIS from. They consist of the front view and the side view which works for the remaining three sides of the police box.
I know from a workshop with Ian last year and what I've heard from friends, that 3-D modeling isn't easy. However, I still felt I could give it a go, no matter how much of a failure I thought this decision would become.
As I was very inexperienced in the field of modeling I decided to try to work with a non organic design to start with. I chose to try and design a Police call box (TARDIS) as its shape is very blocky, which made me fell it could be easier to achieve than a design with confusing curves and angles, etc. I also chose this design as I am massive fan of Doctor Who and so modeling this would be of greater interest to me.
Although I knew full well I wouldn't learn how to model well in the short time before deadline, I wanted to think about goals I could set myself to possibly continue with after the module ends, so as to continue my own learning, rather than just meeting the requirements of this module and dropping it all afterwards.
Below you can see the two images I prepared, ready to model the Police Box/TARDIS from. They consist of the front view and the side view which works for the remaining three sides of the police box.
I then created two Poly Planes within Maya on the work grid, rotating them and positioning them correctly, and then assigning both of the image files to them. You can see the workspace at this stage via the image below:
The next stage was to then bring in a block shape which I intended to reposition and re-size and manipulate to the shape of corresponding Police Box images. I also edited the texture of the block object to be 50% transparent. This was done in order to make it easier to see through the object and be able to line it up with the shape of the images far easier. All of this can be seen in the photo below:
It was then at this stage that I decided trying to complete a task such as this would ideally require the support of someone that knows how to do it in order to guide me. So that then I know better how to use the software and apply the skills to different tasks when working alone. Manly because at this point I was trying to work out what to do through less then basic internet tutorials, etc and I was just lost on how to move forward with the task.
So I decided not to stress to much over this and go back to looking at the other mediums I had originally been working in so as to add further to my findings ready for my evaluative writeup.
Although Before doing this I thought I should try to use what knowledge I have of the CGI medium and, what little I have learned from this task, in order to calculate what things you would need to consider when designing a character for the medium...
So I decided not to stress to much over this and go back to looking at the other mediums I had originally been working in so as to add further to my findings ready for my evaluative writeup.
Although Before doing this I thought I should try to use what knowledge I have of the CGI medium and, what little I have learned from this task, in order to calculate what things you would need to consider when designing a character for the medium...
Some Things To Consider For Character Design Within CGI:
- The character will need to be rigged with an internal skeleton. In order to do this you will need to consider:
- Where are its joints going to be?
- Where are the IK Nodes being placed?
- How is it going to move?
- How readable is its shape?
- What are the textures to be assigned to the polygon shape of the characters skin?
- How is the lighting going to be used within the workspace?
- How does the characters skin mess respond to the lighting of the environment?
- The character will need to be rigged with an internal skeleton. In order to do this you will need to consider:
- Where are its joints going to be?
- Where are the IK Nodes being placed?
- How is it going to move?
- How readable is its shape?
- What are the textures to be assigned to the polygon shape of the characters skin?
- How is the lighting going to be used within the workspace?
- How does the characters skin mess respond to the lighting of the environment?