Class:
PIE 1 Art- Modeling

Assignment:
Continue working on your Samus model from the previous assignment. This is still a low res model you’re making. Again, when you’re done modeling, bind the model to a skeleton and make sure everything moves correctly. Use between 4,000 and 5,000 tris.

Description:
As you can see, I added some more detail to the model while at the same time getting rid of some unnecessary geometry (such as all those edges in the hand). I did a lot of work on the entire body, but most noticeable is probably the head, arm/hand, and the chest piece.

The “revisions” mentioned in the image descriptions refer to the numbered save files I have for each model. For example, I have eight different files, each being more complete than the last, with the eighth being the final model that I turned in.

Tris: 4,926

Class:
Rapid Prototype Production (RPP) 1

Game:
Antivirus

Assignment:
You will be split into teams of 4-5 consisting of producers, programmers, and artists. In two weeks, create a social and/or mobile game.  You can develop for Facebook and/or a mobile device.

Description:
Antivirus is a social, top down space shooter designed for playing on Facebook (it is no longer on Facebook). Players take control of an antivirus program that’s out to rid the digital world of viruses and malware. Players move around a confined environment shooting enemy programs while dodging attacks from said programs and trying to protect their own bits from becoming infected. Bits act like the player’s lives. Normally, bits follow the player around the field, but when they or the player gets hit by an enemy attack, they become infected, stop following the player, and begin shooting at him/her along with the enemies. Healthy bits randomly appear around the field, and can be picked up by the player before they’re hit by an enemy attack (and become infected). When the player runs out of healthy bits, the next shot to hit the player kills him/her and ends the game.

Enemies appear in waves. A certain number of enemies appear each wave, and when players eliminate the enemies from one wave, the next wave begins. There are three waves per level and five levels before the game is complete. Even if players don’t reach the end of the game, their scores are recorded.

On the social side of the game, players can could compare their high scores to those of their friends. The game also includes a level builder of sorts where players can designate how hard each wave of their “custom game” is. These custom games can then be sent to friends for them to play. While one may think that creating harder waves are the way to go, keep in mind that the harder the wave, the more points a player gets when playing/beating the wave. The scores of these custom games were also recorded and compared to friends’.

Credits:
Artist – Adam Grayson
Producers – Ben Crocker and Paul Weiler
Programmer – Laura Barton

Class:
PIE 1 Art- Life Drawing

Description:
These are all of my drawings from our life drawing class, held every Friday. The course was heavy on anatomy. Each week we would focus on a different part of the body. Often we were instructed to pay attention to not the exterior curves of the body but rather the interior bones and muscles that created the exterior shape. The beginning of class was usually dedicated to techniques on how to draw the part(s) of the body we were focusing on that week while the rest of the class was series of timed drawings, again focusing on that week’s part(s) of the body.

All of these drawings are in Photoshop using a drawing tablet.

Class:
PIE 1 Art- Concept Art

Assignment:
Use one of your top three winning character redesigns from the previous assignment and create eight variations on that design. You may use your the winning redesign from the previous assignment as one of the eight for this assignment. Do not worry about color yet, but do use both varying value ranges and shading in your redesigns.

Votes of 17 students from previous assignment (design – number of votes):
Design 01 – 2
Design 02 – 1
Design 03 – 5
Design 04 – 2
Design 05 – 3
Design 06 – 0
Design 07 – 0
Design 08 – 4 (I voted for this one)

Description:
Since design 03 was the winning redesign from the previous assignment, I used that as a base. Personally, I really liked 08 and 05, so I worked aspects of those into some of these redesigns. I was trying to go for a slightly older looking Fi with a different outfit than the original. Obviously I wanted her to be recognizable as Fi, so I kept some of the original outfit’s pieces like the jewel, her long, ribbon-like sleeves, and the criss-cross pattern on her legs, some of which I moved around. I also tried to introduce other aspects of the Master Sword and its sheath into her outfit.

I drew the redesigns in Photoshop and arranged them on a page. We printed our redesigns out (the last image below) and hung them up. Then we picked our one favorite redesign from each person’s work. The votes were tallied up, and whichever redesign got the most votes was the one we were to work on in the next assignment (in the case of a tie, the artist chose which one he/she wanted to work on). Which one do you like the best? 🙂

Class:
PIE 1 Art- Animation

Assignment:
Create/Complete a set of controllers for the model we’ve been using in previous assignments. Movement of the model should be driven only from the controllers, NOT the joints. The rig should include forward kinematic controllers for everything but the legs which should be inverse kinematic controllers.

Take data from one of our motion capture shoots and bring it into Motion Builder. Apply one or more of the mocap motions to our model (in Motion Builder).

Create a MEL autorigging script that takes an .fbx exported from Motion Builder and applies our rig to it. The script should also remove keyframes from the joints of the .fbx and instead apply the keyframes to the rig’s controllers. This will allow the imported data to be driven solely by the controllers.

Description:
The video (Maya playblast) is just part of this assignment. At this point, my autorigging script was not complete, so that’s why there aren’t any controllers in the video. What this video DOES show is the Ganondorf model I’d been using applied to a mocap take. I applied the motion to the model in Motion Builder, and this video shows the result once I imported the skeleton and model back into Maya. Note that this is before any modifications from me. This is just the unedited data from the mocap shoot.

The images document the rig section of this assignment.  The circles and arrows are FK controls, the boxes by the feet are IK controls, the L and R in front of the knees are pole vector controls, and the arrow in the back moves the entire model as a whole.

Fun fact: I was the actor for the mocap shoot 😀

Class:
PIE 1 Art- Modeling

Assignment:
Choose one of the Samus redesigns from the eight provided, create a front, back, and side view from the original perspective, and use those as reference to create a low res, rough draft model in Maya. Stay between 3,000 and 4,000 tris. After you’re done modeling, make a skeleton to ensure that there are no glaring errors with the geometry and how it moves.

Description:
As you can see, I chose design 7. I thought that design looked the most like Samus–like that could be a design you’d see in the game–and because the suit looked more slender/feminine and was very different from all of the other bulkier, pointier options. Plus I thought the holes in the front were pretty cool.

I took the original perspective view created by our teacher, and I made the front, back, and side views in Photoshop. I then set those up as image planes in Maya and used them as reference while I modeled. After that, I built a quick skeleton to make sure all of the movement looked relatively believable (there were some issues there, but those were fixed in the next few assignments 😉 ).

The “revisions” mentioned in the image descriptions refer to the numbered save files I have for each model. For example, I have nine different files, each being more complete than the last, with the ninth being the final model that I turned in.

Tris: 3,916