ALXN: DESN385

so i tried to fix my missing tummy in unity, in blender. i had an idea that maybe my normals are facing the wrong way. but appearantly they were all fine.  i still can’t figure out what is wrong.

after i exported my blender as .fbx and import it to unity, my walrus is missing a tummy. im going to try and go back into my blender files and fix it. otherwise, unity runs pretty smoothly for me.

it was difficult to make my walrus look REAL the most as i can when it comes to the walk cycle. i had to re-do the rigging a few times as some vertices werent supposed to move with certain bones etc..

more screenshots of my work on sunday 23rd march 08

i just realised that because i made my model out of one cube, i cant get different textures for different part. so what i had to do was to create a new blender file, for the eyes and tusks, export it as wavefront (.obj) with textures and import it into my walrus blender file.

i also had to do a bit more of grouping my bones together with this extra bits

uv mapping… is not my friend. everytime i tried to out it back onto my model, the texture doesnt show up properly.

after spending hours on blender… i find my charact somewhat boring. so I wanted to put a bit of life and pixar like look into it. i realised that its more what i’m into.

sketch

doug showed me this tutorial video on youtube that i find it really hopeful. tho

i havent got model to work yet . here are some screenshots of early stages of my character in blender

these are the screenshots of my early attempts in blender. obviously it’s not going to work out. the last time i had successfully made a 3d model was 3 years ago in 3dsmax. so this is very difficult for me to getting into. i ended up with way too many vertices and it ended looking like a snowman with a cabbage stuck to its head.

CHARACTER DESCRIPTION

name: CHIEF cALCIFER, Jr.

weight: 1899 kgs

he is the king of all walrosill, the frilled neck walrus, born and raise in the cold remote and harsh lands around the border of russia. he wears a purple/gold “W” large pendant that was given by his father who was also chief of all walrosill.

• frilled neck walrus
• movement: wobble quadrupedally [slow-medium speed]
• the frill of the frilled walrus is used to scare off potential predators

i got out two books from the library, the art of game character * the art of game worlds by leo hartas & dave morris. they’re both really really great books.

i find it really interesting especially the character design. it talks about the most important elements in character design and animation, the spark of life. they also give u a few tips on how to do a rough sketch for you character/ then move to refined sketch, colour sketch, modelling and uv mapping which i find really helpful and interesting.

the game worlds one is really interesting as well. i learned many things that i wouldnt have known. there are some great examples of sketches and early modelling stages that will give you more insight into the design stages they go through. lighting is very important. forms and architecture as well.

there are a lot of great examples of the most successful character designs of all time in the gaming world. two of the few books i enjoy reading,

ive decided to go with the walrus. but futher extend its physicality and characteristics. so i research into various types of animal species.. and came across a frilled neck lizard, found mainly in papua new guinea and australia.

so i decide to combine the two characteristics together.

i find this article very interesting… well… to be honest.. only the first 10 pages or so then i lost concentration. what interest me is that i have played and work with half-life before (garryMOD_?) and i never know how they come up with the levels, character design and gameplay experience “fun”. tho personally i never think of half-life as “fun” but after reading the article, its making me wanting to go back and play. the fact that they decided to go back and restart everything they’ve done 2 months before the deadline scares me.

the cabal team process is very interesting. it gives me a full insight on how game design actually works… and like they said.. it is impossible to find a godlike game design person but its possible to have a godlike game design team.

overall i think everyone who’s interested in game design should read this article. boom.

the other idea i also had was making a walking tree. inspired from the walking tree.

This tree is known as the ‘walking tree’ because it can move. If the tree needs to move, it just grows roots on that side and lets other roots die. Eventually the tree is relocated.

i also got my inspirations from various media such as lord of the rings (ent), alice in wonderland and world of warcraft.

and here are my sketches for my walking tree, which im going to called it “calcifer: the tree of life” calcifer has special power in restore life to others around him. when he uses his resurrection or restoration power, his body slightly transform…. into…. from just a stump.. he’s a tree.. a tree of life.

this is an early sketch of “the tree of life”

until i decided that i want him, calcifer to look more friendly. inspires from the fire demon in howl’s moving castle, one of the best animated movies of all time.

i have started researching the phenotype of an organism, and that organism is WALRUS. and yes, it weighs more than 1000kg. then come the sketches, i had this idea of making a russian walrus.. just because i want to call it WALROSKI.

WALROSKI’s profile: he weighs 1454 kgs. like all walrus(es) he prefers shallow shelf regions and forage on the sea bottom. walruses have a highly diverse and opportunistic diet, feeding on more than 60 genera of marine organisms including shrimp and crabs. WALROSKI especially enjoys sunbathing and listening to classical music like mozart/beethoven and drink russian vodka in the non-reproductive season.

I’ve done some research about character design in the past. Mainly from the sources I’m most familiar with, the internet. I came across quite a few useful links to help me get things started:

mojizu : a comtemporary character desing community

flickr and deviantart is also a good way to browse other peoples work that they’ve done relating to character design

i also found this very useful. computer arts talks about 20 tips to character design

most resources and examples i found are mainly revolve around 2D graphics so then I decided to look further into 3D, which lead me to investigation into character interaction and design. most examples i found are examples of character in game engines like world of warcraft.

ninjab on firetree

random gnome on google

characters in world of warcraft: the user have flexibilty in how they want to play the character,how it looks and how to dress it up. the characteristic are distinctive depending how the user customize them. unfortunate once the user create your character, you cannot change the way they look, only how they dresses.

these videos were took to further explore the concept of interaction and character movement within a gaming environment.

385research from Alex Nijathaworn on Vimeo.

385research1 from Alex Nijathaworn on Vimeo.