29/09/12 - First Test Fail

The first test I've been working on using the tutorial i mentioned in an earlier post has been lost. It's my own stupidity for not backing it up but my memory stick died. I guess it's better that it happened now than halfway through my project. Will help me remember to back up out of fear.

No matter though because I've started a new tutorial as I'd started to find the amount of detail the other one went into left little room for feeling and one thing I'd like to improve is my own ability to self criticise and for that to be possible i need to be able to have some flexibility.
I'm using this tutorial which uses a cartoon astronaut.

Because the character in this is more cartoon it should give me a chance to adjust the movements to become more realistic and give me the chance to self criticise.

As for the rig and model I'm using, I'm using a spider man rig as it could be an example of the generic main character from many games and as i won't need facial animation at this point in my project it's level of realism makes it a good rig to start with. I got the rig from creative crash and it's originally produced by a guy named Gary Wee.

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/spider-man

28th September 2012

Today was spent on personal development outside of the field I'm choosing for my dissertation. I had a go at illustrator for the first time. Just so there's some proof i did do something I'll post up my logos for an extra project that i produced.

Tomorrow back to dissertation work =]

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Things to do next

Previous
Create a generic walk cycle for a 3rd person game character (warming up for future tests)
Write some notes on existing game animations. - ongoing.
Write about games with animations I think are done well
Make notes on first set of books (1,2,3, 4, 5)
Write a basic plan of attack
Stop panicking

27th September 2012

I've just received the book by George Maestri that i found through a website earlier in the week. I've had a quick skim through the pages and at a glance it looks to be a very useful book. It focuses more on the concepts and methods behind the non conventional animations as opposed to walk cycles and run cycles. It also explains why certain things are important so i'll be reading this until 3 when i have a tutorial and then after    that i'm going to carry on with my generic walk cycles to kick off the tests. I'll probably update this later on with any findings so ill leave it open for now.

25th September 2012

I had my meeting with Lynn and Robin today. I covered a few of the things i wanted and overall i think a few of the things they mentioned were food for thought.

Here are the notes i made after i remembered it would be a good idea to take notes...

Stay clear of Player immersion, that focuses less on my animation skills and it becomes more focused on the player.

Look at game company pipelines

Look at limitations of Game Rigs

Look at movie cycles as well as game cycles

Possibly focus on the animation of NPC characters to avoid the issue of not seeing the face of the character ever?

Compare character movement between film and games of the same genre to pin point what games are still lacking

Investigate why NPC's animation is restricted in games

Charisma

Animex in February

Look at wheatly's animations and figure out how they get emotion across

Tangent possibility.. Look into gender differences in game animation or possibly children's animation in games.


LOTS OF MEDIA TESTS.

and finally, try to practise presentations in front of as many people as possible before actually doing it as it'll help with nerves. Make the slides helpful visual aid without adding risk of reading.


I've flipped through book  4.The complete Animation course - Chris Patmore i chose to look at it because it had a section on game animation but no information i could apply to my research. It would work better as a brief introduction to game animation.

NOTE: I'm using Wednesday's as one of my weekend days so no post tomorrow.

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Things to do next

Previous
Create a generic walk cycle for a 3rd person game character (warming up for future tests)
Write some notes on existing game animations. - ongoing.
Write about games with animations I think are done well
Make notes on first set of books (1,2,3 and 4)
Write up revised topic of study
Write a basic plan of attack
Stop panicking

24th September 2012

I've arranged a meeting for tomorrow with both Lynn and Robin to discuss my idea and so today I have been  trying to summarise my thoughts and beat them into some sort of sense and order. I've also been trying to write down any questions i think of so i can get the most out of the meeting. Here are my notes so far:


Question type thing?:
Player immersion and how character animations can affect it.


Things i may need to consider within my research:
Body Language
Environment Design (so the character would have something atmospheric to react to)
Restrictions of character animation within games
Target audiences
Story based game play
Game animation techniques


Questions:
Would i need the help of a programmer?
Would it be better if i rigged and produced my own character for the tests?
Is what I've thought of too narrow or too broad?
How could i incorporate more concept work into the project?
Would i need to look into environment tension for the purpose of more immersive tests?
Would it be an idea to attempt to team up with an environment design project?
Are any/all of my questions stupid?


I've taken out some books from the library including Understanding Animation just on the off chance it contains something useful. The first of many I'm sure, I'll make a note of the books i take out on here and any useful things i find from the books.

Books
1.Understanding Animation -Paul Wells
2.Acting for Animators - Ed Hooks
3.Acting for Animators (Revised) - Ed Hooks (there was a reason i got out both)
4.The complete Animation course - Chris Patmore


I feel fairly unprepared for honours. I have a lot of drive and motivation but I can't seem to figure out how to channel it into the right places. And I'm trying really hard not to let my nerves get in the way of my thought processes. I just want more of a plan.

Update: Just watched followed a webchat done by the lead animator and a senior animator at blitz games just wanted to keep a record of the answer they gave to where do you see game animation going...

"Creatively I think we’ll just continue to push the realism of animation, edging closer to feature quality. For example, animating a blink a few years back was simply an upper & lower lid rotating in a linear fashion. Now we’re thinking about which lid moves faster/further, ‘how’ the lid actually moves, the way it squeezes in more than one axis, all the muscles around the eye that are also affected like the brows and the cheeks, asymmetry in a blink, the many different variations of a blink - half blink, double blink, offset blink., and it goes on and on.

Technically I think we’ll see a shift from where animation is created. We’ll move away from everything being hand crafted in programs like Maya, and be creating more content in the actual games editor. Square Enixs new Luminous Studio engine unveiled at E3 shows they have listened to artists demands to be able to change content faster & on the fly. Valves new source filmmaker even has graph editor like functionality, making it possible to edit & create animation in the editor. It makes sense to move this way as looking at animations in a vacuum doesn’t show us what the end result will look like. In the editor we can see how all our animations are being blended together and how player response and gameplay design are affecting them. It will also speed workflow and feedback as they’ll be no need to keep re-exporting files. It’s exciting times !"


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Things to do next

Previous
Create a generic walk cycle for a 3rd person game character (warming up for future tests)
Write some notes on existing game animations. - ongoing.
Borrow Understanding Animation from the Library
Write about games with animations I think are done well

New
Make notes on first set of books (1,2,3 and 4)
Write up revised topic of study
Write a basic plan of attack
Stop panicking

22nd September 2012

Admittedly today I have done very little towards my  dissertation other than play some games paying close attention to the animations used. As I've mentioned before (i think) i was going to look at a few Rockstar games as they all are fairly similar with slightly varying characters and so should react differently right?

Yesterday i started to arrange a meeting with both Lynn and Robin to discuss my ideas though. I'm not sure which of them would be more appropriate so why not get two opinions right? Chances are i won't be able to meet them at the same time.

There's another reason i haven't done all that much. I have a childlike excitement for my birthday tomorrow and so I've been a little unfocused and when attempting to do something useful I've failed.. chances are tomorrow i may be the same but then I'll come back with a new found drive on Monday. I was considering having Sunday's and Wednesday's off so i keep my sanity anyway.

Oh and looking at other peoples blogs is making me jealous that i have very few pictures... i'll need to sort that.

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Things to do next

PreviousSet up a meeting with the appropriate lecturer
Create a generic walk cycle for a 3rd person game character (warming up for future tests)
Write some notes on existing game animations. - ongoing.
Borrow Understanding Animation from the Library
New
Write about games with animations I think are done well

21st September 2012

I've just been hunting around the web for possible free game character rigs i could use as i'm not really wanting to create my own character. Experience has taught me that animations are far easier to create when the rig is of a higher quality and i'm not sure if i should upgrade my own skills as part of this project or not. Something I'll have to discuss at my meeting.

I looked up the understanding animation book and it's currently in the library so i'll borrow it and see if it could be of any use for literature reviews and things.

General Google of game animation techniques to try and identify some of the existing trends.
I came across this website written by George Maestri:
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=22801&seqNum=3

He brings up one of the issues I've been thinking about concerning limitations of game animation. The character must be under the command of the player during active parts of the game.

" Moves must be short to preserve interactivity. If a player moves the joystick, he doesn't want to wait several seconds for an action to complete before the character responds. No matter how good it looks, the gamers of the world will loathe your animation if it takes too long to play back and spoils their control of the character."
He also talks about cycles that should be included, one of the points he mentions is Reacting

"React. For added realism, it's a good idea to animate your character reacting to something, as shown in Figure 5. This reaction could be anything from a head turn to a full-body take. The reaction depends on what is interacting with the character, such as react to bite, react to shot, react to fire, and so on. This usually involves about 15 or fewer frames."

Figure 5.

This point is interesting because of what examples he uses. He mentions a lot about physical reactions to things such as gunshots but doesn't really consider mental reactions to the environment like if the atmosphere of a room became tense would the characters generic walk, run and jump cycles reflect that by becoming visibly nervous? Of course this would add a lot of extra work for the animator but would it add anything to a players experience or would they even notice the changes at all?

From this article this book looks like it could be useful as it talks more about concept and technique rather that software tips. I'll look into it more.

For the rest of my work today other than playing some games and making notes on the character animations (which kind of counts but i'll be doing it on my own time) i'll be looking up a tutorial for a walk cycle for games, i figure if i see how someone else approaches it i'll be able to adapt my own approach and improve my methods.
Update: I've found this tutorial which looks like its pretty in depth and comes with it's own rig so i'm going to try this one and post the result either tomorrow or the day after depending on how long it takes me to follow.
http://www.ewestlund.com/downloads/basicWalk_tutorial.pdf

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Things to do next

Previous

Look up Understanding Animation (Book)

Set up a meeting with the appropriate lecturer
Create a generic walk cycle for a 3rd person game character (warming up for future tests)
Write some notes on existing game animations. - ongoing.

New
Borrow Understanding Animation from the Library

20th September 2012

First!

This will be my daily record of progression throughout my final year of university. It will follow my thought processes and progress I make towards my final dissertation and accompanying project. It'll hopefully help me make sense of what I come across and how to order it.

This post will be all that I've accumulated and whatever I can remember of the last week. Wish me luck.

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I've added the evernote app to my phone so that I can keep an on the move mental notepad so i don't forget as much as I do normally.

I've finally got round to reading the two dissertations from last year that Lynn kindly sent to me. Even though they are to do with animation and film, not games they were both interesting topics and I can still look at some of the places they went for references as a guide for a portion of my research. It also eased my mind a little as I feel they weren't quite as formal as I was building it up in my mind to be.

Looked at a book named "designing arcade computer game graphics" by Air Feldman. Not really useful as it focused on practical theory.

Read the handbook

I've jotted down the following as notes on evernote throughout the past week, bare in mind they are ramblings and are in no particular order.. I also think I repeat myself in places:

Topics of interest
Animation for games?
Animation for films?
Rendering?
Facial expressions?
Performance? (too cliché?)
Animations effect on player experience
Game cutscenes integrated into games (seamless transitions like uncharted series)

Programmer
How much would I need to rely on a programmers aid?

Research points
Look into game theory
Psychology of games and how people play them
Why people play games
Character animations that already exist and how they portray personality (case study? maybe using rockstar games as a constant?)

Will need to produce
Tests of various emotional states that can be shown through the body language of a 3rd person playable character.
Need to research into visual clues for emotions/body language studies.

Research
Type of person who would benefit from more in depth animations... those that focus on story? People playing games like cod probably not so much...

Mindmap created in Lecture today.

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Things to do next

Look up Understanding Animation (Book)

Set up a meeting with the appropriate lecturer
Create a generic walk cycle for a 3rd person game character (warming up for future tests)
Write some notes on existing game animations.