This week I focussed on preparing for retargeting animations using Unreal’s IK retargeter. Now that I have this set up I should be able to redirect my MOCAP data onto other targets, such as a paragon character or the unreal mannequin. Doing this should be much faster and cleaner than other methods of translating animation, and should also allow me to use and interchange whichever rigs and models I want, as long as they follow the same naming convention and skeleton hierarchy.
After moving this animation into spline, it was clear that some parts of the timing needed to be adjusted, holding some poses for longer and making clearer distinctions between pose transitions. Overall I’m pleased with the progress and I think that after some amount of polish, I will be content to move on from this shot. Initially, I was worried about this shot being too simple/boring, but now that I’m nearing the end I don’t feel that way, and I’m glad that I was able to push the comedy element.
This week I attended the mocap session using Vicon. I was supported by Kay who was able to bring in an actor who is very good at acrobatics. We have collected a lot of information in this session, and though I need to wait for the data to be processed, I am very excited about the information that was collected. I am aiming to retarget this information from the mocap skeleton onto the paragon character of my choosing: I’ll choose which model I’m going to use when I can access the data and choose whichever character is most appropriate.
In the meantime, I have been developing the scene for my game. I am heavily inspired by Street Fighter and have developed a concept for my scene. I would like to create a heavily-graffiti and abandoned urban-industrial area, as I think in terms of worldbuilding this makes narrative sense as to why there would be open space to train/or fight, and also draws inspiration from the original street fighter games. In previous projects, I have made very natural and organic environments and I would like to make a scene that is in a different aesthetic direction. I think this would be very viable to create in this timeframe since there are a lot of industrial assets available through Quixel bridge. I followed this tutorial to help me set up a 2.5D scene that only allows my character to travel on one plane, as I planned.
I have developed this shot further into “blocking plus”, adding clearer transition poses, improving the timing of my keys and poses, and adding moving holds and pairs of keys. I’m hoping that when I move this shot from stepped keys into spline, this extra effort will translate more quickly and retain a close similarity to how it looks in blocking. This process I feel really helps with developing the workflow of my shots, since I’ve found that working immediately in spline has me waste a lot of time making minor corrections because I’m preoccupied with correcting curves rather than having strong key poses.
Though I am still concerned about the amount of programming required, based on my research I would like to try and create a small playable demo of a game as an experience, implementing some of the elements of the game feel that I have researched. I am most likely going to limit the elements I try to implement as mostly visual since I am not well versed in programming or game creation, but will also aim to make a cohesive combat function.
Below is the list of animations I’m aiming to capture in my mocap session to make a set of animations for a character in a combat game demo.
I will be using VICON mocap to create these animations, as I’m extremely aware of the limited time available for this project, and creating these animations from scratch would likely take me the entire development time. As a result, I will use the mocap data with a paragon character that is available through the Unreal marketplace. I will create this game in a 2.5D space, which should allow me to simplify my environment and visual style, and is also reflective of games in this genre, such as Street Fighter, Super Smash Bros. and Guilty Gear as some key examples.
I have collected references of myself acting out the main action of this shot, which is a character flipping and then losing a pancake. I’ve blocked this action into Maya, trying to focus on clear poses, comedic timing and expressive acting without relying on facial expressions, using only body language. I’m excited to develop this shot further, though I am nervous that maybe it’s too simple of a shot.
Game juice, also known as game feel, refers to the small details and enhancements that make a game more enjoyable and satisfying to play. These elements can transform an average game into an engaging and more satisfying game. I’m considering basing my project around this concept, and as a result have looked at some different games and how they have used game juice:
I watched a really clear example of this in action in this lecture by Martin Jonasson & Petri Purho, which outlines exactly how a game can change in feel with added Juice:
The next project we are developing in our Maya classes is body mechanics and pantomime. This will be focussing on body acting, rather than relying on audio or facial animation to express emotion. So far I have gone quite action/parkour heavy in my body mechanics and animation projects, so I want to try something more comedic and bouncy, rather than only focussing on technically-led animation. My initial thought is to animate something like a pancake flip that goes comedically wrong. This animation can’t use animated cameras, so I don’t want to create a scenario that’s too complex visually. I will consider other ideas that have a physical comedy element to them.
This is the introduction to Project 2 in this module. I have been tasked with creating a user experience, which I consider to be quite an open-ended prompt. My initial thought is to create something playable in Unreal since I have a background and interest in game development, but I’m concerned this might be quite programming and animation-heavy. I would like to watch some unreal tutorials to see how possible it would be to create something similar to a one-person street fighter or a similar 2.5D combat simulator. I think this would answer the brief of creating a user experience since one of the fundamental design aspects of game development is “game feel”, which emphasises the importance of a game being fun is the play feeling good. Creating a good-feeling game should create a good-feeling experience for the player.
This week is the final week of working on our previs: below is the result, and the culmination of the last ten weeks of work.
On reflection, I think there are a lot of things I have learned and a lot of things I would change if I was taking on this assignment again:
That being said, I still think this previs is usable as a jumping-off point for FMP. I think this storyline could be really engaging with more time and development. I’m aware that this is my first project ever using animated cameras, so I think even though I am not entirely content with the outcome, It was a really valuable project to take on.
