Spec Anim 2

For Spec Anim 2 we were given the choice of two projects. The first was a lighting/matchmoving/animation project in which students were instructed to film a background plate, use a light probe to gather the appropriate lighting information for the scene, and animate a short piece to then be composited realistically into the scene with lighting. The second project was an exercise in usage and implementation of the Unity game engine, and this is the project I chose to do. In hindsight I would have chosen the other project as it was handled a lot better, however I learnt a lot about using Unity so at least I now have some basic knowledge of how to import my animations into a game engine.

As I mentioned there were a lot of problems with this project, the brief wasn't finalised until fairly late on and it was unclear at times what we we meant to be doing. One thing that was clear was that an outcome of the project was to import assets into Unity and create working scripts. I fulfilled this aspect of the brief by using the mecanim animation system and altering the animation trees, and by using a visual scripting tool to set up a simple puzzle.

Below I've included a brief explanation of the work I undertook and a screenshot to show the outcome. Overall I enjoyed this project as I had to discover a lot about the program myself, however I also found it stressful because of this.

The two levels in the game were created using the terrain editor and the first has been populated with found models and materials as seen above.

I attempted to import animations onto a mecanim compatible model and used a script off the net to try and get it to work. However the model would not move off the spot, so for the finished scene I used a mecanim system that was already set up and altered the blend tree and script so that they would be compatible with the model. The image above shows the jump animation activated on the mecanim animation tree when the player jumps in-game.

The puzzles in the game have been coded visually using PlayMaker to set up Finite State Machines. I managed to do all of this by experimentation, and the final puzzles will only work in sequence with no known errors. The FSM shown above depicts the object's flow of states, currently it's collider has been triggered by the player and by interacting as needed the next state will be activated.

Finally, the second level contains a simple particle system set up to replicate the appearance of snow.

Spec Anim 1

This is the finished reel of work from my first project of the year. In Spec Anim 1 we had to learn to animate in Maya and in MotionBuilder in three weeks. I started using Maya at the end of second year for my major project work, but this is the first time we'd been taught how to use it properly. I wouldn't say it's any harder than animating in Max, there are aspects of both programs that I prefer, though generally I find the UI in Max to be more user friendly. Maya seems to have more options for animating though, so I'm glad I got to grips with it more in this project as I'll be using it for the rest of third year.

We only had a week to learn MotionBuilder which I don't think was enough time to understand most of the program. But I managed to blend some mocap clips and animate my own section in that time, so it's a good basis of knowledge if I need to use it in the future.

I'm more happy with some parts than others. All in all though I wish I'd spent more time on each stage of the project.

In week one the task was to animate two balls of differing weights (a tennis ball and a cannon ball) bouncing down a set of stairs and around an obstacle course.

For week two I had to create a simple walking ball rig and animate a walk.

And in week three I blended a set of clips in MotionBuilder and animated a section with added character

I'm not too happy with the timing of the balls in the obstacle course, and the ball walk needs some more work. But I'm fairly happy with the blended clips in MotionBuilder, though I think I should have spent a bit more time on animating in the program as well.

Below is a screenshot of the ball rig I made in Maya. We were instructed on the exact setup of the rig and it was fairly straightforward as it was the first time most of us had rigged in Maya. But I now have an understanding of the basic principles in both Max and Maya, so I shouldn't have too much difficulty if I need to create my own rig again.