Next Gen 25/02/16 Coding and Aiming Control

This week we learned how to use basic targeting in unity. The way the targeting worked was that firstly we created a basic turret looking shape (by combing a cylinder with a sphere) facing a basic cube (that acted as the player). The coding that was then used dubbed the cube as the target and then ordered the turret to follow the cube on both the x and y axis of unity (since unity is a left handed system, the x represents width and y represents height). Some of the code was created by using Pythagoras theorem and others by using cross products.


Once the game was activated the turret always followed the target, however it could not always keep up with the target completely, so it as some what slow and while it did follow the target we did not do anything extra to the turret so it could not do anything else.

We will be updating the functions in the future through other mathematics (finding magnitudes and vectors).

Next Gen 25/02/16 VFX Industry

This week the main work was about the pipeline that a lot of VFX movies go down. From pre to post production. The movie we looked at for this trend was Mad Max Fury Road. We were also set work to look up articles on the VFX . Some of the results I found were that the crew did mostly visual effects but in over 2000 shots of the movie had added visual effects. Main effects were the: metallic arm and stump, the night time portion and the toxic/nuclear sand storm.

The visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson guided the film crew on what should and what not should be cg. A lot of the models in the movie are only cg but were made through "Photoscans". These models include the citadel, many cars and particle effects from sand and dust. As for the pipeline, some of the assets that are completed before including research and development, pre-visualization and beginning the modelling process. During the film LIDAR, dynamic range photos, reference photos and film scans. In post production, that is were most of the work of VFX comes in play. In the section the work can include: texturing, rigging, rotoscoping, grading, animation, effects animation, look development, element shoots and composting.

We will be expected to do a assignment on using all of the steps in the pipeline on a self made shot in Maya and with what we are not aloud to do (since we don't have a budget) we have describe what we would have done and what we could learn from in the future.


https://www.fxguide.com/featured/a-graphic-tale-the-visual-effects-of-mad-max-fury-road/

Next Gen 20/02/16 Concept Art and Modeling

On the 10/02/16 we were tasked with drawing basic concept art with reference keywords to go off of. Firstly the keyword was "danger". However most of the group did not fully grasp the concept to well on the first attempt. I fell I did fairly well however the concept art that I produced was fairly limited compared to what it should have been. Next up was "repurpose" however I got incredibly caught of guard and had a hard time coming up with a idea that seemed feasible (feasible, not ridiculous).

After that the word we were then given was "alien". As was stated before we began just making designs for aliens would be the easiest thing to make (because it is). Other things that could be made could be technology, structures and ships
(typical enemy alien gear). As shown in the image most of the concept was alien designs, however  I did think of 2 forms of technology. However half of the images (the lower half) was not done during the time slots.

 After the images were complete we then got reference images for what we were going to  model in 3ds max.

However the first keyword concepts were not put into modeling. Only the alien art was. Only one of the drawings could be made into 3ds max to save time.

However the alien did not get finished  (the image is what I did in the given time). The main point of the model were that the limbs were minuscule in comparison to the more prominent features. Such as the eyes and hands. the "body" was 2 semi-spheres extended and connected together. The main problem I have now with the model are the arms. The cylinders in 3ds max are very difficult to use when making limbs because they can easily clip, the polygons can twist in unappealing and absurd ways and finally the to get the vertex's in the right spot in the right way is a pain.

I will continue this in my spare time, however this will constantly be a pain.

Next Gen 04/02/16 Solo Game Update

A brand new idea just hit me, for a game idea. The purpose of the game is to reach three different checkpoints to progress through to the next scene. Everytime that the objective is complete a new obstacle will spawn and the checkpoints will move and be blocked with time limits. A lot of the obstacles will be based on game shows (specifically "Total Wipeout" and "Takeshi's Castle"), This allows for a lot of experimentation with different types of code for a different type of obstacle, and combining obstacles to work of one another as we go along with different code, plus it would also not need any major models or texturing. Since all of the game will be assessed by the coding.

Other assets that could be included in this could be time limits, distortion and extra effects for the player. An idea I had was creating an adrenaline effect to the player. Giving the player extra speed and height in their jumps at the continuous decline of energy.

Next Gen 04/02/16 Tetris Animation Progress

The first process of the shot was to make the Tetris blocks (all seven of them)individually. The process went well for the basic model, however when it came to apply texture a problem occurred the edges of the cubes that make up the blocks all were very hard to see and makes it seem that it is all one model rather than a combination of 4 blocks.

So then I thought to saw of the corners and turn them a different colour to make the cubes stand out more. However even that dosen't seem to give the idea that the blocks were actual blocks. So then I outlined all of the edges of each individual cube. That does seem to at least define the cubes. So I will leave it at that for now.

Then it was imported into Maya to be animated. Firstly, the blocks were incredibly oversized, so it was difficult to get to scale. Secondly, the objects were a little glitchy to move, until the object
was placed. I begin the animation but never got to far and will need to revise mixing the shots with the animation in Maya.

VFX Movie Breakdown Post

The VFX high movie I wanted to look at was the 2005 version of "King Kong", especially since the movie production had production diaries to help. Most of the extra VFX were done by WETA digital (found by Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor and Jamie Selkirk). They have also done work on Man of Steel, Iron Man 3, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, X-men First Class, Avatar and Godzilla(2014).

Firstly, so much of the movie is animation because, as well as the basic VFX (adding background extras and vehicles, the creatures and some of the particle effects), all the actors had double cg counterparts, (to deal with all of the action scenes) and a lot of the sets were half animation or all animation.

The main piece of VFX is Kong himself. To deal with this WETA had Andy Serkis to do all of the motion capture for the creature. The basic motion suit had 20 markers on the suit to show the points of motion and an extra 50 on his face to get Kong's expressions.  Andy was forced to work with a few odd extrudes for the motion capture because the proportions from Andy to Kong were very different. To ensure this went well the first model of Kong was then placed on the capture to immediately after the shot was taken to see if the shot needed change. None of the shots with Kong are practical effects.

Next up are the extra background objects, some were models but most were VFX. The most diverse was the model of the "Venture" (the ship that takes the crew to Skull Island). They were 3 different versions: the small miniature used for long shots, the 12 foot model and the full to scale back deck based on another ship, the "Manuia". All of the side/low angle shots of the ship were made in VFX, as well as all of the skylines and All of the particles effects in the shots were all done in real-time and rendered in particle effects after the shot was completed. This also carried in most of the particle effects including, falling rocks, dust blowing and crushing rock.
Other major shots of extras was the city (taking place in 1933). The crew had a basic idea of some of the vehicle style and the lights on Broadway at the ending. However most of all of the shots had rotoscoping(animators trace over all of the frames in a shot so it can be altered to use in live action scenes) done to the shots. Also the main production was banking on the fact that if any bad shots came up the "Roto" crew could fix the shot later. Issues included removing unwanted items in the shot, such as safety cables and reflections from the equipment.  

All of the creatures on skull island(the v-rex, carnictis,foetodon,etc.) were done in post VFX. Their movements were based on real life animals that were then motion captured in action. Even shots when the actors are interacting with the creatures, it was mostly a digital copy of the actor from a certain distance. All actors faces were fully copied into digital from the beginning, something that was very new at the time. It allowed some shots to be very easy and allowed the actors more time with their performances while the VFX crew could alter their appearance, movements and more freedom for put the actors in unreasonalbe senario sets to work better with the CGI creatures (such as the canyon scene and the tree trunk shot out scene between the crew and Kong).

Next Gen 27/01/16 Coding/Unity

This week we hardly did any coding work. The main part of coding this week was coming up with a basic game idea that incorporates ideas of mathematic equations into our scripting in unity. I did come up with a few ideas (one based on the Lego power miners game "Cave Convoy" and one based on the zero gravity game in "Dead Space"), however after learning to adapt basic old games, I came up with the idea of crossing over Bowling and Mini-Golf. As well as the basic mathematic pieces of code (score and points-per-second) it can also have more complicated code compiled on top of it. However some of the ideas I have for the game I have no idea how to do (such as charging the force of the throw or how to get points for knocking down the pins, with being knocked down).
Most of what we did for coding is, learning some terminology. Including, Dot product (a series of multiplications with 2 or more vectors to give a single value) and Vectors (a length in a certain direction and/or speed in a set of numbers, and it can be a value can be multiplied by the co-ordinates to the scale factors).