Character Development Part 1(Raw Sketches)

i) Raw Sketches

So I spent some time brain storming for how my character should look like and this was what I got.

I started with more conservative characters(left) then as I started to get more absorbed in sketching out characters. I stopped thinking and just sketched, managing to create some unique characters. Rider on a giant flying beast etc.

 

Narrowed down my selection to this character, Scumbag Jim. His messy look and pervasive grin lends him personality, yup he definitely looks like a scumbag!

 

 

 

 

More sketches and poses as I get a feel for how Scumbag Jim personality should be. Well He’s definitely a scumbag, a crazy scumbag!

 

 

 

ii)Characterization

1.Basic Details

Name: Scumbag Jim

Tag Line: “You’ll be dead!”

2.Character Story

In a distant future, in another galaxy. There is planet Anticus, discovered only 14 light years ago. It now serves as a spaceport for maintaining and supplying the countless ships that navigates the  inter galactic trade route. A hardened criminal Scumbag Jim(not his real name) managed to escape imprisonment by stowing away on a supply convoy, since that day Anticus has served as his home. In Anticus corruption is rife the perfect home for the likes of Scumbag Jim. Jim steals and robs, to fund his obsession with flight.

3.What is the driving force of your character – what motivates them?

Once upon a time, Jim had a simple passion: a passion for speed. He was a professional pod racer, talented but ruthless, willing to do anything to win pod races. Deceit, sabotage, matchmaking and racing made Jim rich, but not without making enemies. Eventually Karma caught up as Jim accidentally killed a Galactic Security officer during a bar fight. Jim was arrested, striped of his pod racer status and thrown into solitary confinement. During his years alone in his cell, clearly something went wrong. Jim became deranged, flying became his obsession. Nothing stops Jim from attempting to fly, not since his escape. Robbing, Stealing, Murder…Scumbag Jim is born.

4.Appearance

1. Scumbag Jim’s key visual feature is his unkempt look. He does not care about anything, except for his obsession with flying.
2. Another feature is his eyes , which shows how crazed Scumbag Jim is. There is no reasoning with him, it shows how twisted he has become after years in solitary confinement.
3. Another key feature is that most of time, Scumbag Jim is sporting a grin. He grins for absolutely no reason, his grin lends Scumbag Jim a sinister expression. Clearly he is deranged, beyond any help.

5.Behaviour

1. Scumbag Jim is mysterious, no one knows much about him. He lives on the outskirts of civilization, only dropping by to commit crimes or purchase equipment needed for his latest and greatest flying contraception. He is a loyal patron of the local garage, but turns to crime whenever he needs cash.
2. He walks in an odd manner, dragging his feet jerkingly and has a habit of licking his lips and grinning without reason.
3. At the same time he laughs for no reason, and does not when the situation is funny. His laughter is an unnerving cackle.
4. Stare & twitch, Scumbag Jim has eyes that are constantly twitching. But he can give an unnerving stare when he is dead serious.
5. At the same time what drives Scumbag Jim exactly is unknown, but one thing we know is that he is always coming up with new contraceptions for flying

6.Dialogue Sequence

Civilian: What do you want?

Scumbag Jim: Only to fly. [/Grins]

Civilian: Get away from me!

Scumbag Jim: Heh heh heh , have you ever wondered how wonderful it is to be flying ?

Civilian: Look you can have my wallet, just leave me alone…[/tremble]

Scumbag Jim: Ah-ta-ta-ta-ta that’s more like it [/licks lips and twitches]

Civilian: No, please I beg you.

Scumbag Jim: Oh darling, you do know that I can’t let you go don’t you? [/reveals knife]

Civilian: You’re crazy.

Scumbag Jim: I’m not. No, I’m not.[/Stab! stab!]

(Civilian slumps to the floor, dead, and of course rid of belongings)

WhatsApp and WindowsPhone 7.5 "Mango"

The private beta for WhatsApp has been up in the Windows Marketplace for a few days now. The WP community over at Wpcentral have even got a first look preview video of WhatsApp uploaded on youtube. Do check out the original article here.

WhatsApp first look by WPcentral

 

As you might have already noticed, I am an avid fan of Microsoft products and have been a Windows Phone 7 user since its launch back in late 2010. With Windows Phone 7 approaching its first birthday, Microsoft is going to launch the much anticipated Mango update, aka Windows Phone 7.5 to the masses.

Despite being in an ecosystem already saturated with mobile operating systems such as iOS, Android, Symbian and more. Windows Phone 7′s Marketplace currently owns the crown of being the fastest growing app store, even beating the Android Market.

"According to the latest statistics provided by Windows Phone App List, the app store took 312 days to reach the milestone, taking around the same time as Apple’s iTunes App Store and 7 months faster than Google’s Android Market."                                       Source: ITProPortal

However, although Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 has seen stellar growth in the apps catalogue department. There has always been something missing from it, and that missing app…is WhatsApp. Sure, WP7 might already have kik messenger, IM+, even the built in fb/msn chat for those already on Mango. But non can compare to the popularity of WhatsApp, a cross platform messenger application that has been missing from Windows Phone 7….until now(Almost!)

Unfortunately WhatsApp will require existing Windows Phone devices to be updated to the Mango update/ aka Windows Phone 7. Hopefully WhatsApp will be launched officially when the forthcoming Mango update arrives! Watch out for Windows Phone 7.5 "Mango" coming this fall.

Follow me on Twitter@inugeisha

Still waiting for Mango !

Cheers

–
Jasper Phua Kai Wen
Games Entertainment Tech
C260
Temasek Polytechnic

Microsoft Sidewinder X4 Review

Introduction

The SideWinder X4 is the second keyboard in the Sidewinder line of gaming peripherals by Microsoft. Back in 2008, Microsoft released its first SideWinder branded keyboard the X6, along with its partner the SideWinder mouse. Clad in black , along with red backlighting, detachable number pad ,full media controls and macro keys. The X6 was an exceptional piece of hardware and scored excellent marks in reviews.

Fast forward to 2010, the SideWinder X4 gaming keyboard is the successor to its older brother the X6. The SideWinder X4 is unfortunately, a cut down version of the X6. Gone are the fancy features such as the detachable number pad and cruise control. Instead what you get, is a price cut and a stripped down version of the X6.

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What’s New?

The X4 has "anti ghosting" capabilities that the X6 lacked. "Ghosting" is the problem that some keyboard face when multiple keys are pressed at the same time, the keys simply do not register. This is particularly important for gamers where multiple key such as W+R+C are pressed at the same time(Crawl forward + Reload!) are a common occurrence. The X4 allows you to press up to 26 keys at once and register all keystrokes! Seriously 26 is more than enough, I only have 10 fingers to mash them on, but so far so good as the SideWinder X4 managed to register all kinds of keystroke combinations in Borderlands, even good old WarCraft 3.

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Design and Construction

To be honest, Microsoft nailed it when it comes to the design and construction of the SideWinder X4. The X4 is clad in glossy black finish that feels great to touch. With the backlight turned on, the SideWinder X4 looks absolutely gorgeous in the dark, with the red leds looking absolutely menacing in the dark. The dark side is strong with this one though, at the expense of being a fingerprint magnet.

The keys are well made and comfortable with a pleasant travel and springiness to it, Microsoft has chosen to adopt the standard QWERTY layout for the SideWinder X4. The SideWinder X4 also comes with a kick stand which was missing from the X6.

The SideWinder X4 is no cheap office keyboard. It feels heavy and durable enough to survive a zombie apocalypse, or a Rage Quit? There is also a non detachable wrist rest that runs along the entire length of the X4, and has a textured matt surface. Some may prefer a removable wrist rest but not me, as most removable wrist rests feel flimsy due to their detachable components.

A common complaint of the SideWinder X4′s design is that the additional Macro keys cause mistypes. I encountered the same problem. Usually the left ctrl is at the edge of the keyboard and our hands tend to use the ctrl key to orientate our key presses but the additional Macro buttons means that the left ctrl is not at the edge of the keyboard. At first there were many mistypes but by the second day I was able to adapt and no longer hit the wrong keys!

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Macro and Intellitype

Installing Microsoft’s Intellitype software is required if you want to utilize the additional functions of the SideWinder X4. Sure the SideWinder X4 functions perfectly fine as a regular keyboard without Intellitype.

You can install Intellitype from the CD provided, or download it directly from the Microsoft’s site. Launching Intellitype you can assign Macros to the Macro keys on the SideWinder X4. The Macro keys can be assigned to keystrokes, commands, or even launching applications.

Macros are very useful especially in games, personally I Macro-ed the keys I and M to so that I could open my inventory or check maps in Borderlands. The macro keys are within easy reach of my left hand, and translates to a better gaming experience. You can also switch between 3 banks of Macros on the fly by using the bank switch located on the top left of the SideWinder X4.

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The Verdict: 9/10

With a build quality, beautiful design at an affordable price. The SideWinder X4 definitely holds its own against pricier keyboards. Extra features such as anti ghosting and dedicated Macro Keys makes the SideWinder 4 an all round excellent offering.

–
Jasper Phua Kai Wen
Games Entertainment Tech
C260
Temasek Polytechnic

Assignment 2 self critique day 11

Okay so it has finally been done. After many days I have finally completed the animation of my mechanical arm. This post will mostly be about self critique, more posts on the way.

The assignment specs states that part 1 of the weblog journal entries should be done by week 15, they are over here.

Grindor notices….AN EXTRA BOX?!

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Background

The end result is slightly different from what I have planned as shown in my previous weblog.Grindor is tired and wants to get the job over and done, he finishes stacking the boxes albeit in a lackluster fashion. He examines the boxes…the boxes are out of place…but he is too lazy to re arrange everything.

The boxes are finally arranged in a pyramid, finally! Grindor turns around…and argh! There is another box to be stacked! That means that Grindor has to remove all the boxes he has just completed stacking and restack them again! He cannot disobey his superiors.

Frustrated Grindor loses control of his servos and spins around in anger, his arm smashing into the stacked boxes. The impact sends the boxes flying, out of energy Grindor simply powers down.

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3.Self Critique

Discuss the success of your animation

My objective for this animation is to show that the mechanical arm is very tired and fed up of  his work( the stacking of boxes.) I think that I have largely achieved this.

To make Grindor(mech arm) look tired, I made his actions at the beginning of the animation slow. It gives the impression of Grindor being a sluggish and demoralized person.

Putting myself into Grindor’s shoes I would be more energized if I knew that my monotonous work was coming to an end. Similarly after the first box Grindor slowly loses the sluggishness and tries to complete his job faster.

When Grindor is curious he swivels around his joints to check on the object of interest. This is to portray curiosity, checking if everything is in place.

Finally he has the “It’s the last box and I don’t care ” attitude when he reaches(what he things is the last box) and drops it instead of stacking it carefully.When he gets angry he shouts and spins around, which is akin to a human being shouting and punching something in frustration.

In the final scenes of the animation, he looks back and forth between the remaining box, and the now destroyed stack of boxes, portraying remorse .

I strongly feel that my animation succeeded in bringing out the emotions of Grindor, and that he is not unlike us normal human beings on an emotional level.

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Also discuss how you applied the principles of animation, with examples

Squash and stretch:

Although there is no visible squash and stretch in this animation, the same principle applies on the mechanical arm as it did on the beach ball(previous exercise).The movement of the mechanical has to seem natural, it works like our forearms. When the arm moves it should move in a way that seems as if it is flexing. This is achieved by using the IK handle tools on a set of skeleton that the mechanical arm is parented to.

Timing:

Timing is one of the most used principles, everything from keyframing to where an object should be at a certain frame is determined by timing.For instance the boxes have to move away with force the moment the arm swivels around and hit it. Timing is crucial because an ill timed animation will result in it looking out of sync.

Anticipation:

The mechanical arm anticipates contact with the boxes and therefore gently adjusts the angle of its magnet before picking the boxes up.

Appeal:

I think that the animation should appeal to most people because the mechanical arm portrays emotions that we already have. For example, anger and fatigue.

Slow in and out:

I used this technique in keyframing the camera, there are scenes which I use a slow (zoom)in to focus on an object of interest before slowly zooming out for an establishing shot.

Arcs:

Is utilized in the boxes when they have been sent flying, when the arm smashes into the stack of boxes. The trajectory of the flying boxes is an arc, much like in the real world. The arc of the box’s trajectory simulates the pull of gravity.

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Do remember to check out part 1 of my weblog on assignment 2.

 

Cheers

–
Jasper Phua Kai Wen
Games Entertainment Tech
C260
Temasek Polytechnic

IN3D Assignment 2 day 5

Okay so it has been 5 days since I have actually started on the project.Why have I progressed so little in these 5 days? Well I had to wait for an IN3D lesson to actually be able to meet up with my lecturer to go through some of the problems that I have encountered.

Problem

So the big problem was that my constraints were not working as expected. Basically to make sure that the cargo box was fixed onto the platform(the red plane) I parented the box onto the plane. This resulted in weird occurrences when there are 2 parent constraints acting on the cargo box. Often it would refuse to return to its rest position when armCtrl W = 0 , platform W = 0.

Solution

After much repeated coaching my lecturer finally explained to me and was even kind enough to give me a hands on demo of how to overcome this problem. The culprit in this case is the BLEND constraint. Setting the blend constraint to 0 means that the parent object is not “pulling” the child object. By manipulating the blend constraint using 0/1 , I no longer need to parent the cargobox to the plane.

This is a screenshot of me repeating what Mr.James(lecturer) thought me the other day.Had to try it to make sure it works!

Here are the steps I kinda analyzed from his tutorship.

1. Animate the rest of the scene first, that means animating the armCtrl
2. Key the frame 2 frames before setting your constraints
3. At frame N key the parented object as 1, blend: 1
4. At frame N-1 key the parented object as 0, blend 0
5. When you want to release the child object leave the armCtrl as 1 ,set blend to 0
6. Child object is now released from its parent constraints

 

The above explanation might be technically wrong, but it works well enough! It can be understood as, 1st key is a savestate,2nd key is the off state, 3rd key is the on state.Or reversed in the case of letting go of the child object(arm ctrl).

 

cheers

–
Jasper Phua Kai Wen
Games Entertainment Tech
C260
Temasek Polytechnic

Maya Assignment 2-Animating the arm

Just a quick update.Its now week 16 and I have officially cleared the majority of my subjects, I’m just done with the draft for the cmsk brochure. And now I’m going to begin working on IN3D’s assignment 2!

 

Meanwhile I bought Fallout 3 during a steam sale to celebrate Singapore’s 46th Birthday!

 

IN3D assignment 2 precursor

This is a precursor weblog entry before I begin on my assignment 2 project! Firstly I have chosen to base my project on scenario 2.I shall try to inject more drama into this weblog to keep this entry interesting!

Scenario 2

The same as for scenario 1, the robot is busy stacking boxes.

However, the robot seems tired of its work, as if unfulfilled in life.

The robot wants to rebel and break free!

Animate how the robot attempts to rebel – or at least to break the monotony and grind of its work for a short time. For example, does it go crazy and throw boxes around, or do a robot dance, or stack the boxes in some unusual way, or what?

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1.Character:

[/Start Transmission]

[Flashback]

The battle raged on between both sides, the Autobots and Decepticons were at each other’s throat once again. It was a stalemate, neither was giving ground, thankfully there were none of the pesky humans around. Taking shelter behind the rock, I waited as my energon recharged and readied my weapon.

"Decepticons, attack!" Megatron sent over the comm links.

As one, we roared stepped out of our shelters and advanced towards the Autobot’s defensive perimeter. Streaks of blue and red fusion discharges raced across both sides of the battlefield, my audios were filled with the screech of the injured and dying.But still we advanced, to disobey Megatron is death itself.

Suddenly there was a huge explosion, followed by an even larger explosion. The light from the massive fission blinded my optics.

The large pile of enrgon cubes that we have been trying to capture must have been hit by a stray round, I thought. My optics were blinded and the resulting electro magnetic pulse disabled my circuits.

::Crap::

When my emergency circuits went back online, I surveyed the battlefield. Everyone was gone… there was only me…

::This is Decepticon Grindor m1063-84,  broadcasting on all frequencies requesting for immediate extraction from co ordinates G6-H82-A::

::…….. static….::

[/Flashback]

My name, is Grindor I am a Decepticon. Since that day I have been hiding amongst human, the injuries that I have sustained during the explosion have left me…disabled. I am unable to repair myself , my comm links have been destroyed and I can only broadcast within short ranges. Hundreds of years I have lied here waiting, under the watchful eyes of the humans, now allied with the Autobots.

I am disguised as a mechanical arm, on the Human’s most advanced AI circuitry factory. Bidding my time, scavenging parts to repair myself. Its disgusting having to act like a robot programmed to do the Human’s bidding. It is monotonous and degrading, frustrating being helpless.

::curse the Allspark::

Alas this factory manufactures parts that the humans provide for the Autobots, I shall restore my circuits. And serve my vengeance.

[/End Transmission]

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2.Storyboard:

Okay now that ^ was fun, writing a piece of fan fiction. On to the storyboard, below will be a photo of my storyboard.Pardon the bad drawing But I hope you get a rough idea of what happens in the animation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers

–
Jasper Phua Kai Wen
Games Entertainment Tech
C260
Temasek Polytechnic

IN3D wk12 Exercise 2

1) Do you need to be able to draw well to create good 2D animation? Explain your view.

Yes and No, when 2D animation is mentioned I think of those hand drawn cartoons like anime and cartoons.Those are definitely difficult to draw, and since the animations are drawn out frame by frame manually, it will definitely require a good artist.  My other answer is no, well that only applies if it’s a simple stickman animation!

2) Do you need to be able to draw well to create good 3D animation? Explain your view.

No, thanks to programs like Maya, we do not have to draw really well, instead we just model our object based on how it looks.Therefore a good modeling artiste will be able to create a 3D model by looking at a reference design. The reference design can be created by an artiste who is good at drawing!

3) What do you think would separate a piece of poor animation from a piece of good animation? In other words, how would you go about deciding if a piece of animation is good or bad?

Animation is just like a good film, the animation needs to portray itself effectively and speak to the audience. A bad animation will just leave the audience clueless on what the animation is trying to present.

4) In 2D animation, you need to be very aware of timing at a frame by frame level, using timing charts and other techniques – but for 3D animation, this is handled using the graph editor, which is more concerned with manipulating rates of change over time.

Does this affect how you approach your animation work? Explain.

Not much, although both methods are different they still have many similarities. Requiring a lot of manual observation and correction.

5) Give a brief critique of Maya as an animation tool. Don’t just say Maya makes animation difficult, or easy, or that you need to learn a lot of stuff to use Maya – explain what Maya does well and not so well in terms of creating animation.

I’m quite split on maya, Maya is definitely not intuitive. Because it is not natural for us humans, as compared to typing on microsoft words. But everything is tough in the beginning, I believe that given enough time I will be good at maya too. All it takes is lots of practice, I wish that my lesson timetable is not so hectic so that I can have more time to explore maya on my own. Yup I do have maya books loaded up on my Kindle!

 

Cheers

–
Jasper Phua Kai Wen
Games Entertainment Tech
C260
Temasek Polytechnic

IN3D Wk 13 Exercise 4 Luxo Jr

1) Apart from their different sizes, it is obvious from Luxo Jr. that the big lamp is “older” and that the small lamp is “younger”. How is this communicated by the animation? Give at least THREE examples.

1) Energy, Luxo Jr is portrayed as being more energetic, he is constantly hopping around and chasing after the ball. The audience can relate to this as Luxo Jr behaves like how a young kid would.

2) The curiosity and fascination that Luxo Jr has with the ball also further reinforce the character of Luxo Jr that he is a kid, bursting with energy and curiosity.

3) Lastly Luxo senior actions are more mature, he is less energetic and seems to be caring for Luxo Jr.Therefore I infered that he is "older".

2) Give an example from Luxo Jr of how timing is used for comic effect. Explain how the timing decisions contribute to the humour.

The timing of Luxo Jr is in short bursts, this gives Luxo Jr the illusion of being energetic, contributing to the humor because it allows the audience to relate Jr to a young kid.

3) When you create a joint chain, these form a hierarchy, with the first joint at the top and the last joint at the bottom. Explain why this is necessary for the joints to work properly.

It is essential for the joints to work properly because the joints will be the pivot point when making an animation, therefore allowing the animation to look realistic. It is also possible to animate without a join chain frame by frame, however it would be extremely inefficient and tedious.

 

Cheers

–
Jasper Phua Kai Wen
Games Entertainment Tech
C260
Temasek Polytechnic

IN3D wk13 Animation 3D

Firstly if you have noticed, I have yet to blog about wk 12’s lesson.Don’t worry! Calvary is on the way, I will upload it within the next hour after this post.

So in Wk 13 we will be working on a animating a 3D object, in this case  a mechanical arm using skeletons. This process of animating the skeletons is called rigging.

In this tutorial we will learn a few main things, they are:

• Hierarchy
• Creating a skeleton
• Inverse Kinematics
• Parenting and constraints

Hierarchy: This tutorial uses a lot of the hyper graph to view our object’s hierarchy.The hierarchy of our model shows which part of the model is controlled by which other part. In essence it allows us to see which object is a parent or child of other objects. It also allows us to see nifty little tricks such as the effector of an ik handle and so on. It’s a giant flowchart of how the animation object works.

Skeletons: Are basically well… skeletons, they are the support structure for your animation object just like how skeletons work on the human body. Skeletons also have joints, which determine the movement scale of your animation object.In this case our animation object is the mechanical arm, and this is how it’s skeleton look like.

Now that we have the skeleton, we need to bind the flesh to it, so that we can have an animation object. Now I’m using flesh as a metaphor so in this case we will parent the joints to arm 1-4(the skeleton).

Inverse kinematics is a subdomain of kinematics, which is of particular interest in robotics and (interactive)computer animation. In contrast to forward kinematics, which calculates the position of a body after a series of motions, inverse kinematics calculates the motions necessary to achieve a desired position.

Using the IK handle tool we can assign which joints have the IK properties applied. Using the IK handle tool, will select the closest skeletal joint wherever you have clicked on

 

Parenting & Constraints:

Parenting basically is the same concept that we have learnt in programming. The object to be parented to is the child, while the other object is the parent.The child object inherits the values of the parent. Always shift select the child before shift selecting the parent object before parenting(shortcut P).

Constraints like the word infers, constraints the object to a certain XYZ value be it translate or rotate. Using constraints we can limit the movement of an animation object so that it does not go out of bound(eg you can’t rotate a human head 360 degrees ) so we constrain the head to rotating 180degrees.

Below is a video on my mechanical arm model, I will explain more about some of the features that I have described above. Fast forward to the last few seconds to view the working animation!

Last few seconds for the moving mechanical arm

Cheers

–
Jasper Phua Kai Wen
Games Entertainment Tech
C260
Temasek Polytechnic