I’ve been busy, so busy i forgot to post updates. Anyway after feedback from my tutor and uni mates ive changed the villain characters lower half. I’ve also called him Ryan. I’ve chosen a tripod design as i feel this helps to maintain a sleek and fast look, without being too big. Cutting the legs to three has helped reduce the overall size of the character. I also feel that the proportions now feel correct and the character doesn’t feel awkward. I also absolutely hate Zbrush. Its a wonderful sculpting package however exporting the mesh for use in maya is a pain. I didn’t realise that the CC mesh for Maya 2008 doesn’t correctly detect the Alpha so i was getting bloated ‘elephantitis’ renders. However i have managed to fix this. I would love to see a 1 button “export to …” option and export to all major packages. I downloaded the trial of mudbox 2009 however so im giving that a good test. So far, its amazing. I’ve managed to get to around 80 million polys before it gets a little slow. However i bet if i close down some apps and stop some background stuff i could get more. However its still a magnitude of 8x better than Zbrush.

Ive also started work on the good character. I’ve given him jeans and a black hoody. This is to tone him down and be less ’superhero’ as he has only just become this character. He doesn’t quite understand the transformation and he doesn’t want to stick out.

I’ve been busy poly modelling and sculpting the Villain character. This is the most detailed character i’ve created yet and while i needs more work i think its going well. Spent alot of time UVW mapping the character, while it may not be the best Mapping ever i learnt some quick and easy ways to unwrap pipes and tubes etc.

I created a base male mesh which i will use for the other character. I altered the mesh and created the villainous character aswell. Heres how it looks

The back of the head is supposed to be a metal plate cover, which ill detail to look like.

It’s been a while since my last update, however i havn’t been slacking off. I’ve completely re-thought the summer project. After having some feedback from my tutor i decided to start from scratch. I took some time to research about opposites, and bore it down to its basic form. I’ve looked at numerous opposites from history and religion. One that struck me as the definitive definition of opposite: Lucifer and God.

Looking at the story between God and Lucifer, there’s a basic premise which holds true in Most stories of this nature. God is the creator, the giver of life. He is considered the true definition of good, and holy. Lucifer was Gods right hand man. The most powerful angel in all of Heaven. Power and greed corrupted him and he led the damned angels in the war of the heavens against god. God cast satan from heaven and sent him to hell. Here he must forever spend eternity with the damned. This personal relationship between god and Lucifer is a key part of the story.
No one is born evil, even lucifer himself. Its the things that happen to us and the people we are around that guides us. Greed, power and jealousy can turn even the best people into evil meglamaniacs.

For this reason i have chosen to base my two opposite characters around two scientists. These two characters were almost identical. They had the same aspirations and goals, and while their motives are similar its their approach that leads them to where they are today. I’ve been thinking about their back story. Both of them grew up in different parts of town, first meeting at college then both working at the same lab. Over the years they accomplished lots of awards and invented miraculous things.
However when they worked on a project to promote cell regeneration and mutation for the army something went wrong. The yet-to-be evil character (lets say Steve for now) was in the way of the untested material, when the other character (bob) pushes him out the way. The lab explodes, and the two are taken to hospital. Steve character looses his legs and waist, while bob is severely injured and is put into a coma. A few weeks pass and steve awakes from his coma. However something is different. He discovers he has amazing abilities and while not invincible, has magnificent regenerative abilities.

Steve however, traumatized by the incident and loss of his limbs goes into a rage spiral. Everywhere he goes people look at him differently, and soon locks himself away. While he cannot regenerate and doesn’t have powers comparable to bob, he discovers he can control technology with his mind. Almost as if its another limb. So he decides to build himself a new body. A better body. He create a lower section which he has full control over. Jealous that he should have been the one to gain bob’s abilities and that bob should be the freak he decides to take vengeance on bob.
Bob has problems of his own however. It seems that everything he touches crumbles around him. The loss of his best friend and career causes him to alienate himself. He can’t seem to hold a job and has no control over his powers. However when he happens to save a young girls life, he knows what he has to do. He becomes a power for justice. He becomes a Hero.

The animation will take place when the two meet again. Time has passed and Bob has become a super-hero, still learning his abilities. Steve is now an all powerful megalomaniac, who’s primary goal is to kill Bob.

The story may be done to death, and isn’t very original. However there are still a few tweaks and adjustments that need to be made, such as definitive names and powers. I decided to keep the superhero and nemesis idea because i feel its a good one. I re-thought the story and spent a lot of time trying to create a back story for the two characters. I had came up with other ideas involving Demons and Angels, two competing salesmen, characters with split personalities, an indiana-jones type character who fights a creature, a Warlock and a Mage, Two Warriors. However i felt that while these were good ideas i prefer to stick with something that interests me. I feel that something i have greater interest in will produce a better animation.

I drew some character ideas on paper however my scanner doesn’t like my new Arch64 Linux box, so ill have to post images up later. However i have started modeling the Villain based upon my sketches. However ill have to look into using Normal Mapping and Displacement mapping as the current model it taking a whopping 74,000 faces without smoothing. Thats also without the organic character torso, head and arms. However ill also look into using XRef’s (Or the Maya equivalent). Im also looking at rendering techniques. I don’t know what style to aim for. Either realistic, cartoon-ish, pixar-ish, or full blown cartoon cel shading. Im leaning towards realistic or slightly cartoon-ish. However thats not a primary issue at the moment.

Its time for another spring clean with my computer. I havnt re-installed since i got the computer and its piled up with junk. I decided to do this now as i recently aquired 8GB ddr2 ram. This should help speed Maya up, and allow for larger Memory Caches with fluids and dynamics. I was using Vista 64bit before and i was quite happy with it so i re-installed Vista.

However i left 100gb partition for Linux, i decided to tryout Arch64. While i have tried many distro’s over the years and i have continually found myself returning to Ubuntu, i think i have now found my favourite Linux Distro. Arch is amazing, its quick and speedy and 100% configurable. The Pacman package system is top notch and comparable to deb and apt, however i dont like the AUR system. Also i have found that many programs have pre-compiled *.deb and *.rpm pakages while there isnt nothing like this for Arch. Arch64 has its drawbacks however. Its a purely 64Bit distro and i have found problems getting Flash and Java to work. Also getting grub to boot vista was troublesome.

However i must say that i do like Arch64 as a linux distro. I will most likely continue using ubuntu on my laptop however for convenience. Ubuntu is the only distro i have been able to use with all functions on my macbook, however i am looking to try Fedora 9.

Vista however has left me gobsmacked. I really cannot see why people just hate Vista. Im using 64bit version of Vista which has even less driver and application support and i have no problems. All my applications and games work straight away. Steam works 100% like a treat. Maya 2008 is almost as quick as the Arch64 version (Openbox). I love the start menu and sidebar. I didnt use the sidebar to begin with however now i have a few commonly used gadgets such as processor and memory management, calculator and recycle bin i keep it ontop at all times.

However my favourite feature of vista, is that it works. With OSX and Linux i am able to get a fully functioning system. With the help of parallels/cedega/crossover/wine etc i can also run alot of my applications. However the performance of these isn’t onpar with Vista. I also dont like having to run VM’s or add a compatability layer to the system (Purely my preference). OSX may have iLife, however i have never used an iLife application other than to mess around with. I prefer to get a dedicated application for each job, rather than a hodge-podge set made for beginners. Ie Lightroom instead of iPhoto. Dreamweaver isntead of iWeb etc.

Not to say that OSX is by anymeans crap. I love my MBP and i use it daily. However for majority of tasks i prefer to use my Vista Box.

I’ve been busy creating some costume designs for my superhero. I think his superhero name is going to be GreySteel or Vixor, depending on the colour scheme. I like the name GreySteel as its quite catchy, however i like Vixor as it reminds me of `Victor`, however its a little more Unique.

The first Character design i created i change slightly to be a little more colourful. Originally the name for this character was going to be `BR` for BloodRush, however i am going to change the name to either GreySteel or Vixor.

Then i decided to try a blue colour scheme

The next design is completely different and i really like it however i feel the chest needs an emblem or further design.

I like the overall design and i feel that character looks alot better with a cape. I think this would also be easy to create in maya,
using maya’s ncloth i should be able to create a realistic flowing cape with a feeling of weight, and it should calculate fairly quick.

Same design in orange, which i feel looks better than the blue version.

The colours also remind of my home town football team Wolves.

Finally the last design “GreySteel”, which i think isn’t as fancy and is quite basic. I like the design for its simplicity.

I added a little more colour

Finally a more metalic material with a purple tone

I still have a few more designs to draw out, however i like the GreySteel costume and name. Its simple however colourful and conforms to typical superhero designs. I like the cape and i feel the character stands bolder with a cape. I also dont think the cape will be much of a problem to animate, however making the cape stay in the right position may prove to be tricky. Using pre-cached ncloth data it should render the same rate as without a cape aswell.

I will probably add an emblem or logo to the character, but i have yet to design one, so the costume designs will change and they are not the final designs.

I still have to designt the robot. I’m still undecided on how the robot should look. If it should be a futuristic looking robot, or an older more rustic robot. Or be a hybrid robot and be part organic. I think i want the robot to be 3 or 4 legged however, as this would look better than a two legged robot. Im undecided on if the robot should have weapons or be a brash hitting robot. However i feel this is best decided upon the final robot design.

I have decided to create the project around Magic and Superheroes. I decided upon this topic as i feel i can best create a short animation around this while having a simple story-line that i can express in 30 seconds. I decided upon a Superhero and an Evil Robot. I feel that these are almost complete opposites. This will allow me to use a wide array of animation principles from IK to FK, and i can spend more time creating a complex FBIK system for the hero.

Over the summer i must create an A4 Bible, which will include ideas for the project aswell as full character histories and the animation story-line.

Here is a quick orthographic sketch i created of the hero. I plan on creating multiple costume designs and choosing a design i prefer best.

I would like my character to use magic. For this i started doing some test effects using Maya fluids. I created a quick plasma ball which you can view here

Plasma Ball Test Video