Final Blog post.

It's been a while since my last blog post, so I'll try to summarize everything that I've done for the past few weeks in relation to the cinematic project.

Since I have no pictures or videos to show you I'll just write it out.

For the past few weeks I have been mainly working on my 2 animation scenes, the one were X-22 is invisible up on the roof and then lands, and the other one where he stabbed Matt(the second part of it, since the first 25 frames of it were done by Rhys.

I was quite happy with how the invisible landing scene looked but I was pretty disappointed with my last bit of animation, the one where Matt gets stabbed, maybe is because I only had like 2 days to work on it while working on a lot of different things for the project, and possibly because we just didn't fully think about it, since we changed it from what Keat told me to animate, which I did and he approved it, but then at the end some of us decided to change it even tho it was probably too late for any changes.

I also did the VFX on Matt's eyes, which I'm really happy with they way the look, the first time I tried it was a bit hard to be hones, but the second time was a lot easier and I managed to get the eyes done in time. I also created the design of the eyes using the tools in after effects and I also animated it in order to give it a more robotic look.

I also did all the lighting and rendering for X-22 in every scene, this took quite a bit of time since I had to do 3 different render passes to each animated scene, and there 4 different animated scenes all together, that's 12 render passes plus the invisibility pass, oops 13 render passes which were the normal render pass with the texture and lights on, the Ambient occlusion pass and the shadow pass as well as the invisibility render pass.

I wish we could have had one more week to tweak a few things, but I'm really happy with the work we did and I think we all learned a lot of new things.

Eyes VFX Progress

I haven't posted on my blog in ages, because I have been working on a lot of different assessments at the same time and to be honest it has been really time consuming.

Today I managed to successfully do the VFX on one of Matt's eyes, the actual process is really simple but time consuming.

These are a few snapshots of my progress. the blue human eye vfx is animated too.

Animation from this week.

This entire week I have been working on my animation scene, which is the one where X-22 is up and jumps.

First of all, I just want to say that I've been having so much fun working on this project and animating too(my favorite thing to do), I really wanted to animate this scene because it gives me a good chance to try some cool poses......but as soon as I started animating I kinda restricted my self from exaggerating the poses because I create a box to resemble the room, meaning that I limited myself to freely animate X-22.

Today we showed the animations we've done so far to the tutors, I received some really good and constructive feedback for them (Thanks  to Keat, Dane and Blake for their feedback), they all pointed out really interesting things that I should do in order to improve my animation.

Right after the feedback sessions was finished, Keat came to help Jacob and I with our animations, and as soon as he started animating I could see how having a box(room) was restricting/limiting me from achieving a more appealing animation, it doesn't matter if you push your poses too far and break the rig(not actually break it, but you know what I mean) as long as it looks good on camera.



This is the animation that the tutors saw today during the feedback session.

This is the animation after the feedback from the tutors.

I also found out that the Ambient Occlusion render works super well as a camouflage, so now we have two options, one to apply that crazy looking glass material you saw today or to have the camouflage ambient occlusion.

Ambient Occlusion Pass

So last night I decided to try and combine both the normal render pass and the ambient occlusion render pass.

I would like to animate the entire cinematic using both render passes(normal and ambient occlusion) to create a better sense of depth and realism.

Today I decided to give it a go and render X-22 textured with a normal and ambient occlusion pass.


This is a normal render pass with basic(bad)lighting.

This is how it looks after combining the Ambient Occlusion pass to it.

Rig - 14/05/2016

Thanks to Keat and Blake(tutors) now my rig can be scaled from the Main Ctrl without any weird problems.

Yesterday(Friday), while working on the animatic, I had to pose X-22 in a variety of different poses that would give us a better idea of how he might look like once we start animating, I realize that his arms spend a lot of time spread up in the air/roof, and I found that whenever I posed him with his arms up in the air it would create a skin deformity in the shoulders, it'd lose weight making it look weird and stupid.

Today(Saturday) I decided to fix that problem by skin painting those weights, I spent around 20 minutes doing this, but in the end I didn't get the result I wanted, so I came up with a better idea (something I was supposed to do a few weeks ago but forgot :P lol , I ended up creating a clavicle control and that fixed the problem .


The clavicle controls are the long ones that come out from the clavicle area.

Last Week and This Week - 2/05/2016 - 13/05/2016

For the past 2 weeks I have been working on the rig, UVs and the Layout.

These are some the UVs I did for the model. Michael ended up texturing them. Sadly none of us really know how to work with mudbox so I'm not sure if we'll have textures created in mudbox for this week's submission.


Chest armor UVs

Main Body UVs

Pelvis UVs

Right Arm Armor UVs

Right Shoulder Armor UVs

Ribbs Back Plate Armor UVs

Yesterday and today, Jacob and I have been working super hard and staying till pretty late in class to finish the Layout/Animatic. These are a few shot/key poses that I did for it.

This is the Rig Reel that I finished putting together today.

Rigging - 04/05/2016

Today I slept through my alarm and missed on watching Zootopia.

I forgot to bring the latest maya file for the rig back home but I had a previous one saved on my computer, with pretty much the entire rig finished.
So what I did today, in fact a few minutes ago was to pose my character using the rig I built for it and see if anything is wrong with it.

I realized that I will most likely lock the translations for the chest control(which is call shoulder controls lol) because since it is part of my ribbon spine it is quite stretchy and X-22 won't be doing those type of movements. I still have to paint skin weight X-22 (you can see some deformations on his feet) but it shouldn't take too long because the bind skin applied to it didn't cause a lot of crazy weight influences all over the mesh.

I plan to have this fully finished by saturday,mainly the skin weight influences and the hierarchy system(putting everything under the main control Maester)will also tryo to do some basic blendshapes(only doing it if I have enough free time tho), I would like to have at least one for when X-22 is breathing, so he's not just standing still but actually breathing.

Semester Break - Finger Attributes 30/04/2016

I have come to the conclusion that fingers are super easy to rig and even creating control attributes for them using set driven keys is not hard at all, the only thing that annoys me the most is that it is a long repetitive process which slowly consumes your soul as you become more addicted to it(I've tried to stop myself from this endless purgatory but I just can't :( ......).

Oh yeah, the fingers ctrl attributes are the only left to do and I'll have this rig 90% finished, since I still have to skin paint some weights arghhhh, and hopefully I'll have enough time to add some weird blendshapes muahahaha.

Semester Break - 23/04/2016

Today I successfully managed to create an IK FK switch for both of X-22's arms. I achieved this by orient constraining the extra set of joints I had created for each particular set of arms(IK arm joints and FK arm joints) to my real/original/bind joints(whatever you want to call it), then I created a basic control with an IK_FK attribute, after that I used set driven keys to do the rest.


IK arm on

FK arm on

Semester Break - 19/04/2016 --- 22/04/2016

From tuesday I have been working on the arms IK FK set up, everything was working fines and I was about to start working yesterday on the IK FK switch, and I realized that some of my arms joints had rotations :( arghahghjdf, I wondered what was causing these rotations and after about 20 minutes of pure rage against Maya lol I realized that it was the pole vector constrain's fault(damn you pole vector).

so yesterday I decided to start working on it all over again, but obviously I kept all the controls I had already made and simply deleted the IKs, pole vectors and fixed my joints so that they had 0 rotation values.

The first thing I tried to fix this issue was to go to mesh and use the create polygon tool, and snapped it to my 3 joints(shoulder,elbow and wrist) I'm not gonna go through every single step, but in the end I snapped my ctrl Pole vector to my plane's vertices, the one that was snapped to the elbow, so now my ctrl pole vector was aligned(sort of) with my elbow joint, after that I applied the pole vector constrain and I saw an improvements, the rotations were much smaller this time but it wasn't perfect(it needs to be perfect in order for the IK FK switch to work). this method only works 90% in my opinion.

After that semi fail attempt I tried a second method which is using Locators and a few constrains, this method take little longer than the last one but it is much more efficient.

in the end I applied the pole vector constrains and it worked!! :D my joinst had no rotation values and all my joints were aligned correctly, I did the same for the other arm and I had no problems, so I would say this method works 99% of the time.

Now all that's left is to create the IK FK switch, and then I can continue my Rigging journey :)

Semester Break - 18/04/2016

This evening I decided to start working on the spine rig, I will be rigging a stretchy spine to give our character X-22 more freedom and to make it a lot easier and fun for animating.

Measuring the length between my root spine joint and the last spine joint that connects to the clavicles and shoulders.

Semester Break - 17/04/2016

Today I decided to start working on rigging X-22, the lower half of his body has already been rigged and now all that's left to rig is the top half of X-22.

As I was taking a look at the joints that I set up for the spine I noticed that there were some problems with the way it was rotating, I could easily tell there was a problem since I've done rigging before. I opened the outliner and I found that all the main 4 spine joints were orient constrained, I thought this was a bit weird because I hadn't done anything to it, (maybe ghost or aliens did this, idk), I easily fixed this by deleting those constraints and now everything is working fine.

Week - 8 - Final Model(not textured)

X-22 has finally reached its final form and his power level just went up over 9000!!!!! all the armour pieces have been modeled and placed together with the main model.

 Everyone contributed some modelling into the creation of X-22.

Credit for this go to :  Matt, Michael, Rhys and Jacob, who did a really good job and put a lot of effort into X-22.

This is the model with all its parts together.

Week - 8 - UV Mapping

Today I decided to work on the character's UVs, I knew it was gonna be a lot of work because of the way the topology had been built, specially on the right arm blade, luckily I managed to simplify the UVs and now the character is almost ready to be sent to mudbox and texturing.

This is what the UVs look like so far, I still need to work on it tho.

Week - 7 - Interactive Narrative

Of the key narrative elements discussed so far in the course (interactivity, level design/linearity, moral choice/non-linearity, character), which do you think is the most prominent, important or interesting in your chosen game?

For this week I decided to play Never Alone again, a game based on the indigenous legend of the Inuit people,I decided to play it again because I really enjoyed it the first time that I played it. Taking into consideration the key narrative elements that we have discussed so far in the course, I believe that the most prominent in this game is the character(s),  but what makes it so important?, well, for me it is the entire story behind those characters and what they have to go through to reach their final goal, there isn't much interactivity with the game, as the story is already settled and you can't really affect it, because this game being a basic platformer you don't get many options when it comes to controlling the story or have an effect on moral choices, the entire game is based on unfolding the story behind the characters, meaning that if this is not done correctly(story) then the player can easily get bored and stop playing the game, for this game to be successful both the characters and the story behind them has to trap you inside its narrative.  "Salen and Zimmerman state that "players are constantly shifting between cognitive frames that alternately place them “inside” their character in a relationship of direct identification and very much outside of it, aware of the character as an artificial construct and fictional entity, as well as their own status as players manipulating a tool or “puppet” according to the rules of the game", Never Alone does this really well, because the game and the story have already established two characters and a strong spiritual connection between them, and I believe that this connections is what drive players to play or keep playing this game because you can identify yourself in a way that we all have connections with either our family, friends,partner, etc,  and it makes you think about it even more, because the game also deals with survival, life and death and what it means to loose something or someone you care about and at least for me, it intrigued me to keep playing it. This connections or self identification with the characters don't happen throughout the entire game, but there are segments or parts of the game in which you can identify these little connections, from which the player can identify himself or herself, in a sort of "double consciousness" between the player and character, even though the two main characters from the game are already decided instead of creating your own "avatar", which would have probably created a much bigger connection  or relationship between the player and its avatar, but never alone does the opposite, you have to get to know the characters and their stories, once you have all of these elements then you can only begin to self create that relationship of direct identification and double consciousness.

In conclusion I strongly believe that the characters are the most important and interesting key narrative elements in Never Alone because they can establish a strong connection with the player and still be fun to play.

Week - 7 - 3D Model is 99% finished!!

Today I assembled all the pieces into the main model,this is a 3d collaboration by everyone in the team because everyone wanted to have a go at modelling , all the boiz worked super hard to finish this, and we all improved our skills a little more.

Today I mainly focused on fixing some topology issues found in some of the models given to me by my team mates and also cleaning the outliner and making sure everything is working fine. I also did a quick skinning test to make sure that our models were built in the right way.

Week - 6 - Interactive Narrative

Week 6, Interactive Narrative,  Could your game have developed its narrative and told the same or a similar story without any of the characters?

For this week's game I decided to play Fez, as soon as you start the game you get some indications about what you have to do, which is to collect the yellow cubes and after that you get some extra indications about moving the world from 2D and 3D, which is one of the best aesthetics of the game. I think the game could tell the same story without any of the characters, because it doesn't really influence the game that much, all you need to know are the basic indications about "what to do next"but for me the overall story doesn't affect much of the game and the character's don't really matter that much, you could have had any other character instead of "Gomez" and it wouldn't have changed much of the storyline, this is because the game follows a simple puzzle/platformer game structure, which is pretty much the same structure you see on every other puzzle/platformer game.

Fez is quite fun to play but what really got me into the game was the overall design of the game, the animation and art of Fez is extraordinary, the story didn't get my attention at all, in fact I thought it was pretty boring and plain, if it wasn't for the genius designs made by Phil Fish the game wouldn't have been such a great hit in my opinion.

In conclusion I think Fez could have developed its narrative and tell a similar story without any of the characters because they are not a major influence in the game.

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Week - 6 - Cinematic - Modelling

So yesterday I didn't come to class and didn't do any maya related work because I was feeling super sick.

Today (1/4/2016) I was told by my team mates that I needed to scale down the arms, make them look skinnier and scale the feet shorter

Week - 5 - Interactive Narrative

Are the “choice situations” in the game obvious or subtle? Do you know the outcomes of your choice prior to making a decision?


For this week I decided to play The banner Saga, I really enjoyed playing this game and can't wait to finish it.
The game has a lot of similarities to a game of chess, they are both based around tactics and strategies, trying to figure out what the opponent or enemy might do during their turn, this means that every choice you make should have an impact or a reason behind it, because it is a game based around turns.

I think the choices that I made in the game were subtle or at least I tried to make them subtle rather than obvious, I would have a reason to every single one of the moves I made with each of the characters, sometimes I would have to make some sacrifices in order to beat one or more enemies, therefore I already know the outcome of my moves, but like in any game based around strategies and tactics you can never be too sure about your moves, you always need a second plan, just like in a game of chess, sometimes I would sacrifice a pawn in order to destroy my opponent's tower with my horse.

In terms of the story, it didn't really caught my attention, sometimes I wished there was an option to skip all the talking and get straight to the game, but apart from that, the game is super enjoyable and fun to play, good thing it's a long weekend and I can keep on playing it.

Week - 5 - 18th to 23rd - 3D Modelling

On friday the model sheet was finished and I started working on our character's 3D model. We decided that I would model the entire "body" and everyone else will get assigned a piece of the armour to model, which will then be added to the final model.

I didn't do any modelling on saturday and sunday, I was super tired :) , but I managed to finish the body on monday.

On tuesday Jacob began modelling the leg's armour, I gave him some advice about what he needed to do and how to do it easier as well as giving him feedback.

On tuesday I finished the helmet of our character and a few final touches on the head as well as fixing some of the topology of the character, and in the evening I started working on the front chest armour which I finished that evening.

Today (wednesday) , I went to class and started working on the pelvis armour, it was a bit tricky to model but I managed to get it done too.

Everyone seems to be doing fine with their modelling and I believe we can get our final model done sooner than expected.


Unsmoothed version.

Week 4 - Sculpting

On friday Michael and I went to the life drawing room to look for the sculpture that I had been working on wednesday or thursday(I think), sadly the sculpture was no longer there and we couldn't find it, I want to believe that it got teleported to another universe and someone else is trying to finish sculpting it :) .

So we told Keat about this situation and he gave me some clay to take home and work on a new one. Sadly with so little time to work on it and no clay sculpting skills I couldn't finish it and I couldn't get it looking good either (it was quite frustrating and annoying).

Cinematic - Week 4

during this week I didn't have much to do since Matt and I finished the storyboard on tuesday, meaning that I had to wait for the turn arounds to be finished before I could start 3d modelling, but during that spare time that I had, I did quite some research about working with Maya and Mudbox as well as some after effects tutorials.

On tuesday Michael began working on the concept for the synth lord, he did some concepts based around the concept that Rhys came up with last week. I gave Michael some feedback on what he needed to do to make it look more physically appealing because I thought it was looking too plain, on friday I told Michael that I was gonna try to come up with a design for it(based around Rhys's concept) Because I had an idea on my mind about how to make it look "cooler". 

We then had another meeting with Dane and Keat, we got some good feedback and they seemed to like the vibe of the storyboard, they pointed out a few problems with it that we had already figured out and were fixed by Jacob in Animatic. 

Dane and Keat gave us really good feedback on how to make our synth lord look better, I took those feedback and came up with this concept that everyone in the team was happy with and would be used in the cinematic. 

On thursday and friday we took some photos of the theater room which is the location we'll be using for our cinematic.

The following post goes back to week 2 I believe, this is the early stage of the storyboard. These are really rough drawings that Matt and I came up with for the storyboard, a lot of these drawing were later used, others were fixed.