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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