13. Assignment - Game Cinematic Reflection Report

As I am doing my rigging and enveloping to model which had been chosen to use in our game cinematic, I had faced with problem such as I was not able to adjust and see the weight color on my model.

I had tried some methods such as reinstall 3Ds Max and reset the preference, however it didn't work. Since this affected a lot to my rigging progress, I tried another way to envelop the model, which is physique technique. After using physique, I was able to do envelop to the model. However, there are still some part of model which I couldn't really envelop well and there are time limit to finish rigging. After I did research on internet, I got a solution to solve skin technique weight color problem, which is find out the ENU file of 3Ds Max, rename it as ENU.old, then launch the 3Ds Max to let it regenerate a new one.

After finish the model rigging and envelop, my teammate had found out a problem which is the measurement size we used in our 3Ds Max is different. This caused our model size looked like a giant vs an ant. We had surfed through some guidelines on resize the biped and model, however they didn't work. In the situation, we had to choose whether to change out storyline or one of us redo a model. Luckily, my teammate had solved the problem by adjust the measurement grid of both models to 0.1meter. Since I still get the result of giant vs ant after follow his instruction to change the measurement grid, I straightly took a copy of compiled file from him.

During the rendering process of game cinematic, I had faced with a serious problem, which is it took too much time to render. Due to time restriction, I rendered my part of work with default scanline rather than render with mental ray. Although the quality is not as good as mental ray, it still looks acceptable for me.

The another problem is size of video after rendering. I found out that even I already confirmed with the setting, which is 720p, the video it rendered out still is 480p. Even though I tried the 1080p, the final output is still the same. As the result, teammate and I decided to drag the video size during video editing.

Below is the final trailer completed with my teammate.

12. Assignment 3 - Final Animation

After few week effort, I been managed to finish the last animation assignment. I been faced some problem such as the model not really attach with biped, and I find out that this is called as envelop problem. In order to solve this problem, I been refer on a lot of tutorial video to solve it.

11. Assignment 3 - Short Animation

In the assignment. we required to create an animation by using the torso created in assignment 2. Follow the picture above, I draw the story board for this short animation. It is a human ran to avoid enemies and jumped down the platform to underground level. After it , he try to dodge the robot surrounding to the safe room and he finally can rest inside because he successfully escaped. 

After finish the story design, I been created the environment building, robot and platform and arrange them according to the settings I set. The building will be put in texture later.

The biped are skinned to the model torso I created in assignment 2. There are a problem that I faced which is the model skinning. The surface of the model still need to adjust to make it follow the movement of biped. According to photo above, it shows the problem of the model didn't follow well with biped. This problem still under solving as fast as possible.

10. Assignment 2 - Final Torso

In assignment 2, we been asking to create a torso model. In this assignment, we learned about how to create a torso from a cube. Follow the tutorial tips given, I been managed to create a torso by manipulating the vertex and line. However the model been successful created, but there are one problem faced which I can't solve it at the moment. The human hand is created separately with the body. There need attach them together and target weld the two model together to make it become one. During the step target weld, the two object cant weld successfully and I still trying to fix the problem.

9. Glow

During the class, we been taught about new technique which is glowing effect. With settings the glow effect, the object can be having glowing effect. This technique can be very useful in making animation for video or game which mostly will have special effect of shadow or texture. With using the lighting, shadow and this glow effect, we can do more effect manipulation in our production.

8. Cloth and Wind Simulation

According to the last lesson taught, I been learned about doing animation with simulation. It is a skill or a technique which is common use in games industry nowadays to create real life effect to players. The effect we learned from class is to use wind simulation to make the cloth or the flag flying on air. It combine the skill we learned and add one some new stuff in order to create this effect. I feel that animation of game are very important and need a lot of effort to make the game high quality and better.

7. Ripple, Wave, Bomb, Cloth

I had learnt to add effects such as ripple, wave, bomb and cloth effect to model. In the process, I been suffer sometime because of not familiar with the effect settings. To overcome the problem, I try find some resource on internet and asking lecture for advise. I understand the animation need lot of time to practice to make it perfect. After few time failure and test, I finally manage to get the effect required.