Major Project Production Report
Introduction / Background
For my major project I will be designing two characters and environment . I will be designing 2 characters and environment in Adobe Photoshop software . Modelling and UV unwrap in Autodesk Maya . Sculpting and transpose in Zbrush . Scene Comp , lighting and particle fx in Autodesk Maya and Adobe After Effects. Texturing in Zbrush poly-paint .
My project will be focusing on creating a realistic character used for film . Learning organic sculpting is the main objective in my Individual Learning Plan . I will be learning character design and character modelling . I will also be focusing on lighting , dynamics and compositing as I have never done it before .
Problems I might face is texturing and dynamics in compositing my scene . Another problem I might face is losing quality of the High-poly model while exporting to Autodesk Maya from Zbrush .
Concept
Character development sheet :
Name : Eleazer
Complexion : Pale /Wrinkles
Eye Color : Blue
Height : 5 ft 11 inch
Weight : 68 kg
Specialities : highly intelligent , high knowledge of chemicals and physics
Main Goal : To create Elixir of life
Language : English , German , French and Italian
Creature Concept :
Creature Development sheet :
Name : Estyer
Complexion : Wrinkles and tough skin
Color : Blue/green
Height : 4 ft
Weight : 72 kg
Specialities : strong limbs and teeth , high sense of smell and highly intelligent
Life span : 20 years
Main Goal : help and protect his master
Language : No vocal cords
What harms him : electromagnetic pulse
The set will be created completely in CG and will be focused on environment and two characters . I have never till date created an environment of this scale before and would relish this opportunity to create my own characters .
It will be a work of art, will weave in a story to support the visual imagery. The work will be entirely studio based and will not be requiring any industry research.
I will be reading stories on famous dark fantasy, looking at different artistic styles and referring to famous authors and artist doing similar work.
The prime reason for creating this concept is mostly personal, I have always liked dark fantasy and steam punk characters. References would include various maps of the Victorian time period, various classic books , games and related films.
My character is in a dark fantasy environment going out of his house to conduct an experiment in an isolated place with his pet . My character is a intelligent mathematician. He always lived in isolation , trying to invent new gadgets and research on chemicals . He is trying to find a way to achieve immortality and that is the sole purpose of his life. My second character is a creature pet created by the inventor (Main character) . Environment and exterior of house is inspired by dark fantasy genre and my main character is based on steampunk genre.
The Timeline in which my character is 18 century London, when the Industrial Revolution began. The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, improved efficiency of water power, the increasing use of steam power, and the development of machine tools. It also included the change from wood and other bio-fuels to coal. Textiles were the dominant industry of the Industrial Revolution in terms of employment, value of output and capital invested; the textile industry was also the first to use modern production methods.
The Timeline in which my character is 18 century London, when the Industrial Revolution began. The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, improved efficiency of water power, the increasing use of steam power, and the development of machine tools. It also included the change from wood and other bio-fuels to coal. Textiles were the dominant industry of the Industrial Revolution in terms of employment, value of output and capital invested; the textile industry was also the first to use modern production methods.
Research
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. In particular, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. Some economists say that the major impact of the Industrial Revolution was that the standard of living for the general population began to increase consistently for the first time in history, although others have said that it did not begin to meaningfully improve until the late 19th and 20th centuries.
The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain, and spread to Western Europe and North America within a few decades. The precise start and end of the Industrial Revolution is still debated among historians, as is the pace of economic and social changes. GDP per capita was broadly stable before the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern capitalist economy, while the Industrial Revolution began an era of per-capita economic growth in capitalist economies. Economic historians are in
agreement that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in the history of humanity since the domestication of animals, plants and fire.
The First Industrial Revolution evolved into the Second Industrial Revolution in the transition years between 1840 and 1870, when technological and economic progress continued with the increasing adoption of steam transport (steam-powered railways, boats and ships), the large-scale manufacture of machine tools and the increasing use of machinery in steam-powered factories.
Men’s fashion
Shirts of linen or cotton featured high upstanding or turnover collars . The trend of detachable shirt collars and cuffs (although first appearing in men's fashion in the 1820s) became highly popularized during this time period. The newly fashionable four-in-hand neckties were square or rectangular, folded into a narrow strip and tied in a bow, or folded on the diagonal and tied in a knot with the pointed ends sticking out to form "wings". Heavy padded and fitted frock coats (in French redingotes), now usually single-breasted, were worn for business occasions, over waistcoats or vests with lapels and notched collars. Waistcoats were still cut straight across at the waist in front in 1850, but gradually became longer; the fashion for wearing the bottom button undone for ease when sitting lead to the pointed-hemmed waistcoat later in the century. Full-length trousers were worn for day. Breeches remained a requirement for formal functions at the British court (as they would be throughout the century). Breeches continued to be worn for horseback riding and other country pursuits, especially in Britain, with tall fitted boots.
Anantomy
Constructing a realistic body is like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle. The more you understand the individual pieces, and the more accurately you are able to position them, the easier it is to put the rest of the body together.
Approach big shapes like a Sculptor
Always subordinate small details to the big shapes. In computer graphics, especially in newer programs that let you sculpt fi ne details quickly and easily, it’s simple to start right into the details (wrinkles, texture, veins and so on) of a character before the larger shapes are correctly established. If you approach the task of making a CG model like the sculptors of old approached working in stone, it will help to structure the construction process. Think of how a stone sculptor has to carve a chunk of stone into a blocky model first, taking care to establish the correct proportions and big shapes. Only once this stage is complete do the actual muscular shapes and details get carved in.
Check Silhouettes
Checking the silhouette of your model is a good way to assess the larger proportions and gesture of your model, without being distracted by the lack of finer details, which will be established later. Set your model to a flat, un-shaded colour and zoom out to where it’s small but still readable on the screen. Check the outline of the model, looking for the big shapes and proportions. A dark, un-shaded colour helps you concentrate on the big shapes and ignore the fact that the model isn’t finished.
Studying a Skeleton
The skeleton is the foundation of any character – human, animal or otherwise – and must be understood before the muscles will make sense. Say a client asks you to model a coat hanging in a closet. Being a dutiful artist, you would have to ask two questions to make sure the client gets what he or she was looking for: most obviously, what kind of coat is it. However, perhaps more importantly, you’d also ask, what’s the shape of the hanger. Just as the hanger dictates the shapes of the hanging jacket, the skeleton dictates the shape of the body and hanging muscles. Besides being the scaffolding that establishes the proportion of the body, the skeleton serves as the start point and end point for all of the skeletal muscles.
Mass Conceptions
It ‘s important to have a mental simplification of the large shapes of the skeleton. With a simple mass conception of the skull, rib cage and pelvis, a figure can be sketched quickly to show balance and proportion. Each of these masses is decidedly complicated when examined in detail, but it’s enough for the artist to understand the large masses of these forms and use them to establish the large shapes and planes of the figure. Both Bammes and Loomis present excellent simplifications of the main masses of the skeleton – see ‘Further reading’ on page 55.
Put masses in your model
There should always be a sense of underlying structure in your models. This is achieved by maintaining your mass conceptions as you start to place the muscles onto the body. A simple technique in CG is to actually create simplified mass conceptions underneath the skin of your model. These will serve as a reference for both modelling the muscular forms on top, and also a reference during rigging to make sure the deformations don’t violate what’s meant to be the rigid skeleton underneath.
The bony points
We acknowledge the importance of the skeleton and understand the simplification of the big masses of the pelvis and rib cage, but what next Well, you need to learn the key bony points on the surface of the body. These are the places where the skeleton lies directly underneath the skin. They’re great reference markers for establishing the proportions of the body and for accurately placing the surrounding muscle groups. Not only that, but these are the places on your model that, when you’re rigging, shouldn’t deform at all – they should only move rigidly with the joint. Some of the most important are the point of the shoulder (acromion process), the spine of the scapula, the seventh cervical vertebra, the points of the hip (anterior and posterior superior iliac spines), and the elbow (olecranon and the epicondyles of the humerus). See the diagram on the previous page.
Origins and Insertions
What are the bony points good for Well, like the coat hanger example, they dictate how and where the muscles originate and insert. Understanding these muscular attachments will help you to determine the direction of pull of the muscle, no matter what pose the figure is in. This dictates how edge flow should be laid out.
Pulling power
One of the most important structural aspects to understand about muscles is that they must span at least one joint to function. This simple mechanical principle gives muscles their pulling power. They originate on one bone and insert on another bone further down the hierarchy. It’s a simple concept, but it makes the interplay of muscles across joints both dynamic and believable. At the elbow, for example, there’s considerable interlocking between the upper and lower arm muscles. The forearm muscles extend well above the elbow, attaching onto the upper arm bone (humerus). Likewise, the biceps and triceps extend below the elbow, attaching into the forearm. The principle of interlocking holds true right across the body, so emphasising this will make your models become much more powerful.
The Forearm
The two most complicated areas of the body are the forearm and the scapula. Both owe their complexity to the number of muscles and the numerous directions in which they pull. Mastery of these areas will require additional study, so do pay attention to them. When it comes to the arm muscles, the origins and insertions of the biceps and triceps are relatively simple, but the muscles of the forearm are much more complex. As a roadmap to help you in your study, begin by understanding the structure of the lower end of the upper arm bone (humerus). There are two important bumps there (epicondyles): one on the outside and one on the inside. From these two bumps respectively, the extensors and flexors of the hand originate. The flexors then travel on the inside of the forearm, while the extensors travel over the outside.
The Scapula
Much of the complexity of the back – which beginners often incorrectly approximate with a few arbitrarily placed lumps and bumps – is due to the scapula (shoulder blade) and all its muscles sliding to and fro over the rib cage. Again, to tackle this complicated area, start by understanding the bony form of the scapula. The shape of the bone is like a guide map for placing the muscle. The spine of scapula is an important bony landmark that will give away the orientation of the bone and the disposition of the muscles that reside there. Approach this area like a detective.
The skin and fat
Your investigation of anatomy will certainly have you studying from reference plates. These plates show every muscle in fi ne dissected detail, but it’s important to remember that this is what the muscles look like without their top layer of fat and skin. This layer acts to soften and, in some cases, entirely obscure the muscular detail. The effect of skin and fat on the underlying muscles is like looking through a piece of frosted glass – you can still see the shapes and masses behind the glass, but the edges are blurred and many of the details are lost. Always cross-reference what you see on the muscular plate with photos or drawings of what the area looks like in real life.
Écorché
This word is French for ‘flayed’ and it describes the practice of drawing or sculpting a figure without the skin. Drawing écorché figures dates back to the 15th century and is a great way of learning anatomy. The technique is simple. Start with a reference image showing good muscular detail and tape a piece of tracing paper over it. Now find the bony landmarks on the figure and use these as reference points to locate and place the muscle groups in the surrounding areas. Draw in the muscles, taking care to indicate the direction of the muscle fibres, and continue until it’s complete.
Wolf Anatomy
Skeleton –
The skeleton of the wolf is well adapted to its lifestyle. Their bones need to be strong, for power in bringing down large prey such as caribou, deer, elks or moose. The narrow collarbones, interlocked foreleg bones and specially adapted wrist-bones give the wolf streamlining, strength and speed. The radius and ulna bones are ‘locked’ in position. This inability to rotate the forelimbs gives superb stability when running.
Large Brain Capacity –
Skull capacity allows adequate space for an advanced cerebral cortex (brain) necessary for coordinating group social activity.
Wolf Paws
Wolf paws are able to tread easily on a wide variety of terrains, especially snow. There is a slight webbing between each toe, which allows them to move over snow more easily. Wolves are digitigrades (an animal that stands or walks on its digits, or toes) and with the relative largeness of their feet, helps them to distribute their weight evenly on snowy surfaces. The front paws are larger than the hind paws and have a fifth digit, the dew claw, which is absent on their hind paws. A dew claw is a vestigial digit of the paw which grows higher on the leg so that when the animal is standing, it does not make contact with the ground.
Bristled hairs and blunt claws help wolves to grip on slippery surfaces, and special blood vessels prevent their paw pads from freezing. Scent glands located between a wolfs toes leave trace chemical markers behind, helping the wolf to effectively navigate over large areas while keeping others informed of its whereabouts. Unlike dogs and coyotes, wolves lack sweat glands on their paw pads.
The body of a wolf allows it to be able to survive in a variety of different locations. The bodies of these animals are built for ultimate survival. It allows for them to be able to run fast, to track prey, and to take down large animals.
They can have thick fur that is a variety of colors. They can include white, tan, brown, black, and gray. They are known to have beautiful colors of eyes that can be sky blue or chocolate brown. When it comes to their colors and their size they have a huge range from one end to the other.
There are two types of hair that grow for a wolf. The undercoat is very close to the skin. It helps to offer a water proof barrier so that the body can stay warm and the overall temperature regulated. The guards are the hairs on the outer layers that we see while looking at a wolf. The thickness of both of these coats depends on the climate as well as the time of year. Scent glands are found in the fur, along the tail that allows them to mark their territory.
Even though the body of a wolf may seem very thin overall, it is full of thick muscles. The scrawny appearance of the legs and the head can give a false impression that they aren’t a force to be reckoned with. The chest region is very slender so that they animal have a full range of movement.
Most experts believe they have more of a range than any other type of animal. The overall size will depend on the location as well as the species of wolf that you are talking about. Some are only about 50 pound and others are about 200 pounds. From their nose to the tail some are about 4 ½ feet long and others are more than 5.5 feet long.
All wolves have rounded ears and a mouth full of extremely sharp teeth. When they are full grown then will have 42 teeth in their mouths. The front teeth are pointed which allows them to puncture as well as to cling to various elements. The molars are also pointed so that they can easily shred their prey. They have back molars that are flat and that they use for crushing the bones of their prey.
Their jaws are extremely powerful which allows them to capture their prey as well as to fight when they need to. The secret is that their jaws interlock so they can bite and hold onto prey with very little effort. You will notice that the feet of wolves are extremely large. They average is nine inches by ten inches. This allows them to walk on top of snow and ice rather than sinking down in it.
The bottom pads are very thick and what is interesting is that the front feet have five toes while the back feet have four. These animals have magnificent hearing which helps them to find their own pack as well as to find where prey is.
The nose of a wolf is very sensitive and able to pick up smells a very long distance from where they happen to be. The tail of a wolf is very long as well. This helps it to keep balance while walking. The tail is also used to keep the face warm in the bitter cold.
Eland Anatomy
The Giant Eland is the largest species of antelope in the world. They have a body length between 2.2 and 3.45 m (7.2 - 11.3 ft), a tail length of 90 cms (35 inches), and they weigh between 300 and 1,000 kgs (660 - 2,210 lbs). Depending on sex, Giant Elands differ greatly in size, males can grow to almost double the weight of females, and can reach up to 1.8 m (5.9 ft) at the shoulder. The coat of the Giant Eland is reddish-brown in colour and is usually darker in males. The torso features 8 -12 well defined vertical white stripes. The colour of the male's coat darkens with age, and it has been stated that the darkness of the coat reflects the levels of androgen in the body. Androgen is a male hormone which is highest during rutting.
Giant Eland have large ears that serve as signaling devices and both male and females have tightly spiraled, 'V'-shaped horns. They can be up to 123 cm (4.04 ft) long on males, and 66 cm (2.17 ft) on females. Males have horns that are thicker at the ends, longer, and more divergent than those of females. Giant Eland can move quickly, running at over 43 mph (70 km/h), and despite their size are exceptional jumpers, easily clearing heights of 1.5 m (4.9 ft).
Found A book that has anatomy study of mythical creatures :
The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black
Philadelphia, the late 1870s. A city of gas lamps, cobblestone streets, and horse-drawn carriages—and home to the controversial surgeon Dr. Spencer Black. The son of a grave robber, young Dr. Black studies at Philadelphia’s esteemed Academy of Medicine, where he develops an unconventional hypothesis: What if the world’s most celebrated mythological beasts—mermaids, minotaurs, and satyrs—were in fact the evolutionary ancestors of humankind? The Resurrectionist offers two extraordinary books in one. The first is a fictional biography of Dr. Spencer Black, from a childhood spent exhuming corpses through his medical training, his travels with carnivals, and the mysterious disappearance at the end of his life. The second book is Black’s magnum opus: The Codex Extinct Animalia, a Gray’s Anatomy for mythological beasts—dragons, centaurs, Pegasus, Cerberus—all rendered in meticulously detailed anatomical illustrations.
Parallax
Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines.[1][2] The term is derived from the Greek word παράλλαξις (parallaxis), meaning "alteration". Nearby objects have a larger parallax than more distant objects when observed from different positions, so parallax can be used to determine distances.
Astronomers use the principle of parallax to measure distances to the closer stars. Here, the term "parallax" is the semi-angle of inclination between two sight-lines to the star, as observed when the Earth is on opposite sides of the Sun in its orbit.[3] These distances form the lowest rung of what is called "the cosmic distance ladder", the first in a succession of methods by which astronomers determine the distances to celestial objects, serving as a basis for other distance measurements in astronomy forming the higher rungs of the ladder.
Parallax also affects optical instruments such as rifle scopes, binoculars, microscopes, and twin-lens reflex cameras that view objects from slightly different angles. Many animals, including humans, have two eyes with overlapping visual fields that use parallax to gain depth perception; this process is known as stereopsis. In computer vision the effect is used for computer stereo vision, and there is a device called a parallax rangefinder that uses it to find range, and in some variations also altitude to a target.
A simple everyday example of parallax can be seen in the dashboard of motor vehicles that use a needle-style speedometer gauge. When viewed from directly in front, the speed may show exactly 60; but when viewed from the passenger seat the needle may appear to show a slightly different speed, due to the angle of viewing.
Camera Angles
The relationship between the camera and the object being photographed (ie the ANGLE) gives emotional information to an audience, and guides their judgment about the character or object in shot. The more extreme the angle (ie the further away it is from eye left), the more symbolic and heavily-loaded the shot.
1. The Bird's-Eye view This shows a scene from directly overhead, a very unnatural and strange angle. Familiar objects viewed from this angle might seem totally unrecognisable at first (umbrellas in a crowd, dancers' legs). This shot does, however, put the audience in a godlike position, looking down on the action. People can be made to look insignificant, ant-like, part of a wider scheme of things. Hitchcock (and his admirers, like Brian de Palma) is fond of this style of shot.
2. High Angle Not so extreme as a bird's eye view. The camera is elevated above the action using a crane to give a general overview. High angles make the object photographed seem smaller, and less significant (or scary). The object or character often gets swallowed up by their setting - they become part of a wider picture.
3. Eye Level A fairly neutral shot; the camera is positioned as though it is a human actually observing a scene, so that eg actors' heads are on a level with the focus. The camera will be placed approximately five to six feet from the ground.
4. Low Angle These increase height (useful for short actors like Tom Cruise or James McAvoy) and give a sense of speeded motion. Low angles help give a sense of confusion to a viewer, of powerlessness within the action of a scene. The background of a low angle shot will tend to be just sky or ceiling, the lack of detail about the setting adding to the disorientation of the viewer. The added height of the object may make it inspire fear and insecurity in the viewer, who is psychologically dominated by the figure on the screen.
5. Oblique/Canted Angle Sometimes the camera is tilted (ie is not placed horizontal to floor level), to suggest imbalance, transition and instability (very popular in horror movies). This technique is used to suggest POINT-OF-View shots (ie when the camera becomes the 'eyes' of one particular character,seeing what they see — a hand held camera is often used for this.
Camera Movement
A director may choose to move action along by telling the story as a series of cuts, going from one shot to another, or they may decide to move the camera with the action. Moving the camera often takes a great deal of time, and makes the action seem slower, as it takes several second for a moving camera shot to be effective, when the same information may be placed on screen in a series of fast cuts. Not only must the style of movement be chosen, but the method of actually moving the camera must be selected too. There are seven basic methods:
1. Pans A movement which scans a scene horizontally. The camera is placed on a tripod, which operates as a stationary axis point as the camera is turned, often to follow a moving object which is kept in the middle of the frame.
2. Tilts A movement which scans a scene vertically, otherwise similar to a pan.
3. Dolly Shots Sometimes called TRUCKING or TRACKING shots. The camera is placed on a moving vehicle and moves alongside the action, generally following a moving figure or object. Complicated dolly shots will involve a track being laid on set for the camera to follow, hence the name. The camera might be mounted on a car, a plane, or even a shopping trolley (good method for independent film-makers looking to save a few dollars). A dolly shot may be a good way of portraying movement, the journey of a character for instance, or for moving from a long shot to a close-up, gradually focusing the audience on a particular object or character.
4. Hand-held shots The hand-held movie camera first saw widespread use during World War II, when news reporters took their windup Arriflexes and Eyemos into the heat of battle, producing some of the most arresting footage of the twentieth century. After the war, it took a while for commercially produced movies to catch up, and documentary makers led the way, demanding the production of smaller, lighter cameras that could be moved in and out of a scene with speed, producing a "fly-on-the-wall" effect.This aesthetic took a while to catch on with mainstream Hollywood, as it gives a jerky, ragged effect, totally at odds with the organised smoothness of a dolly shot. The Steadicam (a heavy contraption which is attached a camera to an operator by a harness. The camera is stabilized so it moves independently) was debuted in Marathon Man (1976), bringing a new smoothness to hand held camera movement and has been used to great effect in movies and TV shows ever since. No "walk and talk" sequence would be complete without one. Hand held cameras denote a certain kind of gritty realism, and they can make the audience feel as though they are part of a scene, rather than viewing it from a detached, frozen position.
5. Crane Shots Basically, dolly-shots-in-the-air. A crane (or jib), is a large, heavy piece of equipment, but is a useful way of moving a camera - it can move up, down, left, right, swooping in on action or moving diagonally out of it. The camera operator and camera are counter-balanced by a heavy weight, and trust their safety to a skilled crane/jib operator.
6. Zoom Lenses A zoom lens contains a mechanism that changes the magnification of an image. On a still camera, this means that the photographer can get a 'close up' shot while still being some distance from the subject. A video zoom lens can change the position of the audience, either very quickly (a smash zoom) or slowly, without moving the camera an inch, thus saving a lot of time and trouble. The drawbacks to zoom use include the fact that while a dolly shot involves a steady movement similar to the focusing change in the human eye, the zoom lens tends to be jerky (unless used very slowly) and to distort an image, making objects appear closer together than they really are. Zoom lenses are also drastically over-used by many directors (including those holding palmcorders), who try to give the impression of movement and excitement in a scene where it does not exist. Use with caution - and a tripod!
7. The Aerial Shot An exciting variation of a crane shot, usually taken from a helicopter. This is often used at the beginning of a film, in order to establish setting and movement. A helicopter is like a particularly flexible sort of crane - it can go anywhere, keep up with anything, move in and out of a scene, and convey real drama and exhilaration — so long as you don't need to get too close to your actors or use location sound with the shots.
Z-Depth
The term z-map might be a little misleading to those who are not familiar to working in 3D space. In high school geometry class the concept of two-dimensional space: the x-axis represents horizontal space and the y-axis represents vertical space. Whenever you work in packages such as Painter, Photoshop, Commotion, Combustion or After Effects you are working solely in 2-dimensional space. When you work in 3D you have, in addition to the x- and y-axes, a z-axis, representing depth. A z-map is a grayscale image, similar to an alpha channel that is a graphical representation of depth. An alpha channel uses 256 levels of gray to determine masking, transparency, etc. - in a z-map every pixel in a scene is assigned a 0-255 grayscale value based upon its distance from the camera. Traditionally the objects closest to the camera are white and the objects furthest from the camera are black. In computer graphics, z-buffering, also known as depth buffering, is the management of image depth coordinates in 3D graphics, usually done in hardware, sometimes insoftware. It is one solution to the visibility problem, which is the problem of deciding which elements of a rendered scene are visible, and which are hidden. The painter's algorithm is another common solution which, though less efficient, can also handle non-opaque scene elements. When an object is rendered, the depth of a generated pixel (z coordinate) is stored in a buffer (the z-buffer or depth buffer). This buffer is usually arranged as a two-dimensional array (x-y) with one element for each screen pixel. If another object of the scene must be rendered in the same pixel, the method compares the two depths and overrides the current pixel if the object is closer to the observer. The chosen depth is then saved to the z-buffer, replacing the old one. In the end, the z-buffer will allow the method to correctly reproduce the usual depth perception: a close object hides a farther one. This is called z-culling. The granularity of a z-buffer has a great influence on the scene quality: a 16-bit z-buffer can result in artifacts (called "z-fighting") when two objects are very close to each other. A 24-bit or 32-bit z-buffer behaves much better, although the problem cannot be entirely eliminated without additional algorithms. An 8-bit z-buffer is almost never used since it has too little precision. In rendering, z-culling is early pixel elimination based on depth, a method that provides an increase in performance when rendering of hidden surfaces is costly. It is a direct consequence of z-buffering, where the depth of each pixel candidate is compared to the depth of existing geometry behind which it might be hidden. When using a z-buffer, a pixel can be culled (discarded) as soon as its depth is known, which makes it possible to skip the entire process of lighting and texturing a pixel that would not be visible anyway. Also, time-consuming pixel shaders will generally not be executed for the culled pixels. This makes z-culling a good optimization candidate in situations where fillrate, lighting, texturing or pixel shaders are the main bottlenecks. While z-buffering allows the geometry to be unsorted, sorting polygons by increasing depth (thus using a reverse painter's algorithm) allows each screen pixel to be rendered fewer times. This can increase performance in fillrate-limited scenes with large amounts of overdraw, but if not combined with z-buffering it suffers from severe problems such as: • polygons might occlude one another in a cycle (e.g. : triangle A occludes B, B occludes C, C occludes A), and • there is no canonical "closest" point on a triangle (e.g.: no matter whether one sorts triangles by their centroid or closest point or furthest point, one can always find two triangles A and B such that A is "closer" but in reality B should be drawn first). As such, a reverse painter's algorithm cannot be used as an alternative to Z-culling (without strenuous re-engineering), except as an optimization to Z-culling. For example, an optimization might be to keep polygons sorted according to x/y-location and z-depth to provide bounds, in an effort to quickly determine if two polygons might possibly have an occlusion interaction. In 3D computer graphics a depth map is an image or image channel that contains information relating to the distance of the surfaces of scene objects from a viewpoint. The term is related to and may be analogous to depth buffer, Z-buffer, Z-buffering and Z-depth. The "Z" in these latter terms relates to a convention that the central axis of view of a camera is in the direction of the camera's Z axis, and not to the absolute Z axis of a scene.
Depth maps have a number of uses, including:
• Simulating the effect of uniformly dense semi-transparent media within a scene - such as fog, smoke or large volumes of water.
• Simulating shallow depths of field - where some parts of a scene appear to be out of focus. Depth maps can be used to selectively blur an image to varying degrees. A shallow depth of field can be a characteristic of macro photography and so the technique may form a part of the process of miniature faking.
• Z-buffering and z-culling, techniques which can be used to make the rendering of 3D scenes more efficient. They can be used to identify objects hidden from view and which may therefore be ignored for some rendering purposes. This is particularly important in real time applications such as computer games, where a fast succession of completed renders must be available in time to be displayed at a regular and fixed rate.
• Shadow mapping - part of one process used to create shadows cast by illumination in 3D computer graphics. In this use, the depth maps are calculated from the perspective of the lights, not the viewer.
• To provide the distance information needed to create and generate autostereograms and in other related applications intended to create the illusion of 3D viewing through stereoscopy .
• Subsurface scattering - can be used as part of a process for adding realism by simulating the semi-transparent properties of translucent materials such as human skin.
Limitations :
• Single channel depth maps record the first surface seen, and so cannot display information about those surfaces seen or refracted through transparent objects, or reflected in mirrors. This can limit their use in accurately simulating depth of field or fog effects.
• Single channel depth maps cannot convey multiple distances where they occur within the view of a single pixel. This may occur where more than one object occupies the location of that pixel. This could be the case - for example - with models featuring hair, fur or grass. More generally, edges of objects may be ambiguously described where they partially cover a pixel.
• Depending on the intended use of a depth map, it may be useful or necessary to encode the map at higher bit depths. For example, an 8 bit depth map can only represent a range of up to 256 different distances.
• Depending on how they are generated, depth maps may represent the perpendicular distance between an object and the plane of the scene camera. For example, a scene camera pointing directly at - and perpendicular to - a flat surface may record a uniform distance for the whole surface. In this case, geometrically, the actual distances from the camera to the areas of the plane surface seen in the corners of the image are greater than the distances to the central area. For many applications, however, this discrepancy is not a significant issue.
Character Development
1. Communication style: How does your character talk? Does she favor certain words or phrases that make her distinct and interesting? What about the sound of her voice? Much of our personality comes through our speech, so think about the way your character is going to talk. Her style of communication should be distinctive and unique.
2. History: Where does your character come from? Think out his childhood and adolescence. What events shaped his personality? What did his father do for a living? How about his mother? How many siblings does he have? Was it a loving family or an abusive, dysfunctional one? What events led him to the career choices he made? You may not need to provide all this background to your reader, but it’s good to know as the writer. It helps give him substance in your mind as well.
3. Appearance: What does she look like? This may be the least important ingredient to make your character a person to the reader, but you should still know it in your own mind. Not every character needs to be drop-dead gorgeous, by the way. Most people aren’t.
4. Relationships: What kind of friends and family does he have? How does he relate to them? Is he very social or reclusive, or somewhere in between? People can be defined by the company they keep, so this can be a good way to define your character.
5. Ambition: Just as this is the central letter of the acrostic, so too this concept is absolutely central to your character and plot. What is her passion in life? What goal is she trying to accomplish through your story? What is her unrecognized, internal need and how will she meet it?
6. Character defect: Everyone has some personality trait that irritates his friends or family. Is he too self-centered? Too competitive? Too lazy? Too compliant? Too demanding of others? Don’t go overboard on this. After all, you want your reader to like the character. But he’ll feel more real if he has some flaw. This is usually connected to his unrecognized need (see Ambition) and often gets resolved through his character arch.
7. Thoughts: What kind of internal dialogue does your character have? How does she think through her problems and dilemmas? Is her internal voice the same as her external? If not, does this create internal conflict for her? In real life we don’t have the benefit of knowing someone’s innermost thoughts, but a novel allows us to do just that, so use it to your advantage.
8. Everyman-ness: How relatable is your character? While James Bond is fun to watch on screen, most of us aren’t uber-trained special agent-assassins so it’s a little hard to relate to him on a personal level. On the other hand, Kurt Russell’s character in the movie Breakdown was far more ordinary and relatable, creating a more visceral experience. Be careful not to make your character too elite or he may be too difficult to live vicariously through. And that, after all, is the key to suspense.
9. Restrictions: More than a personality flaw, what physical or mental weakness must your character overcome through her arch? After all, even Superman had Kryptonite. This helps humanize your character, making her more sympathetic and relatable.
Character creation is typically the first step taken by the players (as opposed to the gamemaster) in preparation for a game. The result of character creation is a direct characterization that is recorded on a character sheet. In its most comprehensive form it includes not only a game-specific representation of the character's physical, mental, psychological and social properties in terms of statistics, but also often less formal descriptions of the character’s physical appearance, personality, personalback-story (“background”) and possessions. During play, only a character’s appearance is usually described explicitly while other traits are characterized indirectly, with the exact statistics known to the character’s player and the game master, but not necessarily to other players.
Character advancement refers to the improvement of a character’s statistics later in the game. The player will modify existing stats and add new ones, usually by spending experience points or when gaining a new experience level. Character advancement typically uses similar rules as character creation. To avoid unrealisticsudden changes in character concept, though, character advancement is usually more restricted than the initial character creation. For example, attributes are almost always harder (if not impossible) to change during character advancement.
The term character development is, in some contexts, used interchangeably with character advancement (in a sense similar to professional development or Human Development), whereas elsewhere character development refers instead to the player’s indirect characterization of the character through role-playing (in a sense similar to film developing). Character Development is, by definition, the change in characterization of aDynamic Character, who changes over the course of a narrative. At its core, it shows a character changing. Most narrative fiction in any media will feature some display of this.
While the definition of "good" and "bad" character development is subjective, it's generally agreed upon that good character development is believable and rounds out a well-written character. Bad character development leads to the feeling that someone is manipulating the events to their own whims, or even reduces the character's believability.
There are many sub-tropes that take place due to this trope, some of which include:
• The Coming-of-Age Story is centered around this trope in the context of growing up.
• Darker and Edgier and Lighter and Softer can either deepen a character or round out unnecessary roughness. They can also turn them into a pile of mush or make them an unsympathetic jerk.
• Similiarly, despite the negative connotations in the name, Badass Decay can soften a previously harsh character. Or it can ruin an awesome character.
• Flanderization is when a character has a quirk or personality trait that slowly becomes their only defining characteristic.
• The Heel-Face Turn, Face-Heel Turn and Morality Adjustment tropes rely on character development to make this a believable turn of events.
• Hidden Depths has a character develop in unexpected directions. It can also describe a Flat Character turning into a Rounded Character.
• Out-of-Character Moment may be a positive or negative example, generally steering a character in new directions without wholesale Character Derailment.
• A Character Check can help steer a character who developed too far from their original character back into being themselves, or remind the audience that they still are the same person they used to be no matter how much they've changed.
What Is Character Design?
Characters are something we learn to love since we are children, through animations and cartoons. Characters are wild, unpredictable and unrealistic, we grow attached to cartoon characters and most of the time that bond never truly disappears from our hearts. That’s why even as adults we can spot a character that reminds us of ourselves, how we wanted to be or how we are now, and fall in love with it.
Thus creating a good character implies that you must design that character in such a way that people will love and relate to it on a very intimate level. It’s all about the personality that you empower your character with, and that unique personality can derive from the way it looks, talks, walks, thinks, etc. Character design creates lovable or memorable characters, whether they are good or bad, cute or weird, happy or sad.
Simply put, Wikipedia’s definition of Commercial Character Design is ”is the process of creating a character and utilizing it to enhance or publicize a commercial entity through design”. Designers use characters in commercial settings specifically because of the way people relate to them. By using a well designed character as your brand mascot you are more likely to get people to have an emotional relationship with your products or business. Characters are friendly and appeal to almost all age groups. They attract attention with their wacky behavior and can instantly make your designs interesting.
Basic Principles of Character Design
Taking into account that a character must be designed and not magically summoned into existence, there are a few basic principles or guidelines which one can use as the base for creating a successful character.
1.) Function One of the most common theories in design is that form must follow function, and this applies to all areas including character design. A character with a logical, clearly understandable form is more easily perceived and understood by the human brain. Simple shapes like circles or ovals often work best as the wireframe for a character because of their versatility and visual straightforwardness. Simplicity in the character’s overall shapes is also great if you need to draw your character from various angles. When rotating or viewing your character from another angle, all the planes within the character’s design will change their appearance in proportion to the angle which makes it harder to maintain consistent proportions and scale for each characteristic. Thus starting off from a more basic, generic shape requires less effort in accurately representing the character in different positions.
2.) Style / Aesthetic
What can make or break a character is the style or general aesthetic used in its creation. Adding to what we’ve established before about simple shapes as a starting point for character design, the style of a character comes from the way in which the shapes that compose it blend together in a visually stimulating manner. Contrast of shape, form or proportion is a great way to balance shapes and make your character interesting. For example, Wile E. Coyote has a large, long snout, narrow shoulders, thin legs and big feet and hands. Not to mention the large, expressive eyes. Just as how in humans they say the eyes are the window into the soul, characters’ eyes can be essential in defining their personality. Because characters are – like I said before – wacky and zany, you have the freedom to play around with proportions and features as much as you want, sometimes the most interesting character designs emerge from extreme visual contrasts. Exaggerating features also adds expressiveness to your character. Tiny eyes, huge ears, just go wild and see what results.
3.) Personality
The personality of a character is composed of many aspects but a large part of comes from the character’s physical traits and features since those are the first things you notice when coming into contact with it. Depending on what you want your character to be like you can choose to exaggerate certain features. For example rounded, plump shapes always seem to imply cuteness because of the way they are generally associated with babies in our visual consciousness. Big eyes set very closely together towards the center of the face also enhance this effect. Sharp, hard angles seem harsher, combined with narrow heads or faces. Whatever character you want to design, always think of its personality in relation to its features. Another defining thing that some designers may forget when creating a character are verbs. Have your character do something, move, dance, have a certain facial expression or a certain posture to add to its personality. In the example above, you can tell that the young apache is a very confident little man from his stance. Below are examples of round shapes and harsher angles to show how they impact the overall aesthetic of the characters in question.
The Devil’s in the Details
Even if you do intend on animating or drawing your character from a lot of different angles, never forego the details entirely. Like in all aspects of design, the details are what makes characters interesting. A certain type of eyes, shirt buttons, clothing seams, anything can help define your character and make it visually stimulating as well as uniquely designed.
Model Sheet
A model sheet, also known as a character board, character sheet, character study or simply a study, is a document used to help standardize the appearance, poses, and gestures of an animated character. Model sheets are required when large numbers of artists are involved in the production of an animated film to help maintain continuity in characters from scene to scene, as one animator may only do one shot out of the several hundred that are required to complete an animated feature film. When drawn without such background, the character is referred to as off-model. Model sheets are also used for references in 3D modelling. It usually is used as reference material so as to allow proper proportions in 3D modelling Model sheets have also been used in the past to maintain graphic continuity over the years for long lasting cartoon productions of short or short features such as the Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies series. Model sheets are drawings of posed cartoon or comic strip characters that are created to provide a reference template for several artists who collaborate in the production of a lengthy or multiple-edition work of art such as a comic book, animated film or television series. Model sheets usually depict the character’s head and body as they appear at various angles (a process known as "model rotation"), includes sketches of the character’s hands and feet, and shows several basic facial expressions. Model sheets ensure that, despite the efforts of several or many artists, their work exhibits unity, as if one artist created the drawings (that is, they are "on model"). They show the character's structure, proportions, attire, and body language. Often, several sheets are required to depict a character’s subtler emotional and physical attitudes. Depending on the whim of animation direction, deviations from the model may be permitted in the course of final animation; this "tightness" of model is a major distinguishing factor in overall animation style, as it constitutes a tradeoff between expressiveness and smoothness/consistency. As such, the usage of models varies widely between studios and projects. Model sheets can also be used in the construction of costumes or sculpted figurines.
The Production Process
Model Sheet
I started doing model sheet for both of my characters. It shows font , side and 3Q of my concept.
I changed the concept for my creature because the form in my concept was weak and it looked squishy.
I was inspired by forms of grey hound , Wold and Giant Eland for creating my creature.
My creature has strong jaw and limbs like wolf and eland. The spine and neck is similar to grey hound dog .I changed the color of the skin to clay/brown color. I decided to add pores like textures to the sensors at the head of the creature.
The colors and textures of the clothing of the human character are dark and simple. The skin texture is pale . The area around his eyes are dark because of sleepless nights. He has crack above his lips because he smokes excessive cigarettes . He always wears gloves so that harmful chemicals or objects don’t harm his fingers when conducting an experiment. The magnifying glass (the eye piece) is to help him in observing macro objects. His clothes are always tidy and neat. His hair is combed back neatly .
After developing both characters I decided to start modelling in maya and Zbrush.
Modelling in Maya
Started modelling my first character in maya .I started creating the human character first. I used polygons to create the base of the model.
I used a human character as a reference so that I can maintain the proportion of the body.
Retopology in zbrush. I started re-topologyzing the sculpt I did for my minor project 2 . I am goin to use the same sculpt as the face of my human character.
Due to the high number of polygons zbrush couldn’t project the polygons on the sculpt.
It kept crashing a few times.
Same thing happened when I tried to unfold UVs of the sculpt .
After completing the base model in maya and re-topologizing the face, I imported the base mesh in maya and merged them as sub-tools.
I added details of the buttons and cloth in zbrush using different brushes and alphas.
I changed the pose of the model. Though scutlping the jacket , hand gloves and pants still remained , I started texturing my character .
Then I textured the skin of the face but the resolution of the texture map that I was using was too low . With the help of my classmates , I started texturing layers of skin on the face and created my own texture map .
Using these textures I redid the face ;
I colorized the hair and eyebrow .Then I continues texturing using Zbrush spotlight to project texture on the polygons and created texture map.
I used toy plastic material for eye and painted the colors of the iris .