#mffb

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Second poster, as it was requested by the team to have another after it seems they liked the first one.

It was also pointed out, when they noticed that the first one fit perfectly as my Tumblr avatar, that it’d be ideal for badges and stickers, since it was small, nicely shaped, and fit into a circle. So I made sure it stuck to the same format of a circular pose into a square border, in order that it could be compatible with a layout for stickers or badges.

I also wanted to avoid it just being entirely the same as the fire one, which was somewhat monochrome and a lot softer. I didn’t want it to just feel like a pointless other pose, and wanted it to be notably different from the other. Since there’s only so many poses I can put her into that’d make sense (especially to a circle shape) I thought to put more focus onto WHY they’re special.

The fire one is hot, monochrome and glowy, being the lava/armour bird. This one is the shiny, special combo bird, so I went with a multicoloured, intense glitter factor.

If/when I get around to doing different ones for the individual seasons, they’ll be softer and have less glow in general, being that they’re the “normal” skins, and will focus more on their primary season colour.

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Progress

Got invited for an interview with Dare. Four days before deadlines. Cool.

Anyways, got some transition animations done. Got the bird swooping slightly to the side as a visual aid for when the player moves left/right, and a transform/flap rolly-polly animation for the bird to do between seasons, within which she will change colour dramatically to suit the new season.

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Seasonal reskins for the bird, according to the concepts we originally planned. I realised that the way I’d textured them allowed for this really easily.

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A victory flapabout of the bird. I was aiming specifically for something extravagant and flourishy, something that’d clearly stand out from teh rest of the animations (which would largely be loopable, gliding etc) and figured it wouldn’t hurt to be something that’d be nice to whack into the presentation.

Bit of a mess because I’ve tried to do it quickly (and with no rig, yes, I know..) but think it looks fairly smooth for how weird a thing it is to do. Also, there’s a fair bit of made-upness since I don’t know many birds in real life that do a barrel roll, so I had to kinda just figure that bit out.

Anyhoo.

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Was asked to create a position for the bird that’s perched, for before the actual level begins. I figure  it might be used on a menu screen or something while selecting music and such, so I figure a good way to approach this would be to not only make it loop, but try and add some character clue as to what’s happening. 

In the game, the world is blowing up as the MFFB is flying away to safety, so I thought the menu screen beforehand could be that moment beforehand where MFFB knows something is about to happen, but not sure what yet. I also thought it’d be a nice touch to have the tail swinging in a clock-like fashion, just for some suggestion.

Again, feels a bit blank and dry, but I just don’t have more time to put more in.

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Flight demo: 8 second flight loop, repeated with a turnaround.

My non-rig seems to be working fine for me. Pretty sure decent animators or lecturers would shout at me for doing a stupid rig like this, but I think it was worth it considering what I need to get done and in my timeframe. There’s been no complications, and there’s no need to animate particularly many things, like complex walk cycles with multiple limbs and stuff.

That said, I’m only so-so about it so far, as it doesn’t look that great since I’ve been trying to bone, weight-map and animate it in the space of a day since I can’t afford to put time into this tomorrow. 

I spent a lot of time watching birds fly around for reasearch and was aiming for more of a gliding/cruising look, rather than big heavy flaps, as I view her as quite a large bird that wouldn’t flap her wings constantly. That said, I think I’m still missing a bit of weight from her, and with all the extra dangly and pokley bits, I’m missing some follow-through and anticipation.

Overall though, I’d say it’s...acceptable, for the time being? :/

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Weight Mapping. Went pretty well, not much to weight map after the wings, and a bit of mirror mode cleared up the rest of it. Easiest weight mapping process to date.

Now just to do some cleanup tests and then can get on to the hard bit.

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Got the bone structure in place, and all the bones named, with an idea of how I plan on doing things. It’s a pretty stupid idea, but it seems like it’d be easy and quick, with little risk of rig breaks down the line. After all, there isn’t actually much animating to do, and I’m already spending too much time on this module this week. We’ll see how it goes.