The UV Texture Editor
The UV Texture Editor Window gt UV Texture Editor is where you perform the sometimes-tedious action of arranging your UV layout. Let's go over some of the more common commands found in the UV Texture Editor toolbar and menus. Flip UVs UV Texture Editor gt Polygons gt Flip UVs This command will flip a group of selected UVs 180 degrees in either the U or V directions. Rotate UVs UV Texture Editor gt Polygons gt Rotate UVs This command will rotate a group of selected UVs 45 degrees in either the U...
Forward Movement
Let's try another attack move, and apply what you have learned in this chapter. You 2 can try the move3_front_sma11.avi video reference. This move is a bit more complicated IMA than the first one, as it has the character take a step or two forward during the attack. AN When walking or running in a game, the animation itself generally does not actually move the character forward or back. The animation will actually have the character running or walking in place while the game engine itself...
The Game Development Pipeline
The art production pipeline is the path that a game object takes from beginning to end, from conception to effects. This path actually comprises only one facet of the overall Game Development Pipeline. Understanding the pipeline processes early is a great asset to potential employers, as it gets you that much closer to being able to contribute to it. The average development pipeline is as follows Writers and Designers are critical parts of any game's development. They are the ones who actively...
UV Mapping the Sword
Before we spend too much time on the different texture options that are available we will get back to them soon and while the concept of UVs is still fresh in your mind, let's start UV Mapping Silenus. First, we will UV map his sword to get the hang of the process. One thing to keep in mind when planning your textures is what kind of game you are developing. Obviously, you can expect this 3500-polygon character to be rather prominently featured in the game. The sword may also be very visible....
Creating the Hilt and Grip
To create the hilt and grip, just follow these steps. 1. For the curved hilt, create a polygon cube Create gt Polygon Primitives gt Cube . Position it at the end of the blade object, and scale it to the approximate thick-30 ness you want to use for the hilt around .07 units wide . In the Channel Box, o you should see the polyCube1 creation options under the Inputs section. Here, 3 we will adjust the number of divisions along the height of the cube to 4. Scale o the rows of vertices about 50...
Game Modeling Pointers
Before we start our project, you'll want to learn and perfect a few game modeling practices Edge flow or geometry flow These will come easier with practice, and they will help you enormously as you begin your game art career. I will touch on them now and again throughout the tutorial, but you will definitely want to keep them in mind as you go about any project.
Binding the Head
At this point, you can Smooth Bind the head to the skeleton. However, it might not work. Over the course of painting weights and such, some movement has probably taken place. To bind additional geometry to the skeleton, the skeleton needs to be in its bind pose or original pose . The Go to Bind Pose command under the Skin menu will not work, however, with active constraints and IK handles. You may feel that you have hit a wall in your progress, but there is a way around that wall. 1. Go to...
Idle Animation
Now that you know the general workflow for creating an animation, you can learn about the different types of animations you can expect to create in a typical game situation. Idle animations create movement that takes place when there is no input from the player. Such movement keeps a character from suddenly becoming a static statue, and it maintains some sense of life. Depending on what kind of game you are working on, you may need to make quite a few different idle animations an attack idle...
Polygonal Modeling
Polygons are the backbone of all game art. Practically everything you see on the screen is composed of them. As technology increases and consoles and computers are able to handle more and more polygons, the sheer number of objects on the screen and their overall complexity can increase in tandem. But even with the highest polygon thresholds, artists must still perform within some form of boundary. In this chapter, you will be introduced to the basic tools used in the construction of polygonal...
Texture Resolutions and Formats
Deciding what resolution height and width and file format to use for the texture in your project is important. A variety of factors can influence your decisions. The first thing to realize is that texture resolutions must be in what is known as a Power of Two. The more common texture resolutions are as follows 93 Game consoles have a very limited amount of texture memory compared to computers therefore, smaller resolutions are generally used. For example, a single char- z acter model created...
Maya in Games Sly Cooper
Genre Stealth Adventure Developer Sucker Punch Productions Publisher Sony Platform PlayStation 2 The Sly Cooper ga mes Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus and Sly Cooper 2 Band of Thieves follow the exploits of Sly,a raccoon thief as he jumps,slides,and steals his way through expertly-designed, cartoon-shaded worlds. Aside from looking gorgeous, the game play is top-notch with fluid animation and easy-to-learn hard-to-master controls. I n fact, the only real complaint if you can call it that...
Symmetry
AL Using symmetry can help cut down the amount of time it takes to complete a project. GO You can create half of the model and mirror a duplicate for the other side. Afterward, OL you can go back and add small details to avoid complete symmetry. With that in mind, creating your models centered on the axis lines of the grid is a good idea. This way, you can use the grid easily for accurate mirroring.
Maya in Games Halo
Genre First-Person Shooter Developer Bungie Publisher Microsoft Platform Xbox Halo is the epitome of the great First-Person Shooter FPS ,and is arguably considered the best FPS ever made.You play the venerable Master Chief,fighting against the evils that make up the alien Covenant.In doing so,you make use of multiple weapons and vehicles throughout the game as you traverse the mysterious elliptical ring-world known as Halo. As a flagship title for Microsoft's XBox,Halo showed exactly what the...
Sword Constraints
You have a couple of different options you can use to control the character's sword. You will probably want to be able to have Silenus sheathe his sword and draw it when needed. One way to do this is to actually have two swords one parented to the hand, and the other parented to the sheath. You can then key the visibility of the two swords to switch between the two. However, this method is not very efficient because you now have two swords and, therefore, double the number of polygons for the...
Joint Rotation Limits
You'll want to limit how far some joints can rotate and in which direction they do so. For example, you don't want the elbow joint to rotate backward. To prevent this, set some limitations so Silenus will move naturally. 1. Select the L_Elbow joint. Open the Attribute Editor Ctrl A . 2. Under the Limit Information section, open the Rotate subsection. Rotate the elbow as far back as you want it to go. Your limit may vary depending on how you set the Local Rotation Axis earlier, but mine will be...
C
Channel Control window, 159 channels alpha, 94-95, 94 in character sets, 167 for SDK controls, 159 Character Artists, 5 character example. See Silenus character Character_Final.mb file, 96 character sets, 166 editing, 166-167 subcharacter sets, 167-168, 168 Character_Start.mb file, 35 cheekbones, 40, 41, 46, 47 cheeks, 44-46, 45, 47 chests children in connections, 132 Cinematic Artists, 5 cleanup, 25-26 Silenus character, 81, 82 sword, 32 clips, 168. See also animation blending between,...
Texture Painting Tips
Texture painting is definitely a process that depends a lot on talent and practice. Here are some tips to keep in mind while painting your own textures. Contrast Make sure that your texture is not too subtle. Folds, wrinkles, etc. need to be very clear to be conveyed in the texture. Making sure the image has some contrast can help with this. Hand Painting versus Photo Sourcing There are two main schools of thought when it comes to creating textures paint them by hand or use photo sources....
Modify Timing in the Trax Editor
Timing can be modified in many ways, ranging from editing individual keys to creating animation clips and modifying them in the Trax Editor. We will go over the latter. Select the Silenus_Set character set from the Outliner Window gt Outliner . 1. Open the Trax Editor from Window gt Animation Editors gt Trax Editor. With the character set selected, go to Create gt Clip in the Trax Editor. Five blue bars, representing the character set and the four subsets, will appear. 2. Go to frame 22. This...
Game Artist Mike Hovland Continued
Q. What about Maya do you like better than other 3D apps A. Maya's customizability is huge.The ability to set up Maya to fit your personal work style is a great thing. Maya's scriptability is another aspect that I think is amazing,and one of the most powerful features of the software. I haven't come up against any problem that I couldn't solve through scripting yet.I've had many things that would probably be better off implemented as a plugin, strictly for speed reasons, but MEL provides access...
Set Driven Key
As mentioned earlier, the Set Driven Key process makes one object or setting automatically affect another. This is especially useful on the face for moving the teeth and eyebrows, and controlling the blend shapes for the beard. 156 Let's use Set Driven Key SDK to move the teeth along with the mouth when it 5 1. Deselect everything. Go to Animate gt Set Driven Key gt Set gt Options. This opens 5 the Set Driven Key window. 2. Select the lower teeth plane. In the Set Driven Key window, click the...
Articulation
When animating, you must have enough geometry in place at the joints for good articulation or movement . You can use several methods to allow clean deformation to create movement. The one we will talk about in this book uses a V-joint technique Figure 2.11 . By orienting the edges of most joints in a V formation, you can almost always achieve good articulation. Articulating the face is a bit different than articulating a model's bendable joints. Facial articulation can rely mostly on edge flow...
Tutorial Creating the Character Model
Now, that we have a weapon for him, let's start on Silenus the Satyr Warrior. Many thanks to Steve Garcia for the fantastic concept art This character should definitely get an aspiring game artist's feet wet in exactly the kinds of character projects to expect in the gaming industry.
Baking Normal Maps
A normal map, as described earlier, is a pixel shader that uses light information to calculate very accurate bump mapping in real time. The image is RGB, with the three hues controlling XYZ depth, respectively. One method for creating a normal map is to actually create a high-resolution version of the model in addition to the low-polygon version and baking that information down into a normal map using Maya 6's new Transfer Surface Information function. First, you need to create a high polygon...
Sprites
Sprites compose the vast majority of game particle effects. Sprites are like tiny planes that are textured to convey effects. In Maya, sprites always face the camera. This orientation makes them very useful for volumetric cloudy effects, such as smoke and dust. Sprites, along with all other particles, are usually created using an emitter. Emitters are nonrendering objects that spit out particle streams. These streams can be adjusted in a variety of ways to control the particle emission...
Animation Reference
On the CD, you can navigate to the Video Animation Reference folder to find a variety of filmed martial arts moves performed by my friend Arvee Garde. Animation reference is invaluable for getting realistic movements. However, as you will discover in the following tutorials, strictly copying reference video motions can result in unexciting or even inappropriate movement. For example, Arvee does not have near the mass that Silenus does. Mimicking Arvee's movements exactly would result in a...
Creating Silenuss Head
The head can be the most difficult and complicated part of a character's body to model, but I encourage you to create the head first. It may be slow going, and you may find it a daunting task. But as you improve your modeling skills, even the most complicated model can eventually become second nature. 1. In the side view, create a polygon cylinder. Adjust its creation settings under the Inputs section of the Channel Box to 8 Subdivisions Axis and 1 Subdivisions Height. Move and scale it into...
Creating a Sprite Effect
The first effect you will create is the dust that Silenus kicks up when he moves his feet. 1. C25D Open your finished animated model or open the 10_Animations_ Blended.mb file in the folder . 2. In the Dynamics module F4 , go to Particles gt Create Emitter. Rename it LFoot_Emitter. 3. Point snap the emitter to the L_Hoof2 joint. Parent the emitter to the L_Hoof2 joint. Before continuing, make sure your playback speed is set to Play Every Frame. You can find the playback options by going to...
Reference Usage
I cannot stress enough the importance of good references. In nearly every project that I have been involved in or have witnessed, the ones that have good reference images whether they be hand-drawn or photographs have always been of higher quality then those without. The Internet is your one-stop shop for practically anything you could ever want in regard to photographs, blueprints, and schematics. I also highly recommend a digital camera for taking your own photographs to use as reference or...
Displaying Selection Handles
With the IK handles and skeleton in place, you can now display selection handles for the major points of movement. Selection handles allow you to easily access the skeleton over the geometry. This can be done a number of ways. You could create elaborate curve objects to act as selection handles, but I tend to use the simpler selection handles that can be displayed through Maya's own functions. Creating curve objects for your skeleton controls is a good idea if more than one animator is using...
Alpha Channel and Pixel Shader Effects
Your standard game texture is an RGB image using Red, Green, and Blue channels . Adding a fourth channel creates what is called an alpha channel. This extra channel holds secondary texture information in the form of a grayscale image that can be used in a variety of ways depending on the game engine. Alpha channels are most commonly used for the following Opacity Transparency This is probably the most common use of an alpha channel. In the alpha, wherever the alpha is white, the model will be...
UV Projection Commands
Using the UV projection commands is relatively straightforward however, understanding how to apply the commands in different situations might take some time. Familiarity will come with practice and time. The purpose of the commands is to select groups of faces and project new UV coordinates onto them that can then be maneuvered in the UV Texture Editor. With that in mind, we will now go over the different options available to use. The projection commands include Planar Mapping Edit Polygons gt...
Painting Weights
Painting weights is probably the most time-consuming part of binding a character to a skeleton. Making certain that your joints deform the geometry smoothly requires a lot of trial and error. Painting weights can be confusing the first time you attempt it. Removing weight from one joint to add to another does not work as you might expect. Instead of directly removing weight from a specified joint, you have to add that weight to another. Although frustrating, painting weights is necessary. You...
Leg IK
To use Inverse Kinematics, you have to create an IK handle between the joints that you want to animate. In this example, you'll create a handle for the legs. 1. Go to Skeleton gt IK Handle Tool gt Options. In the options, set Current Solver to ikRPsolver and check the Sticky option. Close the Options window. Turning on the Sticky option will make the feet stick to their position. This will make it easier to keep Silenus's feet even with the floor plane while he is walking and running. Note The...
Mapping UVs
Just as 3D space is described using X, Y, and Z to indicate the three dimensions of width, height, and depth, textures in 2D space are described using U and V for width and height. UVs are indicated using points. In the case of polygons, each vertex of a polygonal mesh is capable of holding a coordinate for use in texturing. This is a UV. If you create a polygonal cube primitive from the Create menu, it is automatically mapped with UV coordinates. To see these UVs, select the cube and go to...
Secondary Motion
Secondary motion, as mentioned earlier, is movement that is generally the result of another movement. Such movements are usually very subtle, but they can add a lot to an animation's believability. When such elements are in place, the viewer will barely notice them however, their absence can stand out loud and clear. Some examples of common elements that should exhibit secondary motion include Pinned objects such as medals or a gun in a holster, etc. Note If you ever need to retime an animation...
Exporting
Someday you may need to export your completed model from one application to another.Your project s chosen animation application could be something other than Maya,for example. In such situations, it is common to export the model as an OBJ file. To activate that option,make sure that objExport.mll has been turned on under Window gt Settings Preferences gt Plug-In Manager.With this plug-in active,the OBJ option is available when you use File gt Export All or Selection. Not all applications are...
Adjusting the EffectC
Now that sprites are being emitted in the scene, you need to adjust their behavior and 1. At the moment, the particles emit in all directions, including down, below the ground on which Silenus is standing. With the emitter still selected, open the Attribute Editor. 2. Go to the Basic Emitter Attributes section under the Lfoot_Emitter tab. Change the Emitter Type to Directional. This causes the emitter to emit particles in a single direction rather than in all directions. 3. In the Distance...