1. Create designs for a character based on a brief
2. Build a 3d character following industry standard work flows and techniques.
3. Employ methods to manage time effectively for different tasks and evaluate the outcome.
4. Demonstrate understanding of subject specific processes through written work and research
What were the project goals and how did you attempt to achieve them? Describe your project plan and how it addressed the requirements of the assignment and your broader area of practice.
What did you learn? Connect theoretical knowledge from your course to the practical work you undertook. Discuss how particular actions reflect major theories in your field.
What did you do and feel? Describe your own opinions about the project, including choices that were made and actions that were taken. What were your own contributions and why did you perform in the way that you did?
What was the outcome? Critically assess the success or failure of your practical work. Point out the ways that it benefited users, and/or met the project objectives.
What were your personal strengths and weaknesses that were revealed? What have you learned about your own professional development from this project? What skill areas do you still need to develop?
What would you do differently next time?
(points taken from the Blackboard link on how to write a Reflective report)
Design / Research
Starting out I was a bit worried when having to create a character from an unknown series that I had never heard of. Well, I knew of what the series was based on, "Karate Kid" but I had never heard of the newer series on Netflix, "Cobra Kai" and how it's set in modern times with characters aged and new additions to the cast. I am used to getting assigned to create a character very freely instead of having to choose between using existing cast members or creating our own. Although this was my initial thought - I realised that in future projects or work, I would probably be in a similar situation where I need to get familiar with completely new material when designing something, so it actually really helped to not having to be so free creatively so that I could get used to working this way.
With the actual research of low poly, and the show I could have expanded a bit more. I go very briefly into what low poly characters are, and what they can be used for in modern times - stylized characters. For example the Nintendo DS is what I consider a prime example of a lot of low poly modeling as the device itself is not the most power filled gaming console out there - like maybe computers were. Low Poly characters can be used to create very cute and small characters, that maybe are a bit cartoon-y and can possibly be aimed more towards children. Role Playing games like The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Bravely Default and Animal Crossing are what I call prime examples and good examples of stylized low poly done well. If I would have done the research over again I would've expanded my search and look into games a lot more. And why they maybe chose low poly (or chibi) characters specifically for that game or franchise.
Modeling
For the modeling I attempted to start out with making the body itself from - at least the right half of it, before I thought about adding details and clothing. I figured that once I see how many tris I've used to create the body and the essential joints that needs to be in the model for when we later use an auto rigger, I can start adding some details into the model to make out who they are.
I felt like it's a bit hard, at least without much experience, to know how to make a low poly model. Not that it's difficult in itself, but how to use the limit of tris that you are expected to stay within and also create detail on the model itself. Which is why I figured that once I make the shape of the body and the joints I need, I can add on to it afterwards. Maybe I could have lowered the edges in certain areas, because I feel like if I managed to just make the face a bit more detailed, like eye sockets or something, maybe it would not have felt so weird when I tried drawing on a 2D face later on. Maybe adding a bit more detail to the clothing she was wearing set me back a couple of tris/edges where I could've maybe used them on her face instead. Something to think about for future projects.
The only issue I was facing when modeling my character was the hair. I've never really had to model hair in Maya before, and especially not low poly hair. I've only ever had experience with doing hair in ZBrush then bringing it into Maya for retopology. Now I am aware that creating planes for low poly hair is really common, especially for strands, but I felt like I wanted a "good chunk of hair" on my character for it to feel like hair to me. Especially when I am texturing it later I want it to look like a full head of hair. I eventually just went with creating another sphere, lowering the radius and the edges around it, and then just moved every other edge outwards to create "strands" or "chunks" of hair, which in the end I feel worked quite well in the end. For it to be symmetrical I used the "Use Symmetry" option in Maya, where it uses the object itself to create symmetry as you go along with modeling it. For how it came out in the end, I am quite happy with how it ended up looking.
UV and Texture
The UV stage seemed fairly simply to me at the start. Making the cuts basically where I would see cuts/seams on clothing in real life. And then maybe some extra cuts for when having to fit it into the 0-1 area easier. There is probably an easier way to UV cut my model "properly" but I'd like to think that as long as I get my desired outcome it's going to be okay. If I was seeing weird stretching in certain areas I would've revisited my UVs after I put the texture on the model in Substance. So I didn't particularly have any issues with the UV-ing itself, but more of a "how can I maximize the UV space" as I went along.
For Substance Painter I had a very brief previous experience with it in another module. I knew about "Smart Materials" and how they worked so I wanted to use them for my benefit when it came to making the clothing look more realistic and have more detail. There was already some built in fabric materials in Substance so I didn't have to search for any online, and since my character had different types of fabric-clothing on her, I used the Polygon Fill tool to accurately fill in the specific areas I wanted with that Smart Material by using "Black Masks". A feature that masks the model/object and let's you decide where the colour, material etc, gets applied.
Rigging and Render
When exporting our textures and our models for auto rigging, I was really excited to see it come to life. And frankly really happy I would not have to rig the character myself. I know there exists a Maya Script that "does the rigging for you" as long as you place the skeleton in place properly, but only placing a couple joints and having a website/program do it for you was really interesting. I made sure my model had verts in certain areas like knees and elbow areas, so that it would identify these joints easier and bend properly when auto rigged online.
After auto rigging the character and downloading the file - I uploaded it to Sketchfab and made it public and downloadable. This was my decision as I could then upload as many variants as I wanted afterwards if they're downloadable for free. It's not like I am using this for a paid assignment / work or anything, it's just for University work usage and learning. So I could upload a still image version and then an animated version just to showcase how my character works after it's rigged and a chosen animation is added to it. With how well it bends and nicely it flows I think I did a good thing when it came to modeling the character - as it bends properly in every area and I can't see any weird things happening when it's animated.
In the future I would love to try and use the "Advanced Skeleton5"(script for Maya) rigger with a low poly modeled character to see how it works. Maybe not keep it quite as low poly as this, but make the joints very obvious so the skeleton can fit the model properly.
When it was uploaded to "Sketchfab" I didn't like most of the settings when it came to the lighting, backgrounds and a lot of the other settings on there, but I still tried to make a couple different render images so that my pictures looked at least a little bit different from each other. With the model uploaded I can always go back and change the view port settings if I find something that I like if I need some pictures in the future, or if I have future projects I know what most of the settings bring out of the model.
Outcome
I really like how the model came out when the added textures came on and I got it into the auto rigger. Selecting different animations to see how my character worked and moved around was really exciting and refreshing! However I do realise I could've maybe added more to the model with some extra time and effort on my part. I didn't skip the "face" part - I just personally did not like how it looked when it was drawn onto it. Thus if I had to re-do the modeling stage I would maybe try to model in some eyes or eye sockets and a small mouth to make the face a bit more detailed and not as awkward when texturing the face.
So if I had to re-do the modeling phase, I would try and maybe add more detail to the face for it to be easier for me to texture on some eyes and lips. I understand that it would've been preferable for me to have that added on to my model to begin with, but I couldn't find myself satisfied with the results that it gave me.
I would say that my time management "skill" would definitely need polishing as it is something that I've been struggling with for a while now. Mostly it was a struggle figuring out what certain phases of a project took how much time, and what I could do to maximize the time spend on those different phases. But now that I've gone through the different phases and have an idea of how long each stage takes - I can use this to hopefully manage my time better in the future and get a better outcome on projects to come in the end.
My strongest point is probably my design/drawing skill in general. I've always loved drawing and creating characters, but the process itself is quite short in my mind. I'm not used to creating several gesture poses, silhouette drawings and shapes to create characters - I get an idea in my mind, and I draw it out. I might still do a couple of sketches when it comes to clothing and hair, but most things stay the same throughout and I am very set in my mind from the get go.
Something to work on more in future projects is definitely Maya modeling and UV-ing. Although I think the modeling part is something that everyone can obviously improve on almost all the time, shortcuts, knowing outcomes of different tools and actions - so I wouldn't say it's a "weakness" right now. I would mark it down as just less experience that with time I can become better and more knowledgeable about the program. UVs are similar in that case I believe. There are no proper right or wrong ways, but more of a "it should be done this way" for the best outcomes when you get down to texturing so you don't get weird stretching. It's also just a jigsaw puzzle itself when you sit down and try and fit something into the 0-1 area and have to keep some pieces bigger than others for the textures to not look off and weird. But again, I think this is just something that comes with time and experience so one can only get better from here and search for tutorials maybe when it comes to specific things.