Final - 'A' Stage

 

Death to Dorothy

  

Visual Documentation of Work

 Witch Rig Update

 Updated Skinning

• Less clipping of the feet and ankles

 

•  Less clipping in the armpits, looks better when holding the axe

 

Added Axe Joint 

 

Animation Reel

 

Updated Blend Space with Updated Animations

 

Finished Animation State Machine for the Witch

 

 

Written Paragraph

What I Did

For the 'A' Stage of the Interactive Experience for the Death to Dorothy project, I focused most of my time on animation for the lion and the witch. I also made a few changes to the witch rig and updated the locomotion blend space and the state machine for the witch once all of the animations were done. First, I worked on the animations for the lion. Since we got a completely new rig for the lion again last stage, I had to recreate all the existing animations for the lion from scratch. Due to time constraints, I wasn't able to recreate the scratch/claw attack for the lion for the last submission so it was the first animation I worked on and finished for this round. I also created a completely new bite attack animation for the lion to fit with the bite VFX Raghavendra created for the lion. Once those two animations were done, I went back to the idle and walk cycles for the lion and improved them.

 

Next, I went back to the witch rig and worked on the skinning of the feet/ankles and the armpits since they were causing issues in engine. The arms still clip and stretch weirdly in the attack animation for the witch so I didn't fix the skinning completely, but the feet look much better and aren't causing any really weird movement in the witch blend space any longer. The armpits were clipping a lot in any pose the witch is holding the axe, so I did make that part of both arms look better in those poses. After that, I added a joint for the axe, parented it to the joint of the right hand, and then reskinned the axe to be attached to that new joint since the lack of joint on the axe was causing an issue where the axe would be moved from the left hand when the animation was exported from Maya and imported into Unreal. The new joint fixed that issue completely.

 

Then, I went back through all the witch animations and worked on improving them. The body of the witch was pretty low to the ground in some animations and that was also causing issues with the feet and knees so I raised the body and tried to counter-animate the popping knees with raising the heels on the IK feet. Raising the body helped the feet and legs not clip so badly. The feet positions were a bit jerky in the run and walk cycles as well so I worked on smoothing them out to look more natural. I also has issues in multiple animations were the secondary movement of the axe looked pretty jerky as well so I did my best to make that movement look more natural as well.

 

Once I was done with all these animations and fixes, I imported a new version of the witch skeleton and skeletal mesh and all these animations into Unreal. I updated the witch blend space with the new and improved idle, alert, walk, and run animations. The blend between idle to alert to walk is not very smooth and it makes some awkward movement so I was trying to work around it by making the idle cycle and the alert animation (which is essentially just a transition animation between idle and any animation where the witch is holding the axe in two hands) their own states but the state machine wouldn't work without a blend space being the first state from entry. I'm not entirely sure why this is the case, but I ended up returning to my blend space that went from idle to alert to walk to run instead.

 

After updating the blend space, I updated the state machine will all the new animations. I was having an issue where the state machine got stuck on one state and wouldn't progress through the attacking loop cycle but doing it over a couple times was able to fix it. I also added a jumping state and now the witch is able to jump from the locomotion state and the attacking loop state. The jump cuts the attacking animation off. The witch is successfully able to cycle through idle to alert to walk to run to attacking or jumping and back to locomotion. 

 

Finally, I made a new game mode with the witch as the pawn so that the witch is now the character the player plays as in our interactive experience.  

 

 

Perforce Directory

First Bake - 'B' Stage

 

Death to Dorothy

  

Visual Documentation of Work

Animation Reel

 

Blend Space Update

 

State Machine Update

 

Written Paragraph

What I Did

For the 'B' Stage of the Interactive Experience for the Death to Dorothy project, I focused most of my time on animation for the lion and the witch and then updated the locomotion blend space and the state machine for the witch. First, I made 3 completely new animations, which were a  run cycle and two transition animation from running to standing and from standing to running to use in the state machine I'm building for the witch. Once I was done, I imported those animations into Unreal and then updated the witch blend space to go from idle, to alert, to walking, and finally to running. Then I created states for my transitions animations in my state machine to get that ready to implement. Next, I redid the walk and idle animations for the lion from scratch for the third time since the rig was redone due to the new lion model done in A-Pose rather than T-Pose. Once the animations were done in Maya, I imported the new skeletal mesh for the lion and all the animation assets in Unreal. 

 

 

Perforce Directory

 

High Res Meshing - 'C' Stage

 

Death to Dorothy

  

Visual Documentation of Work

Animation Reel

Blend Space Update

 

State Machine Update

Written Paragraph

What I Did

For the 'C' Stage of the Interactive Experience for the Death to Dorothy project, I focused most of my time on animation for the lion and the witch and then made progress on an animation state machine for the witch. First, I iterated on and improved all the previous animations for the witch, which were a walk cycle, an idle cycle, a jump animation, an attack animation, and an alert animation that also functions as a transition from idle to attack/walk. Next, I redid the walk, idle, and attack animations for the lion from scratch since the rig was redone due to the new lion model. Once the animations were done in Maya, I imported the new skeletal mesh for the lion and all the animation assets in Unreal. Then I updated the blend space for the witch that goes from idle to alert to walk with the new C Stage animations. I also made progress on setting up the animation state machine for the witch but I realized that I will need more transition animations to make it fully functional so I will add those in the next stage.

 

 

Perforce Directory

 

Protomeshing - 'D' Stage

 

Death to Dorothy

 

 

Visual Documentation of Work

Animation Reel

Animation Blend Space and Blueprint Progress in Unreal 

 

Written Paragraph

What I Did

For the 'D' Stage of the Interactive Experience for the Death to Dorothy project, I focused most of my time on animation and then made progress on an animation state machine for the witch. First, I made some block outs for the lion since I wasn't able to last stage. I blocked out a walk cycle, a walk-turn for pathing, an idle cycle, and an attack animation. Then I blocked out some new animations for the witch, including a jump and alert/transition from idle to walk/attack animation. I made some revisions to the witch's idle animation and transferred the witch's walk cycle to the revised D-Stage rig next. After that, I imported all these animations into Unreal and created a blend space for the witch to go from idle to alert to walk. Once that was created, I made an animation blueprint for the witch and started building a state machine. I need to transfer the witch's attack animation to the D-Stage rig before I can complete the first pass state machine.

 

Perforce Directory

Initial Block Out - 'F' Stage

 

Death to Dorothy

 

 

Visual Documentation of Work

Animation List 

 

Rig and Animation Reel

  

 

Written Paragraph

What I Did

For the initial block out of the Interactive Experience for the Death to Dorothy project, I worked on rigs and animation. 

First, I tackled the character rig for the witch character after KC modeled them. Working in Maya, I placed joints along the mesh to form a skeleton for the Witch, creating FK arms and IK legs. Then I painted the first pass skin weights on the mesh. Once I was done, I made controllers for the joints and constrained them to the joints so I could use them to animate with.

Next, I did the prop rig for the axe the witch wields. I made 2 joints for it, a root at the bottom and another at the top, and then painted the skin weights so that all the influence was held by the root joint. Then I made a controller for it and placed it where the witch would grab it. After I completed the two rigs, I exported the skeleton and mesh and imported then into our Unreal project.

 

Once both the Witch Rig and the Axe Rig were done, I constrained the axe to the witch's hand and then started animating. I made rough block outs for 3 animations for the witch: an idle cycle, a walk cycle, and an attack animation. I only did keyframes but I animated in spline so that we could see the range of motion more clearly. The skin weights are pretty rough so there is some clipping of the mesh. Once I was done with each animation, I baked the animation onto the skeleton and then exported the animation. Then I imported the animation into Unreal.

 

I also created a list of animation we'll need in the future, which are complete versions of the animations I did for the witch, a run cycle and some transitions for the witch, and all the animations for lion. 

  

 

Perforce Directory

Let's Make It Stick

 

Death to Dorothy

 

Scarecrow Stickers

Cricut Design Space

 

Module 2 Week 07 (Simple Crate and Barrel)

 

 Game Asset Creation 101

Texture/material Creation and Final Display of Work 

 

Beauty Shots

High Resolution Screenshots

 

 

Movie Made with Camera Sequencer 

 

 

Process

GAC 14 - Painting Maps in Substance Painter

 

GAC 15 - Exporting Maps from Substance Painter

 

GAC 16 - Pushing All Our Work to UE

 

GAC 17 - Showing Our Work in UE in a Professional Way