More Humans Start moving in

Humans are moving into the garden to make it (because it is) a better place -.-

I’m making all those human moves these days. Basically several clips that are in the same crowd or sharing the similar poses in one fbx file. Like I now have 10 clips in the ‘sit’ model, 11 clips in the ‘standing’ model, and 4 clips in the ‘carrying’ model. Although they use the same armature, since in the Unity scene they would have the identical pose which is the first frame of the first clip in NLA editor, then it would be very hard to adjust their transformations and parent-child relationships if I just used one model.

Making armature animations is fun. (The disgusting part is weight painting though – since I had more poses than just riding now, I’d found the weights were not that right at the hip part and it took me a whole afternoon to repaint it, to ‘basically right’. See the upper parts of the thigh is still quite weirdly swelling) But if you want to make them moving naturally, then you have to take care of every bone. Walking is obviously much more difficult than sitting, and like how you walk, every bone have to move to make the whole body move naturally, even the toe. Also the centre of gravity is important! The GIF below was initially for carrying a burden, but for quite a long time I felt it had been more like dragging something. I think the most important part for the centre of gravity should be the hip bone (the cyan below) – position as well as rotation.

Below is a combination in the real scene of several animations. The branch is set parent to one hand, and to make it move but not rotate, I have to be very careful with the hand’s bone and set it to the same rotation of every key frame. That was not very easy because the hip the spine the chest and the arm rotates all the time to look natural!

And another combination: the same person with the left one above but this time he is dragging a frog.

This one below contains more parent-child relationships. Actually I quite like this kind of thing because although it seems more troublesome, but once you got clear who will be the child of whom, then after dragging them in, the whole animation would seem quite good because everything seems moving along with each other and that makes the natural sense.

And a sitting crowd here. For a crowd of people like this as well as those trying to catch the red ball above, the differences between each other are very important. People can’t move with the same rhythm and the same movements. So one thing is to make more clips with maybe just slight differences (like they are all sitting but some are supporting the body with one hand or two, some shaking legs or looking around, etc), and the other thing is to use different speed for each animator controller.

Another thing except from the animation when importing these humans is that new models and textures as most of them have their own stage properties… (That could be another ‘default’ factor of being natural cos it looks that everyone is really doing something..) And here are the big birds in the pond.

I really enjoy the time restoring these adorable creatures by painting new textures, and I try to make them more like birds by adding thin strokes to create a feather-like material but not a colourful plastic. But, well, it’s not a good habit to take screenshots because I always feel that I’ve saved it after I make the screenshot. How much should I pay for my stupidness before I can get a degree?

The Circuit is ON!! XD

Literally four whole days (and nights) working on the components including separating models, reallocating actions, resetting smooth shading and UV unwrap, painting textures, sorting and cleaning animations, dealing with the hierarchies, and the codes…..

Animation

So now I eventually became quite familiar with Blender’s animation system and figured out how to store multiple clips for one file to Unity. In NLA editor I drag all actions I need into one track and delete others so that they won’t show up again in Action editor (become “0”, precisely, and disappear when opened next time. Cos I’d been confused why they were still not “0” although I checked all objects and no one was using them). And also, Unity’s clip list become clean now. Note that you have to delete the current action of the armature to <No Action> or all the clips would play the current action.

Therefore as all humans are using the identical rig, I can then append my prefab one (shape keys & modifier problem fixed) into each model file. I also found that it was because the parent-child relationship things that when I imported the models into Unity the components were always messed up in transformation. It seems that if I had more than one objects have parent relationships with a single object/bone, then it wouldn’t work properly. Like if I had both the hair and eyes set to the head bone, they’d fly away in Unity but if only hair, and eyes set to the eyes’ bone (moving paralleled), then everything’s fine. Neither .blend or .fbx. The same problem in complex animations such as something was set to a bone of an armature, and it had it’s own armature deforms or something set to it’s bones at the same time, then… well that’s confusing because the original models of human on horse animation work in the blend file’s default take (human has its own animation and is parented to the horse’s back bone); but when I had more complex things, I wasted hours on trying to figure out where went wrong, and failed.

My workaround is just separating things into single clips. The mount in one blend file, the human (if multiple humans, store them into clips in one fbx file, cos fbx can have shape keys animations), and birds on the head or something held by hand etc… then in Unity’s hierarchy, unfold their components, place the human as the child of the mount’s back bone, and place the others as the child of what it should be. Not really troublesome and very safe.

Hierarchy

Allocate the animator controller to everyone who has animation. Then, each human(s) with the mount and the related objects is set to an empty game object. That game object carries the moving script and a box collider. There’s also a “circuit” game object being the parent of everything here and it’s at the centre of the pond, so everyone can have a local position around the pond which is easier for the script.

As there had been more and more objects in the circuit I decided to sort them into crowds, and actually they are in crowds in the painting as well. I used numbers as in the clock then I found there were exactly 12! Brilliant.

So in the code I call the transform.localPosition to get the angle and radius (it’s an ellipse though so z divides 0.7 :P). Then angle+=speed and localPosition goes to its cos and sin. And finally use a Quaternion.LookRotation(Vector 3).

So that’s about the important things this week, easier said than done! How painful it should be to learn something…. I love painting textures though! Although Blender always has awful unfilled seams.

OK it’s too much for gifs this time so here’s a extremely unclear screen grab!! Forgot to say, it’s still even not everything in the circuit actually T___T

 

A Makeup Artist Should Be Able to Make Contour to Not Only Human

But also horses…

And after I replaced several models today, I found that I can just append the fixed human model to the same place and simply delete the original one, and give the new armature the original action because they use exactly the same set of armature. Brilliant! However at the moment I can’t figure out how to export multiple actions to one fbx file so that I don’t need that many human models which should save great space; I’ve checked the “F”, but in Unity there is just one clip. Doesn’t affect the appearance though.

Also found a very nice resource of a unlit shader that casts shadows: https://gist.github.com/pigeon6/4237385 because the the light and (even diffuse) reflections are sometimes too strong and the texture can’t be seen clearly, while unlit texture won’t have shadow that’s too weird for a real material.

Keep working!!

Shape Keys Animations Finally Work T__T

I WANNA CRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah just as the title says. After all those searches experiments struggles, since even a month ago when I found part of the animation was not working…. Searched all keywords I can think about, trying different export settings and even scripts, and also asked my teacher who gave me some experimental suggestions about baking….

I now found the reason is just so simple that I was using subdivision surface and mirror modifiers on my models, which shape keys won’t work together with. https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/3nmuaa/whats_up_with_the_missing_shape_keys/ So many said that Unity just don’t understand animations apart from the transform ones, and said Blender’s shape key animations just won’t work in Unity, but the above post is right and there is the solution. When I tried a human with those modifiers applied and remade the shape keys (so hard to control facial expression when there were so many vertexes this time), export .fbx instead of just the model file, the “BlendShapes” tab just simply appeared under the Skinned Mesh Renderer, and everything just moves smoothly without my doing anything. Nothing to do with anything else!

But I can’t apply the modifiers to models with shape keys, and, this tutorial seems great but don’t work with my complex models with armature. The saddest thing is that I’ve done such a great part of the animations, with everyone set with his own armature & shape keys animation, and with modifiers not applied.

So I’m now hoping that I can manage to use this new human model, importing into all my files, deleting the original human mesh and successfully parenting the new one with the armature. Sigh but better than nothing! Just a month left and… hold on plz everything works plzzzzzzz

The Architecture 5: Keep Modelling…

Come to update the latest progress of the project.

Now just finished the last two giant buildings on the top right of the painting. Seems quite exciting but still great many of the small pieces everywhere ohhhh hope I could finish all of them…

Anyway. Kind of getting bored with these models of the same kind of vivid colours and I don’t feel in this effect they look as good as the ‘sketches’ in Blender. By the way that inner organ like thing was really crazy to model…

But the screenshots in Blender in the unfinished editing scenes look very cool and technical, especially with the blank and missing-data shapes! I suddenly feel that it would be a great modern version related card product or something.

 

I can actually choose the Unlit texture shader in Unity so that it would look as flat as in Blender windows because they wouldn’t accept the lights and shadows from the environment. I’ve talked about this before and then felt it’s still better to have some more 3D ones. This is really contradictory maybe I just don’t get the good way to balance these knotty needs. Who knows.

A small ‘documentary’ here!

The 2nd Episode of the BBC Documentary Renaissance Revolution

Just share a brilliant documentary that I’ve just seen the third time. Talking about this painting for the whole episode, with the editing really full of motion to convey the mass jumps of weirdness as well as relations, and also some great modern background music instead of classical magnificent orchestral ones for the renaissance topic, which I feel express the idea that we understand this painting from our own age and thoughts, just as it was also modern or even advanced at its own time.

This is also where I got some of the knowledge/interpretations of this painting I used in my project, like the owls, the Tree-Man, the structure, and many other abstract ideas…. even before I thought about the topic of this final project.

https://dailymotion.com/video/x1ircew

the Realised UI in Unity!

Spent 3 days with C#… Came across and solved loads of problems from a total newbie, during which there were many moments I thought oh this technique was brilliant I should write everything down but, now just don’t know what I should conclude -.-

Just let the GIFs speaks

I changed the logic structure of the selecting panels in order to optimise the calculation and that it’d be better controlled if much more objects were added to the system (as if I would).. so first I had things sorted by type like all models in a folder which as a parent rotates, and all map segments, all titles in a folder.. but I spent the third afternoon renaming everything and resorting them by the objects’ name like all things of the cone in the cone’s folder, and everything in the same type uses the same name/tag (“title”, “model”) in the hierarchy. I saw a set of videos talking about importing database&php into Unity, but well… it would be good but the big thing about my project I guess should be that I can’t go too far with anything so that I could finally balance it as a whole TvT.

Got some useful suggestions and inspirations on 5th and 6th from our tutors Jules and Andrew in the interim presentation, and I’m now moving to the writing (in case I forget anything :P)

Static pics:

The UI Update

Added a shading of Bosch’s drawing The Tree-Man in the background. And some detailed changes. I now feel better about this UI and about to move on. Reminded me of the Age of Empire 2 where this kind of shadings are also used a lot XD

And the UI in the outside scene (when triggering something). I’m happier with this and it can be a transition so that the other scene wouldn’t seem that heavy.

The book in the left bottom corner is the entrance to the other scene (? I’m not sure about how the Unity’s UI system works now). It also came out from one of Bosch’s painting St Jerome. Thanks Bosch XD

The UI Sketches

Decided to stop the modelling to work on the UI system and programming part which will be the framework of the project.

I would describe the UI’s style as medieval,  Bosch-ish, and fit in the overall project style.

1. Medieval

Firstly as I have no experience with game UI design, I looked for how it should look like online. Most of them were too cartoon, while the flat ones seemed too technological or modern for the painting’s age.

Then I thought about some historic RTS games I played like Total War and Europa Universalis. The UI designs are much more delicate in these successful game. I also found a very nice design on Behance (from which the last pic came).

 

2. Bosch-ish

I found a fun app in Apple Store the other day called Bosch Painter, which offers many interesting element cutouts from Bosch’s paintings, as well as canvases for the users to compose their own Bosch styled images. It gave me great inspiration.

The idea in this app is that we can create Bosch-ish pictures using things he drew as they are just so recognisable; and this method is also used somewhere else, like the exceptional exhibition Hieronymus Bosch 500 took place in city of Den Bosch this spring.

What surprised me afterwards was that when I looked for some good elements to use, I found some of his paintings are “born with UI” – with some perfect decorative elements:

the exterior (Saints James the Greater and Bavo) of The Last Judgment

The Extraction of the Stone of Madness (Cutting the Stone)

The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things

What’s more, an unsolved problem that how I should include the exterior shutter of the painting the Garden of Earthly Delights from the very first when I was still planning to make all the 3 scenes this summer, seemed to have got a way.

 

3. The Overall Project Style

This is the hardest part of all. But first I should actually introduce what I’ll use my UI system for. As I have mentioned a little in my plans before, I’m going to create a collection system for all the messages the player will meet with during the exploration of the scene. So when the player has found one message, it will appear in the collection, while the uncovered ones will still remain a “???” status. This is the main game mechanics of this project. Also, I’d like to add the functions of viewing where the message was from in map (based on the original painting), marking the objects you like and reviewing the spinning models later, and taking photos from the perspective you like.

So the demo came out as below. I don’t have a model’s pic taking from a proper view so I’m using a previews work of mine to imitate at the moment. And I found a gothic font to use on that title scroll like what Bosch wrote on it originally (but in a more recognisable font). I didn’t even use any other resources; all of materials I used were from Bosch’s paintings.

This should be very Bosch-ish. However, I don’t find it fit in the game scene’s style at all. It’s too heavy and not at all flat, but the problem is if I want to use elements from the renaissance paintings, the style can’t be like today’s aesthetics.

Here I changed a bit of it and hopefully it could be better with the flat-shading models later. I quite like those ancient styled things I deleted from the last version though. And I still not really satisfied with this design… apparently the layout is quite unbalanced. But the important thing right now, is to go on with Unity to realise the graphics, which is going to be an extremely tricky thing! Bless me 😛

The Architecture 4: Experiments with Water

The third big building seen in the game mode (with some vignette and bloom camera effects, just the experimental version), and also the newly updated painted skybox, fog and some faraway mountains!

Didn’t really care about the upper and downside parts because they’re out of sight, and now flaws are that although I made distortion close to the sides, they still act quite square-like in the scene. And the seams can be seen. I’ll leave it for now.

The “real colour” in scene. And there’s a black ball inside to make the shadow effect..

I used two pairs of particle systems to make the two fountain things. One dropping column of water and one for the spray (because it seemed not very natural and also it’s rather complicated to make the collisions so I’d fake it).

The renderer I used is stretched billboard so that the water seems quite coherent but not like stupid squares. Higher emission rate than the default setting and a decreasing curve of the size to make it like in the painting that rather smoothly flowing at first and getting thinly scattered later. I also set the order in layer to 1 or the particles would be weirdly blocked by the river water in scene mode. And for the material, I tried all kinds of shaders including the particles ones and water ones in FX and chose the Water 4 in Unity’s standard assets, and used my sky texture (which is exactly a white to dark gradient) for the internal reflection.

For the bouncing spray I used a capsule mesh instead of a billboard.