Character Backstory

We had to create a back story for our characters, I already had made up one in my head. (about who he was, what his life style would contain etc.) But now it was time to show this in a presentation.

Character Name: Norman
Norman is a 45 year old man, who lives at home with his mother. He is unemployed and spends most of his time sitting at home playing computer games, eating junk food. (He is quite partial to glazed doughnuts.)

Hobbies: Norman likes to spend about 90 percent of his day at his computer, the other 10 percent is simply eating and sleeping. He does not lead an active life and does not exersize, resultng in his large belly!

What has happend in his life??
He has grown up with his mum since he was small, his dad left home at an early age. He didnt have allot when he was little and unfortunatly the weight of the world got him down. He was picked on at school for not having nice cloths or the cool toys. It didnt get any better as he got older, it just got worse. He was picked on more and more, being beaten up at every turn.

Job: Norman used to have a job working as a repairman, but due to his bad attitude and quick temper he got himself fired. He was then too proud to admit his mistakes and get another job or learn another proffession. He now lives off benifits and the money from his mum's retirement, this leaves him more time to waste away each day.

He pritty much had to drop out of education and hide away from everyone, he found himself becomming very bitter and spending allot of time by himself. Which has left him looking and acting like he does today.

Body Type: He is 6ft, weighs about 16stone. He is very overweight and finds the idea of a gym a disgusting thing, he loves how he looks and does not see a problem with his appearance. His mum says that he looks handsome and really an attractive man and that's all that matters to him. He is covered in moles, he does not have any personal hygiene. (He does not clean his teeth, comb his hair, which has mostly disappeared.)

Clothes: He wears the same clothes all year round, which consist of a vest top (that is too small and does not cover all of him, leaving his belly to pop out) He wears an old pair of baggy brown shorts that he found lying on the side of the road. He normally gets stains all over his clothes which he does not bovered to clean, staying in these cloths for a large amount of time. (Normally getting very smelly with B.O. as he does not use deodorant etc.) He feels that he does not have time in his busy gaming schedule.

Intellignets : He has little common sence and due to his short education life, is not the smartest person you will ever meet. He likes to think that he is really smart and would argue that he is one of the most talented and intellectual people in the world. But really he is quite stupid and very arrogant although he does know allot about computers and games consoles.

Holidays: Does he go on go on holiday? Not really, he avoids being around allot of people. As he feels that he is being looked and judged all the time. He howeever will venture to the beach now and then with his mother, which is usually a day of moaning and arguments.

Relationships: He has never had a girlfriend and does not have any friends, his social skills are very minimal. He does not know how to communicate with others and stuggles to get on with himslef, so the possibility of a relationship is very minimal.

Norman overall has the typical attributes of a 40 year old man who lives at home on his own with his mother. Does not go out and have friends, does not have a girlfriend. He is lonely, unhappy man but this can all be rooted to such a bad child hood. He has mr bean qualities, he shows his emotions very well and uses grunts and loud noises to communicate.

WHAT ARE U LOOKING AT!!!

I have created the second part to the scene, where Norbert looks at the camera and realises someone is looking at him. He then goes to scratch his belly and gives a very unhappy 1000 yard stare! This will then lead into the rest of the performance, I wanted to set the scene to show he is not even happy with people looking at him let alone what he will encounter soon!! (Poor Guy)

OOOO Dear 3DSMAX!!

I am starting to think that 3DSmax hates me after I had rendered my first scene of Norman walking on stage. I saved the work and then when i tried to open it there was a little bit of a problem......















I checked on the max file and my character, his skin, biped and everything attached had gone! Basically the file had corrupted luckily I had made backups from before I started animating, but as I had a finished version of the video it was not too bad. As I could use that and then cut to a new scene. But needless to say I was not a happy chappy as that was not my original plan.

So I apologise for any unhappy viewers that will see the cut, but I am sure that I can use my fantastic video editing to make it look like it was meant to be there all along!!

Starting to Animate

I have produced some basic animations for the walking cycle, I have not used the built in one with max. As it distorted my character loads, mainly due to the position of his shoulders, so I decided to make my own (allot harder!! But was worth the effort.)



As you can see he does not pick up his feet but shuffles, this is not because I cut corners and was lazy it was mainly because his character is!! I do not want him to be running and putting in effort, he has to look like every foot step is using all his energy and he really cant be assed!!

More Walking.....



I have added some more steps, just trying to work out how to make the steps look as realistic as possible!! When this was rendered I had less frames, so it appears to that he is running and looks way too fast for what I want. It was mealy a test of his body and the timings. (I also excuse about him having no pants, he had a wardrobe malfunction.) I need to also work on the way his feet move back and forwards, not so keen on this sliding motion. As much as I was, he may need to pick up his feet just a little bit to make it look more real.

Getting Closer!!!



I managed to improve on how he walks, I made him pick his feet up more. But he still looks like he is sliding! (maybe its that slipper shiny floor??) But that is an aspect that needs to be sorted out as it makes it look very amature. You will also notice that I have started to test the morph tool, while he is walking. It works really well and allows him to dislay a grumpy exspression (as he will be mubbeling to himself.) and blink while walking, what a BONUS!!

The best walk I have made yet!!



I managed to sort out that sliding problem, it is still there but you barely notice and I have done a panning motion with the camera so you are focused on those brilliant facial exsperssions!! He really is getting into his walk, swaying his arms and shoulders, stomping those pink slippers on the ground. You can really tell norman is not a happy chappy!! oooo things are only going to get worse!! MUHWAAHAHA

Lighting and Scenery

I wanted to start setting up the scenery for the animation, as this module is all about animation it was about time I jumped on the band wagon. I have spent ages making my kick ass character "Norman" and now he needs to show how much of a grumpy old man he really is!!

Where will this epic film be shot???

As we are not getting any marks on the environment, then I am not going to spend ages making a detailed environment. I decided to just make a plane background, out of a box.























I created a box, edited the poly's to create the shape you see above. (I made this so that the light has allot of space to move around, also being able to reflect of the top.)































The material used for the backdrop, was a shiny white. I used a reflection of 12, and a falloff map. This means you can see a slight reflection of the character, but not like he is walking on glass. It just gives the scene some more depth.

Setting up the Lighting































I wanted to set up the lights to make the character, really bright!! now low lights or dramatic shadows!! (which look rubbish) I wanted my work to be in full spotlight, I spent that time on him for a reason, so that he looks good!! (He wants his spotlight)

You will notice there are a few lights, there is the main light named (highlights) this gives my character his main shiny light on his face and body. I added a filler light which gives off less light from the other side making sure that the other side of him is not in pure darkness. There is also the light that you cannot see, towering from above. This is purely to light the scene and does not effect the character.

I also added a camera, it has just been set up dead straight for the first scene. Where Norman walks on/plods on. Making sure this was all sorted before animation occurred meant one less stress I would have to deal with!!

Rigging and the Biped

I tried to use the bone tools for my character, but found it really difficult to connect all the bones together and create the correct shapes. It was mainly due to the fact I was no sure where to start and creating something from scratch was really difficult.

Using the Biped - The better Choice

























The other option was to use a Biped instead, this basically meant creating a bone structure that was already existent in 3DSMAX you then edit the from to fit the character mesh you have designed. Which in my case sounded allot easier than creating every bone from scratch.































As you can see from the image above, I have modified the biped to match the body size of the skin. It was just a case of using the bone edit tool and then using the scale tool.































To be able to see how big to make each section I had to place the biped inside the skin for my character. By turning the skin see-through it allowed me to access the biped inside and change the dimensions to fit all the parts of the body.

Applying the Physique Modifier

Now that the bones are all set up it is time to apply the Physique Modifier to attach all the skin. I did each part of the body at a time, as there were many parts and some bits did not need to be attached. It also let me keep track of each part as it was added.































Once you have applied the modifier, you simply click on the "Attach to Node" then it will be looking for you to click on bones or part of the biped you want to link it to. The best way is to link it to the whole biped, from the selection list.































As I did not name my biped, it is still called Bip01. Once you select that it will ask you to accept and initialize the connection. (I kept all the settings to the original as they seemed to work really well.)































Once I went over each part, it was finally all attached to the biped. This meant that when the biped was moved the mesh attached would follow. But the job was not done yet, I still needed to sort out the "Envelopes" which control how much is connected to each part of the biped.



















You need to select the Envelope option, for the partical object (e.g. I am using the skin here to show as an example.) With that selected start clicking on the biped inside the mesh.










































As you can see from the images above, as you click on the bone it will show you the coverage of that bone. You can then change the strength and size of the radius. I went over the body on each bone to make sure the coverage was correct, and tried moving body parts to make sure all the mesh moved with the biped. (IT TOOK SOME WORK AND ALLOT OF FRUSTRATION!! but I got there in the end.)

Morph Stuff

I wanted my character to have as much expression's as possible, to meet the criteria of the module. But the only way I knew how was to use key framing and then move the vertex points around, but I did not want to do this as it could cause allot of problems.

As you start to edit the vertex points you are essentially are moving the mold of the entire face and parts. Now if you are not careful too much editing will ruin the model you have spent so much time and effort on. (And we know we don't want that.)

So I did some research and found out that there is a modifier called the "Morph" which allows you to create copies of your model and change them. Then you can use sliders to change your original model but you can always lower the sliders to get back to your original state.









































You can see from the images above, I created many copies of my characters body ( I had to use the whole body as the head is attached to the body and you cannot chop the head of and just use that.) Now all the morphs have to be made before you skin the model, otherwise it will mess it up.

This was tricky and required allot of planning as I had to work out the best morphs for what exspression I was going to be using, I covered the basics of happy, sad, mad etc and also added in some subtle mouth movements and eye movements. (Also the advanage to this is that you can use each one at the same time as another, so you can use say eye gestures and mix them with mouth ones, enabling you to create hundreds of diffrent looks from a small amount of designs.)






The video above is a test of all the gestures one after the other, I know it looks rather crazy but its just to see how the face reacts to each one. Some are very over the top than others and all this can be fine tuned later on. (But I am glad that I used the morph tool, as it works really well!!)