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!!)

UVW Mapping

I have tried my hand at UVW Mapping before and found it to be literally terrrable and impossible to understand. But however to get a good result on the texure you need to use UVW or it will look rubbish and could only have reapeated textures.

The last time I used the modifier it was with a complex mode of my face, which had allot to contend with and it was increaisngly difficult but as the elements of this model are not as complex and are diffrent parts instead of just one massive object with hundereds of ploygons.

Unfolding and creating the Maps
I found that the easiest way to create the maps were to simple apply the UVW unwrap, when you first apply it the seems are normally really messed up and in the wrong places.















































As you can see they are impossible to work with and this is how everything was turning out last time. (I did not have high hopes as I wondered if I could ever get anything that I could work with)But by simplying selecting the faces and using the "Planar" then going into edit mode. It lays out the structure very simply but shows it from above.

























You can then select "Normal Mapping" which then allows you to see the front and back of the object, splitting it into 2 main segments. This is hard for side parts as they become moulded round the edges but I was only worried about front and back for this object.































I then took the Mapping into Photoshop, were I added mucky splats to add to my characters design. Making him look really really scruffy as if he had spilt all food over himself and yet he doesnot care, due to his lazy and slobbyness.






















































You can see from the image above what the object looked like when the material was applied with the UVW unwrap. It really makes the object looks better instead of just being white, So am glad that I have managed to learn to use UVW unwrap correctly.

Gotten the Bug for UVW Unwrap!!































Once I found out how to use the materials, I decided to try and add some more to the body and shorts of my character. It really improved the design from the standard basic colours, I especially enjoyed doing the skin. As I got to make moles and a scrubby beard, once again really making the character more detail.

HOWEVER!!!















Having all the UVW Unwrap it really did slow down the program and moddeling was becoming icreasingly hard. So animation would be so do difficult that it was not even worth trying, so to save myself from having the program crash every 10 seconds I removed all but the t-shirt material which due to its size, still allowed fast movement.

Tips and Tricks

I just wanted to point out some things that I use when moddeling and have found it usefull through the moddeling stages.

Send in the Clones!!!!

Now due to the nature of the work that is being produced, I always make sure to be safer than sorry and whenever I change something drastic I will make another copy of the object just in case things go horribly wrong.


























Now this has happend to me in the past and indeed has happend to me during this project, espcially when taking the individual model parts and putting them together, my welding and creating planes. If not concentrating this can go horribly wrong very quickly and its always good to have something to revert back too.

How to use Layers?

It was mentioned in class about using layers, I did notice that will all my backup figures and objects that simple tasks such as moving around the workspace were becoming increasingly difficult due to everything that was being moved around. It was also hard to work on areas without selecting other models etc which was very annoying to say the least.

But just like photoshop using layers can be very handy, putting models on diffrent layers and being able to hide them from sight or move large groups of work at once.

Creating the Head

I now had the fun job of creating the head, this will be really tricky as I want to make sure I get all the facial features correct as it will be the main looking point for the viewer. Where most of the emotions will come from, making the character really come alive.

Creating the Mask



















I created a mask, this technique was first used in the creating our own heads, as it worked so well last time I wanted to attempt it again. I started off my creating a plane (which you can see for the front of the nose.) I then used the edge tool while holding shift to create more polygons, I followed the shape of a face typography. (This means that the face will flow better and have more of the general face structure similar to our own.)






















Making the back of the head is usually really hard, as its very simple to create too many polygons to get a rounded shape. It is better to create as few as possible, while keep turning the model round trying to drag each polygon as far as possible. I managed to do it quite well keeping the polygon count down to a minimal.




























I then continued to sculpt the the rest of the face in the same method. As you can see I gave him very distinct features to match the rest of his body. I made the lips very distinct and large, I wanted the cheeks to be bulging and have the eyelids around the eyeballs. (Which were created earlier and are not shown in the shot.) You will notice that his face looks very pointed and convex but once it has been turbo smoothed, it takes on a whole different form.




























The image above shows the face with turbo smooth modifier applied and the eyeballs. The face really is starting turn into the character that I envisioned from my sketches. I am really looking foward to animating him and giving him some detailed expression for my planned storyboard.


Connecting the Head the rest of the body
































AVERT YOUR EYES!! He has become naked.......

I have now connected the head to the rest of the body, this was relatively simple to do. It just required deleting sections of polygon and then using the polygon create tool and also the welding tool to attach the vertex. I had to remove parts of the stomach to attach the legs, it may look strange at the moment but I will be attaching cloths at a later date which will cover certain parts and change the movement.

Add Some Cloths




























































PHHHEEWW!! That's better he is now decent!!

I designed the cloths my taking the body parts and copying them over, then using the sizing tool to make it bigger. I then went back to vertex mode and edited each section further to give it more detail and depth. I decided not to use the cloth tool as they would not stay on the body and simply did not match the cartoon style betrayed on the rest of the character.

Starting to Model the Character

I wanted to really get into the modeling of the character, as this can prove to be the hardest part. Especially as getting the correct shape and structure can prove to be difficult and will require allot of editing. So better late than never....

Creating the Feet

I wanted to start off by creating the feet and then working upwards, leaving the head and the hands till later on. I am going to be using box modeling for the main parts of the character as I find it the easiest method as it gives you a starting point which you can then manipulate.




















I created a box with 6 x 2, this will give me enough space to make the foot shape. I am not going to be creating toes for my character as he will be wearing slippers and will not be on show to the user. The foot itself will also be over exaggerated to match my style of character (This will also be reflected in his other body parts such as the head and belly.)




















As you can see from the image above, I have taken the vertex's and pulled them up and inwards to create the shape. I wanted to keep the polygon count as low as possible, other wise when it came to animating and applying bones or a biped. (Also it is generally good practice to keep the polygons low, making things less complicated when trying to manipulate later down the line and also helps keep the shapes smooth when applying a turbo smooth.)

Creating the Ankles




















Things with the modeling were going surprisingly well, which is very strange for me!! So I was expecting to have some major problems coming my way soon... But while my luck was in I carried on, I used the edge tool to create the angle muscles. Holding the shift key and pulling at each edge creating new ones. Once the edges had been created, I then welded the points together, as otherwise it will not be a complete object and have gaps!! (BAD to have gaps!) Then as you may have guessed simply edited the vertex to give it greater definition.

Show me some Pink Slippers!!


















Now that I had made the foot and the ankle, I started to think about how I was going to make the slippers. Once again I did not want to make anything too complex so decided to take the foot and copy it over, remove the ankle and parts of the foot itself and was left with a slipper shape. I then used the polygon tool to create the extra polygon for the missing parts. Scaled the slipper up and edited the vertexes till I was good and happy. (I had to scale it up becasue otherwise it would have been the same size as the foot and when smoothed may have seen parts of the foot sticking out.)

Last Parts of the Leg




















I carried on moving the polygons upwards, I created a knee by simply pulling out the vertex points to the front and at the back of the model. You will notice they are quite low down, this is mainly due to my character as he is overweight, rather short and his legs need to match that criteria.That was as much as I needed to create for the legs maybe make them slightly taller or making them wider to make him look fatter!! :D But they will be put to the side for the moment and will come back into play when the rest of the character has been made and then will be attached to the rest of the body.

Creating the Rounded Frame

The tutorials that Jo had given us in class basically used a box and then extruded the parts around to make excuse my slang, "A buff Manly Man" type of frame, now however I looked at it my character was far from this and needed to have a big old belly sticking out.




















I started off by creating a circle and turning down the amount of edges ( It looks rubbish at this stage but makes it easier to work with and will look fine once smoother over with a modifier.) Also the bottom middle part will be removed to attach the legs, so he wont just look like an orange with 2 small legs running around.

























Then as simple as it is, we all know how I have achieved the above image. Converted to editable poly and chopped the top loads of polygons off, nothing new or exciting but needed to be said none the less!





















Then grabbing my trusty edge tool and holding that magic shift key, pulled out the top elements of the circle to form what will be the upper body.

Wow I bet you are not sitting there thinking he has taken a picture of every single step and I am going to be here all day. Not quite I have shown mainly the main parts, I have not shown every image of every little tweak and nudge to bore the pants off you. Just to quickly show the main steps into the modeling process, honestly just grit you teeth and bare it (It will all be over soon!)

Big Belly Button




















I knew that the cloths I was going to create for my character would be showing his belly button and his sexy love handles. So wanted to give them some more detail now while it was fresh in my mind, not being distracted by harder elements such as the face or animating.

Using something a little bit different from using the polygon, edge or vertex tool. The cut tool allowed me to slice up the polygons to create a diamond shape. I then used the extrude tool and embed the polygon inwards, I repeated this process until I had created what you see above. You will also notice some of the vertex points on the hips are sticking out, as strange as this looks once a smooth has been applied it gave them a flabby look I was searching for.

The Main Body Frame

























As you can see from the image above the main part of the body is completed, I have left spaces to connect the head and arms which will be created next and then welded onto the mesh. I find this easier to work on separate parts when modeling and then connecting them as it allows you to pan around everything and see it without having your view obstructed.
The flabby arms to come!!

























I created the arm in the same fashion as I created the foot by making a box with a few height and width segments and then using the polygon and extrude tool to give it more depth. (I used the uniform scale to make the muscles bigger, also to create the hole for the hands.) I attached the arm to the body but in order to do so, had to create more polygons at the meeting point and cut along several parts. The mesh looks quite messy but is unnoticeable when smoothed and also cloths will be added over the top.

Your body is looking good give me 5!! ooo wait you cant... sorry about that

The hands!! One of the crucial elements of the body as they have such detailed design and have very calibrated detailed movements its very important to get them looking the best as possible. They have to be made as simple as possible to enable to bones to link and grab each finger correctly and replicate a real hand.

























I started thinking about how many fingers to give my character, would I base it on the human hands of 4 fingers and 1 thumb. Or like most cartoons have only 3 fingers and 1 thumb?? I wanted to know why animators actually stopped using this extra finger?

"In the early days of animation, they used to produce up to five shorts per month of five minutes each second of film has 24 frames in it. Which makes around 11,000 drawings per short. The pressure to produce these was huge and one less finger reduced their workload significantly. One other reason is that having a five-fingered hand would add a level of realism which would look ridiculous on many cartoon characters. And realism isn't really a big issue when discussing a talking mouse! " (http://www.lbc.co.uk/why-do-cartoon-fingers-only-have-three-fingers-8164)

From the passage above I found out that it was cheaper and for cartoons having 4 fingers looks strange, I had remembered this from sketches I had done in the past where tying to fit that amount of fingers in was very hard as you run out of space quickly and ended up squeezing everything together.



















Using the extrude tool allowed me to make the fingers and the the thumb, you can see by the lines that they have been extruded twice and angled down.



















You can see from the image above how the hands look with a turbo smooth applied, the thumb looks lacking in girth. There are no knuckles but the hand is starting to retain the shape I am looking for. But will require some tweaking to get it to a point at which I am happy.



















You can see from the image above, I have created the knuckles, given the fingers and thumbs some more depth and generally gone edit crazy. I am happy with the end result of the hand and feel that it will work quite well when starting to skin with with the bones, now just the tricky part of connecting it to the arm.



















Actually it was not that much of a pain, the polygons don't line up perfectly, but this is mainly because the hand has allot more that the arms. This was essential to get the bulging knuckles and finer details into the hand. I simply created more polygons and used the weld tool to connect them.



















The end result actually was not that bad, there is a few sleigh bumps and pinching in certain areas but with a few tweaks I feel I can remove them or bring them to a minimal that they are not noticed by the user.

Attaching the Parts of the Body



















I am not going to bore you with loads of images of me using the welding tool and attaching each piece together. I will tell you however that I used the mirror tool to create another arm and hand for the other side of the body, which seemed easier than making another arm and hand. Attaching simply required cutting out polygons and then welding the parts together, both normal and target welding.
























You will notice I have circled some details, I wanted him to have some arm and chest hair. Tried using the hair modifier but it simply messed up the entire model and added a large amount of rending time for such a small amount of hair. It also did not allow turbo smooth to be on while having hair and with the front selected made hair come from the sides and back :S This led me to creating cartoon style hair which I think works allot better.

Quick Reflection

My character is really starting to come to life at this stage, I cant wait to start the animation process. This is mainly because I have never animated a character before only moddeled so its all new and exciting. However my next task is creating the face, a part that will probably be the most demanding but yet rewarding. As most of the expressions will come from the face it is crucial that I get a good and creative design.