Grace Hollamby's Blog

Week 1 - 7

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/660367159121297408/studio-first-half-design-process

Week 8

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/663360140626526208/w8-studio-just-the-project-me-and-this-brick

Week 9

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/664193621904506880/w9-studio-the-making-of-cheshire-cat

Week 10

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/664193973136621568/w10-studio-were-all-mad-here

Week 11

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/664621783499063296/w11-studio-in-over-my-head

Week 12

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/666253579050467328/w12-studio-animation-for-dummies

Week 13

Final Performance Video

Document for Submission

So upon a simple google search I found that “OBJ is much simpler format that only keeps geometry (vertex, normals, etc) and uv data. FBX is much more advanced format that can hold much more data - models, uv data, joints, skinning information, animations, multiple takes of animation in one file, curves, and even embed texture files. FBX is standard for data exchange between DCC apps and game engines like Unity and UE4. FBX was originally a native format for Motion Builder scenes, so in theory it can hold whole scene data in a node-based structure”.

What all that essentially means is that i will need Cheshire Cat to be an FBX file, since he will have animations, which is the file type I am more used to, except that I remember it looking like garbage when I put the FBX into Unreal.

I moved the model over to Maya which I was more comfortable animating in:

(Video)

It was mostly a test because I am still unsure what software workflow I should be using.

What the model needs: - Smooth mesh - Seperate mesh for the eyes, teeth and rest of body (body includes nose), however I’m hoping it can be moved and scaled as one piece - Each mesh textured (probably in Unreal) - Animated tail wag and grin

Of course I realized only a week before its due that in order to put an animation into unreal, it needs a skeleton. To do a skeleton, I will need to undo all the animating I have just done.

Week 8

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/663359709983719425/w8-sis-project-pause-and-plan

Week 9

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/664193511925678080/w9-sis-playing-to-my-strengths

Week 10

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/664193835265638400/w10-sis-the-art-of-design

Week 11

3D Model Update

After learning my lesson yet again as to why saving is important, I finally got around to giving Cheshire cat eyeballs and teeth. The results are horrifying.

Cute...

To evil...

Before continuing, I had to see what was the best way of exporting the model and importing it into unreal. Exporting it as an OBJ kept the body shape nice, but took away the texture and wouldn’t let me interact with the eyeballs and teeth seperately. Exporting as an FBX kept the texture and the eyeballs and teeth seperate, but the body was full of edges and assembling all of the pieces would be tricky.

I am not as far along with the process as I would have liked to be, but I am proud of what I have been able to accomplish so far considering I am essentially learning a new software with only youtube as my teacher.

My next steps from here are: - Find the best way to export it (with the help of my team, especially Milo and Max who are doing the Unreal Engine side) - Animate the model: cut up the mesh on the tail so he can wag, maybe add eyelids so he can blink, and maybe animate the smile?

3D Model Update

Putting my finishing touches on the animation, creating a playblast and rendering as much as my computer can handle. It managed to render 81 frames. Now I just have to add all of my progress into a video, to be submitted along with the written half of my submission.

3D model update

I wanted to give painting within Blender a go - and it turned out exactly how I was expecting - looking like roadkill. I am still learning how to do texturing but I’m becoming a bit overwhelmed with all of the new things I am trying to learn at once so all I can do is my best.

After our meeting this week the team all prefer the ‘soft toy’ Cheshire Cat that I accidentally made last week, but I hadn’t shown them until this week’s meeting. I’m secretly glad because I too loved the look of the fabric Cheshire Cat, and since Alice in Wonderland is kinda imaginatory its as if Cheshire Cat was never real after all, and actually Alice’s toy.

3D Model Update

Slowly developing the room

Attempting to make Cheshire Cat in Blender.

For the body of Cheshire Cat I chose to use metaballs since it felt like sculpting with clay, and it was pretty simple to use.

Then once I had finished the general shape, I wanted to get an idea of how the texturing would work so I tested a few colors and patterns using images. I name this one Fleshire Cat.

Once I was finished messing with the shading controls, i realized the texture looked quite similar to a soft toy. I do think he looks quite cute like this.

Since I have had lots of experience with Maya, 3D modelling and animating I decided it would be beneficial to use these strengths somehow.

So my final outcome will be a 3D animation of my project in a room - designed to look like what i expect the outcome to be in the real world.

Here is a modified design of my installation:

Really sucks to hear we won’t be having any more in person classes, it was the one thing I didn’t know I wanted, but it does make me sad since this is my last year and i’ll miss the classroom interactions.

Thank god for Milo, who over the lockdown ‘break’ has taken the wheel and set up a page of a to do list with roles for each of us, in order to finish our project efficiently. Obviously its quite tough to do our project digitally, as we have had to rethink a fair amount but we have sorted out what is achievable for our final outcome.

I’m still sort of stuck on my 3D model of Cheshirt Cat, as I am learning it is very difficult to make a ‘natural’ shaped 3D model. My go to 3D software is Maya, but Maya lacks the right tools for the model I need to make so I have started to learn how to use Blender, which is a challenge, albeit a good one.

Deciding what direction I go with my project since we’ll be in lockdown for most likely all of the project.

Since I can consider the video/audio of my project ready to go, I can focus on the physical side of my project. I say physical, but I might have to find new ways to go about having something ‘physical’ as I lack the resources needed to have it the same as what I was expecting the outcome to be. I also found that I do not have enough cardboard stored at home to make a cardboard prototype.

Week 1

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/657296330521247744/w1-studio-borrowed-ideas

Week 2

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/657491221241085952/w2-studio-beware-of-the-scope-creep

Week 3

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/658482849939374080/w3-studio-unreal-motivation

Week 4

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/658657580305006592/w4-studio-taking-the-stage

Week 5

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/659262320367763456/w5-studio-slow-steady-wins-the-race

Week 6

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/660097721031589888/w6-studio-meta-meeting

Week 7

Preparing work for submission.

Scary that it’s the last week before our first submission.

In between last week and this week Miles did some much needed prototyping with metahuman.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13S7bfrWRlOnzpEJlX2FyD3zAQcIBKZMD/view?usp=sharing

Milo also did some excellent work with prototyping in unreal engine.

That video demonstrates the ability to turn the object (in this case the character, but it would be used on the creature) invisible at a button press, as well as being able to shrink the character with minimal displacement when moving.

His next video is a test to show the concept of blending theatre with virtual effects, using a holographic projection.

Meanwhile, I also got an email from Faceware, a program we learnt to use as a part of our Year 2 Sem 2 mocap projects. It was in regards to a web call about demonstrating metahuman (has it been listening to us talking about it??)

I wasn’t originally going to be able to attend due to Friday being the day I work, and then due to lockdown I realized I could attend after all. It’s lucky that I added it to google calendar because I found out the time for it was in fact from 6 - 7 AM ON A SATURDAY and died a little inside. The things I do for our project...

Kavi, Miles and I did end up attending (sorry for vertical pic, it was half asleep and I didn’t have any sense).

Week 1

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/657297864236679168/w1-sis-sos

Week 2 

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/657387380419018753/w2-sis-like-a-moth-to-a-light

Week 3 

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/658025194996334592/w3-sis-camera-trigger-happy

Week 4 

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/658573570366193664/w4-sis-happy-hour

Week 5

https://gracehcreates-bct.tumblr.com/post/659261307619590144/w5-sis-spin-the-bottle

Week 6

This week is final preparation for the submission, which is this Friday.

My main goal is to make sure I collate all of the research, concept art and prototyping pictures + videos. Secondary goal is to try to a lo-fi cardboard prototype of the physical side of the project, the spinny thingy, which I also have yet to come up with a name for.