Since our last update on the Ley Lines sequence, we had our nearly two-week long semester break. We decided to use this time interval in our schedule to make profound amounts of headway in creating the models for our four characters. Our goal is to begin the rigging process for each of these characters by next week. This way, there will be enough time for our artists to get better acquainted with the finer details about rigging, learn some skills, and truly explore the technical topics they want to learn.
ANIMATIC
One of the things we accomplished over break was the finalized animatics for the sequence. Earlier in the process, we did something of a "live animatic" by acting out the actions that would have occurred in the sequence. This enabled us to try out different actions, angles, and the like without having to redraw storyboards over and over. After this live rendition was edited out so the events would be properly timed, we went on to make our storyboard images.
CHARACTERS
As mentioned earlier, we spent the break making a lot of headway into our characters! Before modeling began, we made the decision to base our cinematic art off of Joffrey Ferrandes's Fireboy piece. This is because Fireboy is a more refined & detailed rendition of the Gigantic art style, which is still a major inspiration behind the world of Ley Lines and its sequence. This will enable our character artists to have more legroom adding in smaller and refined details, something that's absent in Gigantic's art.
Here's a look into some of that progress:
Josh has put in a lot of time and detail into our villainous naga, the embodiment of corruption. The sculpt is finished now! Retopologizing the naga is already underway.
Roselyn is in a similar spot with her golem monster! His sculpt is finished, and he's nearly halfway finished being retopologized.
Alex has made a lot of progress on her sculpt for the mantis monster! The large and the medium detail's complete and she has since moved on to the smaller detail. After that, retopology will begin.
Finally, we have the progress for Miria! Most of the work has gone into her body, and trying to capture all of the skin & muscle detail that goes into her plump body.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
These characters will be completed in the next week for the rigging process to begin. Until then, our technical artists have been researching each of the technical details that will go into the Sequence.
There was a lot of research done on god rays. Tutorials were gathered as references for the Technical Artists to use on how to implement these god rays using meshes, along with the benefits of god rays using mesh made rays VS using fog & harsh sun and sky lighting. It was found that "fog rays" will be good for the background lighting, ambiance, and the environment rafters (the fog will help to imply the height of the entire environment). Mesh rays would be beneficial for close-up dramatic lighting.
Summan has taken charge and learned the basics of the Faceware pipeline. Over this time interval, she has been busy with:
- Setting up her own rig in Maya with Retargeter. Through this, she learned what level of articulation is needed for the Miria face rig.
- Captured and analyzed a facial performance in Analyzer. She used auto-target for this, so there is still a need to learn how to fine tweak this.
- Imported the facial performance into Maya with Retargeter. She will be learning how to manipulate the Motion Capture data now. She will be working with the animators, who have experience in manipulating MoCap data of bodily performances.
There has been a first pass at importing cameras from Maya to UE4. This requires consideration from both the Maya and UE4 sides, as camera settings don't always import into Matinee correctly. We will hopefully have this technical obstacle figured out in the next couple of weeks and, if not, we will find a different route to take.
ENVIRONMENT
There has been some work done on the environment side as well! We have reconsidered the size chart we previously presented for the cinematic. Having three monumental monsters and one tiny Miria simply didn't make sense, essentially. The temple would have been built specifically for Miria's size, as it was meant for her. Taking this into consideration, having three monumental monsters would mean that almost the entirety of said temple would be demolished by the end of our sequence. That situation wasn't entirely ideal or sensible. So, we decided that Miria, the Golem, and the Mantis will be roughly the same size (around 6-8 feet). The Naga will be our largest creature, but not by as huge of a margin as before.
Basic asset lists for the environment have already been crafted. While this list may appear small, our artists are aware that each asset includes its own concept art, 3D game-res model, normal map, and texture maps. What we have currently is:
- TEMPLE ROOF - stained glass, architecture
- TEMPLE STRUCTURE - archways, supports
- TEMPLE EXTRAS - braziers, seats, ribbons, flags
- MIRIA'S GARDEN - rocks, plants, dirt, crystals
Our artists have already discussed the technical considerations of the environment with Ashley. For instance: how will the braziers glow? What about the idea of procedural crystals to minimize time modeling each individual unique crystal cluster? What about ribbons and cloth moving along with the breeze? These are all questions already communicated to the technical side and are being addressed. The temple's layout will be inspired particularly by Pantheons, pictured below.
With all of these considerations and plans addressed, our artists have also begun concepting modular objects, the general environment, and how lighting may appear. Katie has also begun work on some color key samples, which will help to influence the environment and its lighting as well. What's next for environment? Begin on proxy art so we can craft our Temple's layout in engine!
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