Maya Tutorials: Completing the Model Pipeline

Spent time this afternoon finishing part three of Pipeline 2, which completes the primary model-making part of the game assets pipeline.

Colo Colo: Bones and Joints

  Alongside working on tutorial workshops I did a lot of rigging work today. To minimuse the number of moments of glitching geometry I decided to rig the model first before skinning it, save for the tongue which was rigged and skinned as it was relatively basic.

  This isn't the final state however. I would look to consider locators or perhaps universal manipulators to help when positioning the limbs. The largest hurdle to this has so far been the use of digitigrade feet, which adds an extra section to the limb

  As well as the tongue I also connected up the eyes. However I might upgrade this to using a locator rather than being tied to the XYZ rotation of a NURBS circle as shown above. As this would grant a little more freedom for positioning the eyes, and perhaps streamlining the animation workload. The alternative is to preposition the pivot of the NURBS circle so that it orbits around the eye. It's been a year since I modeled eyes in the Maya workshops but I do recall the use of locators.

  Each of these vertebrae controls are linked to the vertebrae by controlling the pivot angle and are parented to the control node down the chain which leads from the head or the toes to the hip, where the creature's core is..

Pipeline Two: Normal Maps and Diffusion Maps Part One

   When I started this phase of the pipeline, I wondered about how I could make the normal maps required for this stage. The introduction of Xnormal however was a solid comfort. Overall I enjoyed the process that was put through in these tutorials but I also like how this has given me some practice in painting techniques in Photoshop, particularly a familiarisation with the burn, dodge, stamp and heal brush tools. to create a convincing texture for the stone platform. These techniques have given me a few thoughts on how to progress with the next stages of my current projects as well as thoughts back on previous work such as The What-If Metropolis.

Maya Tutorials: Pipeline One Part One

    I've been working myself back into Maya and getting used to the 2016 version of the software. So far I have completed the basic blocking ,refined blocking, mouth and eyelids. There is still a fair bit to do left but I feel I am making fair progress so far.

Industry Exploration: The Story of Warcraft

    While browsing this morning I stumbled across this video posted by the staff at Blizzard Entertainment in November to celebrate ten years of World of Warcraft. The video charts the history of the game and includes accounts of the developers who recount fond memories while desigining the game.

    What intrigued me about this video and what drew me is the insight it gave into the game's continual pipeline: The developers go through the history of World of Warcraft's development including the pipeline of the game such as early concepts, level design, boss and character design and the building of the lore. It was interesting to discover that the designs of characters such as Illidan Stormrage and Uther the Lightbringer started from unused character designs that came from other (often cancelled) projects. It goes to show that some truly iconic things can come out of the most unlikely doodles. The Pandaren for instance; While many forum threads over the internet accuse the design of intentional pandering to the Chinese market, one developer recounts how it all started off with a custom christmas present for his daughter of a drawing of him and her as panda-people. It was adorable, charming and yet amazing how that one loving doodle turned into one of Warcraft's more iconic races.

    I say "continual" when referringto the pipeline because the resources shown includes content from the most recent expansion. I can empathise with the comment of "120 models later" regarding the outcome of the desire to recycle model assets for Garrisons, as while I'm not sure if there really are 120 new models ingame for garrisons alone, this definitely reminds me of the thumbnailing and production art process that I am becoming accustomed to doing for my course projects.