Most Recent Assignment - Animation

The most recent assignment we were tasked with, was to rig a model, of our choosing and create animation sequences of that model using Maya . I chose to carry on the theme of the walking dead, and rigged a zombie model, with animation sequences consisting of an 'idle' and a 'walking' animation. This was then transferred into the Unreal Engine, and blueprints created to allow the switch between idle and walking. This in turn allowed myself to control the zombie as a 3rd person perspective. The other half of the assignment was to then put this animation in a 'scene' within Maya and render it out to create a 3D Screen Saver with various animations. I found this part of the assignment very time consuming, as the rendering of this 30 second screen saver took a huge length of time. However with the final outcome, it was worth it. In the near future I will update my website with this assignment.

Unreal Assignment

For one of my University Assignments, we were assigned to re-create a film scene or a television series scene within the Unreal Engine, using outside programs such as Maya, Photoshop etc. I chose the Prison Scene from the famous The Walking Dead series. I began by re-creating the Cell Block C were the main characters called 'home' within Maya, using my own Assets which could be then transferred into Unreal. After the recreation of the insides, I began by designing the outside area, with that the tree line, prison fences around the prison area which connected to the brick walls behind the buildings. I also created the Guard Tower myself within Maya and then transferred to Unreal and placed in the area's where they are seen in the series. Re-creating this scene was incredible, the simple fact of bringing it to life within Unreal, roaming around is a 'player' with the default Unreal 1st person shooter preferences. Within the level, we had to create our own blue-prints that would allow the level to become a 'team death-match' area for Unreal Tournament. Some of the blue-prints that were included, was licks flickering within the cell block C, gates opening on timers/with player influence, 'teleportation' to the top of the guard tower as well. You can see the 1 minute teaser video and screen shots of the level created here.

I aim to re-create another scene in Maya/Unreal in order to 'better' myself in this field and also to continue learning about the Game Engine and Modelling assets. One of the short-listed scenes is the Throne Room from the Game of Thrones series.

Video Games Literature Review

Roughly 4/5 weeks ago we had to submit a Literature Review with a minimum of 10 References on any subject of our choosing, at long as it had reference to the Games Industry. The Title I had finally chose was "Do Video Games have a Positive or Negative implication the lives of children in the 21st Century". Throughout the research of this review, I found a huge interest in the role of video games on children's lives and how it may affect them whether that be good or bad. I have heard the stories of video games taking a negative effect on people, but never thought it would get to the extremes of the 1999 incident where two school children over-ran their school believing they were a part of a video game! After receiving my feedback from it yesterday, I believe it's worth a read, this piece was marked 78.1%. You can read my review here.

New Beginning

None of you may be aware but I have tackled blogging before, this Blog will be a follow on from my previous one, which you can see at: charleshuntblog.wordpress.com. Reasons for this is just a simple change of scenery and also to begin afresh. I am to keep this up-to date, with what's currently happening in my projects, whether that's a University Project or a Personal Project. Since my previous Blog, various projects have started and finished within the time frame, especially the zBrush Assignment that was spoken of last. 

I thoroughly enjoyed working with zBrush and the final creation that came to light. To save you from travelling from Blog to Blog I'll explain the zBrush Assignment. We were tasked with creating a humanoid character that could be classed as a 'Solider'. This could be a futuristic solider, present-day solider, historic solider, or a fantasy solider of our choosing. After much deliberation I chose to create an Orc Warrior, derived from a mixture of  World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings and Runescape. I am very pleased with the final version of the Model, which was transferable to the Unreal Engine 4, including textures.

You can see the images of the final version here.