Importing problems

Problem:
Importing model and animation sequence using maya 2012 in to the Unreal Development Kit editor did not work, model imported correctly but the animation sequences were highly distorted. Below is an image that shows the walk cycle at frame 12 in the UDK and frame 12 in Maya.

Analysis of the problem:
Maya 2012 does not have the UDK actorX plugin that is available on previous maya versions for importing models and animation sequences to the UDK from maya.

1st attempt at soloution, install maya 2011, import model using .FBX file format and then import it in to UDK using the actorX plugin

This attempt was not successful as I am still having Problems getting the animation sequence to play correctly.

In order to illiminate any other potential problems with my character/ joints that may be causing this issue, I will create a simple block type character with 1 animation sequence of the legs moving in order to determine whether this is an issue with my joints in maya or the plugin/UDK end.

First animation test in UDK

initial issues, rotation of the character doesn't face the direction he is moving in





test video of robot walking:



Since this test was successful, it suggests that I have a problem with the joints/animation sequence on my original model, This was my first time rigging a skeleton in maya I imagine the problem was due to me being clumsy and moving joints around,changing their values, amongst other things that resulted from me not having previous experience. It played correctly when running in maya but causes problems in UDK. This could also have been a compatibility issue that originated from me exporting and importing a model between different versions of maya or me not checking the assume maya coordinates box, as maya uses Y for it's vertical axis. Regardless of which it was, I have remodelled my joints and redone my animation sequences in maya 2011 which has fixed the problem.

My new character:

animation test

Analysis of successful techniques for immersion within existing video games

Analysis of successful techniques for immersion within existing video games.

The talk system in the game mass effect is a great example of how a player can be further immersed within a game through player interaction. The control over the choice of responses you had not only affected your dialogue with that character but also how the story develops, multiple endings.  The difficulty in implementing this in to a game would be in designing all of the different paths the character could take, with multiple endings and twists to the story, making sure they don't contradict each other would also be a challenge.

Criticisms of this talk system, one of the things I felt that distracted from this method of player immersion was the unlimited amount of time you had to respond to anything, unlike real life where often the time window to respond to conversation is in the seconds, you can't just stand there for 5 minutes and think about the response. Fallout new vegas demonstrated a great example of how to reduce the effect of this by having the NPC's respond if you do not answer them quickly enough with things like "hurry up, I haven't got all day", which I felt dragged the player back in to the story and kept you from over thinking things. However, the option to stay there as long as you like remained, I think this is a problem inherent with the multiple choice options of conversation and may not have a workable solution.

 

A destructive environment is perhaps often overlooked when it comes to immersion, the ability to break things or move around objects creates a huge impact on the user in terms of immersion, at least for me. One example of this I have recently come across is the game crysis, many of the things (but not all) you are able to break, in a game not orientated towards destruction, being able to pick up a book on the shelf and read it, as oppose to it being an immovable fixture to the wall would be another implementation of this. Skyrim is an example of this, in the library you can read books inside a game.

Even an environment with low detail like minecraft is almost made up for it by having an environment that is entirely destructible and moveable. Some of the challenges to making an entirely destructible game come from the hardware end, which makes it hard to create a game with realist quality graphics where everything can be moved. To make up for this, researching how a player is likely to want to interact within the game and adding a few key things around this that are moveable/destructable can go along way to creating immersion.

Animation tests

Texturing and Reflections

The texture was taken from here texture and then edited in photoshop to make it brown.

  
 On the left below is the initial render before I aligned the texture properly and on the right the after image, the eyes appear to be black holes in his head, this is due to me applying a none reflective surface, so I further played around with blinn reflections until I got the result I wanted below
 
 

This is the final settings I have gone for, I wanted the reflection to curve with the shape of the eyes to imply roundness.

Maya Character modelling

set up image planes, blocked out basic shapes of character









Issues with rendering of the zip, as you can see from the wireframe image I have modelled the zip rather clumsily which has led to multiple vertices being placed in the same positions and disorganized placement of verts that are misaligned, I first attempted to fix this by merging the vertices however this did not fix my rendering problem. Some faces were still rendering unevenly.

 








To fix the issue I have remodelled the zip completely, I started with a flat plane, manually put in each vertex, extruded the object, deleted the middle faces and then joined the insides using the bridge tool. As you can see this gave a much smoother render.

Finished model of sackboy, now to add textures and animation sequences.

Character development

The purpose of creating the character in maya is to learn the process involved from start to finish in modelling, rigging, animating and then importing in to a game engine such as the UDK.As I have never modelled a character in maya before, only simple shapes, my focus will not be on character development so I have chosen to model an already existing character for the purpose of speed and simplicity.

Analysis
I choose sackboy for the following reasons
1. the model is well known so there is a lot of reference material for me to use
2. the model is not overly complex as to require too much time to create in maya
3. the character is potentially expressive enough to allow me to create animation sequences that example its personality

resources used:
http://www.matsbauge.com/?p=450
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeua6BaDyVA&feature=channel_video_title
digital tutors - character setup, character rigging, character binding & skinning, android modelling