Project Broken/World

[Gray_Silhouette]

I said a few posts up that Willow wasn’t my main concern at the moment due to a lack of trailer ideas for her; the one that I do have ideas for has the monster in it, so that’s why i’m working on the monster.

As for more detail: I want to. I really do. I want is to be as good as FSN or F/Z, but I don’t know how.
I mean, LOOK AT HER

IT’S SUCH PRETTY ANIMATION

But, again, I don’t know what else to do. Is it just a matter of shading? Am I missing something? If anyone has any suggestions, I want to know, because this is the quality that I want, but I don’t know how to achieve it.

[Gray_Silhouette]

Need help making a decision here for shading.

The first is the cell shading that i’ve been using.

The second is non cell shading, but still relatively anime in style.

Which looks better?

[Algirium]

I’d drop cell shading since Blender lacks instruments to make it look as good as it should be. So the second option imo.
As for details btw, just start adding them and it’ll look better in no time. For example, that breastplate thing is solid for your character but has some deital on Saber you posted.

[Gray_Silhouette]

It’s a shame that Blender lacks the tools for animating with cell shaders. It can make nice stills, but it starts to look odd during animating, in most cases.
The breastplate and bracers are both getting textures added to them when I stop being lazy and make them.

Alright, so progress on the monster. Made the head (mostly) and experimented with color. This color is material, and is completely light dependent, so it’s just a place holder to see how it looks. I’m trying to go for a rotting/decaying greenish skin look, not sure how to go about that with such a non photorealistic style.

Thoughts?

Attachments

[Gray_Silhouette]

Two gifs today, a spin of both shading versions.
[video]http://i.imgur.com/QL3zXh8.gif[/video]
[video]http://i.imgur.com/0DaxyUR.gif[/video]
Which looks better, and any advice on either?

(Also, do I post gifs? Image and Attachment uploader both say invalid file name.)

[Gray_Silhouette]

It’s been ten days since the last update; been busy with various things.

Alright, so shading. The issue with trying ti make an anime type shading is that is relies on cel shading. But unlike 3D animation, the light doesn’t change like it would in real life. Characters seem to be lit up on surfaces that wouldn’t normally be lit, in ways that it wouldn’t normally be lit. This is very hard to copy using 3D animation.

Now, there is a way to do it; using normals. Increasing or reducing the light threshold of a normal tells it how often or how much light it takes to either light up the surface or darken the surface. Using this method, 3D animators can manually adjust the lighting in every frame to look like it’s 2D shading.

One issue. Blender doesn’t even support normal editing, let alone adjusting their values. So that causes any cel shading to look rather strange when it moves, as the light reacts as light normally would, but that isn’t how it works in 2D.

So. That causes a dilemma. Lucky for me, someone else has the same dilemma. And so, RWBY comes in.

For those of you not familiar, RWBY is an animated series produced by RoosterTeeth (I recommend watching it, it’s pretty awesome), which looks 3D, and yet still 2D, in a way. So that leaves the question of how they did the shading.

Well, simply put: they didn’t. Light does very little to the characters (though it does seem to artificially make them darker/lighter, pretty sure from post processing). This is because the shading is done with the texture; everything is pre-shaded by the texture. So that’s what i’m going to do.

It’ll be difficult, considering I don’t know how to texture, but hey. Have to learn sometime.

TL;DR: I’m dropping (most) shading and using textures for it.

[Ovnuniarchos]

If you didn’t already, take a look at the NPR tutorials at http://blendernpr.org/. The best of all? Most of them are made on Blender Internal!

[Ziggyv]

I agree with your dropping of the shading from a production stand point it will simplify alot for you. I’m thinking about starting a new character doing the same thing.

[Gray_Silhouette]

Willow update.

Textured the head, eyes, hair, and metal armor pieces.
Eye texture isn’t very good so it’s going to get changed.

Next up is texturing the clothes and making a weapon. Again.

[Gray_Silhouette]

Another Willow update.

Remodeled the face, retexture the eyes (along with making them spheres instead of plane in socket), and textured the gloves.

[Mammal_Pod]

How did you get the eyes to look right while being spheres? I always find that difficult to get just right with stylised characters.

[Jaredoodle]

looking good! Good luck to you man!

[Gray_Silhouette]

​

@Mammal Pod

How did you get the eyes to look right while being spheres? I always find that difficult to get just right with stylised characters.

I actually followed this tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MfxTdq0V2I). It take some slight editing of the lattice to get it to fit just right, but when it does, it works perfectly.

@Jaredoodle

looking good! Good luck to you man!

Thank! =D

Update to the blood beast this time.

Becoming a lot less zombie T rex like, and more dragon/wyrm like. The skeleton tail is going to stay, but I have it hidden right now because it hasn’t been resized to the model and so it looks like shite. Yes, there will be arms. Feet too.

I’ve also begun making a male base model so that I can start work on Krieger, who just so happens to be the guy who turns into the blood beast. Right now, he has no clothes, so i’m going to clothe him ​before ​I post a picture.

Thanks for looking!

[Gray_Silhouette]

Another blood beast update.

It actually looks like someone mixed a dragon and a big velociraptor now, heh heh. Nearly done with the base model, just gonna add some spikes and other small details before I start the sculpting.

Thanks for looking!

[Gray_Silhouette]

More blood beast progress. This time: DETAILING.

This is pre render.

This is post render.

THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN TO DO.
Like before the detailing it’s pretty flat. It has substance, just not much.
BUT THEN THE DETAILING STARTS AND JUST LOOK AT IT.

I like the progress that has been done tonight.

[Gray_Silhouette]

Alright, so I feel like Willow is done with modeling and texturing.

And here is the final model for the blood beast.

It’s gonna get textured, I promise. It won’t stay white.

Willow is ready for rigging, and the blood beast is currently being rigged.
Looks like Krieger is going to be the first one to get his trailer. I need:
-Krieger
-Willow
-Blood beast
-Soldiers with variations
-“Red”
-Environment

That’s all I need to make for his trailer. Willow and Blood beast are almost done, Krieger shouldn’t take too long, and the soldiers are going to look fairly generic/similar, but with slight differences so I don’t have to spend too much time modeling EVERY SINGLE ONE. Red is a supporting character; she’s probably going to take a while to get right. The environment is a medieval prison/compound sort of thing, so not too complicated.

Small steps towards a big goal.

[Gray_Silhouette]

Rig tests.



Rawr.

[Gray_Silhouette]

​Alright, so I have news. Not really good or bad, yet.
First, I start a full time job on monday; 3:30-midnight, monday-friday. This will obviously limit the time I’ll be able to spend animating, but i’ll still be spending as much time as I can on it, just know that progress will come slower.

Second, I tried rigging Willow, and I came to two different realizations:

1. I have no idea how to rig a human.
2. I don’t really have a good understanding of actually animating things, let alone good action sequences.
   So, as of now, progress on Project: Heroes is going to slow down substantially. I’m not halting completely; I’ll still be working on models and textures, but not as often as before.
   What will I be doing with the rest of the time that I’m not spending on Project: Heroes? I’ll be working on a second project, which I have named Arena.

Arena is going to consist of 8 very low poly, low detail fighters in an arena deathmatch. The models won’t have a lot of detail, and they won’t be textured. Each fighter will have two distinguishing features (asides from gender): The color on their chest, and a piece of armor/clothing, though currently all we see is the color distinction. This greatly reduces the time it takes to make the characters while still testing my ability to rig cloth, armor, and moving robotics. The point of this project is two-fold:

1. Learn how to rig humans, along with cloth and other things.
2. Learn how to animated quality fight animations.
   The project won’t be pretty visually, as nothing will be textured, and everything will be very low poly count, but should be good looking mechanically, with good looking motion and camera angles.
   The eight fighters for Arena will be:
   
   
   
   
   Lancer- The red fighter, Lancer is a female warrior wielding a spear/scythe hybrid.
   Rogue- The black fighter, Rogue is a male warrior wielding dual daggers.
   Archer- The green fighter, Archer is a male warrior wielding a bow.
   Cleric- The yellow fighter, Cleric is a female warrior wielding a one handed mace.
   Crusher- The brown fighter, Crusher is a female warrior wielding a two handed war hammer.
   Dualist- The white fighter, Dualist is a female warrior dual wielding a dagger and sword.
   Warlock- The blue fighter, Warlock is a male fighter wielding a staff.
   Battlemage- The purple fighter, Battlemage is a female fighter wielding a one handed sword.

Each fighter has a trick up their sleeve, from gadgets to magical powers. Each fighter will have two lives. The arena itself will be a very simple structure, likely a circle of ground floating in an open space.

I’m a little sad to be dropping a majority of production on Project: Heroes, even if i’ll still be working on it, and that i’ll go back to it right after Arena, but it needs to be done so that I can learn how to do these things efficiently.
I hope I still have your support for both projects, and I will continue to keep you guys and girls posted.
Thanks for looking!

[Gray_Silhouette]

I present two of our fighters for the Arena:

Archer

The green fighter, Archer is a ranged threat with excellent accuracy. A master of the bow, Archer possesses a unique set of skills to take down his prey.
Archer’s unique bow does not rely on standard arrows, rather an infinite supplies of energy arrows summoned by Archer.
Archer possesses the unique ability know as the Super Jump. The Super Jump allows Archer to reach extended heights in his fight agains the other warriors.

Battlemage

The purple fighter, Battlemage is a mix of ranged and melee prowess. A skilled warrior with a single blade, Battlemage wields a one handed sword crafted from bone.
Battlemage’s unique blade possesses her unique ability: Telekinesis. Pointing the blade at an enemy allows her to lift and throw them at will; this is how she deals with ranged threats.

These two warriors will undoubtably bring their own unique abilities into the upcoming Arena deathmatch.

[Gray_Silhouette]

​I’ve got two good news and one bad news.
We’ll start with the bad.

Alright, so this last week and for this week until saturday(ish), approximately nothing has been or will be completed for The Arena or Project: Heroes. My schedule has been… Hectic since starting my job, and they decided to start me on first shift, which starts at 6:30. In the morning. So, yeah. No progress.

The first good news is that next week i’m being moved to second shift, which fits my typical sleep schedule, so i’ll have plenty of time to get back to working on these projects.

The second good news is that my job is fairly brain dead, so while nothing physical has been going on, the story of Project: Heroes is growing quickly and nicely. Another little bonus good news is that i’m learning new tricks for the 2D shading that i’m going for in Project: Heroes, so it’ll look better.

'Till next time.