Notes 31/01/2020

Second brief of Waterloo uncovered. 

Last semester was to begin to work with technology that we haven’t done before, such as the geo-mapping, etc. This semester is used to develop our product to a final grade. Align our bit of the project to our specialism, i.e. Sophie H drawing characters, and Glenn doing VR and AR. It emulates industries as we are a team on a whole but do separate things. Since we are a group though we can help each other, but we are responsible on each line of development that we choose. 

Final design document and a poster, we need to make a poster for the project. 

The digital prototypes need to be functional/tested and need to be capable of demonstrating the design goal, and technical feasibility of the project. This project is more for the development of the project, not just the design. 

Testing data and analysis, along with the prototypes we need to apply pertinent methodologies for the gathering and analysis of user experience data, driving conclusions to improve your design. A method of applying user data to improve your project. 

A pitch presentation. 

Blog, a reflective report of 500 words maximum. 

The meeting with Waterloo uncovered is for data. We are going to focus on blender and how it meshes with unity. 

Today we are working on the form on blackboard. 

Personal assets to hand in:

-       The character animate file.

-       Photoshop file of the character. 

-       MP4 file of the character fully animated. 

-       A script for the voice actor.

We are going to do the basics of Blender, 3D modelling of environments, graphics out of blender so we can improve our rendering and create a more realistic version. Juan is doing more programming. Alex will be doing more design work with us and Juan doing programming. Alex does sound editing (possibly may need for character voice later on). 

Character story ideas

So I want to write a story for the character that he will tell the player user of the product. This story would include his backstory as well as his part in the battle.

I wanted to include a story with the character as it will help tell the story of the battle in a more personal way, that will make people more connected to it than some writing on paper can do.

However, I have decided to leave writing the full story until next semester as that is when the full product has to be made, so I just wrote some vague ideas of what I could write as well as a small description of who he is.

How I think this semester of the project has gone

Overall, I am really pleased by how this project has gone for this semester. I think that my group worked really well together and created a good base for next semesters work to go off of.

I think that I chose a good group for this project, this is because at the beginning when we were told to choose groups, everyone else already chose who they wanted then my group were the ones left over. However, I am glad about this choice as when I spoke to Glenn about what he wanted to do he said a VR experience, and when I said that I wanted to do a character and make them a story, he was really excited about that idea and included it into the final project, which is similar to what happened with Emily and Sophie K. 

Glenn was a really good leader for the group, because he was both realistic with what we could do, while also being really enthusiastic and forward thinking, which helped me to feel excited about the project and the prospects of what we could do. Glenn also allowed us to come up with ideas and included anything we really wanted to make in the final project, such as my character.

Even though Glenn was the leader of the group, it was also a democracy which meant that if Glenn said something, we did not agree with we could say no to him. This really helped the group work together because it felt as if we were all equal and not like there was one person telling us exactly what to do. 

Overall, I think that the group dynamic worked really well together, and I am genuinely really happy with the people I am with. Not only do we work really well together but I believe that we are all talented in our own skills, and if there is something we are not good at me are dedicated enough to learn how to do it, such as with Sophie K and learning how to code apps. 

I genuinely believe that the final piece of this project at the end of the year is going to be really good, this is because of the amount of prototyping we already have done this semester, for instance with Glenn and Jo's 3D and VR work it is already so good and works really well. So, over the next couple of months it is only going to become more bulked out. 

What I am going to work on next semester

I think this semester I have done really well on how much progression I have done for the project. Which means that there will still be lots of work to do next semester, but I have created a really good foundation that will make it easier in the next couple months. 

Next semester I am going to write the story for the character. I am going to have him fully animated and voiced by someone (hopefully a veteran). I will have him fully drawn out and as realistic as I can draw him to be. 

I also want to have ideas on other characters for future development. This includes initial sketches for each character as well as a short version of what their story would be, and their backstories. 

As well as that I want to also draw some additional things for the other people in the group, such as characters for Emily’s timeline. These drawings would be quite simplistic as they do not need to be as realistic as the character.

I know that all these ideas sound quite ambitious, but I really like this project and want to do as well as I possibly can for this project. While also experimenting with different programmes, styles of drawing, and writing stories, as this is a good chance for me to build skills to add to my CV and create pieces that can be put in my portfolio. 

How I thought the presentation went

My feelings on presentation

I felt that our presentation went really well, everyone seemed to like our work by how they reacted to the work we presented as well as what they told us afterwards. 

Compared to the other groups presentations it seems as if we have done a lot more work and have a more finalised idea and product. They barley had any prototypes. 

Waterloo feedback:

Excellent presentation well put together. 

Ethnicity of people were more diverse, lots of immigration so Juan’s game has a black woman that’s part of the battle. 

Americas army (research) Glenn will love that. The value of seeing the war.

The timeline is interesting, could be boring unless we add some interaction. 

Speaking with veterans/archaeologists from the present, merges the two ideas. Add characters to VR, make them talk to you, create a talk bot style character.

Existing artefacts will work really well, better for people to see and hold it. So, it’s not just a story.

Use the veterans to animate the characters. Back catalogue of stories. They also have audio recordings of people reading the stories which would be cool to add. 

Marrying the modern and the past. 

The research is a massive part of the project. 

Archiogaming (Glenn research)

We put interactive parts the centre of the project. It was good that we did everything, so we can expand or narrow down.

Final character (Link to videos of it)

Here are the YouTube links to the videos of my character animate moving, as well as the voiced one that I recorded.

Sorry about the sound quality of the recording, I did it though my Air pods as I had lots of difficulty with setting up the file, so I did not have enough time to properly record it. 

https://youtu.be/NRZLDu7C6lU

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM3t3tUNMZU&feature=youtu.b

Putting character together

I asked Juan to send me his character so I could see how to set up the photoshop file. However, as I did not know how to deconstruct it I just started drawing, which was a mistake.

I began to draw the characters movements section by section, such as each eye position, which was wrong. Same happened with the eyebrows and the mouth. However, it is better to overdraw than to under-draw.

I then sat down with Juan and he helped me to organise the photoshop file so it would work in character animator. This meant putting everything into different groups so CA could understand what was what.

The character needed some work, as both the eyes wouldn't stay in the sockets. So I edited the Photoshop file so it worked better. However, his right eye would not move at all, so I had to do a quick fix of copying the left eye and flipping it so it was on the right side instead. This worked and the eye started to function properly, I am going to try and fix this next semester as I am not happy with using the same eye. 

Drawing the body

I started drawing the body by finding what typical bodies in the 1800s looked like. I found this article and based the body off of one of them.

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3433169/How-perfect-male-body-changed-150-years.html

I only drew the body very simply as I knew that I would be changing it a lot next semester, as I need to make it move and make it more historically accurate.

I then drew on a very basic version of the uniform from the battle, I based these off of images of re-enactors I found online, as well as paintings from after the battle. I only did the uniform quite simplistic as I am going to be improving it next semester, as well as speak to someone at Waterloo Uncovered so that I can get a better gage on what is historically accurate.

After completing the drawing, I realised that I may have drawn him too fat. So, next semester I am going to be improving upon that and making him more realistic.

Research on how to draw bodies

Before I began drawing the body for the character, I wanted to do some research into how to draw a realistic body first. This is since I am more conformable drawing faces and have not really drawn many bodies.

I found this article that shows it step by step:

https://www.wikihow.com/Draw-a-Body

It starts by saying that your should sketch the wireframe of the human body, this is the outline that shows where the joints are and the general bone structure of the body.

Then you start to add the bulk, so like muscles onto the bones.

After you've done this sketch the male figure onto the shapes, making defined muscles and joints.

Now draw the outline over the sketch. Erase and remove the sketch marks, and finally add colour.

The article suggested looking into male physiques to be able to properly place muscles onto the body. My sister is a drawer and her fiancé is a physio therapist so I asked them if they had any books that would be useful. These are the books they had:

Anatormy made simple

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Military-Fitness-Sean-Lerwill/dp/1781063028

Life drawing

I found the Anatomy made simple book the most useful because it breaks the body down step by step on how each part should be drawn, like with the east way a skeleton should be drawn then the muscles laying on top of that.

The life drawing book was useful to see how to draw the pieces step by step, like the hands, it suggested starting at 'Mittens' then going from there.

Then the Military fitness book is useful as it shows where each muscle is laid out on the body, and in the future when I will be making him move it will help me see how the muscles look in different positions, and doing different tasks.

How to use Character Animate?

Here are some links to tutorials for character animator that I found. They are all small videos explaining how to do various tasks within character animator, such as animating eyes, mouth movements, editing the character, etc. 

https://helpx.adobe.com/adobe-character-animator/how-to/build-animated-face.html?playlist=/services/playlist.helpx/products:SG_CHARACTERANIMATOR/learn-path:get-started/set-header:ccx-designer/playlist:orientation/en_us.json&ref=helpx.adobe.com

https://helpx.adobe.com/adobe-character-animator/how-to/create-animated-eyes-eyebrows.html?playlist=/services/playlist.helpx/products:SG_CHARACTERANIMATOR/learn-path:get-started/set-header:ccx-designer/playlist:orientation/en_us.json&ref=helpx.adobe.com

https://helpx.adobe.com/adobe-character-animator/how-to/lip-sync-mouth-shapes.html?playlist=/services/playlist.helpx/products:SG_CHARACTERANIMATOR/learn-path:get-started/set-header:ccx-designer/playlist:orientation/en_us.json&ref=helpx.adobe.com

https://helpx.adobe.com/adobe-character-animator/how-to/create-animated-body.html?playlist=/services/playlist.helpx/products:SG_CHARACTERANIMATOR/learn-path:get-started/set-header:ccx-designer/playlist:orientation/en_us.json&ref=helpx.adobe.com

https://helpx.adobe.com/adobe-character-animator/how-to/use-triggers-to-control-animation-behaviors.html?playlist=/services/playlist.helpx/products:SG_CHARACTERANIMATOR/learn-path:get-started/set-header:ccx-designer/playlist:basictraining/en_us.json&ref=helpx.adobe.com

https://helpx.adobe.com/adobe-character-animator/how-to/add-physics-to-character-scene.html?playlist=/services/playlist.helpx/products:SG_CHARACTERANIMATOR/learn-path:get-started/set-header:ccx-designer/playlist:basictraining/en_us.json&ref=helpx.adobe.com

https://helpx.adobe.com/adobe-character-animator/how-to/recording-editing-performances.html?playlist=/services/playlist.helpx/products:SG_CHARACTERANIMATOR/learn-path:get-started/set-header:ccx-designer/playlist:orientation/en_us.json&ref=helpx.adobe.com