Blog post #3: Ah No, Not Quite
M. 9/23/2024
(4 hours)
I watched this tutorial on rigging in Blender. I forget who said it during my Sprint presentation— it might have been Amanda— but someone said that to help my workflow and the achievement of my alla prima vision, I should make an animation demo in Blender of what the mechanic should look like— and leave the actual programming to a programmer. So I’m modifying my end milestone (have a functioning alla prima mechanic) to now be: Have a short animation of what alla prima looks like.
I don’t know how to animate. In fact, I know so little about animation that I assume it’s composed of either one of two options: 1) mocap; 2) it’s still that animators draw each individual frame and stick them together Steamboat Willie-style. Rationally, I know that that can’t be the case— because it’s not 1920 anymore.
So I must learn to animate!
I can think of three aspects to this specific vision that will be necessary to become proficient with:
Make the MC as a 3D model, and rig him.
Animate the attack pattern.
Create the refraction special fx for the weapon trail.
As someone also pointed out, I should still learn a decent amount about blueprints and programming in UE5— so that I can relay basically what this effect will take.
I just found this really short tutorial on adding reference images to ZBrush. I have the front view of the MC, Alice, and the side view of the reference that I used for that drawing. I should be able to model the body (duh) and the gorget in ZBrush; the gothic-church-arm will probably be best done in Blender. For the pants, Marvelous? I know nothing about that, so that should be a side focus, as well— learning it.
I just spent the past two hours making the image below. It took so long because I was trying to save time by symmetrizing it; it literally deleted my work, so I had to start over— and then, I was still trying other methods of symmetry, but I had to keep fiddling with the settings.
Now I’m upset and tired of looking at frustrating models (I spent literally 13 hours yesterday making and remaking the Food assignment for Organic Modeling— similarly, it crashed and deleted my almost finished project, and I had to stay up until 4:30am trying to finish it. I did not.). I can’t wait until I can start sculpting; modeling is frustrating and difficult to me, but sculpting is intuitive and effortless.
I’m going to drink a bunch of Himalayan pink salt water (for electrolytes while I fast) and play FFXVI— it finished downloading while I toiled.
Later.
I had to clear a bunch of space on my computer, so that I could update my graphics card driver, so that I could play FFXVI. But I got there.
The first hour or so of the game was primarily cutscenes. But I dug it. It really expanded upon the key characters (at least, the current key characters). For Pareidolia: Unbound, I think there should be cinematics like this. So I need a good animator, voice actors (I’ll do a bunch, but not all), mocap, cinematographer. I’m going to Amanda’s office hours tomorrow to discuss the shift in my gameplan for this seminar project— going from a playable demo of the alla prima mechanic, to an animation of it. Still learning basic coding and UE5, but primarily working on that visual demonstration.
I need some guidance on how to approach this angle.
T. 9/24/2024
Even later.
I gotta be honest. I haven’t done a lot of work for this much this past week. For two reasons.
I’ve been struggling in my Organic Modeling class. I spent 13 hours Sunday night trying to finish the assignment due Monday morning, and I still haven’t finished it. Before that, I was experimenting with designing a custom alpha, and— well, that is largely irrelevant; I am not angling my OM assignments towards this project, like I am with my worldbuilding class. (I just finished that assignment that I’m behind on. Well, I sent Ezra pictures of it before I submit it.)
I was honestly a bit discouraged by Shivansh’s advice to take some big steps backwards. I know that it’s irrational; by learning basic UE5 stuff, I would be making better progress— instead of what I was doing: following project-specific tutorials and being unable to troubleshoot or create beyond those tutorials. But working directly on aspects of my project— no matter how inefficient— felt like an adventure. It felt driven. Watching five-hour UE5 introductory UE5 tutorials feels like all of the worst parts of traditional education systems— like I’m learning so much that doesn’t directly benefit me. Which is, as I said, irrational. But it’s how I’ve been feeling, and it’s affected my drive to learn-and-create towards this end goal.
Even later (but reflecting on Amanda’s office hours).
I explained my thoughts on the animation alternative for the end goal for this year’s Seminar project. I’m very tired, and am having trouble remembering exactly, but she agreed. Ultimately, though, she asked me a question: Am I more excited right now learning animation (and working on the GDD), or learning Unreal? Because, as she stated, I’ll have to do both. It’s just deciding which I do this semester, and which I do next semester. I said animation.
I suggested animating the MC swinging the whip in 3D, and the environment superimposed beyond that in 2D— including the paint smear. (On a new thought extrapolating beyond that, would I need to animate a resulting 3D environment alteration— and consequently, interacting with it— in 2D or 3D?)
I regret having so little to show this week. I told my Studio lead that I still had to write this post after finishing the OM model— and that I have little to report— and he said to just not do the blog post this week— that it shows more integrity to not write about little progress than to do the opposite. I’m still not sure whether to include that tidbit.
oh also!
I started exercising— pretty much for the first time since I moved here (a little over a month ago). I went to a Ninja Warrior gym nearby! I plan on going multiple times a week. It was very fun, very tiring, and I could barely move my arms after. I feel this is relevant to include, because all of the sitting I’ve been doing for this graduate program definitely needs to be offset with some physical activity. For, as Ezra said, a “healthy work/life balance.”
