Test Test Test!

 Just testing with new admin account.

~ Nicholas C Ng

Modeling Project: The Android Sent By CyberLife

 Modeling Project: The Android Sent By CyberLife

 November 2021

 

After the first rigged low-poly models, I wanted to branch out and make more from other franchises and media. Next up is a character from the game Detroit: Become Human: Connor RK800. The android with a mission to hunt down deviants is another of my favorites, and they have a very distinct and iconic design. Using the same methods as the previous projects, I modeled out, rigged, and rendered some cool shots with a fairly functional final product. I set out to make these first three renders, with more to come. The first depicts the character under two lights representing the choice of what path to go down, and the two others depict each path taken.

This project has been in development for a while, and while still not done entirely, I feel like this is a good point to step off and regroup. I fully intend on returning for more. As a result, I can only recall the more recent developments (I'll hopefully do a full write-up later on). This portion, which includes the rigging, weight-painting, shading, and posing/rendering) took only a few sessions of work, ranging 10-12 hours spread across two weeks. Everything aside from the watermarks was composited in the main Blender file.

 

Contrasting the Daughters Dimitrescu, this character is much more conservative and clean-cut in silhouette. As a result, I was faced with different challenges such as forming hair, ears, and a formal suit and tie. The defining adornments for the character are very sleek and integrated. Everything fits together, so nothing hangs out or lays on its own. This project also helped me learn about lighting and emission shaders, which I made good use of for the armband and LED on the forehead.

 

 

I plan to return to this project with more renders and animations. For now I am happy to reach something of a goal point since I was struggling to get back into things. I would certainly like to test the boundaries of a low-poly model like this, and perhaps recreate some scenes from the source material with my own added flare. 

 

Until next time.

 

 

 

 

Modeling Project: UA Livestream Set

 Modeling Project -  UA Livestream Set

 November 2021

 

As tribute to a YouTube channel called Unus Annus, I wanted to recreate the setup for the finale livestream to the best of my abilities in Blender. The premise is fairly simple and achievable. Only a few props are set up and were easy to visualize and potentially replicate in 3D. This was a very fun passion project that provided the perfect balance of challenge to my modeling skills, and drive to succeed as a fan's piece of artwork.

This project only took a few days to complete, broken up across two weeks. Overall, I would estimate it took around 10 hours from start to finish. Each component was easy to define and build sequentially. The props of note were: the chairs(cushions as a single piece and the bar frame), the coffin (base, handles, and lid), the back spiral, the TV(with text), the table, the flower bouquets (with corresponding letter shapes), the top-hat, and the pocket-watches. Additionally, I tried to match the floor and back wall textures. All of the above were modeled from scratch by myself, and almost all textures were done by myself as well with the exception of the spiral design. This was a big teaching moment for how textures and lighting work.

With the final render finished, I think it turned out better than I could have hoped for. There is still a lot for me to learn about rendering and scene composition, but everything I wanted to get done was checked off the list.

Memento Mori

 

 

 

 

Full Project - Toa Hagah

 

 Full Project - Toa Hagah

August 2021

 

 

This project took me back to my roots of Lego and Bionicle characters. I once again put my skills to the test for modeling, rigging, and rendering. This time around, I had some new techniques to test out and plenty of new challenges to face along the way. This initially started out as a small fan project, but quickly evolved into a real piece of work I could not afford to leave out of my portfolio. So now I'm here to detail the work process.

This project took about two months to accomplish. However, I did take a brief break in between work periods. Overall, it was done in approximately a month and a half. With one to two hours (and possibly three later in the game) of progress daily for said work period, I feel that this project was much more lax in the beginning and ramped up towards the end as I was yearning to finish.

 

For the full write-up where I go in-depth about every step of the journey, please check out the project's landing page.

https://thenicholasng.blogspot.com/p/toa-hagah-full-project-synopsis.html

 

Full Project - Daughters Dimitrescu

 Full Project - Daughters Dimitrescu

July 2021

 

 

As part of a fan art initiative, I recreated the Dimitrescu daughters from the game Resident Evil: Village with my own style. I built these characters up from scratch, applying my skills in modeling, rigging, and animation. Many references were used from the official characters, but I largely wanted to take up the challenge of doing it all on my own.

This project as a whole took about two months, covering all three main components plus posing and rendering out individual photos for social media; taking around 2-3 hours of work per day. Modeling comprised about 3-4 weeks of the time, rigging took 1-2 weeks, and animation/rendering took 1-2 weeks.

This project was meant to test my skills as a 3D artist across many areas of expertise, helping me to realize what I am most confident in down to what I feel could use work or I would rather not do in a potential professional environment. 

For the full write-up where I go in-depth about every step of the journey, please check out the project's landing page.

https://thenicholasng.blogspot.com/p/the-daughters-dimitrescu-full-project.html

Animation Project: Body Mechanics - Part 4

 

 Animation Project - Body Mechanics

Part 4 - Overlap, Hands, and Refinement

June 2021

This project reaches its end as I have finished adding in the hand movements and final tweaks for the animation. With this last stretch of practice, I have gone back to further push the fluidity and timing of the animation. This segment took about twelve hours across six days of work to complete. I am happy to say this will be the final post on this project, at least for the time being.

 

I have observed what movements work best, and even taken out some steps that I felt served their purpose for blocking, but ultimately did not fit as well for an animated application. Small frame changes here and there that passed very fast were cut in order to maintain a better flow. I have found that it is better to have consistent and readable movement is better than complete accuracy to the reference material. One example is the quick motions in the torso and feet that really only last for a couple of frames. When played back in real time, while it does still sync up with the reference, the animation itself appears jittery, and too spastic for the common viewer to really pick up on. It would end up looking more wrong rather than right. Another example is keeping versus moving away from accurate timing in favor of fluid and snappy animations. While I preferred to sync the key frames, in-betweens, and holds as accurately as possible in the initial move to spline, in the end it was better to either shrink or extend the range of movements to really sell a movement as quick and energetic or paused and eccentric. I am glad to have taken and accepted such liberties.

Additionally, I implemented the finger/hand movements which I had neglected up until this point. I set up a library of poses for the most basic hand stances like neutral, clamped fist, pointing, and so on. I called upon these as was necessary as I played through the full animation, inserting them where it fit best. This process was very efficient, and in the end, worked seamlessly with the more intricate movements across the body. In this case, having a less-is-more mentality worked out, because viewers would be more focused on the overall sequence rather than something as fleeting as hand motions.

The challenges faced in this final stretch really came from the repetition and struggle to find balance between reference accuracy and personalized movement. Once I finished the finger and hand integration, it was a matter of going back through and seeing what works and what doesn't. Some parts had a really good transition from start to finish, while others seemed to have problems that I perhaps could have foreseen earlier and fixed, but now were too far gone to start over. In consequence, I tweaked what I could and ultimately settled for that. In another attempt, I might look closer at what movements to take more liberty with before diving into the intricate changes.

In conclusion, this project has taught me so much about what it takes to do a dynamic animation of a character. I was a bit overwhelmed by the scope of the project and how much of a challenge is posed, despite considering it a decent and necessary length of animation to tackle. It had many repeating movements, challenging twists and turns, and a varied pace that required extensive thinking in order to bring it all together. For the future, I would like to keep my scope tempered, maybe even more than this time.

My main takeaway from this project is to have an even better foresight and motivation for the desired outcome of a project. I feel I have gotten a much better idea of finding what I want to make versus what I expect to make. This project came out almost exactly as I had envisioned, and I am very happy to have reached a satisfactory endpoint.

 

 

 

Animation Project: Body Mechanics - Part 3

 

 Animation Project - Body Mechanics

Part 3 - Spline and Timing

June 2021

I have taken the next step in developing this animation by moving into spline. Going through the same segments outlined before, I checked to see how well the animated sequence held up with streamlined in-betweens. Overall, it was fairly in tune with the source reference, but in need of some significant improvements for fluidity and time syncing. This process took about 24 hours of on-and-off work to move from the last progress point to here.

This part of the animation process was particularly difficult because not everything translated as expected going from key poses to full spline animation. Some poses needed to be redone in order to maintain the proper motions that preceded or followed. Additionally, certain poses needed holds so they could last longer, like the source material. I made the mistake of separating out keys among different joints before this, and had to double back and re-sync. I made sure not to worry too much about getting the exact frame-for-frame replica. That leaves room for improvement and exaggeration on my part for a better and more unique animation.

Next up will be further refinement, and implementation of hand/finger joint motions finally.