NiK™

Finished my report and almost completed my animation, just need to edit a few shots but here is an early almost complete version.

I’m reasonably happy with the outcome and have learnt a lot from this project, after all my uni work is complete I plan to repair the UV mapping so the models and textures are as detailed as they were when I finished them in ZBrush. The walking animation also needs tweaking, and I need to fix the depth of field camera shader and sub surface scattering shader. I think I’ve managed to emulate Leone’s style and camera technique and fulfilled the criteria I set out from my research.

Video Here

Not had much time to update this but the animation is entirely done, just taking forever to render out. Here’s a couple of stills. The effect of the depth of field shader is obvious in both shots, hopefully it makes it look more realistic.

Both characters are now rigged. Starting from the same model proved to be a blessing in disguise as it allowed me to just duplicate the one rig and use it for both models. Just have to tweak the weighting of the envelope now so that the areas under the arm deform realistically when they’re moved.

I’ve discovered that the UVs that I mapped out were very broken on exporting the colour, normal and displacement maps from ZBrush back into XSI. I’ve spent ages trying to fix them and am really disappointed with the result. I also tried a few different effects; sub-surface scattering gives a semi-realistic light scattering effect for the skin and hides a few of the UV errors so I think I’m going to use that.

I’ve been learning ZBrush on the fly as I’ve been adding detail to the models I’ve made. So far I’m really happy with the results. I’ve managed to model in wrinkles around the face, folds in the jackets, and skin blemishes and stubble. The vertex painting is also really useful and makes texturing really simple, the only thing I’m not happy with is the eye brows, I think I shouldn’t have modelled them and just painted them on when texturing.

Well I’ve finally finished the second gunslinger, the antagonist. I’ve paid particular attention to his pistol belt and jacket, and modelled bullets to go in the belt. I’ll eventually join the holster to both belts. Now I can export my models into ZBrush and add even more detail. Here’s some quick renders of the mesh.

So I got really bored of re-modelling the gunslinger so I modelled something else; a gun. I used real images of a real western revolver so I could get the dimensions correct, the hammer can even be animated and the bullet chamber is separate too.

Well I’m already behind my production schedule so I have decided to modify the first gunslinger model and make the second from it. I’ve modelled on a jacket, and shirt, collar, trousers and boots on to the gunslinger model. I’ve also even managed to model a cowboy hat!

I followed Chris Wyatt’s tutorial he did for Character Animation last year for modelling these hands so yet again they’re a bit cartoon-y, they don’t look as bad when subdivided at least.

So with the hands finished I’ve now almost completed my first gunslinger, obviously I still need to model his clothes.

Well it took me ages but I’ve remodelled the body I had made so it looks reasonably realistic now and no longer cartoon-y hopefully. Just got the hands and boots to do now then I can begin work on the other gunslinger.

Well this is taking me way longer than planned, I’ve only been using tutorials for cartoon characters thus far and it won’t go with my realistic look so I need to remodel the mesh but at least I’ve got the main dimensions done.

Well I’ve completed a really basic animatic now and selected the soundtrack I want to set the piece to: ‘Welcome to Bangkok’ by Brand New. I think its really dramatic and its also completely instrumental and I think it might not drive me crazy having to listen to it over and over for the next 4 months! I plan to have all the shots in time with the beat of the drums and the actual shoot-out/showdown to commence when the heavier music kicks in. I’ve already tried this out in the animatic and think it works reasonably well….hopefully its not paced too slowly.

I’ve also begun modelling my first gunslinger. I used lofted circles to quickly build a 3D mesh and then manually manipulated all the points to give a realistic human body, trying to maintain edge loops too. This is my first complex model as I’ve previously only concentrated on really basic things and just animating, I’m reasonably happy with the results so far.

Finally finished storyboarding, still working on final designs for each character but am making a simple animatic with Premiere. Here’s a page of the rough storyboard.