Poster

PPT Background

PPT Background
(Render in Maya)

FYP Final Preview

Final Demo - Vaquero Ver2.1 (w/o KINECT)

Final Demo - Vaquero Ver2.1 (KINECT included)

improve the continuity

We are trying to improve the continuity of our animation, some of the shots will be changed.

FYP final report link

FYP final report link:

google doc
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bwgmccn0_NU8blNOWi13YXNNNU0

sendspace
http://www.sendspace.com/file/mbtwun

Deliverable:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/vitgh1

Final Demo (Kinect included) - Vaquero Ver2.0

Final Demo - Vaquero Ver2.0

Animation- sitting cowboy

At the last shot, the cowboy take a rest on the train. In the previous version, the cowboy just sit on the train without the hat, and there is no animation before.

We've finished about 50% of the report.

Animation - walking horse

When the cattle are falling down, the horse should walk a few steps and stop near the cliff.

Beside, we started to do the final report.

Animation - pulling by the train

This is the rope pulling by the train.

The cowboy single animation of this shot.

Finally, we combine this two animation.

Continuity of animation

In order to add more continuity between the shots, we decided to add a shot and animate two more animation.

(1)After the rope tie on the train, add one more shot to show the cowboy is riding the horse with holding the rope, and the cowboy pull by the rope which is holding on the train, then the cowboy move out of the screen.

(2)When the cattle are falling down, we will animate the horse.

(3)At the last shot, we will animate the cowboy, he will take off his hat and put it on the floor.

The Kinect of the last interaction is done, we've fix the hands problems, we find that we have to delete the IK handles in Maya before import the model into Unity. Now, the cowboy can be controlled quite well.

Demo video(without kinect)

Vaquero Ver1.9

Interactive element - cowboy controlling

At the end of the animation, the cowboy will appear again, user can do different pose to control the cowboy, and the cowboy will do the same pose. This is a extra interactive elements in our project.

This is one of the process to do this, we have to choose the correspond joints.

 The model is imported into the Unity and we also tried it, however, we can see that there are some obvious problems on the hands, so, we are going to fix it.

Animation - Holding

This is the storyboard of this shot. After the cowboy throwing the rope onto the train, it shows the cowboy is holding the train edge, and the cattle is falling down in the background.

The cowboy has a slight movement when he is holding the edge of the train.

Animation - Cowboy Jumping

We import the cowboy and also animate it with the previous rope animation.

Animation - Rope (2)

This shot is about the cowboy tie the rope to the train, and he jump into the train depend on the rope, we also simulate the physic animation of the rope, and we will also finish the animation of cowboy.

Animation - Rope (1)

We used IK Spline Handle Tool to simulate the physic of the rope. First, apply IK Spline Handle on the joint of the rope, and it will create a curve automatically, and we create a cluster for each vertex of the curve to control the rope, it can  let us to make the joint move smoothly. Finally, we just set the key of these cluster to animate the rope.

We will close up the rope in this shot, we want to express that the rope is pulling by cowboy.

Unity Problem

We find that the physical setting from the rope we applied in Unity will make the animation very lag, so we will try to make the rope animation from Maya.

Animation - throwing the rope

In the last part of the animation, the cowboy will throw a rope to hook on the train.

Animation - drop the cloth

 

 

The cowboy will drop the cloth suddenly, this is the animation of this shot. we'll close up his hand and show the cloth is hook on the cactus, and he look at his hand and feel surprise.

Animation - Cowboy on the running and landing Horse(2)

This is the cowboy part of that shot.

Because there are some problems if we import 2 models with animation in one scene, so we have to separate the cowboy and the house in different scene after finish the whole animation.

This is the whole animation.

Animation - Cowboy on the running and landing Horse

There are the keys of different controllers on the cowboy. the animation is almost done.

Animation - Horse running after landing(2)

We animate the horse and we are going to animate the cowboy.

Animation - Horse running after landing

There is a shot that the house jump over the cuttle and keeping running, and the cowboy is getting the red cloth at the same time. We are animating the shot.

 This is the video I found from YouTube for my reference.

Animation - Horse Standing ,Stand Up and Jumping (2)

We've enhance the power of the jumping from the previous animation.

Animation - Horse Standing ,Stand Up and Jumping

This is the stand by pose of the horse.

Animation- Horse running in Unity

We fixed the paint skin weight problem in Maya and import the running horse into Unity.

Problem form Unity

When we import the horse into the Unity, we find that there is some problem on the horse, even we've paint the horse skin smoothly.

We also got this warning when we import the horse into Unity.

 Then, we found a solution of this warning from:
 http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/149258/why-isnt-segment-scale-compensate-supported.html

Some one also got the warning before, the solution is we have to uncheck the Scale Compensation from the Joint setting.

Although we've followed the solution step by step, the problems also still there, so we try to Re-paint the skin that having problem.

Problem of Unity and Maya

We find that if there are two characters with their own animation in the same scene, the animation of them will out of working.
So, we're going to animate them in the same scene first, after that, we'll separate them into different scenes and import to the unity.

Animation - Horse running in Maya(3)

The pose of the horse and cowboy is almost done, we also add a halter on the horse, and we'll add physical condition onto halter.

Animation - Horse running in Maya(2)

We think that the animation of the cowboy in the previous video feel carefree, however, he is pursued by lots of cattle, so, the pose should be more focus to ride the horse, so we edited the animation of the cowboy.

Animation - Horse running in Maya

We combine the cowboy and the horse into one scene and animate them.

Animation- Horse walking in Maya

 

This is the horse walking cycle, we're going the animate a running cycle.

Reference - Galloping and Walking Horse Animation

We are going to animate the horse, and these are the YouTube videos for our reference.

Texture - Train

We find some texture from the internet and edit it using Photoshop, and map to the train.

 Bump map on the roof

Modeling - Train (3)

Some lights and a pickaxe is added in this car.

We will map some straw texture on this plane.

 

The modeling of the whole train is almost done, we're going to make the texture to the train.

Modeling - Train (2)

Other car of the train with low polygon.

This is the car that the cowboy will jump into, user can see the view outside from this car.

We are going to model some other decorations in this car.

Modeling - Train

One of the scene in our animation is the cowboy jump to the train, so we have to build a train model in maya.

 

The first car of the train is done, we are going to model the following cars of the train.

Demo Video (animation with using Kinect)

Unity animation(shot# 1a-2a)(Updated)

The cactus and trees are added into the scene.

Modeling - cactus

In desert, it is common to see some cactus, so, we use simple polygons with normal mapping to create some cactus and add them into the scene.

Then, the interim report is almost done.

Unity animation(shot# 1a-2a)

We added the bloom effect and antialiasing to enhance the quality of the animation.

Animation - Run cycle (2) - cattle

The run pose is more powerful now.

Animation - Run Cycle - Cattle

The run cycle of the cattle.

Also, we are going to do the interim report.

reference- running animal

There are some reference link for me to know more about the running pose of animals.

Rigging - Cattle

We use the IK Spline Handle Tool on the back of the cattle, this tool will create a curve on the skeleton, and we can translate the point of the line to control the bone smoothly.  Then, we add some clusters to represent to curve points because it is easier to control.

There are the IK handle and the controller.

Normal map editing - cattle

After using the normal to the cattle in Unity, we find that there are some problems in the normal map.
As we can see, there are some unexpected shadow appear at some parts of the cattle.

We've try to adjust to setting to reproduce the normal map of the cattle, but the problems was still there, so we decided to edit the normal map file manually to fix the problems .

We go back to the Mudbox, use another color and paint on the part that having problems.

 In Mudbox, there is a function to flatten the cattle to UV space, now we can find out which part of the texture that contain problems. export this to Photoshop.

In Photoshop, import the normal map, now we can find the exact place that contains problem. Then use the Photoshop tool to fix it.

The old normal map.

 The new normal map.

 Now, the unexpected shadow is gone.

Use the same method the solve the problems at other parts of the cattle.

Normal Map - cattle

In order to save the polygon count, we decided to use normal map at the cattle and the horse.

The cattle have Level 0-5 in the Mudbox, we try to use Level 1 for our target model, because the polygons count of Level 0 is too low, it is different for animating.

 This is the normal map option in Mudbox, choose the target and the source model to produce a normal map.

This is the paint layer of the cattle.

Now,we have the Normal map file(cow_nor.png), 

the paint layer (cow_paint.psd) 

and the maya model (cow_secondLevel.fbx),

We can import them into Unity now.

We click the cattle in Unity, and change the shader to "Bumped Diffuse"

And the Normal map option will be appear. 

This is the target model that without using normal map.

After applying the normal map, we can see that the detail of the cattle is appear.