Adjustments to previous Panda projects this week:
1. Problem: When I imported the panda model into Unity, it wouldn’t have any material.
Solution: Since the material I created was [aiStandardSurface], this material shader did not work in Unity. So I’ve converted the material to the [Lambert] material that comes with Maya, and the model will now display the material in Unity.
2. Problem: After I imported the Panda model into Unity, the model’s head would disappear.
Solution: Some of the histories of the model has not been completely cleared. After selecting the model group, select [Hierarchy] in [Select] to select all files. Select [Delete by Type] in [Edit], then [Non-Deformer History] to clear the model’s extra history.
I started making models of the cat piano and the bent over the litter picker character this week. Here are some of my reference posters.
Cat Piano：
Figures bending over to pick up the garbage：
Requirements for the model：
1. The cat piano must be modeled in a block-like style, with the keys stackable at the top of the cat’s body model. The model does not need to be animated because the game students have previously programmed games similar to the cat piano.
2. The character model that picks up the garbage needs to be animated by bending over.
The process of making a piano for the cat：
First, I created [Cube] in Maya, and then I deleted the faces that I didn’t want to keep. Then, in [Multi-Cut], I used [Shift+Right Mouse Button] to cut the model to the same shape as the cat’s head on the face I was holding. Although the cat’s head’s oval shape can be made faster by either a ball or a cylinder, it is easier to use [Cube] for wiring.
Next, I needed to make a cat’s ear model. I used [Vertex] mode to adjust the wiring of the cat’s head, then selected the face, and [Shift+right mouse] selected [Extrude] to extrude the thickness of the cat’s head. At this point, the cat’s ears will be the same thickness as the head of the cat. In order to adjust the wiring of the cat’s head model, it is important to keep one point at the edge and one at the center of the cat’s ear to ensure that the cat’s ear is correctly positioned during the Extrude process. After adjusting the wiring of the cat’s head, select the face of the ear (as I’ve already adjusted the base face of the cat’s ear, I can now select the correct face of the model) and work on [Extrude]. During making the ears, I adjusted the position of the [Vertex] model every time I [Extrude] a face so that the shape of the ears would be the same as that of the poster. I wanted to make a direct copy of the other half of the face and ears using the central axis symmetry method after making one of the cat’s ears, but I found that the ears and face of the poster were not symmetrical! So I used the same steps to make the other ear of the cat.
The model of the cat’s head：
Start modeling the cat’s body. Use [Cube] to create a model with the same shape as the cat’s body, adjust the wiring model to keep the cat’s leg model face.
Use [Extrude] to create a model of the cat’s legs after selecting the cat’s body model’s faces. I kept creating [Cube], then using [Extrude], then adjusting the model’s wiring.
Creating a keyboard for the piano on a cat：
Creating materials for the piano of the cat：
To make sure that the model and poster look similar, I will create some material maps to add to the model. I separated the front and back of the cat’s face and the ears’ sides when I created the UVs. The ears have separate material maps, ensuring that the ear maps do not produce material map deformation. The cat’s materials are all made from Maya’s own [Lambert] material, which ensures that the model also displays Unity’s material.
The model of the cat after adding the materials:
Creation of the background and the hammers used to hit the keys:
The process of creating a model of a figure bending over to pick up the garbage:
In order to design a character model bending over to pick up garbage, I initially wanted to create a character model and then make bone bindings to create keyframe animations. The game, however, requires the character’s arm trajectory to remain in vertical motion mode. If I had used the whole character to animate the keyframe, the hand model would have had a curved trajectory. So I decided to separate the hands of the character model from the body of the character. I also decided to be creative with the figure’s waist’s bending, creating a spring-like waist (the figure’s waist is modeled as a segmented model that rotates when it is bent over).
First, the body of the figure, the head, the hat, the arms:
For this part of the model, create [Cylinder] and then adjust the position of the model’s points so that the model resembles the shape of the poster.
Creating the waist of the figure, the legs:
Creating a character model of a hand:
This is the first time I modeled a character’s hand, and I found it very interesting. I first created the palm and then used [Extrude] to extrude the fingers. As for the hand wiring, I noticed that the space between the fingers needed two lines to be left open. The tips of the fingers on the face of the model must be smaller and smaller.
The first version of hand:
At this point, the edges of the model’s hands were still very stiff, and I needed [Smooth] to round off the edges. Since the number of faces on the model would increase with Smooth, I manually removed many lines and faces. To reduce the number of faces as much as possible, I removed the top face of the hand, selected the top line of the hand, and added a face using [Fill Hole].
The final model of the hand is shown as follows:
Create patterns of the legs, eyes, and mouth of the figure:
Create a paper ball on the ground and give it a different texture of the material.
Creating the following backgrounds:
Making the material:
In order to create a feeling that the model and the poster blend, I decided to make the model of the figure a blue translucent material. All materials are still [Lambert] material. Switching down the [transparency] value in [Lambert] will give the material a translucent feel.
Model animation:
At first, my idea was to create properties that would control the model’s pose and then create keyframe animations. I was worried about Unity reporting errors, so I finally decided to change the waist model’s axes to be closer to the bend. This would allow the keyframes to be created by adjusting the position of the model.
The final effect of creating the animation keyframe:
Effect of the export to Unity:
The sum of this week：
All of the models and animations for my collaborative project have been completed this week. I will also update the next BLOG if the game team needs to adjust the models when tested. So far, our collaborative project has been going well, and we are all very aware of the effectiveness of our communication. I am very interested in modeling and binding, and in the next few days, I will learn to model and bind characters myself.