Today I've been investigating programming in OpenSG, by playing around with a really simple program that was used for my Virtual Reality project.
I also did a search around for a character to use - now I'm using Blender, Generi (which is a Maya character rig) is no longer suitable. After a little search around I came across a little chap called Ludwig, created by Jason Pierce.
I've plugged it into OpenSG and all seemed reasonably OK, but after playing around a bit and doing some research it looks like exporting from Blender into OpenSG exports a fixed model. Oh dear. So if I want to do any animation (which clearly I do) I'm going to have to program the individual parts as individual nodes, and then get them to move around that way.
Tomorrows job is to investigate creating a simple face using individual nodes.
Showing posts with label Animation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Animation. Show all posts
Thursday, 14 February 2008
Thursday, 25 October 2007
VR and Project
Since recommencing Uni I have started a module called "Virtual Reality". The assessment for this particular module includes a group projected designing and animating a 3D character... sound familiar?
So it seems my issues regarding actually creating the character may have been solved by allowing someone more talented than me to create it. Interestingly, Simant suggested that my character might not necessarily by humanoid, as I had always referred to it until that point. I guess I had always assumed that it would be easier to generate an emotive response with a humanoid character.
Speech (or rather text) is looking more and more like it won't be possible in the alloted time, so the interface is looking more like a character and a selection of buttons representing actions - this actions might include things like smiling or poking and words/phrases like "Hello!" and "You smell!" etc. As you do something to the character it will respond with gestures, and perhaps some stock phrases (e.g. "I'm sad").
The prolog Emotion Engine will hopefully be started today, or tomorrow morning.
So it seems my issues regarding actually creating the character may have been solved by allowing someone more talented than me to create it. Interestingly, Simant suggested that my character might not necessarily by humanoid, as I had always referred to it until that point. I guess I had always assumed that it would be easier to generate an emotive response with a humanoid character.
Speech (or rather text) is looking more and more like it won't be possible in the alloted time, so the interface is looking more like a character and a selection of buttons representing actions - this actions might include things like smiling or poking and words/phrases like "Hello!" and "You smell!" etc. As you do something to the character it will respond with gestures, and perhaps some stock phrases (e.g. "I'm sad").
The prolog Emotion Engine will hopefully be started today, or tomorrow morning.
Thursday, 13 September 2007
Animating Generi
Well, I've spent a bit of the afternoon playing around on Maya 3D 6 and Generi looks like he may be just right. It's quite amazing what he is capable of doing, all possible movement (including some that humans can't do) and quite a range of facial expression - more importantly he comes complete with the ability to lip sync thanks to a range of lip movements. Just perfect!
All that remains now is trying to make him work. You see, the problem that I have discovered is that he's going to be difficult to control. From within Maya itself it's fairly easy to modify his pose an element at a time, with the intention of creating a frame by frame animation. However, I want my character to be live and autonomous. I am somehow going to have to embed the character I have into a program, and control him from that. Keeping him within the Maya "editing" space would just look too cluttered.
I may have to wait until I can speak to someone better at 3D animation before I do that. It just so happens that I have a module this coming term on Virtual Reality - hopefully this will lead to me to an expert in this field. It looks like my research will have to move onto the AI of the character.
All that remains now is trying to make him work. You see, the problem that I have discovered is that he's going to be difficult to control. From within Maya itself it's fairly easy to modify his pose an element at a time, with the intention of creating a frame by frame animation. However, I want my character to be live and autonomous. I am somehow going to have to embed the character I have into a program, and control him from that. Keeping him within the Maya "editing" space would just look too cluttered.
I may have to wait until I can speak to someone better at 3D animation before I do that. It just so happens that I have a module this coming term on Virtual Reality - hopefully this will lead to me to an expert in this field. It looks like my research will have to move onto the AI of the character.
Animation worries relieved!
The original blurb mentioned using a tool called Maya 3D to create the character itself. The only problem is that I have never done any 3D animation, and to create an entire person and then animate and control it was beginning to look like a daunting task.
I have now come across some pre-made characters on the internet, which will remove the need to create it out of my list of tasks - this therefore gives me more time to explore the "brains" behind the autonomous character and also the interface to control the animation!
It's worth mentioning that the project supervisor (one Simant Prakoonwit) made it clear to me that the animation wasn't the real purpose of the project and that any quality of animation would be acceptable. Therefore it seems unlikely that the use of a premade character will cause any problems.
Here are just a few of the sites I have found. It seems quite likely at first look that I may use a character called Generi (from the first site listed) as this is also released for non-profit use.
I have now come across some pre-made characters on the internet, which will remove the need to create it out of my list of tasks - this therefore gives me more time to explore the "brains" behind the autonomous character and also the interface to control the animation!
It's worth mentioning that the project supervisor (one Simant Prakoonwit) made it clear to me that the animation wasn't the real purpose of the project and that any quality of animation would be acceptable. Therefore it seems unlikely that the use of a premade character will cause any problems.
Here are just a few of the sites I have found. It seems quite likely at first look that I may use a character called Generi (from the first site listed) as this is also released for non-profit use.
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