Battle Fortress Tortoise-> Greenlight on Steam!

Very exciting time for all of us that worked on the BFT prototype game back at FIEA. For those who don't know, Greenlight is a competitive system established by Steam to provide support to game projects that are deemed popular enough by the community. It took almost a year, but Battle Fortress Tortoise climbed the ranks to land a Green-Light.

What this means we aren't fully sure. There are still a lot of obstacles to getting the game demo published (publishing with UDK engine cost monies), Much less assembling a team to return to developing the product. I know a large portion of the original team (myself included) have landed jobs from EA, Iron Galaxy Orlando, and N-Space.

 If there is enough interest I could see us working on it in free time as a hobby, maybe headlined by those still free-lancing. I've also heard there could be a scenario where the IP is bought out to be developed by another company, which would be very exciting (albeit very unlikely). Most likely it will simply be a neat little accolade we can have to our beloved student game.

Here is the link to the Green-Light BFT

Summer Portfolio Piece #3

3rd Portfolio Piece Ideas/ Timelines
As is tradition with Tech Art, we present several ideas to Barak and Mary, the Tech Art teachers, and they tell us which is the best path. Here are a few of them:

cr_SkinAssist
Problem: I have found there are three major annoyances I have when skinning in Maya, and I have a few ideas to fix that
1) Component Editor: powerful but impractically big, create a GUI to assign weight values multiple ways for multiple selection types. As opposed to displaying every single vert name, it will focus on joint names only.

2) Joint Viewer: When skinning I often isolate parts of the model for skinning, this hides relevant joints when skinning. I'll add to the GUI a tool to isolate joints to bring in scene so you know which is selected, and colorize them so you can see on the model which one you have selected

3) Skin Isolator: Often I'll isolate a component level-selection and wish I could easily add more skin to my selection (especially when skinning) this would utilize a slider and a grow selection technique to bring in more mesh without leaving an isolated selection mode. Also would like to be able to display only skin with influence based on selection

Thesis: This would relate to my cloth sim thesis, as some of these tools assist greatly in the cloth skinning process.

Timeline:
Week1: GUI and function complete for piece #1
Week2: Skin Isolator and Joint View function complete- serve writing the theses due here
Week 3: GUI complete and integrated with all three in a united piece

cr_ClothBake
Problem: There are multiple ways of creating cloth in Maya and porting it to engine. Including creating real-time cloth sim for UDK. However the exporting process varies across them, and I could create a tool to serve as a multi-purpose cloth exporter.

1) Research: A lot of time will go into researching and documenting multiple cloth approaches in maya, comparing strengths and weaknesses as well as needs to get into three game engines (this involves researching each game engine.

2) Basic Bake Joints Export: Most game engines need baked looped animations for cloth, this would serve the exporting process of getting this animation into their engines. Bonus points for researching ways to optimize this process with less joints.


Timeline:
Week 1: 1/2 Research Complete: All ways to create cloth sim, and the needs of each of the three game engines.
Week 2: Research Complete 2/2: Presets made for interesting cloth effects. Started on tool for baking these assets, and researching practicality of joint optimization complete
Weel 3: Final Product: Tool is complete, cloth documented, and demonstration of cloth sim in three engines.


Thesis: This is more of an expansive approach, where the majority of the project is the thesis

cr_HairReplicatorV2

This is the update on my Hair Replication tool for Maya.
New Features:
1) XML-Based filing system, add and remove hair cards from database
in different groups
2) User Interface overhauled, more user friendly
3) Presets can easily be made and loaded between scenes
4) Each Hair group has global controls for editing entire group
settings at once
5) Code and UI framework primed for new features like 3D hair
6) Global settings for hair replicator groups can be adjusted
from the UI.
7) Features like Match Paint, to update paint on mesh to new chosen
paint, or clear paint to clear just one type of paint from surface
8) user had more control over individual replcator systems

Update on cr_HairReplicator v.1.21

 The next portfolio project I am working on here at FIEA is polishing cr_HairReplicator.
The GUI is seeing a full overhaul. Some of the first feedback I got was that the two sets of option menus were confusing how they affected different options.

The major UI changes centered around two major points
1) GUI is dependent on settings written to and read from XML
- This allows for more options about what "hair" you have in scene and what hair you have in the database
- This also allows users to save and load custom presets easily, as well as saving their info and not losing progress on a scene

2) All of the replicator options are now placed with their relevant hair card. As opposed to picking what the option menu affects, they find the relevant options underneath the Hair Card painting tabs
- Easier to read, less clicks to do things
- Collapsable

Here is a preview of the UI in progress:

 

As far as new technical features being implemented:
1) Global Controls
- This is almost there, settings changed from inside the GUI compound on top of changes that can be made from individual Hairs

2) Density of Hair
- This one is trickier, and will take some time to implement

 3) 3D Hair
- There are now two hair types, and different rigs and options result from 3D versus 2D hair
- 3D hair rigs will come with basic simulation and collision, but will only allow simple translation and rotations of placements

4) Preset System
- As outlined above, the settings will be save to presets
- Default Option
- Initial Presets (contributed to by other artists)

5) Color tracking
- When colors are changed in the GUI, the changes are reflected in the scene as well

Here is a look at the 3D Hair Rig in progress:

The Rig will be based on curves submitted along with the poly, or joints provided with the Poly Hair.
The hair is generated with simulation, the GUI providing relevant options for 3D hair strands, and the main piece is collidable.


More updates will come with some test cases of Hair Set Up

A quick update on the Librarian Rig progress. Still a lot to do, but it's off to a good physical start!I've been focusing a lot on scripting large portions of the process so that set up will be much faster once I get cranking on the smaller pieces of the rig.

Scripting:
So far I have a GUI set up and the future plans for it mapped out.
Auto follow through SIM: 100 percent
Joints along curve: 80 percent

Leg Auto Rig: 50 percent
Foot Auto Rig: 0

The Schedule so far:
Schedule for Librarian Rig

Monday Night
1) Finish Auto follow through script
2) Layout intial joint structure

Tuesday
1) Script the leg and inverse foot rigging process
2) Layout all Joints
3) Base Controls

Wednesday

1) First pass skin weights done

2) Legs Rigged, start Arm Rig scripting

3) Start skin weight painting

Thursday

1) Arms day2 rigging

2) Hands rigging begins

Friday

1) Arms are complete

2) Basic Facial Rigging

3) Jiggle physics on flaps Start

4) Investigate Robot Rig Features

Saturday

1) Jiggle physics complete

2) Robot rigging begins, custom controls

3) More polish on follow through to Piping

4) Short Test Animation

Sunday

1) Tweaking and Rig vulnerability fixes

2) GUI polish

3) Video Showcasing the Rig in action, Tools developed

Finally finished work on the Head Animation Project! The final results are pretty impressive for real time. Keep watching for the upcoming behind the tech video to show how I made it work.

Maya fur! Very neat stuffs you can do with maya fur. I did some work on the Hyena from BFT with maya fur effects.