Information on Maya Rig http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/mathilda-rig-free-maya-rig-female-character-rig/
'Mathilda Rig Feature:
* Animschool Picker. Special thanks to Animschool for developing this very useful technology! We also develop some useful function for this rig. Check the help document we created to see more details.
* Advanced facial control: Sticky lip, Eye scale, Bendy head, Fleshy eye, Secondary control, etc
* IK/FK limb control: The key framed position of IK or FK can convert with each other by using picker.
* Stretch Spine, Limbs, bendy Limbs.
* Hand and foot control system: additional attributes allow easier control of the rig.
* Auto interaction: The jacket will automatically interact with gravity when you rotate the body. The eyelash will also bend when you pull the eyebrow down.
* Easy shader loading: All the advanced shaders(Subsurface scattering, procedural) are saved in another file. So rig will not be too slow when you create the rig reference. By using the picker, you can easily assign all the advanced shaders to the model.
* N-hair is available for this rig. Check the help document we created to see how to render and simulate n-hair.
* Global Scale: scale the size of the rig.
* Advanced facial control: Sticky lip, Eye scale, Bendy head, Fleshy eye, Secondary control, etc
* IK/FK limb control: The key framed position of IK or FK can convert with each other by using picker.
* Stretch Spine, Limbs, bendy Limbs.
* Hand and foot control system: additional attributes allow easier control of the rig.
* Auto interaction: The jacket will automatically interact with gravity when you rotate the body. The eyelash will also bend when you pull the eyebrow down.
* Easy shader loading: All the advanced shaders(Subsurface scattering, procedural) are saved in another file. So rig will not be too slow when you create the rig reference. By using the picker, you can easily assign all the advanced shaders to the model.
* N-hair is available for this rig. Check the help document we created to see how to render and simulate n-hair.
* Global Scale: scale the size of the rig.
The purpose of this project is providing a free high-end character rig for animation students to develop their professional portfolio. Any type of commercial use or crime with this rig is forbidden.'
I was able to download motion capture data files from the Unity Asset store and a number of online blogs and websites.
Motion Builder was very difficult to learn at the start as I had to learn the software from online tutorials and documents. However My lecturer, Omid, gave me links to his tutorials which were extremely helpful and helped me through a lot of problems I had. Also I had a one on one meeting with my lecturer Jacque and she helped explain the software to me and gave me her notes from when she started learning it.
Projecting the animation onto an actor was an easy process, however some problems arose when the motion capture footage did not start in a T-Pose. This brought up problems when imported back into Maya as some joints had twisted 180 or 360 degree. I had to then go back into motion builder and try to edit the joints in there or re do some animations parts back in Maya.
The above images are from the game 'Tomb Raider' starring Lara Croft. The whole game has had a large influence on my game, specifically when concerning the character and narrative.
The story tells of a young woman who's ship and crew get washed up on a huge island as the result of a freak storm. Lara's character has to quickly adapt to her surroundings and learn how to use weapons, hunt and mountaineer. She is a very strong female character who discovers ancient secrets of the island and saves her shipwrecked and kidnapped friends.
The vast environment ranges from rock filled muddy terrains to snowy windy mountain tops. The jungles are full of vibrant plants and colours and physics such as water,wind,sky and fire all look exceptionally realistic. The realism is further emphasised by the changing weather. The game also offers a strong graphics and effects option which only works to its full potential on PC's. 'TressFX' is an option that adds more movement and realism to the character and the surroundings. Using TressFX shows individual strands in Lara's hair moving with the wind rather than moving as one object.
The Animating Process: Motion Builder & Maya
In order to prepare my model for animation I first had to rig it on Maya. I used a Human Ik rig and bound it to all meshes. After it was correctly bound, I used the paint weight tool to add influence to the model and its joints. Problems arose in this area due to the fact that the model had several different meshes. This made the process very long and hard as it different meshes reacted differently to each body part and some overlapped. To make this process easier I deleted unnecessary meshes like pockets on the jacket and string ties on the shorts. This was helpful as these meshes are not an integral part of the character and so the model did not lose anything important. The human IK and meshes were then imported into Motion Builder as an FBX file.
The Motion capture data was projected onto an 'Actor' model in Motion Builder. This was done by 'characterizing' the actor by matching up the data's markers and the actor's joints. When activated the 'Actor' then moved exactly the same as the motion capture footage. Some problems arose with the motion capture footage as some data would not match up to the actor. This was due to the data being old and unable to work properly on Motion Builder 2014. Also some data was already animated wrong and so the markers would sometimes twist 180-360 degrees which would deform my character. This was solved by using other mocap data files or editing the animation back in Maya.
After the FBX maya file of 'Mathilda' was imported into Motion Builder I was then able to re direct the animation onto my own character. When the animation looked accurate, I imported it back into Maya and was then able to edit it and use it in my scenes.
Projecting the animation onto an actor was an easy process, however some problems arose when the motion capture footage did not start in a T-Pose. This brought up problems when imported back into Maya as some joints had twisted 180 or 360 degree. I had to then go back into motion builder and try to edit the joints in there or re do some animations parts back in Maya.
Inspiration:
Above is a character called Elizabeth from the hugely successful game series 'Bioshock'. Elizabeth makes an appearance in 'Bioshock Inifinite' as one of the main hero's. The character helps your first person player (Booker Dewitt) escape the floating city in the sky and helps in combat by offering you weapons, ammo and powers. This strong female character has a large range of emotions and draws the player in to feel empathy and understanding.
The story tells of a young woman who's ship and crew get washed up on a huge island as the result of a freak storm. Lara's character has to quickly adapt to her surroundings and learn how to use weapons, hunt and mountaineer. She is a very strong female character who discovers ancient secrets of the island and saves her shipwrecked and kidnapped friends.
The vast environment ranges from rock filled muddy terrains to snowy windy mountain tops. The jungles are full of vibrant plants and colours and physics such as water,wind,sky and fire all look exceptionally realistic. The realism is further emphasised by the changing weather. The game also offers a strong graphics and effects option which only works to its full potential on PC's. 'TressFX' is an option that adds more movement and realism to the character and the surroundings. Using TressFX shows individual strands in Lara's hair moving with the wind rather than moving as one object.
The Animating Process: Motion Builder & Maya
In order to prepare my model for animation I first had to rig it on Maya. I used a Human Ik rig and bound it to all meshes. After it was correctly bound, I used the paint weight tool to add influence to the model and its joints. Problems arose in this area due to the fact that the model had several different meshes. This made the process very long and hard as it different meshes reacted differently to each body part and some overlapped. To make this process easier I deleted unnecessary meshes like pockets on the jacket and string ties on the shorts. This was helpful as these meshes are not an integral part of the character and so the model did not lose anything important. The human IK and meshes were then imported into Motion Builder as an FBX file.
The Motion capture data was projected onto an 'Actor' model in Motion Builder. This was done by 'characterizing' the actor by matching up the data's markers and the actor's joints. When activated the 'Actor' then moved exactly the same as the motion capture footage. Some problems arose with the motion capture footage as some data would not match up to the actor. This was due to the data being old and unable to work properly on Motion Builder 2014. Also some data was already animated wrong and so the markers would sometimes twist 180-360 degrees which would deform my character. This was solved by using other mocap data files or editing the animation back in Maya.
After the FBX maya file of 'Mathilda' was imported into Motion Builder I was then able to re direct the animation onto my own character. When the animation looked accurate, I imported it back into Maya and was then able to edit it and use it in my scenes.
Run- Motion Capture Data:
Unity: Animating
The above clip is a playblast video of my finished run cycle. The clip is then looped on Unity in order to make it playable. The whole process in Unity was very challenging as I had to learn the entire new software in only four months by myself watching tutorials and ready a lot of documentation. Unity has an 'animator mecanim' system which enables you to create blend trees which hold all animation clips and data. With these blend trees it is then possible to transfer from one animation cycle to another. In the animator tab you can use Unity's motion capture data and project it onto your character. This process is theoretically straight forward but offered up its own problems referring to blend trees and when trying to import your own animation cycles.
Hand Clenched:
Walk - Motion Capture data:
Motion Capture - Walk Cycle with Gun
Motion Capture - Walk Cycle in Scene
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