CT6MAJAN - Characters & Props ~ Radu Carstean

University of Portsmouth - Animation Yr. 3 - Major Project Animation

CHARACTERS:

The 3D models of the characters are generally based on the concepts that I have previously made.

The first model that I began making was the one of the scientist. I have used a 3D turnaround of a character from H1Z1 as reference for the proportions. I chose to use this one in particular because the character is both realistic and slightly stylized at the same time.

The following images present the modelling progression:

To save some production time, I reused this model as a base for the soldier. Since they belonged to the same faction, it was not a problem if they had some similarities, design-wise. Even though the similarities are obvious (helmet, hazmat suit, gloves), each character can be easily distinguished because of the different silhouettes, and heavily militarized equipment of the soldier.

Both models have been modeled in Maya and textured in Mudbox. Since I didn't plan to use any bump, normal or displacement maps on the characters, I baked in some lighting into the diffuse map.

Initially I was planning to have a lot of performance which made use of the character's faces. Again, I have modeled the head of the scientist, which I later reused to make the one of the soldier.

The rigging process has been fairly straight forward. Both meshes received the same rig, but had to be paint-weighted differently. A BSc student, Mirela, helped me make some customized controls for the fingers. This proved to be a really helpful feature, as I had to do a great deal of posing for the soldiers, who were holding guns.

An easy way to get the desired movement, without having to animate both hands, was to constrain the left hand and the gun, to the right hand. This allowed them to move simultaneously and without any undesired sliding, especially while aiming and running.

Even though the monster is the 'big reveal' of the movie, I decided to make it simple, as it doesn't have a lot of screen time. The design has been influenced by its functionality, by it's power to control humans. Therefore, the monster is basically a mutant brain with tentacles. In many ways, it has been influenced by the 'facehuggers' from Alien and 'headcrabs' from Half Life.

Again, since the monster wasn't going to be a central piece for the movie, I have rigged it hastily, just enough to get the desired motion out of it.

WEAPON:

The weapon that the soldiers are using has been inspired by the Russian-made Saiga-12, automatic shotgun. I chose it to be a shotgun, since the soldiers were going to fight in a close quarters environment.

The design was based on various modernized versions of the platform.

In order to better understand the intricate shapes of the gun, I borrowed an airsoft replica of an AK-74 from a friend, which helped me model the receiver, dust cover and many other parts.