Week 7 and 8 – Bee Asset

This week I began on the Bee animation asset. This is one of the most important things I can do in the game, a heavy responsibility and expectation to make sure it looks good. This is the character that the player will be using in the game.

Bee Visual References

Moodboard – Secondary Reference

I debated with myself about the bee’s design in terms of realis, level of cartoony and realistic elements. As well as the appearance of the bee in terms of type /species of bee. While the honey bee was very realistic, I felt it was too long for our game, I wanted a smaller, more practical character, but not too cartoony, like this:

I mean that the target audience is not only children, the design should be suitable for adults as well.

I found that the bee species ‘bumble bee’ was closest to my intention (as you can see in the mood board above. Nevertheless, I plan to mix and match parts of the imagery I collected from secondary research. For example, three pairs of legs are not absolutely necessary. I can blur the lines of necessary realism as I wish for it. Or pick characteristics for the one species of bee but the shape of another.

Concept Design

I focussed on the shape, design, proportions of limbs, and colour experimentation. Unfortunately my designs did not provide much intricacy in detail. Instead I picked out elements of the reference mood board that I intended to include, experimenting with various designs, to my or my group members preferences.

Feedback about Bee Design

Hisham and Sophia agree that no. 4 , from the image above is a good design. They want me to over exaggerate the roundness and size to make it a more game-like character (a fur ball with these body proportions).

David likes no. 4 and 5. The shapes of the body and colouring. The fact that I have a preference of type of head and legs is fine with him, he doesn’t mind, but he agrees with making the bee cartoony.

We were all on the same page in terms of preference of bumble bee over a honey bee. My next task is compiling all of the preferable elements, and making a more cartoony bee design.

Overall, after taking their feedback into consideration, I will shorten and downsize the wings and legs, increase the size of the eyes to look cuter and experiment with the body proportions a slightly. I am unsure what to do with the fangs, except to experiment with the design somewhat. Although, the body will not be seen too much, considering it will be covered in fur. There will still be an essence, a sense of the type of character with the body proportions – I believe I can create a more cartoon-like style. For example, in the bee image reference that Sophia sent me, the head is larger compared to my designs. See image below:

This is a great reference, and I would like to duplicate the essence of this in my work if possible. Especially since my team, all accepted this reference as suitable for our game. I will test various body proportions further to experiment with which which one provides suitable visual results.

Here is a Pinterest board of imagery I collected in order to gain inspiration about how I can change my design. (841) Pinterest

Redesigning the Bee Model

Proportions and general design constructions were taken into consideration at this stage. And the features, for example, the change of colour locations and shapes, the antenna, the legs and eyes.

Group Feedback and Choices

My favourite designs are no. 1, 3, 4, 10 and 11, since they all look like they have character due to the arrangement of the features.

Sophia and Hisham‘s chosen design was number 10. The reasoning for this was because it looks ’round and fluffy’, and the side profile looks good.

David also chose 10 as it would suit the game theme. There were other designs that also looked decent enough. Although, were some that looked too aggressive or number 8 looked ‘disappointed’.

Seems like the choice is made. I am happy with this design, so I will move forward to transfer this into 3D with Maya.

Side and Top View Reference for Maya

(Note to self)

The reference below is for the games designers. Since the wing is one sided (a plane), they will need to press this button in Unity to make sure that the wing texture is seen on both sides.

Bee Modelling

I smoothed a cube which created the right amount of directional geometry for me to model a circular mesh with four geometric directions for the quads. My other option is to use a sphere, however, the directional lines would all need to be edited for this.

I made three mesh to start off, each originating from the smoothed cube, and edited the placement of the vertices.

Then, I have bridged them like so, added more divisions and altered the mesh accordingly.

Thinking about the future, I believe that the legs, antenna and wings will be kept as separate objects. I need to double check how this animates- if they need to be one object. The wings must be separate though, as they are plane meshes.

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The bee should look something like this in the game. The model is smoothed and sculpted. Of course this is only the model for now, the hair and colour will bring the character to life.

I modelled the eye and eye lip/ eye hole/ surrounding eye area with the help of this tutorial:

I made holes in the mesh using the multi-cut tool. This was to ensure there would be no hair applied to the areas where the eyes would be placed. While I can groom the surrounding area accordingly, I want to limit the amount of issues that I run into later.

Uv’s

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Texturing

Working in substance painter, I used ‘human back skin material for the bee’s body and I became fond of the ‘cotton’ brush It produced cloudy, soft but grainy, strokes which fit the rough material well. Applying black masks to material layers with different colours and painting in certain places. This is the result, which I am satisfied with the texture result. There is enough bumpiness, even if I didn’t use hair on top (which may happen).

Also, I am using the elements of Substance Painter that I learned with the flower asset, therefore, my workflow is faster and more efficient.

I just learned how to change the scale of the applied material, which is perfect for this model (just what I needed at that time). Although, you may not be able to see the texture with the hair on, this is still suitable if there is no hair.

The image below is how the model looks in Maya with the textures applied. Looking back, I feel as though the antenna and legs should have been a darker colour.

I made the wing base colour slightly transparent.

I learned that this was possible through my flower asset development. As you can see in the image above, when I made the base colour invisible, the the other painted layers were still visible. Hopefully, this will look the same in Maya and Unity.

Rigging

I originally looked at replicating the flower’s rig, since the rigs movement capability may be applicable. Instead, I decided to simplify the rig to three joints in the wing with an IK handle, this seemed like the best option. Since, I realised that I overcomplicated the rig in my previous designs. Then, I can control the wing from the end control, instead of the control at the head/base. That way the rotation of and position of the wing can be more closely manipulated as I wish. I also want to experiment with the attribute editor to make driven attribute editor handles, where I can cycle through the forwards and backwards positions quickly.

I am somewhat second guessing the rig, since an FK handle on the wings would have allowed me to curve the wing controls nicely like how I did with the flower movements. On the other hand, the rotation would have been worse to control. For now I will continue with the IK handles and look at the animation produced.

Rigging and weighting is complete now and I am very happy with the movement. However, there is one issue I have found. The wing separates from the body when moved. I am not sure how to anchor the wing to the body. Perhaps I should assign more weight to the main body control, which doesn’t move, and have a gradient weight impacting the rest.

This worked very well, I just needed to adjust the placement of the weight in order to control the movement of this area. At first it was very stiff and unmoving, which I think looked unrealistic/ unnatural.

Wing Animation

I completed a test with the IK handles, but did not like the results. The wing remained flat and only bend horizontally. The pole vector I added rotated the wing angle, its inclination, but did nothing for the bend of the wing. I can use this rig, however I am not sure if bending if in half would be better.

After the experimentation with the IK handles, I remade the rig controls for FK, using a control for each joint so that they can bend and curve together. The tests for this showed better results in terms of wing bend, however they were still not fully suitable. The results showed erratic looking movements.

The play blasts for the Ik animation tests can be found in the play blast section below, number 1. The FK animation tests are numbers 2 – 5.

Notes about animation:

Frame Count

Up/down wing flap= 8 Frames.

Offset between each wing control = 2 frames.

Wing tip drag after extreme pose = 1 frame after.

Animation Control Key Frames Units

Rotate x-axis = 10/-10. (Wing flap).

Extreme Poses

Back pose	Right Wing	Left Wing
X	5	-5
Y	-53	53
Z	-15	-15

Front Pose	Right Wing	Left Wing
X	-5	5
Y	53	-53
Z	-15	-15

Up/Down Pose

Z (base control only) RT & LT = 50.

Wing Tip Drag

I realised that, even with the offset, the tip of the wing has the wrong position after it is full extended and retreating to the next extreme. I need to add a drag of the wing after the extreme key frame.

The image above shows the result. The wing animation looks better, however, it is still not very natural or fluid. I may consider resorting to the simple wing animation I made in the testing phase. Only after consulting with the team to see their opinion. The play blast for the wing tip drag animation can be found in the play blast section below, video number 6.

Wing Tip Drag (= 1 frame after extreme poses)

Front Pose	Right Wing	Left Wing
X	-30	30
Y	-5	5
Z	30	30

Back Pose = Opposite to table above^^.

The below image is how the FK animation looks in the graph editor.

Another option to rig the wing

While researching how to animate the bee’s wing, I found this tutorial.

I have frequently gone back to the bee flying reference video, as I am unsure about how to animate the wings. The way that I have made so far is not the best, I am not completely happy with or they do not seem like realistic movements. Alternatively, I researched this method, where there is a rig of bones with n-cloth mesh in between these. Looking closely, the wings actually move like this, as though they are catching the wind.

I would have liked to have tried this method, however, thinking about time constraints I need to move on from this asset so that I can complete the other assets as soon as possible. The other assets should be presents, rigs and models from online as much as possible. Since, I am running out of time. I took too long on the bee and flower assets, so I am restrained with what I can do with the less necessary assets.

Feedback About Wing Animation

Feedback from peers in class said that, firstly, both the IK and FK animations that I showed them should be faster. And would need to be seen with motion blur to see the full effect, otherwise it is more difficult to see the how each animation version looks. The people I asked preferred the IK (not curvy) animations, which surprised me. I suppose that it is more cartoony, and will look better when quickened and with motion blur. Whereas the FK animation may just look like a messy wiggle movement. I worked out that I should definitely look at the animations when rendered with motion blur to decide on the final choice to move on with. When I showed them the tests of wing speed I made in week 4, they each stated that the wing looks best when flapped every 2 frames. I may not be able to use the FK controls if I want it that fast, since the movement will need more frame space. Or it would just look messy.

Also, when looking back at the bee wing reference video, I think I should decrease the amount of bend on the FK animation to improve it. My plan is to animate the base of the wing first and then slightly curve middle and wing tip.

The feedback I received from my teacher stated a preference for the IK. Since when it is sped up it should look good. Although, he urged me to decide after I make the renders with motion blur.

The collaborative teammate feedback that was given in response to the two wing animation versions was that IK version was preferable. It is much smoother than the FK movements, and in the FK animation, a bee does not usually have that much curl. They said that the IK movements make more sense, a bug-like movement.

FK Last Attempt

This time I experimented with the FK handle animation in a different way, with less curving. I animated the angled the base fully, separately from the mid and wing tip controls. Then rotated the mid and wing tip sections afterwards, only slightly when the wings are moving forwards or backwards. I sped up the animation so that the up/down wing flap movement lasted 4 frames, 2 frames to move up and 2 to go down. (The play blasts for this can be found in the play blast section below, numbers 7 and 8).

These are my ANIMATION NOTES, detailing the ROTATIONAL UNITS of each key frames:

Wing Base Control

Extreme Front Position	Right Wing	Left Wing
X	10	-10
Y	40	-40
Z	40	40

Extreme Back Position	Right Wing	Left Wing
X	-60	60
Y	-50	50
Z	60	60

Wing Middle Control

Wing Moving Forward	Right Wing	Left Wing
Y	-10	10
Wing Moving Backwards
Y	10	-10

Wing Tip Control

Wing Moving Forward	Right Wing	Left Wing
X	–	–
Y	-5	5
Z	-10	-10

Wing Moving Backwards	Right Wing	Left Wing
X	–	–
Y	-5	5
Z	10	10

All Play Blast Tests

Rendered Videos

To view the animation with motion blur, I rendered all of the options and showed the team.

The FK flat wing movement was chosen from these.

Speed Tests

The team and I decided to use the 4 frame animation. This asset is all done except the hair, (if that will still be used).

Bee Hair

Due to my inexperience, I found using Xgen hair extremely difficult. Through out the videos I found about how to complete the hair on the bee, I realized that there would be necessary parts of Maya that I am not familiar with. Such as the node editor (e.g. when applying a colour map to the hair) or certain parts of Xgen (e.g. expressions).

Maya Tutorial: Create Xgen Grass – YouTube

I wanted use something that I found in a tutorial, then I should be able to vary the length of the hair randomly through a coded expression, yet I was not even able to open the window. Then I had trouble applying a colour map the the hair, the same texture I am using for the bee’s main body mesh. Mostly because I couldn’t find where or how to apply this in the node editor due to the complicated process that didn’t seem to relate to the situation in my project. Even when I tried multiple videos. This is an important part of doing the hair, so it is essential that I move forward and figure it out.

Another option is that I paint the hair again, as in the video above. Nonetheless, I will ask my teacher to first help me solve this problem, if possible.

Hair test:

Here I experimented using the grooming tools and other hair settings.

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I wonder if using clumps is a better option than this.

My aesthetic goal in making the hair contrives from these elements:

• Very varied length of hairs. Fuzz close to the mesh that looks quite thick. Some Medium length hairs. Some much longer hairs that stick out of the group clearly.
• Colour that matches the base colour texture map I have previously created.

Another method, which will help to animate the hair is to use guides. However, the only video I found is outdated, and does not relate to the process I must go through to follow the technique.

Considering how much time this is taking me so far, to work out and make suitable the hair part of the bee asset, I am inclined to leave the hair out of the asset. The team agreed that they would like to leave the bee as it is, they like how it looks.

Restarting the Rig and Animation

The bee animation didn’t play in Unity, through numerous trial and error with Sophia, we couldn’t get it to work no matter what. In the end I had to try and restart the rig and animation as I suspected that was the issue. Perhaps I broke the rig by editing after I made it. Remaking the rig shouldn’t take too long, since I have the exact method from recently completed it. Also, this time I decided to add more animation to the antenna, head butt, and legs, to amplify it’s realism. For this, I wanted to look at more bee video references.

Elements that I noticed about the animations above:

• The legs drag while flying, behaving like an n-cloth might. With follow-through and offset.
• The antenna spasm/ twitch.
• The head and abdomen also move. The abdomen bob slightly when the bee if flying.

New Rig

I later realised that having one controller for both antenna was a mistake, I corrected this. This is because I want to animate little twitch that bee’s do, a characteristic of their behaviour. For this I will need to move the antenna separately.

The video above is the play blasts of the three versions of animations that I completed. The second one should have been used in the game, however, due to the animations not playing in Unity. I remade the animation a third time, only animating the wings, with out a rig. This was the only animation that worked out of the numerous attempts.

I added follow through on the leg animations, and offset between the legs. Version 1 has less developed animation, on the legs and antenna, as my first attempt. I much prefer the second animation version. The movement is clearer, more purposeful and realistic.

Rendered Animation