REPORT P03
Sindre Christiansen
3DAA 2013/2014
Name: Zarc
Age: 50
Nationality: American
Socioeconomic level as a child: poor
Socioeconomic level as an adult: poor
Hometown: Nevada, USA
Current residence: Nevada desert, near Area 51
Occupation: Research project for a human project done by the USA (Area 51)
Talents/skills: Strong, runs fast, can smell things from a long distance.
Relationship skills:
Age: 50
Nationality: American
Socioeconomic level as a child: poor
Socioeconomic level as an adult: poor
Hometown: Nevada, USA
Current residence: Nevada desert, near Area 51
Occupation: Research project for a human project done by the USA (Area 51)
Talents/skills: Strong, runs fast, can smell things from a long distance.
Relationship skills:
Height: 224 cm
Weight: 41 kilos
Race: Human/Alien
Weight: 41 kilos
Race: Human/Alien
How does
he/she dress? : This character has
no distinguishing to use. He has been held kept in a basement all his life, and
have never used clothes.
Habits: scream, easy angry, break things.
Health: Good. Non smoker.
Hobbies: No hobbies, only a dream of being free.
Style: Poor, different than other humans.
Greatest flaw:
Best quality: Kind to the people that is kind to him.
Favourite saying: ‘’I really hate this!’’
Educational
background: No graduation, has been a project for the
Area 51 from he was born.
Intelligence level: Smart
Character’s short-term goals in life: Escape from Area 51.
Character’s long-term goals in life: Escape from Area 51 and be a free person as everyone else, without being wanted.
How does the character see himself/herself? : Sad, angry and confused.
How
self-confident is the character? : Very
self-confident.
Does the
character seem to be ruled by emotion or logic or some combination thereof?
This character is ruled by
emotion. He want everyone to be happy, included himself, which he’s obviously
not at this moment.
What would
embarrass this character most? : This
character would be embarrast if someone confronted him with something he can’t
give answers to.
Emotional characteristics
Strengths/weaknesses: This character runs extremely fast, and is very clever. Daily,
he works at the Area 51, with secret projects. He can read all kind of
languages, but is sad and unfocussed.
Introvert or extrovert?
How does the
character deal with:
§ anger? Break things
and beats up the persons that is a threat.
§ sadness? He cries for
days, and pretend that nothing has happened, to look ‘’untouched’’.
§ conflict? Gets
confused and doesen’t care that much.
§
change?
§
loss?
What
motivates this character? To be given
opportunities.
What frightens this character? To not get out of Area 51.
What makes this character happy? To have some time outside, and get out of the basement.
Is the character judgmental of others? No.
Is the character generous or stingy? Very generous.
Is the character generally polite or rude? Very polite.
What frightens this character? To not get out of Area 51.
What makes this character happy? To have some time outside, and get out of the basement.
Is the character judgmental of others? No.
Is the character generous or stingy? Very generous.
Is the character generally polite or rude? Very polite.
What is the
character’s role in the story (Main character? Hero? Heroine? Romantic
interest? Etc.) Main
character
Where would he/she go on holiday? New York, USA.
What is his/her favourite food? Fresh slaughted pig.
Describe his/her home. What is it like?
Where would he/she go on holiday? New York, USA.
What is his/her favourite food? Fresh slaughted pig.
Describe his/her home. What is it like?
The home of this character
is a 20sqm basement inside the Area 51 facility. Dirty floor, and no windows.
He is being held kept here when he’s not working, because of his unstable anger
and emotions.
Choose an enemy
How did the
character make the enemy? This
character got this enemy after a he was experimented on, by other persons at
the Area 51 facility.
What is the one thing in the world he/she would avoid at any cost? That other people becomes the same experiment as himself.
Why? Because that would be a pain for the other persons.
What has he/she done already to avoid this? He has talked to the project leader at Area 51, and threaten him to not try the same experiment on other.
What would you see him/her doing in future to avoid it? He would probably kill the enemy to avoid this.
What is the one thing in the world the character would do anything to have? His freedom!
Why? Because he want to be like everyone else.
What has he/she done already to try and obtain it? Threaten the leaders at the facility.
What does
he/she hope to achieve in the future? To get his freedom and live a normal life like everyone else.
Additional notes on this character:
Zarc is a human
experiment, done by the USA, in accommodation of the Area 51 facility.
He was born in Nevada,
were his mother and father lived. His father worked at the facility and his mom
was a drug addict. When Zarc was born, he wasn’t given a name, but was only
called ‘’the child’’. After his father died in an tragic airplane accident, his
mother left him to the Area 51 facility, to give him the opportunity to live,
instead of become a drug addict like his mother. Not everything went out like
it was planned. In the beginning the people at the Area 51 took good care of
the child, but after a while, they captured an Alien at a UFO crash site in
Roswell in the 1960’s, and found out that they wanted to try to take the genes
from the Alien and try it on the child. This is were he became Zarc, the human
project.
INTRODUCTION
This assignment were we supposed to make an character, and give him a
life story. The finished product should be 6 finished renders, with a range
from low-poly clay, to smooth with texture. The assignment had different levels
of work, which included research, sketches, concept, schedule etc. Many
challenges underway, but really exciting and fun!
INTERPRETATION OF THE TASK
When I started on this assignment, I went straight to the internet, to
find some inspiration for my character. My first thought was to create a
creature that only exist in our fantasy, but then I started to think that it
would be really cool to create a mix between a fantasy figure and a human. So I
tried.
CONCEPT
After a lot of research and thinking, I came up with my finished
concept. My character is based on a human experiment done by the USA inside the
Area 51 facility in Nevada desert. This base does really excist, so I used that
as a referencepoint in my character. The story behind it all is this characters father worked at the Area 51
facility, and his mom was a drug addict. When Zarc was born, he wasn’t given a
name, but was only called ‘’the child’’. After his father died in a tragic
airplane accident, his mother left him to the Area 51 facility, to give him the
opportunity to live, instead of become a drug addict like his mother. Not
everything went out like it was planned. In the beginning the people at the Area
51 took good care of the child, but after a while, they captured an Alien at a
UFO crash site in Roswell in the 1960’s, and found out that they wanted to try
to take the genes from the Alien and try it on the child. This is were he
became Zarc, the human project of Area 51.
SCHEDULE:
RESEARCH AND WORK PROCESS
CREATIVE METHODS
When I started on the assignment, I realized that I had a lot to do, to
give this character the look I really wanted. I started with creating the
character in sketchbook, then made imageplanes to use as a reference when I
started to model the creature in Maya. When I started on the model in Maya, my
focus was to use as few polygons as possible, but also enough to get the shapes
I wanted on my character.
After I was done with my model, I choosed to put it into mudbox and
create all the details there. I choosed this method to get the result I wanted
on my character. Mudbox allows you to export a normalmap, which worked well on
my character. First try was not that successful, but after a few tryouts it
worked fine.
I also choosed to use a stamp in mudbox, this because my character has
skin texture, and one of the stamp tools in mudbox allowed me to give my
character the texture and details I wanted. In addition to my concept, I wanted
to give my character a sign that he really belongs to the Area 51 facility, so
I gave him a mark on his left breast were it says ‘’ TOP SECRET’’. I choosed
this because he is a top secret human project that no one outside Area 51 knows
about.
Before I sent my model into mudbox, I had to unwrap the whole mesh. I
used UV texture editor in maya to do this job. Honestly I looked at some
tutorials on youtube on how to unwrap a character in maya, and took a lot from
there. I had learned how to do it by our tutor, but I thought it was worth a
try to figure out even easier ways to do it. I couldn’t find any, so I
unwrapped my model, did a layout of all my unfolded pieces, and sent it into
mudbox for further details.
After the work in mudbox was done, I ended up with exporting out
texture and normal maps. These was then placed on the finished and unwrapped
model in maya.
ANALYSIS
The issues I had to work with in this project was many. I can start off
by telling that this was a pretty difficult task to do, in the way that I had
to get to a finish with both the textures and the model. I had SO many thoughts
about this character when I first started, that I couldn’t even decide how he
was going to turn out. Then I sat down and figured out piece by piece how
things was going to look like when it was done. I started to model the
character and had no serious issues with that, except that my Maya license was
out of date, which was a small problem to fix. After I was done modeling, I
took my model into mudbox and started to sculpt my details, which was a serious
mess.
I sent my maya file to mudbox and connected the two scenes so that I
could update everything with each other, that was not a good idea. I then took
a copy of my finished maya model and opened it in mudbox. All model mesh was
accepted, so that was no problem. In my mind I thought that I could give my
character some big muscles and a high detail face, but so easy was it not going
to be. The thing I had to do in mudbox was to take my original mesh at level 0
of subdivision, and fire it up to level 5-6 to get in the details. Everything
seemed to go well, until I was extracting the normalmap out of mudbox.
The maya model was original low-poly, and then fired up to 6x
subdivision in mudbox, so all of that amazing details was not able to fit on my
level 0 maya model when it was extracted out from mudbox.
I sat three hours and tuned in fine details that I thought was going to
show on my finished model, but with no luck(as said). Then I figured out that
if I gave my character some fine details but in combination of color and
sculpting, it would work. And it did. I painted my whole character dark brown,
and gave him skin texture(not that visible in finished render due the issues
with maya+mudbox), and then colored a darker color in corners and edges of the
character, to give an impression that he is both dirty and has been out in
rough weather and haven’t been showering for a while. Then, as mentioned over,
I did an imprint on his left chest, to really say to the viewer that this
character is a top secret project.
DESIGN
The design I choosed to go for in this assignment, is based on two
different creatures, Alien and human. I started off with my drawings, and was
pretty stuck at that part of the assignment, so I had to choose how my
character should look like, and that mix between an alien and a human was
really something that caught my attention. This character is thin, which people
thinks that aliens are, compared with above the average of height of a human,
included the basic structure of a human. I choosed to give him long and thin
arms included the legs. His feets and hands is alien inspired, with my own
design. I researched alien hands and feets on the internet, but couldn’t find
something I really wanted, so I made something special of my own fantasy, which
was a fun part.
SELF- EVALUATION
REFLECTION ON FINAL PRODUCT
My opinion on the final product is that there is probably a lot of
things I could have done different, but when that is said, I’m pretty happy
with my result. This is the first time I seriously use normalmaps and creating
my textures in mudbox, which was a big experience for me. The character is made
with only maya and mudbox, more specified a texturemap and a normalmap exported
out from mudbox and placed on the main model in maya. When it comes to the
unwrapping, I could have done a way more better job. Why I’m saying this is
because I want to be honest to myself about it. Instead of unwrapping arms in
one piece, I could have done some parts together rather than do them as a
separate piece. For the texturing, I could have putted a more high detail skin
texture on top of the whole character, but instead of doing that, I used a lot
of time in mudbox, to get what I really was looking for. That was my priority
with this assignment, and that is a big part of this projects, to make
priorities and be satisfied with them.
Overall I’m satisfied with my product and gain experience from each
task we do. I have learned very much during this project, and that is really
good to bring into the future. On my blog I’m also going to post an image of
the model in mudbox compared to the normalmaps on the model in maya, so the
readers can compare and see the difference.
During this two week assignment/project, I followed my schedule for
each day. Some days was I even further than the schedule was, so I feel that my
time planning went very well.
Here is my final product;
