Akiva Broder

About Akiva Broder

Posts by Akiva Broder:

Game Artefact

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Mind Map

I made a mind map to help me come up with an idea for what character I wanted to create. I found this very helpful to get the ideas flowing straight away. As I was writing down words I started to get an idea in my head of the sort of character that I wanted to create and I found that I automatically started writing down things that were more connected to the idea that I had rather than completely random. So, I went with this idea and continued writing ideas that linked to it, creating more options and interesting elements that I could incorporate.

Sketches

Once I had a rough idea for the sort of character I wanted to create, I drew some quick sketches. For each sketch I started with a big, mid-grey brush so I could focus on getting interesting silhouettes and shapes. I then added shadows and highlights to bring out the forms and details. This process made sure that each sketch was unique and I wasn’t just changing one small thing each time, as well as insuring the character had a strong silhouette, which is important for creating a good character (especially for games as you usually need to be able to identify the character quickly – if it’s an enemy or friend).

Final Concept

I now had a choice of 7 designs for a character and it was time to pick which one I liked the most. I also had to take into consideration the fact that there was a maximum amount of polys for this project. The concept I chose was this tentacle/skull creature as it was my favourite and I felt like it was the strongest design.

This creature lives underwater in deep, dark areas of the ocean and usually lurks in shipwrecks. It’s orange eyes glow in the darkness attracting scuba divers and sharks to swim towards it. This is when it uses it’s long tentacles to grab them and uses it’s large jaws to bite down on them as it pulls them into depths.

Modelling

My workflow to create this model began by sculpting a base mesh in ZBrush out of a sphere. I manually retopologized this in 3DCoat and tweaked it in Maya to create my low poly mesh. I then imported this back into ZBrush to create a high poly mesh, adding detail as I subdivided it, layer by layer. Initially, I made the eyes, horns, teeth and tongue as separate meshes but when I retopologized I decided to make them all into one mesh.

Texturing

Once I had my high and low poly meshes, I unwrapped the Uvs of the low poly in 3DCoat, so I could bake the details and create the texture in Substance Painter.

I built up the texture of my model by blending lots of layers over each other. I used masks with different brushes to distribute each layer in the desired places. For the eyes, I hand painted various colours over each other and blended them together. I then added a layer with emissive colour switched on to give a subtle, orange glow to the eyes.

Rigging & Animation

I created a rig for the character in Maya, with IK and FK handles to move the tentacles as well as controls for the jaws, tongue and the top of the head.

Since this character lives underwater, I animated the tentacles to look like it is swimming. I also did a subtle squash and stretch animation using the head control so it would appear like it is breathing in and out. I then made the whole model bob up and down which really gave the effect that it was swimming.

Rendering

I imported the animated model into Unreal Engine, as well as the textures and started to set up a camera and lights for rendering. I began with a 3-point lighting setup but ended up adding an additional rim light to help highlight the silhouette of the character. I contrasted warm, orange lights with cooler, blue lights to make it a bit more interesting before tweaking some effects in the post-process volume.

Finally, I added an atmospheric particle effect, using Unreal Engine’s Niagara system, to add some more life to the render. 

Final Video

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Retro Device

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For my Retro Device project, I have decided to make an Ancient-Roman Treadmill. Since modern treadmills use electricity and they obviously didn’t have electricity in Ancient Rome I had to figure out a way that a treadmill would work if it had existed in that time period.

The main mechanism for this will be the wheels rotating to make the leather platform move as someone is running on it. The ropes will attach to one end of the platform and can be adjusted to create an incline, increasing the difficulty.

Most artifacts from this period had very interesting detailed designs and patterns so I will try to replicate that with this model. I have researched the types of materials that they typically made things out of in this time period, such as marble, stone, wood, leather, bronze and rope, which I will use to create my treadmill model.

The Story

This treadmill is owned by a famous gladiator who has become very rich from his success. He uses it to stay healthy and to train for his fights. Rather then the wooden and stone training equipment of his competitors, he can afford this more expensive piece of equipment; made from marble, bronze and leather. The lion design in the middle motivates him, as he trains to be the strongest and fittest gladiator he can be.

Mood Board

I collected reference images of things that would help me design a believable model. This also helped tp give me an idea of what materials the romans used in that time period.

I used PureRef, which allowed me to organize all my reference photos and to view them as I worked.

Sketch

I drew a rough sketch of my concept to help give me an idea of what the model was going to look like. This helped when I started modelling, as it allowed me to easily visualize each piece that I needed to create. It also gave me an idea of how it would move when it came to animating it.

Modelling

I began modelling in Maya, blocking out the main forms using the primitive shapes. Once I had completed the block out, I started to add more detail.

From studying the reference photos that I had collected, I found that the romans made a lot of sculptures of animals that represented different things. Since I was creating a treadmill which is used for athletes to train, I wanted to sculpt an animal that represents strength – a lion.

I sculpted the lion head in Zbrush and mounted it onto the body of the treadmill. I also sculpted various patterns and designs that were common on ancient roman walls and sculptures.

I used 3DCoat to retopologize the high poly models and create low poly versions. I then unwrapped the low poly models and created the UVs for baking and texturing.

Texturing

I used Substance Designer to create the materials that I would use to texture the treadmill and used Substance Painter to apply them onto the different parts. I made materials that they would have used in Ancient Rome such as, marble, bronze, wood, leather and rope.

When looking at the references that I collected, I really liked the mosaic designs that they used a lot and decided I wanted to incorporate this into my model. This was very challenging to create in substance designer, but with a lot of trial and error, I was eventually able to make a mosaic material that I was happy with. I sampled the colours from my references to make it more believable.

Rigging & Animation

I wanted to animate the treadmill to show how it would work. So I had to make the wheels spin, the leather go around it like a conveyor belt and the adjustment beam change the incline of the platform.

The trickiest part of this was definitely the leather going around because I couldn’t just rotate it. To accomplish this, I used a technique where I created a hollowed out cylinder and applied a wire deformer to stretch it to fit around the wheels. I then created a control for this which allowed me to rotate the leather around like a conveyor belt. 

Render

Final Video

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Photographics

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In this rotation, I learnt to look at photographs as shapes, lines and textures. For this project, I took 10 photographs focusing on interesting shapes and textures. I then selected my 3 favourites and composited them together in Photoshop using masks, to hide and reveal parts that I wanted. It took me a while to figure out what I was creating but eventually I came up an idea of what I wanted to do. I also used adjustment layers and various blending modes to create different effects to the layers contrasting dark and light tones. I am happy with how this composition turned out and I learnt a completely new way to look at things.

Final Composition

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Out Of Your Head

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For this group project, we based the story on 5 random words; tortoise, star, fall, love and ask. We decided to animate the film in After Effects using techniques we’d learnt in the motion graphics rotation. After taking into account the 20 second time limit we had been set, we decided to go for a simple storyline, leading us to start researching various children’s stories, reflecting on their simplicity, to help us to learn how to break town a tale into its key parts. Our tale consists of a lonely, old tortoise who no longer had his partner and would watch the sky miserably, thinking he was the only one who was alone in the world. However, he suddenly sees a lonely star fall from the sky and rescues her. They then agree to run away together and they run off into the distance.

Story Board

Once we’d thought of the initial idea for the story, we created a story board to help plan out the scenes and work out the different assets that we’d need to make.

Mood Board

We then collected reference images of characters, backgrounds and styles that we could use to create our concepts.

Character Concept

Since there were going to be 3 main scenes, we each created a background in Illustrator. We also created the 2 characters with all the different poses that we would need.

Animating

Then bringing all the different elements into After Effects we each animated a scene following what we had already planned with the story board. Once all the scenes were complete we exported them and imported them into Premiere Pro to composite them together. We had to cut a lot of the scenes shorter to fit it to the 20 second time frame. However, this improved the film as a whole as we eliminated the worst bits and kept the best bits which lifted the overall quality. We also sped up and slowed down various parts to help the scenes flow together better.

Music Composition

When we were happy with the timing and spacing, it was time to add sound. I used a software called MuseScore which allows you to compose music for any instruments. I decided to use piano and cello as I feel like they sound great when combined which also reflects on the 2 characters coming together in the film. Since I didn’t have an actual piano with me when we were working on this I also found an app that let me convert my touchscreen laptop into a virtual piano. I tried to reflect the mood of the film in the music, so to emphasise that the tortoise is sad and lonely, I began the music with 3 low chords that when combined sounded serious and sad. I did these chords with just the cello to portray the loneliness of the tortoise. The mood then changed when he saw the lonely star, so to represent this in the music I brought in the piano, climbing the notes higher and higher to show hope and the spark that the tortoise is feeling. The chords that are being played by the cello also change at this point to match the piano. Meanwhile the piano keeps climbing up till it reaches the highest note at the same time as the tortoise is changing from sad to happy. It then holds this note to add contrast to this special moment as the tortoise dramatically smashes through the window in slow motion. The piano then continues with a twinkly sort of tune whilst another line of piano joins in harmonizing it. This matches up with the tortoise and the star coming together and the music then fades out as they walk off together into the distance. As well as the music, we also recorded sound effects for everything such as the footsteps, the smashing window, the star falling, the tortoise crying etc. However, when we compared the version with the sound effects and with just the music we felt that it was better with just the music.

Final Film

I enjoyed working in a group for this project as everyone has their own styles and ways of doing things and sees things differently which adds variety and allowed us to learn from each other. I think we worked well together and I learnt a lot more than I would have if I was doing this independently. I think we could have improved the film by sticking to a more consistent colour palette as well as creating more poses for the characters to give them more movement, but apart from that I think this project came out very well and I’m happy with it.

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Point Of View – Final Project

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Introduction-To-Animation-–-Point-Of-View-FilmDownload

The idea for this film started with how much I hate alarm clocks waking me up in the morning. It then progressed to a timer for an oven and a phone ringing. All these things have annoying sounds, but you need them otherwise you’d wake up late, burn the cake or miss the phone call. For this film, I decided to take away the fact that you need the alarms and emphasise the annoying sounds and the reaction of the character hearing the sounds that are disrupting his peaceful day. I used mainly ZBrush, Maya, Substance Painter and Photoshop. I compiled the film in Premiere Pro, adding sounds that I recorded. I learnt a lot throughout this project and had to solve a few problems on the way. This was my first time rigging and animating a 3D character, so I found that quite tricky, but I’m happy with how it turned out. It was also my first time modelling a stylized character as I usually go for realism. The project took years to render so I would like to learn how to optimise a scene in Maya for faster renders. I also planned to model some background objects around the scene to make it feel more natural but I didn’t have enough time.

Storyboard

Once I’d come up with the initial idea of what I wanted to do, I sketched a plan so it would be easier for me to visualize what I was doing as I went along. I found this really helpful, as it gave my workflow a proper structure.

Process

I began by modelling the character and some of the props. I used Maya for the hard surface models and ZBrush for the organic models.

Since I was animating the character, I had to make sure the character had clean topology so I used 3DCoat for retopology. I also created the UVs here, making sure that the seam lines wouldn’t be visible.

I used Substance Painter to paint the textures onto the models, building up the colour using different layers stacked on top of each other.

I found rigging the character very challenging as this was my first time doing it. After trying lots of different methods, I finally got results that I was happy with.

I split the whole project into different scenes so I could focus on one part at a time. I enjoyed animating in Maya and I’m pleased with how it turned out.

I would have liked to spend more time on setting up the lighting and modelling more background objects to build up the scene, but I was running out of time by this point so I had to start rendering it.

I used Premiere Pro to compile the scenes, adding sounds that I had recorded to bring the film to life.

Final Film

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Sound

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This rotation made me realise how important sound is for animation and how it can help to create the mood and atmosphere. I made a short video capturing the sounds going from outdoors to indoors as well as learning about room tone and background noise.

Final Composition

For this project, I recorded lots of random sounds and mixed them together in Premiere Pro, playing with the pitch and reverb to create 3 different moods. For the cover images, I tried to picture the sounds as I imagined they’d look, for example, using thicker darker lines for strong and lower sounds and lighter thinner lines for higher quieter sounds. I enjoyed this rotation as I’d never done anything like this before and it gave me a new appreciation for sound.

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Sketching and Drawing

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I really enjoyed going around London sketching the things around me and I found it very relaxing. At first I wasn’t really able to sketch any people because everyone was walking around and didn’t stick around for very long. However, I eventually got used to sketching much quicker and rougher and was able to capture the general idea of what I saw.

Out of my 10 sketches I picked one and turned into the middle of a story by creating a beginning and end. I wanted to make a story with a comedic twist and I came up with an alien that scares away the man who runs away, only to go and sit next to the old lady on the bench and read a book. This rotation taught me to create quick rough sketches rather than getting caught up in capturing the small details which is what I usually do. It was also a lot of fun turning the sketches into part of a story. 

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Traditional Animation

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This rotation was probably the most time consuming but was also very enjoyable. I have never used a lightbox before but I managed to get the hang of it pretty quickly. We learnt about the different techniques for animating including straight ahead, pose to pose, ease in and out and timing and spacing. I enjoyed using all of them but out of all the animations I made the straight ahead was my favourite. I found it had a nice flowing smoothness that you can’t get with pose to pose. However, pose to pose has benefits as well as it is more structured and can help if you want to plan out the motion.    

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Motion Graphics

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I’ve never used done animation in After Effects before so it took me a while to get the hang of how it works. However, the exercises we did in class helped me a lot on getting started with it. Once I’d come up with an idea of what I wanted to do, I used Illustrator to create the parts of the character as separate layers so I could animate each part. I then imported it into After Effects and rigged it by parenting layers to the layers they would be attached to and began keyframing the different layers to create a run cycle. Looking back at it, I think I could have been a lot more creative with the story of the video, however I am happy for a first time animating in After Effects. I also think I should have spent some more time to give everything more detail.

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