Scenery Models II

As well as the boat which was acquired through Turbo squid here are two basic models created to be used in the scenery a long with the coin and model.

Coat mesh-v2

This is a screen shot of a coat mesh i have built to hopefully integrate with the physique modifier so that i will be able to achieve a
basic cloth animation. this will have to replace the inital idea of having free flowing cloth. this is due to running out of time from focusing
on the garment maker and achieving no usable result.

The coat contains 1400 faces and isn't uvw unwrapped yet. the unwrapping will be added after tests with the physique modifier.

Cloth Problems IV

With little improvement and time running out another lecturer was contacted. Darren Wall was a lecturer who responded to an email which requested help with the garment and cloth modifier. Darren had explained that he didn’t have much experience using the modifier but would take a look at the file. The meeting was held in Darren’s room and instantly a change was noticed. Initially it was thought that the systems had crashed and were unresponsive but on the different computer the simulations could just be seen. There was slight movement in the wire frames and so it was concluded that the computers in the labs were not as powerful as the computer in Darrens room and so 3D Studio Max didn’t crash but was just taking a long time to simulate the file. Several tests were conducted in the meeting which included lowering the polygon and altering the cloth properties to lower the amount of calculations needed. Although the file was simulating it was taking a long time and after 45 minutes in Darrens room it was suggested that it might be better to move on and consider changing the method of creating the coat.

turning gravity off. we found this option when looking through the different features the garment maker and cloth modifier has.

Gravity on:

Gravity off:

Changing the cloth modifiers settings:
This was really to see if i could get a reaction to the cloth. i tried increasing the collision detection up and it didn't seem to do anything.

we also tried using diffrent material types such as:
Wet Cotton:

Starched Cotton

Heavy Leather

these three were the three which gave a better result, they still moved through the mesh but not as much as the silk and cotton settings.

This could be due to the rigidness and lack of stretch heavy leather and starched Cotton will contain. More testing will be needed to confirm this.

Research Report

This report details the research undertaken which lead me to my methodlogy.

cloth type 2

Because i have been having so much problems with this cloth im going to swtich cloth methods and try and build

a mesh of a coat which i can try and use the physique modifier to move and animate.

the coat will not have the realistic movements i have hoped for or which is achievable with the garment marker and cloth modifier but

as time is running low and i need to get  product i have been told to move on with my reseach.

cloth tutorial (iwkya)

This is the main tutorial that i have been following to create my coat. It is created by Iwkya and posted in four parts on youtube:

From what i can tell i have followed the tutorial exactly but have still come up with problems. i might email he creator to see if he can help me

cloth problems III

still having a lot of trouble with this garment maker.
The problems are still

1. Massive simulation times

The simualtions are taking roughly 5 minutes to work out a frame and with 900+ frames it isn't really ideal.
looking at video tutorials the simulations seem to take a lot less time, but obviously i can't see the computer specs and if its been sped up.
If this continues to show no sign of improvment i will look into the different techniques i reasrched.

2. final simulations reusult in a poor garment,
The simulations are also resulting in garments which ignore the mesh. They tend to go either under the mesh or through the mesh.

Coin II

An update on how the coin is looking in the 3D studio max

The skull mesh was part of a mesh i created for another module which i deconstructed and altered to fit the coin mesh and was followed the style of the trailer.
I took out the jaw which  felt wasn't needed and the back of the skull, this gave me the partial skull you see in the image which should provide me with enough skull mesh, so that the skull can be seen yet it doesn't over power the coin and that people can see it is part of the coin.

Making the Coin

After all the problems i've been having with the cloth and garment maker i decided that i would take a break from it and start creating the coin which is shown in the trailier.

The coin was only roughly sketched and didn't really have a definite look style so i decided to look at similar objects which could inspire a design for the coin.

The Pirates of the Caribbean coin was a major influence due to the settings and style of the game was to be very similar.

Cloth problems II

The cloth was being simulated it was just taking so long to render one frame that i thought it wasn't moving.
I found this out when speaking to another lecturer was going through the work in his room and not in the labs.
this could be a major problem if each frame takes around 15minutes to simulate, the render time would be far greater.
with around 1200+frames to render I'm not sure if this technique is still the best method.

The results of the simulations look wrong as well. The garment panels should move towards each other with the collision objects in mind,
so the sleeve should move towards each other and slide over the mesh but here it looks as if as the simulations continue the fabrics fall,
and pull towards each other ignoring the mesh.

RockSteady Advice

During my research I had emailed several companies, which had exquisite cloth designs and impresssive garment animations. One of the companies was RockSteady who are the creators of Batman Arkham.

The response came from Scott Burfitt (Associate Producer) and was written by RockSteady Studio's senior Programmer, Ben Nicholson.

The email consisted of a brief description of the process which was used in creating the cape and described how they got around certain obsitcles:

Just draping some physics cloth over Batman's back just makes him look like he's just bought a cheap cape from the local fancy dress shop which is not the look we were going for at all!

So as we can see they intended to create a non-realistic view of the cape to enhance the dramatic style which follows the Batman character

Our approach was to use a physics model and to allow animations or, in some special cases, code to drive the physics whenever it (or Batman) was required to move in a way which was not physically realistic

They go on to explain that they used a physics model to control the cape and how the model

consists of a few constrained chains of capsules which dangle from Batman's shoulders and are held together by springs. We have an animation skeleton which matches this and can be used to animate the capsules or drive them to an animated pose using position and orientation driving springs. These chains of capsules are fed back into the animated skeleton to drive the bones of a skinned skeletal mesh

The method seemed a little too complex for me but did remind me of the basic mesh method which i had looked at for the research.