Common Art Sprint #2 Delivery

 In the previous sprint, I have faced a lot of challenges. First: the FX will exist through out the whole animation, while I want the FX to exist only when the character is moving. Second: the follow position is not stable. Even after I use the method from last time, the projected point will have a lot of unpredicted motions. This will cause the ribbon to jitter a lot.

To solve the first challenge, I made a custom animation notify state which acts like a switch. This controls the boolean which then spawns and deletes the particle system. 

   To solve the second challenge, I have used the VInterp node. This node will output a smooth transition from current position to target position over time.

After solving this two challenges, I start to make shaders for the trail, them emplement these FX back into the animation sequence. I have also made a ripple FX for more details.

This is the final look:

Common Art Sprint #1 Delivery

 My main task on this project is to make a trail effect when main character walks on the ground. Here are the references I have found:

This FV includes two challenges: The effect itself, and how it can follow along the character.

I initially don't think it's hard to make it follow character. In common workflow, I need to get the character's velocity, or at least the world position for a niagara system to follow, but in this case, we only have animation sequences. In animation sequences, The actor location won't move, there are also no velocity.

My first attempt is to connect this FX on a joint. This can make the FX move with character, but since the joints are always moving in three axis, the FX no longer looks like trails, it will move up and down with the joint. Offset won't work because the joint location in constantly moving.

Scene component in BluePrint doesn't work because of the same reason. Since this animation sequence has no motion on it self, make the Scene component as the character's children can't solve the problem as well.

I have then tried to add notify states in animation sequence(Timed niagara effect). This can solve the problem of: "I want the trail only appears when there's an motion happen in the X,Y plane", but can't solve the jittering problem

My solution to this problem is by finding the pelvis joint, then make a line trace from pelvis to the floor. Now, we have a projection of the center weight of this character on the ground. The new location will have only two axis of freedom. The result of this method is very stable, but it will happen through the entire animation. I will need to combine the "notify states" method to this method to solve this problem.

It will not fly all around the character anymore. Blueprint see below:

Common Art Week 15 - Final - 'A' Stage

 For this stage I have added The finger rigs and an anti-rotation function for the dress holds. This will largely prevent clipping from happening.

Other than that, I also created the Medusa chase mechanic and the Win/Lose UI. I added a Nav Mesh Volume for enemy navigation and used the “AI Move To” node to set the player as Medusa’s target. Once she reaches the player, the player is frozen and a special attack animation plays. After that, a pop-up menu appears, allowing the player to restart or return to the main menu. The same logic is used when the player reaches the exit, except the Win UI will pop up instead.

Common Art Week 12 - First Bake - 'B' Stage

I added a footstep effect to our main character, “The Rat,” using a Niagara particle system.
I first defined the overall flow and rhythm of the burst timing, then modeled a custom mesh to replace the default sprites. After that, I created a material to introduce color variation and give the effect more visual interest.

To make the effect actually work in gameplay, I added notifications to the character’s animation sequence. These notifies mark the timing of each contact pose and trigger the footstep effect at the correct moment.

Perforce Proof:

Common Art Week 11 - High Res Meshing - 'C' Stage

 I am out side US and is not able to work much. With the help of our lead, I mostly finished the skinning part of it,. I have added a control pannel besides the character for a more smooth experience in controlling her dress.

Here are some of my skinning outcomes: The dress is now deforming properly

Perforce Proof:

Common Art Week 10 - Protomeshing - 'D' Stage

 At this stage, I am focusing on the medusa character rig. I did spend way too many time on this than I expected, and the rig is still not properly skinned. This rig will be done by next week.

I’ve finished everything in this rig except the leg FK and finger FK. What I really like is how the dress reacts to the leg movement. The dress mostly follows the legs and knees, but there are still controls for the dress supports so I can add extra expression. The dress holders also add a bit of drag, which helps convey weight and gravity in the motion.

    Just started on the weight painting process, I can tell these dress holders do their job nicely. I also changed the base of this skeleton to a mocap skeleton for naming convensions.

Perforce Proof:

Common Art_Week 09 HW - Initial Block Out - 'F' Stage

 For the 'F' Stage, I have created a proxy Medusa_Rig which includes all the basic hierarchies. One technique I used is copy weights: I first weight paint without the clothes, then copy the weights onto the clothes, saving me a lot of time. Of course, there is still a lot to improve. For example: adding extra controls for her dress and creating modular animations for her snake hair.

I have also built a reference board for the FXs we might use in our game, including Water, Wind, Interactive sparks and Fire:

 This is the perforce proof: