Type: Solo
Project Length: 3 Months
Skills:
Tools:
What was the goal?
I had taken an advanced asset creation class at school, and at the start of the year we were able to pitch different project ideas. One of my pitches was to design, model, texture, rig, and animate two Pokémon style creatures, following the same pipeline as GameFreak and the Pokémon company. This was the pitch that ended up getting chosen, and what I spent my semester in that class doing.
What was the output?
I had the idea for a Pokémon that was a moose that carries a mini swamp ecosystem in its antlers. While conceptualizing the designs I was greatly inspired by the idea that moose like to go swimming. I ended up designing two Pokémon, the first form being a shy little fawn called Pondeer, constantly quivering because in fear that it will spill the water, and the second being a fully grown moose called Mooswamp; big, powerful, and confident.
After conceptualizing and creating turnarounds, I went on to model, rig, and animate both creatures in Maya, as well as texture them in Adobe Substance Painter. Once they were both finished, I chose to present them in Unity with a Nintendo DS style UI! The buttons all allow the player to be able to look through the different animations and get a view of the models.
Takeaways
This project taught me SO MUCH about the 3D modelling pipeline. It was extremely useful to go through the entire process and see what it would be like working in an actual studio as a modeller. The biggest things I learned were definitely about rigging and weight-painting. I did a lot of research and self-teaching, since that was the nature of the project, and feel very confident in my abilities as a 3D modeller now. I'm really happy with the animations as well, I feel like the personalities of both creatures really shine through with the animations, like Pondeer constantly quivering in its idle and Mooswamp standing on its back legs to roar.
