HMP Contest: twelveplusplus
Hi, ya'll. I am throwing my hat in the ring.
My character's name is Phoebe. She is a magical girl who runs around a mountain forest (based on the Santa Monica Mountains.)
One day, she discovers that there is a holographic Crystal Tower growing out of the center of her home. The people of the tower drain energy from her natural, magical mountain forest home to fuel their world.
As she digs deeper, she realizes that she is living a dual life. She also lives in the tower as a Goddess named Athena and is worshiped by the people of the tower.
She must overcome conflict of being a deity to the people who are destroying her home and learn how to use her unique position to balance the power between the Crystal Tower and her mountain forest home.
Below is a real picture of Phoebe and an Chibi/Bishoujo style rendering that i made (please ignore the missing arm and feet. i will get to them!)
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My character's name is Phoebe. She is a magical girl who runs around a mountain forest (based on the Santa Monica Mountains.)
One day, she discovers that there is a holographic Crystal Tower growing out of the center of her home. The people of the tower drain energy from her natural, magical mountain forest home to fuel their world.
As she digs deeper, she realizes that she is living a dual life. She also lives in the tower as a Goddess named Athena and is worshiped by the people of the tower.
She must overcome conflict of being a deity to the people who are destroying her home and learn how to use her unique position to balance the power between the Crystal Tower and her mountain forest home.
Below is a real picture of Phoebe and an Chibi/Bishoujo style rendering that i made (please ignore the missing arm and feet. i will get to them!)
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Replies
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now, i just gotta figure out the face and the hair... that should be the easy part, right? :poly142:
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Also, she sent me a picture of these really cool earrings. I'm pretty sure they need to go in there!
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...umm samba dancing sure is free on mixamo, though....
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She collects little green fairy eggs and once she gets enough eggs little fairy helpers explode out of her.
Enclosed is picture of the area. The little mound in the middle is where the holographic crystal tower begins to grow.
Also enclosed is a picture of the cool plant that grows everywhere, called "wooly blue curl." I am planning on putting together lsystems to describe the plants area (and perhaps buildings), and design a procedural terrain generator. I was thinking of using dynamics simulations to scatter rocks about the place, and stuff like that.
I can actually wander around the property and track GPS data with my phone to make pathways. I will probably use satelite data to shape the terrain and block out the vegetation. (either by hand or procedurally--it's looking like by hand at this point)
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I do know that, stylistically, I want to go for a cell shaded/toon render kind of style (which, fortunately, mantra handles quite well) similar to LoZ:Wind Waker or Dragon Quest VIII.
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I'm still working on the face, hair... got some eyes and a mouth, but nothing post-worthy. luv ya'll g'night!
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I'm studying a bit about facial topology right now, i want to make sure her face will animate well. Also, i realize, i am gonna have to think this Athena transformation through a bit...
I haven't even sketched Athena yet, so I guess I should get out my pencils...
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anyway, I made a little animatic in houdini for how i want to do my render. Here is a screencap. I need to figure out how to upload vids on here...
also, i made some models of some other little charachters that go in the scene...
basically, athena (not shown) will be out front, and then she does a sparkly transform and runs up the hill as Phoebe and looks all excited.
this was rendered in houdini.
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I have made a lot of other stuff to go in the scene with her... haha I am definitely better at making butterflies and robots and poingo... good thing I already got that clothe figured out...
poingo poingo
hahaha
http://youtu.be/liCB5PiI1BY
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Athena will prolly also have a lower neckline and different hair and accessories and so on, but they should look similar.
Actually, one thing on my to do list is to make a fully procedural character generator for this game. Ha, i realize i have a ways to go for that, but it's surely one of Houdini's strong points.
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I think i figured out how to make roundtrips to mixamo while keeping everything procedural!
If i just send the base geometry that animates and leave out all the accessories, hair, eyes, etc, i still have control over all that stuff when i bring it back into houdini.
I just have to capture the rest of the geometry to mixamo's rig and edit the capture regions which is a pretty quick process. one that i might could even automate...
This is really cool because now i can try out different motions while experimenting with the look of the transformation between phoebe and athena...
heh, i kno there are only 5 days left in the contest...
but whatever. this stuff is cool.
Thanks to everyone involved for making such powerful tools available!
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although, I started making a little particle sim with butterflies that I want to use... I'm just gonna keep the particles in the low 10s and i think i (and my computer) can handle it...
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::sadface::
but mplay decided to lose the ability to export mov or avi files... I have no idea what to do about this. it keeps saying... all kinds of errors really.. mostly it says it can't write the temp files...
::throws hands up::
definitely learned a lot though... I'll get 'em next time...
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