[Riot Creative Contest 2017] - Stéphane Videlo
polycounter lvl 4
Hi everyone! 
This will be my WIP post for the Riot Creative Contest 2017.
I'll come back soon with some news about the rig I'll use and the animations I'll do with it.
This will be my WIP post for the Riot Creative Contest 2017.
I'll come back soon with some news about the rig I'll use and the animations I'll do with it.
Replies
I would like to make her gracious, but deadly like an assassin, in order to have a good contrast with my previous animation entry for the Riot Art Contest 2014 (a very Brutal little Yordle with two drills).
I plan to play a lot with stretch & squash in order to have very dynamic poses.
This rig is not definitive, and I'm still thinking about other characters ideas I could use for this contest.
The brainstorming continue
After a bit of thought, I decided to not continue with the cat girl rig I made earlier.
I decided to go with this new rig : A witch with a monstrous book that can eat people.
(I'll call her "Definitely not Veigar")
I plan to do a walk cycle and an ultimate move.
Ultimate move : It's a two steps ultimate. After the first activation, the book turn into a monster that grab an opponent with its tongue and eat it.
After the second activation, the book spit the opponent and a lot of pages that knock back all opponents (including the spited one) in front of the witch in an angle of 45°
My main references for this character are :
Bayonetta: I like her attitude. It's like she doesn't care about the fight. She's just toying with her enemies.
Michael Jackson: strong poses while dancing.
Monster book from Harry Potter: The beasty attitude. It's just a little book, but It's like nothing can stop it.
I expect to show you some new stuff next week.
After a few tries with my previous rig, I realized that I wasn't very convinced by the animation I planned to make. In fact, For my previous ultimate idea, the main problem was that most of the actions would be done by the book, while the sorcerer would stay back and just do some random poses. I still think I can provide a satisfying animation with this rig, but not good enough for a contest like this in my opinion.
That's why I changed my mind (again !), and decided to animate an other character.
This time, it will be a savage girl who fight with her hair.
My goal is to make her bestial, like a predator ready to kill anything that would stand in her way.
Her hair will act like tentacules during her ultimate.
I already started her run cycle. It's still work in progress:
-Hair is not animated properly for now. It's just a simulation.
- I plan to add some random movements during the cycle, like her looking left and right, seeking for a prey to grab with her hair.
-Still have to modelize hair with a real 3D model.
https://syncsketch.com/sketch/209658#296333
I wanted this run cycle to fit with the global speed of LoL champions. I am hesitating to make a faster run cycle to exaggerate the bestial behavior of my character, and make her look like more a bloodthirsty monster.
Any feedback is welcome. (Just forget the hair animation for now).
Necalli is in fact one of my many references for this character.
Since my last post, I modified a little bit my 3D model for the contest. I still have to add 3D models for the hair.
I also made some progress on the run cycle. It wasn't an easy task to animate her hair. I took a lot of time just to find out how I wanted them to move, but i'm pretty happy with the result. I also added a variant during the run in order to make the cycle less repetitive.
LoL Cam :
Side Cam :
Front Cam:
I plan to start the ultimate move this week, and add 3D models for the hair.
I'll take a break on the run cycle for now, and do some retakes later if necessary.
I am open to any feedback.
I come back with some news about the ultimate and the run cycle:
For the run cycle :
- I added a mesh for the hair. It's very basic but it will do the job, and it's still better than the previous boxes used for the animation.
- I scaled up the hair during the scream to make my savage girl more frightening.
- There are a short version and a long version of the scream. I though the first version was too short, so I made the long version yesterday. Tell me if you prefer the short or the long one.
For the ultimate :
My creative process has been pretty chaotic last month. I scrapped a lot of animations, since I was never fully satisfied with my ideas.
Here was my first attempt (not polished) :
I enjoyed the way the different movements completed each other, but I stopped early when I realized I was doing pretty much the same animation I did back in 2014 : a rush at the enemy > jump > the main weapon smash the ground and bumping the victim. Even if the poses and the movement weren't the same, I felt I wasn't making something original.
That's why I adopted a different approach by making different poses. My goal was to see what would be the most interesting way to exploit hair as a weapon.
I was convinced that a grab would be a good idea, but I wanted to avoid that possibility, since there are no IK for the hair.
After that, I did a different blocking, using hair as spikes. The result was not satisfying. A few friends and I were disturbed by the fact that the main body would be too passive during this ultimate.
I switched again on a new version of the ultimate : the character dash > grab an enemy with her hair > do multiple circular attacks with her hair > finish with a jump and a final attack.
first version (end up with a claws attack) :
new version (use hair for the final attack) :
I scrapped the first version because the final claw attack was anticlimatic in my opinion.
The new version still share similarities with my very first try, but I added a few steps to make it different enough, like the hair grab. I'll also put the accent on the circular attack, and not on the jump this time.
In term of gameplay, it's pretty much like a blitzcrank grab followed by a warwick combo that immobilize the victim. I imagine that once you press 'R', you dash and grab an enemy right in front of you. If you fail, the ultimate is wasted. If not, the enemy takes direct damages. You can cancel your combo by simply moving if needed, just like jannah's ultimate.
I am still not fully satisfied with the final attack, but with the time left, I don't know exactly what else I can do, since my rig is pretty challenging to use due to its technical limitations (no IK/FK switcher for tentacles).
I still have to work on the other hair tentacles and deformations.
Let me know what you think. I am open to any suggestions.
Besides, here is what will probably be my submission. But I am still hesitating with one thing :
- Should I use the perspective for the front and side view of the ultimate, or do I have to stick with the orthographic. Or should I keep both like I did in the current video ?
I came back to the short version of my run cycle, as Arturow suggested, and finished the animation of the hair in time.
Animating all those hair tentacles was a real challenge. I wasn't sure of the result from the beginning to the end.
Even if I think I could use the hair a different way for the final attack, I am pretty satisfied with the final result.
Here is the final video (it's exactly the same one I posted above)
And a few images of dynamic poses:
I also made a stance during Christmas holidays, when I was seeking inspiration for the ultimate move.
I originally planned to use it for the title screen, but with the advice of a friend, I chose to keep a sober title screen.
I would like to thank you all for your feedbacks and kind words.
It was a pleasure to participate this contest. It was very challenging, and interesting to see everyone's work. I've seen a lot of very cool animations.
Good luck to all participants!