TGAGTM: Calamity Jane
 

Work is underway for my new book: The Game Animator's Guide to Maya. Right now, I'm working on the featured model of the project, a cowgirl character. I figured I'd let you guys follow along with the progress of it. :)

Here's the concept art drawn by my good buddy Steve Garcia, the same guy who did the concept for my first book.

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/bookconcept1.jpg

And here's what's been done so far:

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress1.jpg
http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress2.jpg
http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress3.jpg

So, still very early.

There is no real polycount I'm going for, but I'm hoping to keep in in the 15,000 poly range.

wow great drawing.!
So tell me mike is it easier to get into the games industry rather than other fields of 3d stuff. (stuff been the only word i can think of as other jobs...lol)

I don't know, as I've not attempted to enter other fields. I would think it would be easier than, say, film effects work, though, predominanty because the vast majority of film effects studios (at least, in the USA) are located in California, which makes sense, seeing as Hollywood is there. Game studios, though, are spread out across the country a little more (although there are 'hubs' in California, Washington, and Texas where there are a good number close to proximity to each other).

Agreed, the concept looks really nice :)
But wow this is great, Mike. Looks like it's going to be another awesome book. I'll definitely be looking forward to its release!

yeah i think ill be asking "santa" hahah for a lot of things from here, this site really can bring the best out of you.
keep up the good work.

Wow. Looks awsome mate. Ill have to pick this one up as well!

I really enjoyed the last one!


Cheers mate! :beer:

be sure to show wires too. :beer:

Thanks, guys. :)

Here ya go:

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress4.jpg

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress4w.jpg

hey mike, great progress. your model looks quite promising so far..
nice to finally see a WIP by you..

:beer:

Thanks, utpal. I dont' post many WIPs because I can't post stuff I do at work until I get permission, and by then, it's usually Finished Work (posted one up earlier today).

Working on that coat:
http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress5.jpg

really nice!no word...looking foward to see your final model.
by the way, can you show the wire of his back because i try to learn how to place edges in the back of my character.
keep it up.
:beer: :beer:

Hey Mike

About time you posted again. This design looks very cool, The drawing itself was enough to make me wanna drop everything and build her , but in Hi res.

I think youve made a cool start with the character so far, I love this type of thing anyway so I'll be hanging on this thread.

best regards
Jay

Thanks again, fellas. :)

First pass at some hair. Not sure if this is the configuration I'll go with just yet.

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress6.jpg

And wire:

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress6w.jpg

YEE-HAW!!! Neat neat neat! The collar is my favorite part so far. I can't wait to see this textured. You are gonna texture her aren't ya?

Guess I'd better make room on my bookshelf!

Dave

Great Concept Drawing by Steve Garcia :beer: and love the modelling progress too. Thanks for sharing the progress Mike.

Cheers
Paul

Texturing is part of the plan, yes. :)

doing a couple detail bits

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress7.jpg

looking good.
only crit i can ssay is that i dont like the eyes area and nose,
they seem a little off imo.
not sure what the texturing will look like though, and they dont too much resemble the concept art; which is great.

what is your poly max if any?

i like the concept a great deal. looks a lot like a character from "Gun"

the eyes and nose are pretty much lined up with the art, so maybe the texture will help it.

not really worrying too much about a limit, but going for a 15,000 poly range.

Is modeling going to be part of the book?

No. That's why I'm sharing that process here. :)

working on the sleeves:

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress8.jpg
http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress8w.jpg

WOW 15 k :attn:

even the main chars from HL2 were only a little over 7k.

this one will be detailed, u have a lot of room to add details too.
. :beer:

yeah, going more for PS3/XB360 kinda stuff. Probably closer to 10-15,000 range. But we'll see. Not being too picky with the count. :)

wow it looks really cool. This is definitely going to be awesome. I read somewhere that it will be out in May, is that an accurate projection?

Dang, this is really going to be excellent, I think! I'm lookin' forward to seeing this hit the shelves - and I'm a max guy, even :p . Keep it up, man.

If modelling isn't going to be part of the book, is there any chance of you doing a video tutorial of the modelling?

chunky sleeves! but looking good ;)

do we get to know what your book is about or do we have to wait? I'm guessing animating would be a good book subject or maybe advanced game shader usage seeing as the xbox 360 and ps3 will do all that?

I've a short description at my site, but seeing how it's called The Game Animator's Guide to Maya, I think you can probably infer what it's subject is. :)

Thanks, guys!

The sleeves are a little thick, aren't they? I might taper them down a bit.

Looking pretty goos so far ;)

Cool :D

Are you going to go into more depth on the basics of animation theory? After following the modelling tutorial in your last book I also began the animation part of the tutorial. But as I'd never animated anything with skeletons and mesh skinning before it did seem rather over my head. :alien: I am going to persevere with it at some point....

perhaps you could explain what you mean by "theory"? That's been mentioned to me before that my book was lacking, and I have to say, I've no idea what it is. lol

Do you mean, stuff like the bouncing ball lesson and the like?

So far, the main driving philosophy behind my first, and also, this book is to do a how-to on actual job work. This is stuff that I literally do every day at work. Ya know?

Quick render just to see how she looks:

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress9.jpg

great work there man ! :cool:
looking forward to the final render

littlelostalien

I think when somebody is giving the time to show all aspects of this type of work you cant expect them to give you the whole deal thoroughly in every aspect that they may cover in a book, dvd or whatever. Put Simply, its impractical. It like asking someone to do it for you. If you want more theory you need to get out there and find stuff by other people as there are many different approaches to animation. If you want a book purely on animation I suggest the one by Richard Williams, its devoted to most areas of animation. I have several Maya books and dvds, and have learnt a great deal from them over the years but you have to look beyond what is given to you directly if you want to go the distance. Then hopefully you'll have your own way/style of doing things.

Looking good Mike...

Cheers
Jay

I think he was asking if the book itself was going to go over animation theory. The actual writing of the book hasn't begun yet (been focusing on the art so far), and since I've been told my first book was lacking such theory, I don't mind considering it.

But I don't know what people mean by "theory"! lol

It's true the book, just like the first one, will not be a "beginner-to-Maya" book, so while there will be talk on basic animation techniques and I'll go over all the tools and commands, the rest of the book is actual step-by-step on doing it.

Here, I'll preview the contents to you guys. Feel free to let me know what you think, although, for now, this is final and won't be changing.

The Game Animator's Guide to Maya

Chapter 1 - like in book 1, an introduction to the game industry itself, reel advice, development pipeline, etc.

Chapter 2 - Basic rigging and animation tools, commands, and techniques.

Chapter 3 - Calamity Jane, next-gen main character --- rigging, binding, and 2 or 3 basic animation sequences for a biped, humanoid character

Chapter 4 - Dire Wolf, current-gen basic enemy --- for a four-legged creature

Chapter 5 - Giant Kraken, current-gen boss monster --- for a multi-tentacled creature

Chapter 6 - Storm Tank 6000, low poly handheld or RTS unit (ala Warcraft 3 or C&C: Generals) --- for a mechanical fantasy vehicle

Chapter 7 - Misc. Animation ---- Wings (flapping, folding), Blobby slime movement, 4-wheel undercarriage suspension, etc.

Approx. 315-350 pages

All models and textures (including Calamity Jane here) will be included on the CD as EXCLUSIVE game content created specificaly for the book, over $3000 worth of content, not to mention the Maya PLE and other CD goodies that I won't go into here. ;)

But the basic idea is, once you've learned how to rig and animate a biped, a quadraped, tentacles, mecha-thing, wings, slimer, and a standard vehicle, you're pretty much schooled in how to rig and animate most anything (save for the odd exceptions) that you're given to animate in the game industry!

(oh, and if anyone thinks of another basic archtype thing to animate that I might be missing, feel free to let me know. There's room in Chapter 7 for more. Not weapons, though... there's really nothing to that. A spin here... a recoil there... done. lol)

Cool render, its looking good :)
Just a suggestion but her chin/jaw looks to be jutting out just a little too much to me (personal preference though)

With the outline I think you've just sold the book to us noobies who want to get into that element of maya but are still (slowly) working on the modelling and texturing :)

Now hurry up and get it finished so we can buy it :beer:

I dunno about the noobs, but I'll be getting that too so move over!!;)


Cheers Mike

Jay

I wasn't complaining about the last book, I know there is lots of ground work I have to do myself before I'll understand how to animate something. Mike, Chapter 2 sounds like what I meant - a bit more explanation of maya's animation tools that are relevent to games, and the techniques game animators use, before you show us how to use them. Collecting together the tool explanations at the beginning, rather than having to explain each tool as you come up to requiring it in the tutorial, makes more sense to me as it's easier to refer back to.

I think the question is not "is this a maya beginner's book?" but "is this an animator beginner's book?" Do you want a modeller who can use maya to make their models, but who's never animated their models before to be able to follow it?

She looks hot already! :D

Really looking forward to this book Mike, just as I did the first one :)

I know you weren't complaining, littlelostalien, I do appreciate the comments on how I might improve this book over the first! I guess the main thing is I was never trained as a game artist. The only training I ever got was more technical "how to use Maya" type stuff and never had game specific art classes or ever read or used game specific art books. So, the way I learned all this was by actually doing it. There's no real "theory" to it, if you take my meaning. At least, not with how *I* do it.

But hopefully, the expanded techniques/tools chapter will cover what you are looking for. (that's actually the first chapter I'll be writing... need to get started on it!)

Some minor additions to Jane, namely hands and feet. I'm not too happy with the hands, so might revisit them later.

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress10.jpg

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress10w.jpg

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress10w2.jpg

Now to start the details... belt, gun, holster, backpack, spurs and other little doo-dads, etc!

By the way, if there's any part of the model you'd like closer looks at, wires, etc. let me know. I'd like folks to learn from this thread somewhat, since the book will just straight up give the model to you already completed. :)