Character design

Character concept

The story of my animation is set in the modern day . The evil forces of the ninja clan , Makamou has threatened the human races for thousands year . They steal the human soul in order to create a large amount of ninja army to take over the world . Only an oni ninja Hayato can save the human race. Hayato is an oni ninja who fights Makamou with his spirit alley Targa ; normally only Hayato himself cannot fight Makamou alone , he has to combine with Targa 's power together to become an oni ninja .

When Hayato and Targa make their formation, Targa will transform in oni armor and put on to Hayato's body. Targa has a highly experience in fighting so he will give Hayato a instruction when they are in battlefield.

My oni ninja character will demonstrate in an animation and he will put on his oni armor to help him fight against his villain. My inspiration in design of my ninja character comes from a live action TV drama call Masked rider Hikibi , a hero transforms into an oni fighter ( oni means ghost in Japanese ) to fight his villian in defence of the human race . The outfit of Hikibi is inspire from a traditional oni character in Japan .


Here is the references of Hikibi : http://www.showwallpaper.com/show.php?wid=018614



Here is the references of oni . http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Pink_oni_Noh_mask.jpg



My first idea to submit my assignment is import my character into a game character . However the tutor may mark my work down if I do not model my oni ninja character into a game character properly because a game industry normally set up a limit vertexes to the game character modeler to model ; if the game character modeler cannot meet the requirement, they will no longer to keep their job . Then I desire to apply my oni ninja character into an animation character which I think it can be more impact as there are a lot of ninja animations popular nowadays .

I understand that there are many different aspects of medias relate to ninja nowadays , the most popular adventure game Ninja gaiden is one of the examples . It contains actual action- movie style allows Hayabusa who is the main character in the game ; use his taijutsu to unleash a path to the final boss and defeat him . All in all the game gives an opportunity to the player to visualize the excitement of the game . In my design of my ninja character , I have researched several similar areas in between Games and animation . I found that these ninja characters have a similar aspects as the audiences know they are serving justice by the costume they dress ;for example like the action adventure game ninja gaidien and the animation naurto . I will avoid these aspects when design my oni ninja character because Ninja gaidien and Naurto are recognisable ninja character.



Here are the link of character references in Ninja Gaidien and Naruto :


Naruto : http://www.linkmesh.com/imagenes/temas/naruto/naruto_uzumaki_pantalla.jpg


Ninja Gaidien : http://www.vgwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/ninja-gaiden-ii-sml.jpg



My target audiences are people whom are passionate in action - style movie ; The Audiences are addicted in action movie since the year when Bruce Lee published his first action movie in Hong Kong . What attracts the audiences in watching action-movie is the actors can bring the movements in live and the movements influence every audiences . So in my design of my animation , this element that being said at earlier will be considered .



Sketches and National

In my design of my character , I have researched several areas in internet which relate to ninja . Then I designed the outfit of my oni ninja and Targa . In order to draw my character similar to the oni character I also research several pictures to enlarge my inspiration .

Sketch 1

sketch 2

sketch 3

Finally I come to my final decision of my oni character in the final design is his outfit will looks like an oni character . http://img469.imageshack.us/img469/3396/covninjas03oni4ri.jpg

( Refereces pictures of Hayato)

Sketches of the side kick character .

I admit myself is not a drawing expert so I collected pictures in the internet ,I then used these photos as my base and drew my sketch similar to the pictures .

Some 3D works

Character Biography



Hayato is an oni ninja fights against the evil ninja clan Makamou . He has to borrow the power from a Demon spell called kudo to create a deadly ninjustu . However the more he uses Kudo the more he will be infected by the curse of Kudo, which will turns him into a demon . The curse mark which covers on Hayato's body significant by the curse of Kudo .So Hayato has to fight against Makamou despite of the curse from Kudo.

Hayato looks solid from outside and he is not a demonstrative person . The reason is he doesn’t want his friends to worry his personal problems so Hayato always keep himself a distance in between him and his friend.

Here are the abilities that Hayato uses when he fights . Abilities:

1. zapouto

It is a weapon which possessed from the oni ninja who dead in a battle while fighting Makamou. When the blade of zapouto grows in a red light, Hayato can unleash its maximum power to his enemies.

2. ninjustu

It is an ninja spell which is fight against Makamou . It contains a power which can seal Makamou.

3. Kudo

An ninjustu which is more powerful than an normal ninjustu. It 's power beyond the Makamou whom have a high fighting level , but it results the user may be cursed by Kudo .

4. Formation

Hayato alone cannot fight Makamou he has to borrow the power from his side kick Targa to combine to become an oni ninja .

Character Interaction Diagram

( Red = no , green = yes , blue =impossible)




The diagram at above shows what will happen in my animation . I basically outline the scenes will happen in my animation.


Hayato cannot fight Makamou alone in his human form .



Hayato has to combine with Targa’s power to become an oni ninja to fight Makamou.




The more that Hayato uses Kodou the more he will be cursed by the power of Kodo

Action of storyboard


This scenes is about Hayato and Targa both trap in a world which in charge from an evil key master . In order to escape they have to find this key master and defeat him .

In the scenes of my animation Hayato and Targa ( combie with Hayato ) are looking for the key master ,they search everywhere but there is no sign of the keymaster . Suddenly there are fire balls coming out from darkness and strike to Hayato ; Hayato jumps and avoid it .

Finally Hayato finds out the key master and prepare the main battle with him .

The use of sound

Being said at earlier that the my animation will demonstrate in similar to action-movie . In my research of sound , I aim for an action pack background music like ' Tekken' and 'ninja gaiden ' because On the next step is create the background music , I watched several animation that relate to ninja which will give me inspiration . Then I asked my friend who is a composer to edit a music sample for me.



Market Research





Questionnaire




Please circle your answer using a black pen.

What do you think about my character?

1. Like 2.Dislike

Do you think my character can promote in the animation market ?
1. Agree 2. Disagree

Do you like the outfit of my oni ninja character ?
1. Like 2 . Dislike

Was I able to generate any particularly innovative solutions?
1. Yes 2. No

( Bar chart )

To test the reputation of my oni ninja character in public, I asked my friends whom are interest in ninja as my test subjects in answering the questionnaire I made . Most of the questions in the questionnaire are aiming for my character; opinion from people is important because it will support the development work of my oni ninja character .So I gathered the information I made and created a bar chart to prove the result that I collected from people.

Regarding from the bar chart overall it seems that question 4 has much higher levels than the other region, It proves that develop an ninja character in different aspect is good enough to promote in the animation market . To sum up it seems that creativity and observation are the main keys in success in the animation industry.

Research References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninjutsu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taijutsu









Development

Well I actually do not find it difficult in doing the character design asignment as I have been taught using maya and zbrush .

I did face a minor problem when I was giving a texture to my character . Usually when render in Maya , the object will not look realistic in the rendering screen ; In order to give a good realistic texture, there should have one options in maya allows to produce a realistic textures which is PSD networking texture . It was very diffcult for me when I was learning the PSD networking texture , I was always unsatisfield the result after I created the texture in the PSD( Photoshop) . After I went a lot of trouble in learning PSD networking texture , I finally understand how to create a texture in PSD networking texture .

Here is the result :

The image above shows how my character looks in the rendering screen with the PSD texture together.

To produce an industry status showreel I must have to show the best work to the audiences . All in all I feel that modelling and texturing are my strongest strengthen in Maya so I prefer to show them instead of pose to the audience. In order to produce a good showreel I went to the internet to reserch the showreel that I could inspire . Here is the showreel I researched in youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXZ3_RhxbTQ



I found this showreel is reasonable because it focuses on the turntable instead of animation . Because the strongest stregth of this showreel is the modelling .



How am I develop my character with full texture ?



First of all I seleted the character in Maya , I then went to the PSD networking texture to edit my texture so I can put it on my character .



Here are how am I develop :

With no texture

Selet the character

Then use PSD network texturing assign the texture on my character

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmE-LAKSFv8

My advance character animation asignment

What is the story about in my advance character animation modules?

Solid dog is a spy from the USA Goverment . He is on a mission to save his master who was kidnapped by Tricky the pussy cat . In receiving information that was given from headquarters, Solid dog finds out that his master is being held in a locked room where Tricky the pussy cat is closely guarding him . Solid dog decides to lie on the roof and wait for an opening , then he jumps off from the roof to Tricky the pussy cat's base. Suddenly Tricky the pussy cat jumps out from the darkness and cut the rope; Solid dog falls to the floor .

Tricky the puss cat thinks himself can taste the victory on defeating Solid dog . But he has never think that Solid dog has a trick in his sleeve . Solid dog switches on his rockets that he has on his back after he falls off from the rope , then he strikes a superman pose to Tricky the pussy cat flying and pushing the cat straight againest wall. Solid dog manages saves his master at least by defeating the cat

Inroduction of myself


I 'm doing an advance character animation at my final year in TVU . From what you can see are some of my demos i animate in Maya and they are a part in the aca modules. ( More demos will come up in my blog ) . My attempt on animate an advance animation is because I want to express more of my character's personilty . In future I will make my spy dog doing jumping kick on the villians tricky the pussy cat base on a movie call SPL .

The first demo is about the spy dog is jumping off from the roof




The scond demo is about tricky the pussy cat pick up a scissors and has an evil smile on his face.



The third demo is about Solid dog picks up a binoculur






As promise jumping kick

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=sr-eeNjvb1o

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=A-DQwzRydoY

These are the refrence Links for my inspiration on the jumping kick demo

Another demo which Tricky the pussy cat laughs when Solid dog falls to the floor .

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JPstEwwj93U





The enviroment

This is the enviroment I create for my animation . I render in different perspertive view so you 'll see how it looks .


























I place the directional light on top to create a sun refraction on the buildings .





I use occuslion in Maya to render the scene in Metal Ray



Same as above